Welcome back to MSF Mondays! Each week we break down one more aspect of the hottest mobile game, Marvel Strike Force! This article has been updated on 1/18/23.
Heroes for Hire (H4H) is a recent team addition to Marvel Strike Force, and it’s one that’s completely upended the meta game when it comes to Alliance War. Adding insult to injury, the team became even more powerful after the conclusion of the Shang-Chi Event. Now the team is complete, and it’s become a real pain to beat Heroes for Hire!
I’m here to talk about what makes the team so good, and a couple tips for countering Heroes for Hire so that your Alliance can take home the figurative bacon.
MSF: Who Are Heroes for Hire?
The Heroes for Hire team brings in Luke Cage and Iron Fist from the Defenders roster. If you don’t have Shang-Chi unlocked, Jessica Jones is considered a suitable replacement. But let’s be honest – Shang-Chi is a massive upgrade in comparison.
Colleen Wing and Misty Knight round out the team, a Skill Brawler and a Tech Controller, respectively. The team gets a bunch of bonuses on War Defense, so be sure to get yours locked in for your Alliance’s next War. Do this. Do this even if you consider them to be low-level, because their sheer power will force opponents to spend more resources defeating them than they would probably prefer.
Order your team as follows: Luke Cage, Misty Knight, Iron Fist, Colleen Wing, Shang-Chi, as shown in the image below.
So the question remains: what makes Heroes for Hire so gosh darn good in War Defense? The answer lies in utilization of the Charged mechanic.
At the start of a War Defense Match, if there are 4+ Heroes for Hire heroes remaining, each Heroes for Hire member gets 2 doses of Charged. Additionally, on a full-team with Shang-Chi, he will grant Colleen Wing and Misty Knight an extra charge. That’s a lot of charging going on!
At the end of ANY turn, if a Heroes for Hire member is Charged and below 50% health, a couple things are going to happen:
- They lose 1 Charged
- Clear all negative effects on that toon
- Heal for 100% of their max Health
- Gain Offense Up
- Gain Deflect
- Gain Deathproof
On top of all that, if you manage to knock-out a Heroes for Hire member in a single turn when they’re over 50% Health AND have Charged, they get to revive. Well, revive PLUS a slew of added damage, damage reduction, and resistance which scales on the amount of Charged they had left.
Because of this whole Charged mechanic, Heroes for Hire just sticks around forever. They’re like one of those inflatable punching bags that you hit and it just pops back up from the ground, grinning from seam to seam.
And I haven’t even talked about the other individual character abilities yet. You have Colleen Wing who gets to attack the most-injured, non-summoned enemy for 200% + 30% piercing per H4H ally at the end of every ally turn in War Defense. She’s deadly.
There’s Shang-Chi, who gains Deflect when allies Crit, which thereby increases his own Crit Chance and Block Amount. This extends to any ally with Deflect as well!
Misty Knight just fills the entire team’s Ability Energy right on the spawn and is constantly speeding up her allies when defeating enemies.
Iron Fist has a chance to passive heal his Heroes for Hire allies, while granting Defense Up when allies drop below 50% Health.
Lastly, there’s Luke Cage who gains Taunt when any Heroes for Hire ally drops below 60%. Not to mention his extra Health for having H4H allies in the mix. This makes it incredibly hard to focus fire on a single character, because Luke Cage starts soaking it all up.
How can we ever hope to defeat them?
MSF: Beating Heroes for Hire
I’m going to level with you: There are not a lot of options when it comes to taking down Heroes for Hire in War. I’ve heard and experienced tales of people needing 600K punch-downs to put a dent in a 350K Heroes for Hire team. That’s to say, 600K of a high-powered team like Black Order.
Long story short, you need to break out the big guns and level some heavy fire at H4H if you want to clear that room.
But, not all hope is lost. Based on the breakdown above, we just need to find a way to clear Charges or prevent Revives. Luckily, we have a couple options in these departments, but we’ll need to get creative. In fact, a lot of the same logic that we apply to Red Skull counters applies here as well.
When it comes to clearing Charged, I want to say that Silver Surfer is the only one that comes to mind. His Ultimate ability will clear Charged from the primary target. That’ll help you focus fire on a single target without them healing back up to full immediately.
Deathpool is the other toon that can clear Charged through her Ultimate ability, but it takes a long time to setup. Deathpool needs to have max Charged in order for that clearing power to kick in. In many cases, she might not survive long enough to make that happen.
Preventing revives is another limited ability, but there are two characters that can help us out. Kestrel‘s Ultimate prevents Revive, and Black Bolt‘s passive prevents any character killed by Black Bolt from reviving. Kestrel is a powerhouse of her own, so she’s the top choice here.
Another useful status effect to apply is Disrupted. If you can manage to get Luke Cage Disrupted, then he won’t be Taunting while you try to eliminate your targets. There are a number of characters that could help you in this department. Ability Block is also really helpful in prolonging the fight. Just be aware that you’re likely only blocking Abilities for a single turn, so the clock starts ticking for when that Ultimate or Special ability will fire off in retaliation.
Here’s a potential team that can get us a fighting chance, or at least one that could help us take out one or two H4H members while we pave the way for a follow-up attack:
I’ve already mentioned the usefulness of Kestrel and Silver Surfer on this team. They will clear Charged and help prevent Revive if you can time out Kestrel’s Ultimate well. Both Silver Surfer and Zemo will provide Ability Block, which can delay Luke Cage taunts, Iron Fist heals, or anything in between.
Red Skull and Hydra Rifle Trooper are the surprise guests for this team. The idea here is that Colleen Wing’s passive will continually target Hydra Rifle Trooper, and Red Skull will keep reviving him. On each revive, Hydra Rifle Trooper attacks all enemies, which means that he helps clear Deflect and draws any Counterattacks towards him.
This really improves the sustainability of the team overall, because you’ve given Colleen Wing a guaranteed target for her ire. You’ll want to focus on Shang-Chi and Colleen Wing first. Overall, they’re the glue that holds the team together.
Of course, the other option for a more level-headed victory is to use Infinity Watch:
Even without Adam Warlock, this team can put an end to the never-ending madness of Heroes for Hire. Based on the characters that I’ve mentioned above, Silver Surfer, Kestrel, Deathpool, or even Black Bolt are good replacements for Adam Warlock. The sour part about the whole thing is that Heroes for Hire demands your best teams to take them down. Even quality squads like X-Factor and Astonishing X-Men are going to have trouble with them.
Update on 1/18/23:
Just quickly revisiting this page, as there are two more teams that can help you take down Heroes for Hire!
The first is Weapon-X. If you have Omega Red unlocked, he is the catalyst for this team. I like to use his Special on Shang-Chi to avoid the massive damage, but you can also open with a Special to Misty Knight to stop her from Ability Blocking your Omega Red so that he can Ultimate on his second turn. The goal is to get Trauma on these enemies and keep hitting them into the yellow on their health bars to quickly tear down their Charges. Then it’s a piece of cake.
The second team you can use is the Gamma team. Again, Red Hulk is going to be necessary to really make this work, but they are BEASTLY against Heroes for Hire. Red Hulk’s Ultimate applies Trauma, meaning that you can use a similar strategy as the Weapon-X team.
If you have other teams and strategies that have been working for you, let us know over at the Nerds on Earth Twitter!
Well I hope this helps you take your Squad from a D+ to a B- Commander!
Previous Installments
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