My Ruthless and ITEMLESS Hero Abyss Run + Star Lord Objective Run
Question of the day, what happens when:
- A newly buffed ramp up Asgardian GOAT
- A former paraplegic-turned special spamming helmet boy
- A redhead with swords that shatter armor
- A (also) newly buffed, (and also) special-spamming doctor
- And a bald bleed master
walk into the Abyss? Time to find out. Also stick around for funny dancing guy beating up earthquake lady for ascension resources.
The Squad:
7* R3 sig 20 Heimdall with 7* superior iron man relic
7* R3 sig 20 Professor X with 7* magneto relic
7* R3 sig 20 Medusa with 6* hulkling relic
7* R3 sig 40 Doctor Strange with 6* scarlet witch relic
7* R4 sig 20 Nick Fury with 7* moondragon relic
The Stash:
7588 units
31 L1 revives
48 L2 revives
11 team revives
18 L3 revives
About 45 L5 potions and around 90 L3 potions
1862 free crystals
Masteries:
Same as always. No suicides, had willpower and the assassin mastery and that was basically it. No despair or mystic dispersion needed for this one since Strange has it built into his base kit.
Now let's get into it shall we? Was running the 1 hour health, attack and champion boosters for both runs.
Fight: Thing
My Pick: Heimdall
Deaths: 0
Very good fight to ramp up Heimdall on. For ramp, I basically just converted one of each buff first (fury, precision, armor), then alternated converting precision and fury buffs when possible. Once you hit 5 precisions and 5 furies, sp3 to convert them to passives, ramp your precision and fury buffs again, convert using the sp3, and repeat. Use sp2 while you are still ramping to deal big damage via resonance. Mind the rock stacks and you'll be good.
Fight: Omega Red
My Pick: Heimdall
Deaths: 0
BUG ALERT: Currently Omega Red's death field does not do damage in the Abyss. This makes it much less punishing if you do push him to sp2 so you can be much more aggressive. He will still deal damage at 10 spores though so make sure you play around that still.
Another Heimdall ramp fight. Focus on ramping precision and fury buffs, mind the spores, and you'll be good to go.
Fight: Quake
My Pick: Heimdall
Deaths: 0
A stupidly easy fight, if you have a good chunk of precisions stored already most of your hits are crits so you don't have to worry about the earthquake meter. Keep ramping Heimdall and you'll smash this one.
Fight: Medusa
My Pick: Strange
Deaths: 0
Stupidly easy fight. Spam sp2 in the purple blessing to ramp your arcane fonts. Once you have all 100, spam sp1 in the orange phase for damage. If your nullify fails too often and Medusa is close to auto blocking you can use a sp3 to fate seal and remove the buffs. Your power gain will go crazy in this fight so try to manage it and you'll be good.
Fight: Mephisto
My Pick: Professor X
Deaths: 0
BUG ALERT: Currently, the mystic Abyss node (affects Mephisto and Mordo on this path) is bugged and the fate seal does not function properly. Currently, the fate seal only prevents new buffs from being gained, and does not actually remove your existing buffs. This allows Professor X to keep his existing prowess buffs when the fate seal triggers. If this gets fixed, Professor X WILL NOT WORK so you may need to bring an alternative counter to those fights.
Bit of a slower one. Spam heavies to minimize the chance the aura of incineration triggers, and bait sp1. Worst case scenario the aura doesn't deal too much damage overall so manage the power gain and you'll be fine. Time your mind control so that your prowess buffs don't get prevented by the fate seal and you'll be good.
Fight: Captain Marvel
My Pick: Strange
Deaths: 0
This one is ridiculously volatile. On one hand, Strange is a mystic champ with energy damage so he absolutely nukes this fight. On the other hand, his ridiculous power gain means he does take quite a bit of damage from Captain Marvel's node. Additionally, Captain Marvel is RIDICULOUSLY stingy with her specials so if you don't manage her power gain properly you'll eat a sp3.
Dump your specials while the blue blessing is active to place the withers, and try to minimize the damage you are taking from the node. Would recommend healing up before you go into this one.
Fight: Ghost
My Pick: Medusa
Deaths: 0
Get the armor shatter on using the sp1 and you counter the power steal. Spam sp3 to keep it up at all times and this one is a cakewalk.
Fight: IMIW
My Pick: Medusa
Deaths: 0
Same thing as Ghost except you need to know how to reparry. Not a hard one.
Fight: Joe Fixit
My Pick: Heimdall (would recommend using someone else as of now)
Deaths: 0
BIG BIG BUG ALERT: Currently, Heimdall's sig ability does not grant him immunity to the fate seal debuff from Joe Fixit's abyss node. This means that if you get unlucky, you can get fate sealed and lose all of your ramped buffs. Unless you are willing to gamble on reaching a sp3 before this happens, use someone else for this fight.
Bit of an RNG fiesta here. If Joe Fixit rolls hearts at the start of the fight, quit out immediately as you are not getting around that regeneration. Fire off an sp3 ASAP to store your buffs and prevent them from being fate sealed. From there, play as normal and try your best to ramp, though I would recommend building to sp3 if he gets one of his power gain buffs just so you can remove it ASAP. The debuffs give free willpower healing so this fight is very safe once you lock your buffs in.
Fight: Mordo
My Pick: Professor X
Deaths: 0
BUG ALERT: Same thing as Mephisto. If this somehow gets fixed you'll need to replace Professor X with someone else who can deal with his fights (ie. Torch or some other Mephisto counter)
Bit of an annoying one. Use the falter to build charges at the start, you counter his evade above 25 charges so once you've ramped them up you can freely parry and heavy. Keep in mind that Mordo can block unblockable specials so try to combo or intercept him with a special attack to get around this. Slow but definitely doable.
Fight: Venom the Duck
My Pick: Strange
Deaths: 0
Huge amounts of buffs means huge amounts of power gain and specials for you. Follow the same strat as Medusa and you'll be good. Remember you can double tap block while charging heavy to consume a power bar if you need it.
Fight: Howard the Duck
My Pick: Heimdall
Deaths: 0
Spam heavies at the start to remove the indestructible, then play as normal. This is pre-buff Howard so be ready to stun him at 60% and 30% health to remove his regen. By this point you should have your 20 furies and precisions locked in so feel free to just spam sp2 and deal damage.
Fight: Hyperion
My Pick: Strange
Deaths: 0
Same strat as the other fights except maybe throw a special during the blue blessing to counter the power gain if it does sneak through. Very trivial.
Fight: The Champion
My Pick: Strange
Deaths: 0
Same strat as the other cosmic fights, mind the unstoppable and you'll be good.
Fight: Cyclops
My Pick: Heimdall
Deaths: 0
Mind the phases and know when to parry or dex Cyclops' special attacks. Stupidly easy otherwise.
Fight: Loki
My Pick: Nick Fury
Deaths: 0
Very trivial fight. Get into the second phase straight away and make sure you don't stay at 0 power for too long. Don't get hit by a sp1 or else your fury buff gets stolen and it's curtains. Get unblockable, get the internal bleed up, and melt with your light attack bleeds.
Fight: Aegon
My Pick: Strange
Deaths: 0
Another buff heavy fight, which means another fight of out of control power gain and special spamming. Very trivial stuff here.
Fight: Invisible Woman
My Pick: Nick Fury
Deaths: 0
Stupidly easy. Throw a sp1 and you counter the evade and miss. Fury is stun immune in his second life so the power stings are a non issue. Ramp your charges and internal bleed and rip this fight to pieces.
Fight: Cull Obsidian
My Pick: Strange, killed off Fury first for 10% more attack
Deaths: 0? (Does strategically killing a champ count?)
Just spam sp2s during the purple blessing since you deal a huge burst of damage every time you nullify a buff. Easy as that.
Fight: Collector
My Pick: Heimdall
Deaths: 0 (somehow)
Even after all these years this fight is still ridiculous and stupid. Throw a sp1 ASAP to get the true strike and counter the evade, then play well and try not to get hit. Heimdall deals loads of hit damage so later in the fight you're getting an unstoppable every combo or 2. Slow your combos so you can react to it or else you'll get smacked. Solo is incredibly unrealistic here so prepare to die quite a bit. Heal up every try so you can tank more special damage on the block.
And that's it! Who even needs Sentry?
The Final Cost:
2 sets of hour long health, attack and champion boosters
About an hour of my day
The Rewards:
Awakened Enchantress from my 7* crystal. First dupe so okay I guess.
Took my venom relic to R5. Venom is gonna clap some CHEEKS with it.
Final Thoughts and Tips:
1. If they do somehow fix the mystic abyss node, you'll need to replace Professor X with a Mephisto counter who doesn't rely on buffs. Prowler and Torch are a couple of options that immediately come to mind
2. If you do bring Fury, once he is done with his fights I recommend killing him off. He gives every hero 10% attack and this is doubled once he is dead so it'll come in huge for certain fights
3. My true friends are the ones who didn't use Sentry for this challenge. Always hated his ramp up and he will stay at R1 forever
4. You can run through most of the path unboosted, though I would highly recommend throwing them on for Collector since he is fun and interactive
Hope this helped y'all, but wait! I still need to cover my Star Lord run!
The Squad (please don't do this btw):
7* R2 unduped Stellar Star Lord with 5* winter soldier relic
Same mastery setup and I ran this while I still had the boosts on from the previous run. And YES I DO KNOW YOU DON'T HAVE TO DO THE CHALLENGE WITH ONLY STAR LORD, I JUST WASN'T SURE AT THE TIME IF IT WOULD COUNT OR NOT.
Fight: Thing
Deaths: 0
Ramp your combo, and make sure you use your well timed specials to get the incinerate. Play around the rock stacks and this is quite easy.
Fight: Omega Red
Deaths: 0
Easily the hardest fight because class disadvantage in the Abyss sucks. I just used parry heavy to get around the evade and spammed sp3 for most of the fight.
Fight: Quake
Deaths: 0
Very trivial fight, you have crits for days so nothing to note here. Use well timed specials and you'll be good to go.
The Final Cost:
A whopping 3 L5 potions because Omega Red was unkind.
The Rewards:
I ascended Star Lord, I guess? What do I even say here lol.
Final Thoughts and Tips:
1. YOU DON'T HAVE TO JUST USE STAR LORD. You can bring in a team to nuke down Thing, Omega Red and 99% of Quake. You just need to land the killing blow on Quake with Star Lord to get the objective.
And that's (finally) it. Hope this helped y'all, and I will see you guys next week for the villain run!
