Big Bad Mutants: My ITEMLESS Villain Abyss Run
So...
- Batman
- An old guy
- A mad titan
- The most broken mutant in the game
- And Mister Sinister
walk into the Abyss. Chances are nothing is going to be left alive. Let's see how things played out, shall we?
I actually didn't go down the easy path this time around. Instead, I took path 5 (starting with IMIW) up to Bishop, and then took path 3 and stayed on the outside. If you are looking to explore abyss this isn't a bad path to go for at all.
The Squad:
7* R4 sig 200 Onslaught with 6* sinister relic
7* R4 unduped Apocalypse with 6* apoc relic
7* R2 sig 60 Stryfe with no relic
7* R4 sig 200 Deathless Thanos with 5* thor relic
7* R4 sig 100 Sinister with 5* sinister relic (only to give Apoc 4 charges immediately)
The Stash:
8483 units
34 L1 revives
48 L2 revives
11 L2 team revives
18 L3 revives
About 55 L5 potions and 90 L3 potions
1888 free crystals
Masteries:
Same as usual, willpower with no suicides. Despair is REQUIRED for Bishop and Hulk if you plan on taking this path, ideally with max points if you have lower level champs.
Now let's get going then! Ran this entire thing unboosted for once.
Fight: Iron Man Infinity War
My Pick: Thanos
Deaths: 0
Stupidly easy fight. Get the armor shatter up ASAP and you have the armor ups locked down for the rest of the fight. Ramp your furies, drop an sp3 for the permanent corruption, then spam sp2 to take him down.
Fight: Invisible Woman
My Pick: Apocalypse
Deaths: 0
Very easy fight. Apoc has loads of debuffs so you won't have to worry about the stun from the power stings. Ramp your 4 debuffs, sp3 to make them permanent, then spam sp1. Even with the force field you'll absolutely shred this one.
Fight: Gladiator Hulk
My Pick: Onslaught
Deaths: 0
You need red numbers to deal damage since Hulk caps your hit damage at 10% of your attack. Onslaught has plenty of those, though do be aware that the neuroshocks and degen will trigger face me. Use despair and your daunted debuffs to counter the healing and mind the extra attack. Be wary of Hulk's unstoppable on his smash attacks and you'll be good. Apoc also works if you are willing to settle for a slower fight.
Fight: Yellowjacket
My Pick: Apocalypse
Deaths: 0
Bit of an interesting one. Get to your sp2 and get the concussion on ASAP. Bait sp1 for as long as possible so that you can get your debuffs up and make them permanent. From there, you can push to sp2 and make sure he does not throw a special attack since it might power sting you on activation. Turtle up and block as much as possible, and either reparry or bait heavies to get openings. If you have your permanent debuffs up the concussion has a decent chance at turning the power sting off if he does decide to randomly throw it. Heal up for this one.
Fight: Mordo
My Pick: Stryfe
Deaths: 0
Ramp up Stryfe here, remember that his mediums and heavies counter evade so you can freely parry and ramp. Manage the power gain and bait specials like crazy and you'll be good to go. Take advantage of the fate seal debuff from Mordo's node for free healing.
Fight: Mephisto
My Pick: Onslaught
Deaths: 0
Onslaught doesn't take incinerate damage, so just mind the power gain and you'll be set. Apocalypse also works great here since he can develop his incinerate immunity using the aura.
Fight: Thor Ragnarok
My Pick: Stryfe
Deaths: 0
This one is a bit long. Try not to parry since any debuffs will give Thor a ridiculous power gain. Time your special attacks with his 20 hit power gain and you'll be good. Try and heavy counter his specials if possible to ramp your charges and try to fire off sp2s as much as possible since the sp1 shock has greatly reduced duration.
Fight: Aegon
My Pick: Onslaught
Deaths: 0
Incredibly trivial fight, you can still apply daunted and pause your damaging effects using your heavy despite the ability accuracy reduction. Just remember that you can't apply neuros on your basic hits though so use sp1 to ramp your neuroshocks first.
Fight: Mister Sinister
My Pick: Onslaught
Deaths: 0
Another trivial fight, this is pre buff Sinister so you can mitigate his regen with your daunted debuffs and the despair mastery.
Fight: Thing
My Pick: Apocalypse
Deaths: 0
Easy fight, Apoc has bleeds on his heavy to manage the rock stacks so play around those and you'll be fine.
Fight: Red Skull
My Pick: Apocalypse (Thanos will be much easier)
Deaths: 0
Could've dunked this one with Thanos, but I used Apocalypse to try and ramp his anti evade for Karnak and as a backup for Collector. Mind the increased block damage and make sure you only throw special attacks while he has 2 or more power bars. If you have the petrify mastery you reduce power gain when Red Skull is stunned so make sure you parry before dropping the sp3 or else you'll push him red and get rekt. Remember this is pre buff Red Skull so your parries will always work. Heal up if you are using Apoc, this one will be a bit of a doozy.
Fight: Bishop
My Pick: Apocalypse
Deaths: 0
Long fight and a wee bit annoying. Try not to throw too many heavy attacks when ramping since the bleeds give him a huge regen. Use despair to counter this. Once your debuffs are on play slow and spam sp1 as always. Be aware that your crits will not deal damage, which includes the red numbers on special attacks.
Fight: Korg
My Pick: Apocalypse
Deaths: 0
Apocalypse turns off the purify, so you can freely parry and use light attacks to remove the rock shield. Ramp your debuffs as normal and this one is quite simple.
Fight: Havok
My Pick: Apocalypse
Deaths: 0
Havok's plasma doesn't deal too much damage in Abyss, so as long as you push to sp2 as much as possible you basically just get free healing via willpower. Very trivial fight.
Fight: The Champion
My Pick: Stryfe
Deaths: 0
This one needs some micromanagement. You've got 2 different unstoppables to deal with in this fight. You can remove them if you have 2 or more charges, but there is an 8 second cooldown as well. You can remove both unstoppables at once if they are active, so make sure you play around your cooldown and time when to remove the unstoppables. Try to push to sp2 since the sp1 gives a big regen once Champion gets enough furies.
Fight: Ghost
My Pick: Thanos
Deaths: 0
Very trivial fight. Get the armor shatter up and win.
Fight: Karnak
My Pick: Apocalypse
Deaths: 0
Get him into the corner and just heavy spam him to death. Your damage ramps with your combo, however the Abyss evade can screw you over, hence why I wanted to ramp Apoc's anti evade.
Fight: Collector
My Pick: Onslaught, Stryfe to finish
Deaths: 1
NOTABLE INTERACTION / POTENTIAL BUG?: Collector's tenacity, for some reason, does not cause Onslaught's debuffs to become passives. This includes your parry stun as well as your daunted debuffs, which makes this fight much harder.
An absolute pain as always. Pray you don't trigger the evade and heavy counter him to pause your degens and neuroshocks. In later parts of the fight the Stryfe synergy comes in clutch since it allows you to remove his unstoppable at the cost of 3 daunted debuffs and a 20 second cooldown. Took him to 5% with Onslaught first try and finished things off with Stryfe.
And that's it! Not too bad this time around, glad I don't have to deal with Collector again.
The Final Cost:
About an hour and a half of time, other than that absolutely nothing, not even boosts!
The Rewards:
Pulled Prowler from my 7* crystal. Please buff max sig 7* drops.
Took my 7* Prowler relic to R2 with the gem. Not too bad.
Since I did all 4 challenges so far, I also got the bonus rewards as well:
Awakened Sparky using the selector, took him straight to R4. Could be really good for the EOP gauntlet next week but he's a great champ in general anyways.
Used the generic awakening gem on my R4 Fantman, took him to sig 200 with the stones
Have enough T5A for my first R5, gonna wait for the next 2 challenges to get the 4-5 gem crystal though so I don't double up on a single class.
And of course, got the first ascension on Maestro. Not bad.
Final Thoughts and Tips:
1. The easy path is still a good option for this challenge, however you'll have to shift your team up a bit to counter some of the annoying fights like Captain Marvel and Hyperion.
2. This challenge can absolutely be done unboosted with the right champs, would recommend throwing some on for Collector though.
3. With Apoc, I did not turn anyone into a horseman for this quest since he was one of my primary attackers. If you don't plan on using him as an attacker, make Stryfe a horseman since it gives him unblockable at 20 charges.
4. No idea what's in store for the gauntlet next week. I'm predicting it's all 24 EOP fights in a row plus Ares with no funny link nodes, but I could be wrong.
Thanks for reading, and as always, hope this helped y'all!
