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Abyss 100% exploration guide

Hi guys!

I made it my goal to have the abyss explored before act 7 is released and I finished my last path yesterday which puts me well ahead of schedule. I made notes throughout the whole thing so I thought I’d share some tips here in the hopes it might help someone who may be trying to explore the abyss in the future. This is quite long since I go into some detail, so this is your warning in advance. Feel free to skip the next section if you don’t care about my rewards and preparation.


Firstly I’ll share my rewards because they were amazing hahaha. First time I’ve ever felt rewarded for completing difficult content (my pre nerf act 6 exploration rewards were absolute trash). My luck in the 6* crystals were insane:

6* basics: Corvus (new champ and I had a 6* cosmic gem from act 6 and I’ve almost formed a cosmic t5cc to rank 3 him), Thing (first time awakening him and he was already at rank 3), Magneto (first time awakening him and he’s at rank 3 now)
6* abyss nexus: Sorcerer Supreme (I have a 6* mystic gem and t5cc to rank 3 when I get enough iso and replenish my t2a/t5b)
T5CC: Mutant and Science





Before I get onto the paths, I wanna advise with how I grinded the resources since I’m relatively free to play outside of rare occasions and the £5 unit deal since I’ve been a uni student for my whole mcoc life until recently since I graduated this summer.
I was able to grind roughly 1.5k/2k units a week by hitting all the milestones in the 4* basic, 4* featured and 5* featured arenas. If you don’t have suicides on as well as a large roster then this will be quite painful, although if you’re looking to explore abyss you’ve probably got both. Other sources of units include the £5 unit deal, summoner appreciation calendar, solo and alliance events, platpool crystals and exploring monthly event quests.
On top of unit grinding, I was farming revives in act 4 every day (I won’t mention exactly where cause apparently it’s an unwritten rule that you’re not meant to say hahaha), and had some extra revives flowing in through things like calendar, solo events and champion boss exploration compensation.
And finally on top of that I was farming potions in rol, getting to about 300-400 potions per path. My preferred farming champ was Colossus, each fight against winter soldier with full suicides and synergies would take about 1 minute and was easy enough to do in the background when I was busy doing something else and also when I had some time to spare within my day.


Onto the actual abyss paths now!
I’m going to do this in order of the paths I did so 2, 5, 3, 4. I won’t include path 1 because I did that a very long time ago and this guide is more for exploration rather than an initial completion.


Path 2:
This was actually the most expensive path for me oddly enough, it was the first path I did when I went back into the abyss and I didn’t prepare as well as I did for the others. If I were to do this path again, I’m confident I could do it for at least 1000 units cheaper.

Team: Aegon, Human Torch, Magneto, Doom, Nick Fury
Equivalent unit cost of revives: 5240 (not including mastery changes)


Darkhawk: for this path I made the mistake of using Aegon to build him up a bite here to make Luke Cage easier but in my later paths I used Human Torch for the bulk, and this is the much better tactic. With Human Torch you can get into a nice rhythm of reversing his regen as well as building your smoulders.

Luke Cage: honestly hate this guy. I used Aegon as I don’t have a stealthy or shehulk. It’s definitely more expensive using Aegon but it makes the rest of the path much easier. Was roughly 15 revives. Charge heavy and intercept with Aegon when Luke Cage goes unblockable/unstoppable. I figured out in my later paths that it’s a good idea to let Luke Cage to enter his fight me coward mode (I can’t remember the name haha) to make him more aggressive and more likely to dash into your heavy.

Dormammu: easy Human Torch fight, turn dex off though and you can solo.

Mephisto: easy Human Torch solo, make sure you turn the prefight on and remember to turn dex back on.

Captain Marvel: easy Doom fight. Was relieved to see how easy she was in comparison to the bugged version I had to fight in my initial completion

Ghost: I used Magneto for her since she’s metal and got a nice solo. Basically get to your sp2 to armour break her and then heavy counter the whole fight to keep the armour break up and the sp3 bleeds annihilate her. Really fun fight and Ghost has very easy specials to heavy counter.

IMIW: I was dreading this but turned out much easier than I was expecting. I used Human Torch and Aegon for most of it but then when he got to about 25% I switched to Magneto. With Magneto using the same tactic as against Ghost with the sp2 first to armour break him to disable the abyss node, and then build your prowess up and fire off a sp3 and the bleeds when they ticked down and detonated bypassed the whole of his annoying last 15% phase without me hitting him! Make sure you don’t hit him though while he’s bleeding after your sp3 in case he gets an armour up which removes the bleeds early – you want them to tick him down before detonating.

Joe Fixit: straightforward fight with Aegon, I advise having willpower on for some cheeky healing.

Mordo: a lot of people seem to hate this guy, but I found him quite fun with Torch. It’s a bit annoying he’s on every path though. Build up your smoulders and bait his specials and he’ll slowly melt.

Deadpool: easy fight with Torch to reverse his healing, despair mastery helps

At this point I turned suicides off for the next few fights

Korg: easy fight with Doom but will cost a fair few revives because of the abyss charges. Without the charges this would be an easy solo. Basic tactic is getting to your sp2 and throw it when he has no rock stacks. No normal Doom rotation due to the skill abyss ability accuracy reduction.

Taskmaster: alright fight with Aegon, try not to parry and save your limited debuffs for Aegon’s sp2 bleeds while charging heavy

Modok: easy fight with Aegon and Magneto taking a shot each

Howard the Duck: easy but long fight with Aegon and Magneto tag teaming

Hyperion: easy Doom fight. Use his normal rotation with two furies before firing the sp2. Beware Hyperion has high energy resistance so it’s a slower fight.

Champion: same as Hyperion but quicker and easier

Green Goblin: ugh I didn’t like this. Nick Fury works alright but it’s a revive fest. I didn’t try Magneto because I didn’t have enough potions on me to keep full healing him to deal with block damage.

Mister Sinister: fun Human Torch fight. His sp1 transfers incinerates back to you so you can build up your smoulders easily.
Suicides back on at this point

Punisher 2099: this was the worst fight on the path and I did not expect it. His block damage from his specials is ridiculous, even if you play perfectly you’re gonna have to revive constantly still. Straightforward fight with Aegon, just an awful long expensive fight.

Loki: easy with Human Torch and Aegon

Aegon: Aegon

Invisible Woman: Nick Fury is amazing for her. Suicides work well with Nick too since her debuffs will keep you topped up and you only throw two specials at the beginning which will make you unblockable and shrug off your poison, so you get the 60% attack increase without the downsides.

Cull Obsidian: nice easy and quick fight with Doom

The Collector: he’s nasty. I did get better at him with future paths but even on my best path it took me 17 revives. Aegon all the way here.


Path 5:
This went better for me in general once I got the hang of things.

Team: Aegon, Human Torch, Nick Fury, Doom, Void
Equivalent unit cost of revives: 4280 (not including mastery changes)


IMIW: Human Torch to start it off taking most of him and then Void cleaning up the final phase. No revives are needed, just keep going in with Torch until you get him to like 20% since it’s the first fight of the path. I used my prefight but my Torch is duped, if yours isn’t then you might need a few revives.

Invisible Woman: same as above

Hulk Ragnarok: was an okay fight, definitely amongst the harder ones on the path though. I used Void for the first 75% to reverse his healing and then Nick for the last 25%.

Yellowjacket: fun fight with Nick Fury, just need to be careful to not finish your combos when he has enough power for a sp1 so you don’t get clipped by his unblockable special. Eventually after throwing loads of specials, he becomes power locked at 2 bars and you just nuke into him with full combos ending on a light.

Mordo: same as above

Mephisto: same as above

Suicides on

Thor Ragnarok: I used this fight to ramp up Aegon. It’s as fun as any Aegon ramp up fight in the abyss is, not very…

Aegon: same as above

Mister Sinister: same as above

Thing: this was a very fun fight with a ramped up Aegon! You very rarely get to fight Thing with a ramped up Aegon and he just nukes him down so nicely. Be careful once his first set of abyss charges run out that his ability accuracy is increased so his rock stacks increase as normal again.

Suicides off

Red Skull: not as bad as I was expecting based on what I’d read online. I used Doom and would do a 2 Doom cycle rotation and then double medium to push him over two bars of power and then let off my sp2 with two furies. Could get like 10-15% off each revive this way. Make sure to hold your block and reparry to reduce the chance of him throwing his specials.

Bishop: easiest fight in the abyss with Doom, he literally kills himself.

Symbiote Supreme: this was a hard fight. I used Human Torch mainly and found it better to take his specials into block to gain smoulders and not be nullified. You wanna get as much damage done as possible so let the incinerates melt him before you crit 20 times and get degened down.

Masacre: so this guy only takes damage when he’s blocking and is very aggressive when you’re aggressive and still quite aggressive when you’re not blocking. I kept my Aegon at around 700 combo here for this guy and it was going well until I messed up and more than once accidentally ended fights with my combo shield giving my Aegon 999 combo and being unblockable. I thought I was road blocked but thankfully Nick Fury worked pretty well!

Omega Red: easy Aegon fight

Medusa: easy Doom fight. Normal Doom rotations

Cable: this was a nightmare. I envy the guys who did this before his sp1 fix. But my main strategy was a mix of Void to reverse his healing and using Doom to control his power and nullify his buffs. I found Doom to be more effective as his regen doesn’t proc much making Void unreliable and potentially costly.

Suicides on

Karnak: thank you whoever made this fight. Least stressful fight ever. No one can gain power and I think parry and dex are disabled, but basically with Aegon just heavy spam in the corner and you’re good to go.

Collector: same as above


Path 3:
This was my best path outside of the easy path. Not a single hard fight in the whole path besides Luke Cage and obviously the Collector.

Team: Aegon, Human Torch, Doom, Warlock, Ronan
Equivalent unit cost of revives: 3400 (not including mastery changes)


Darkhawk: I went with the Torch method as I mentioned above and it saved me a lot of revives.

Luke Cage: same as above

Old Man Logan: great Human Torch fight, you just constantly reverse his healing so despair helps

Havok: I used Warlock here for the first Havok and it was a slow boring fight but effective. KarateMike has a great solo video here! I wouldn’t bring Warlock if I was doing this path again, I’ll explain why when I get to the second Havok.

Dormammu: same as above

Joe Fixit: same as above

Mordo: same as above

Suicides off

Venom the Duck: this was a really long fight with Doom. I remember getting a one shot with Symbiote Supreme in my initial completion, but it was boring as hell. Still boring as hell with Doom but costs revives too.. Doom is better for the other fights on this path though so I don’t regret bringing him.

Howard the Duck: same as above

Hyperion: same as above

Champion: same as above

Red Skull: not same as above. For this path alone I brought my max sig rank 5 4* Ronan and got a oneshot. Was incredibly boring though and I spent the fight watching YouTube haha.

Bishop: same as above. One shot.

Korg: same as above

Havok: for this second Havok I couldn’t put myself through using Warlock again so I used Aegon and he is a much better faster option since he reduces his ability accuracy when his combo is high enough. If I could do this path again, I wouldn’t bother with Warlock, Aegon is much better in this fight, for overall effectiveness and honestly just your sanity too; I’d happily pay a revive or two to save myself the time using Warlock.

Champion: same as above

Suicides on

Ghost: I didn’t have Magneto on this path, so I used Aegon instead. Straightforward easy fight but not a solo due to the nature of the abyss charges limiting your hits.

Karnak: same as above. Love this fight.

Collector: same as above. Hate this fight.


Path 4:
Last but not least, path 4 which I was absolutely dreading since everyone calls it the hardest path. It definitely has some very hard fights, but it wasn’t even the most expensive path for me. But that could be partly due to me having done most of the fights in the path already in an earlier path, and also me farming 400+ potions for this path. I didn’t have a Corvus (funnily enough he was one of my exploration pulls hahaha) which most people seem to use here so I was dreading the two Killmongers on this path. For those two fights alone I took my Vision Aarkus to rank 5 as a 5* and I have no regrets, he’s an amazing champ and made easy work of those Killmongers.

Team: Aegon, Human Torch, Doom, Nick Fury, Vision Aarkus
Equivalent unit cost of revives: 4360 (not including mastery changes)


Darkhark: same as above, got him down in 1 revive which was my best which had me pumped

Luke Cage: same as above but got him down in 13 revives which was my lowest and the pump continued!

Killmonger: this was the first fight I was dreading but wow Vision Aarkus shuts this guy down cleanly. Basic rotation was get to my sp3, then get as much armour breaks as I can (ideally 10) and then throw my sp2 to armour shatter and then throw sp3s over and over and repeat once the armour shatter is gone. I had suicides on for this and the recoil was negligible since the armour shatter lasts so long and I barely had to throw sp2s. Pump continues!

Hulk Ragnarok: this fight took my pump away for now… I used Human Torch for the first 75% and Hulk was just getting fury instead of regening whenever I dropped to 20% which was incredibly frustrating. I definitely preferred Void for this first 75% due to not having to play as aggressively. Nick Fury for the last 25% like path 5 above.

Yellowjacket: same as above

Mordo: same as above

Mephisto: same as above

Ghost Rider: one shot with Human Torch. Played it very slowly letting my smoulders build up for the first 100 or so hits. Slow burn but effective and the incinerates were melting him away near the end which was very satisfying.

Suicides off

Korg: same as above

The Hood: used Aegon, was quite an easy fight. He has sp2 and sp3 bias and also puts a bleed and poison on you with a timer. The abyss fight me coward timer makes him more likely to throw his sp1 so the bias wasn’t a problem. I would weave in heavy charged sp2s for big bleeds whenever I could which helped.

Modok: so my Aegon wasn’t unblockable at this point because I was saving him for Masacre, and I didn’t have Magneto with me, so I used Nick Fury this time. Very easy fight, just throw two sp1s and you’re unblockable and its gg.

Morningstar: one shot with Human Torch. Same method as used on Ghost Rider, very slow. Make sure you weave in heavies too whenever her counter is about to run out so she doesn’t go unstoppable. But even if she does go unstoppable, it’s not really a problem. Munash has a great video showing this fight with Torch.

Darkhawk: I used Human Torch and actually made use of my Vision Aarkus here. Not too bad of a fight.

Red Skull: same as the above path where I used Doom.

Bishop: same as above

Symbiote Supreme: same as above

Masacre: I used Aegon the whole way and was hitting the damage cap regularly making this a much more fun fight. The pump was back!

Omega Red: same as above

Hyperion: same as above

Killmonger: same as above

Suicides on

Karnak: same as above

The Collector: same as above, but for the final time!


Overall the abyss was a fun experience that took a lot of planning and preparation. I know it’s not for everyone but for someone like me who likes stuff like that where you can't just go in blindly and expect to walk through everything, it was a good experience and the rewards I got were worth it too. That’s not to say that some fights weren’t annoying, some fights were nightmares and I’m glad I’ll never have to do them again!

And that’s that guys. If you made it all the way to the end, thank you for reading and I hope this helps you out :)


Comments

  • SwarmOfRavensSwarmOfRavens Posts: 1,264 ★★★★★
    This is a really good write up. First off congrats on your pulls, I've got a mystic ag so I'm hoping sorcerer supreme is in my nexus as well.
    I took aarkus to R2 for killmonger so it's good to know he still works after the skill node fix.
    I'm planning on a similar team for path 3 but I'll be using Aegon for havok, who would you bring in as a 5th to replace warlock?
  • ZahidZahid Posts: 49
    Thanks, I really appreciate that. I'm loving Sorcerer Supreme so far and can't wait to rank 3 her!
    In regards to a replacement for Warlock, I would have said a Luke Cage counter would've been perfect to make the path cheaper but that would mean you wouldn't have ramped up Aegon and he might struggle against the first Havok. You can probably still ramp up Aegon against Darkhawk instead and it'd work out cheaper that way I imagine if you were to choose a Luke Cage counter instead.
    If not a Luke Cage, the second most costly fight in the path for me was Venom the Duck so I could see the value of Symbiote Supreme just for that fight.
    I'd say you have freedom in who you want for path 3 since it's an easier path and you won't get roadblocked anywhere if you've got Aegon and Doom.
  • ZahidZahid Posts: 49
    @_TermiN8than_ No problem man, really glad I'm able to help!
    Sorry if I wasn't clear but I haven't written a completion guide since I done my completion early this year and didn't track anything.

    From what I remember though, I used a team of Aegon, Human Torch, Symbiote Supreme, Nick Fury and Quake (for synergy) and this worked really well! I would probably swap Quake out for Heimdall though if I were to do that again, it's crazy how much damage someone like Aegon can do from 1% health!
    Every fight that's in the easy path is included somewhere in the other paths, except for Quake and Cyclops, so you can pick out those fights from this guide. Quake and Cyclops can both be easily done with Aegon so nothing to worry about there.
  • ZahidZahid Posts: 49
    edited October 2020
    @pseudosane great pointers there! Sorry to hear about your rewards though :(

    I especially agree with using the coward timer and also farming potions.
    Farming potions saved me so many revives and was a big help in soloing 5.7mill hp fights with Human Torch.
  • Player1994Player1994 Posts: 793 ★★★
    Thanks for the post mate It is very well wrrited and helpful . and congrats for those sick Pulls i never seen better Abyss rewards as far as u got
  • Player1994Player1994 Posts: 793 ★★★

    I did my abyss exploration 100% as well last week, might have been couple weeks now, lol.

    Some cheeky pointers that saved me units.
    MrF is heavily underrated. I used him on two paths, and used him to reduce special block damage. GG, Pun99 were absolute cheesed due to MrF. He is also amazing for darkhawk, easiest solo imo.
    Nick fury works on redskull, maybe as well as doom, and you can start at 20% health, no heals.
    Farming atleast a hundred pots saves units. Always do this.
    Use the coward timer for collector and LC to dash into aegon's heavy.

    My rewards sucked, but that is quite alright :)

    Thanks for the pointers mate ' sorry for the bad rewards but still being able to clear it proves you are one of the best playera in the game .
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