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7.3 Path-by-Path Exploration Guide

BitterSteelBitterSteel Posts: 9,254 ★★★★★
edited October 2021 in Strategy and Tips
Hi everyone, as of writing this first part, 7.3 dropped a few hours ago and I've decided to keep a log of my thoughts on each path and use it to make a guide. When you read this, I'll be done 100% and please pray for me to have pulled some good champs from the Nexus crystals.

Onto the guide. I'll identify each path by the main nodes on it. I won't go into massive detail for each path here, this is meant to be more of a quick comment on the main issue in the path, and a quick tip to get around it, but if you want greater detail or specific advice just drop it down below and I, or someone else who's done it, can advise.

I will also drop an arrow (--->) on one or two paths that I believe are the easiest ones if you just want to go for completion, and also on the boss that I think is the easiest.

I will need to split it up into quest 1-3 and 4-6 since I think it goes over the forum word count. This will be a long one, so just jump to whichever quest and path is needed. Hope it’s helpful!

Quest 1

Muscle Wizard, Riot, Can't Stop Won't Stop
I used Diablo, Claire and Doom for this path mainly. They all did really well, remember to activate the nullify pre-fight with Diablo. I imagine most good nullifying mystics will do well here, the main issue is the unstoppable/unblockable buff. When you start the fight, they are unblockable - so dealing with that is pretty important. Champs with accessible nullifies, like Sym Supreme, Claire etc who can quickly sort it are useful. When you knock them down with a special they go unstoppable. So try and nullify that too. When you heavy them, they will go back to unblockable. It's all about controlling those buffs, and knowing that if heavy them, you want to be able to nullify the unblockable straight away.

---> Mutant Mastery, Persistent Pressure, Endurance Trial
This path is super simple, use mutants -> apply debuffs -> get prowess -> reduce unstoppable timer
Essentially, every 15 seconds they'll go unstoppable for 5 seconds, duration of unstoppable is minus 0.5 seconds for every prowess buff/prowess. So you want a mutant with a ton of debuffs. Sunspot is ideal, can easily solo the entire path. Wolverine especially as a horseman will do well. A tip is just to hold special attacks until after the unstoppable triggers. Your prowess go away after a special, so if you throw it after the timer resets you have more time to build back up. I used Sunspot, Havok, Namor, Kitty Pryde.

Run and Gun, Might Charge, Powerful from afar, unblockable specials
This path was really fun. Basically, rushing forward gives you fury passive doubling your attack, dashing back removes it. So how do you avoid dashing back? Using champs that allow you to avoid it. Spider Gwen kills it, throw two sp1s and you never have to dash back again, their special attacks are unblockable so you evade every hit (watch out for venom). Professor X is fantastic. Get to 2.9 bars of power and 100 charges, then throw the special, you can dash forward, and throw a special over and over and your attack just sky rockets. Watch out for powerful from afar, someone like Doom can handle that well. I used Gwen, Prof X, Doom.

---> Paradox -Block, Quantum Control, Pumping Iron
This is essentially a buffed up path on steroids, but holy Cosmic Ghost Rider can this get nutty. You want to hover between 3-9 paradox, below 3 they nullify buffs you trigger but for every paradox you have you increase buff potency by +30%. Gain paradox by well-timed blocking, remove by dexing. This makes for some broken interactions. This potency applies to all buffs, including stuff like power gain. CGR with 6 or 7 paradox makes his power gain get him to an sp3 with his first trigger. So you can parry 7 times, and MLLLL gets an sp3. Fury potency goes up, cruelty, aptitude, everything. Hyperion will gain so much power, same with Aarkus. Any cosmic with meaningful buffs will absolutely destroy here. I used Cosmic Ghost Rider for almost every fight.

Paradox - Block, whittle Down, Quantum immunity
Enemy is debuff immune below 3 paradox, each paradox increases your debuff duration. You get paradox by parrying, lose it by throwing specials. This one is a great path, really easy to manage paradox. Science Champs with a lot of debuffs rule here, although you don't have to be limited to just science. I used Torch, Spidergwen, Mr negative and S2099. Gwen gets super long enervates which just shut down the fight. I imagine I-Abom will do great, same with I-Hulk, Red Guardian etc.

Special Delivery, Power Shield, Matador
Very, very fun path. This is one of the paths you breeze through with a grin on your face. Champs with 1 or 2 hit heavy work really well here, the design is such that you want to give them power, bait sp1 and throw your own specials for massive damage. Anyone with high special damage is gonna work well here. Prof X, S2099, Negative and Tigra were my champs. But anyone like CGR, Doom, Gambit, Ghost etc will smash it. Not much to worry about here.


Bosses
---> Red goblin is straightforward enough, just swap in Ronan and stun lock away. I can't imagine many won't have a ronan. But I used Tigra on my first clear. I assume most mystics will work well for him.

TaskMaster is pretty straightforward. Just need someone who can crit well really, and potentially not rely too much on debuffs. Someone like Shang Chi will do perfect. There is also the ebony maw cheese, but it depends if you have a spare hour or two.

Ultron is kinda tricky, you need someone who armour breaks a lot, since when he has armour up he is unblockable. Armour shatter won't work since he has increased AAR, but I found Vision Aarkus useful nonetheless, just don't use sp2 and keep spamming sp3 for the constant armour breaks. CGR smashed it too. I'm sure champs like Medusa, King Groot, CMM will work great.



Quest 2

KnockDown Paradox, Power Snack, Increased Power Rate
This path could be quite tough if you don't have an immune to nullify champion. Get out your Civil Warrior's, Angela's and Things since Mr Negative and Overseer aren't as widely available. Red Guardian and Spidey 2099 will be good too since they can't gain buffs. The aim here is to knock the opponent down 3 times, without parrying, and this will remove the increased combat power rate they get. If you get too high in paradox charges, parry a few times to reduce them. Champs who can reverse power or control power will be good too, with the power snack/high combat power rate. Torch works really well for the path, since he crushes Stryfe, Sinister, Diablo, Purgatory and Chavez.

---> Impatience, Shake and Bake, Buffed Up
This path is cosmic chaos. You want a cosmic champ who has a low chance to proc buffs on basic attacks, as every time it fails, you get a chunky fury. I found Gamora, Ronan and Hyperion to be absolute beasts for it. You're gonna see some massive numbers here. Watch out for Emma, every time your buffs expire the opponent gains a prowess, so specials can hit hard. Make sure you dodge them.

Cage Rattler, Stun Vulnerability, Galvanise, limber
This is a timer alternating between shocking you when you hit their block, and being unblockable. You want skill champs here and essentially just hit their block while they're unblockable. Watch out for Joe Fixit Sp1 if it's unblockable. Jabari works amazing, since she can cleanse the shocks from the block. Other great options are Stealth, Nick (don't go unblockable) and OG BP. But really, any skill champ is good.

Buff Synthesis, Power Struggle, Subterfuge Block, Combat Deja Vu - Unblockable
Essentially, if you do the same attack in a row, they go unblockable but you can parry to get the fury and dex to merge it into a prowess buff. Champs with really good buff control work well here, to avoid the unblockable buff. But also, champs with really high special damage on Sp1 or 2 (or don't require Sp3 due to power struggle) are great. Also, if you have a decently ranked Miles, bring him. He cheeses the unblockable and you can just heavy attack in the corner, while they throw specials and miss you.

Pleasure to Burn, Right back at it, Got a light?, Redoubled determination
Really, any champ that doesn't rely on specials or heavies work here. Every time you knock them down they go debuff immune, so I'd suggest not using any specials or heavies if you can help it. The incinerate vulnerability works hugely in your favour. Watch out for redoubled determination giving them attack and power gain. Don't use bleed champs. Torch works great, Stealth Spidey is awesome for it, one sp1 and you're away and Elsa works too after 1 sp1.

Paradox - Special, Power Reserve, Quantum entangle
Another Power reserve, another Prof X cheese. With this one, the champs are quite "sneakily" chosen that you can't stun cheese them with champs like gambit or ronan, each of them has a way to shrug off or go stun immune. Activating a special (either champ) gives you a paradox and knocking the defender down removes. You have -100% DAAR while under 3. I'd probably recommend bringing someone like white mags if you have him 5/6*, just to get around the shrug off champs. Or Apoc. Any champ with decent special attack damage is a good shout here (more damage with more paradox charges), though it's hard to recommend specific champs, since it's more about playstyle and managing your paradox.



Bosses
---> I-Hulk isn't too bad, no need to worry about do-not-go-gentle unless you need a solo, you can just take him down with your main and tap him with another champ. I used Nick Fury, but really any non-energy damage champ can deal with it.

CGR goes down without much of a fuss, I'd recommend skill champs that can remove debuffs and deal with that aspect. Or mystic champs that can control power so he can't use as many specials. Don't bring a villain who can't deal with armour break, or he'll be unblockable for the rest of the fight.

OML is pretty simple, just watch out for arrogance giving you a falter and don't nullify him/heal reverse him. I'd recommend a miss counter, but it can be played around. I used Prof X.



Quest 3

Mystic Curse, Rejuvenate, Picture of Health, Limber
This was a really interesting path, essentially, they regenerate with passive stacks more and more unless poisoned, in which case they lose regen stacks. Activating a special attack applies a poison, potency scaling with number of buffs. I mainly used Diablo here, he crushed it. No regen to deal with. However, high special attack spamming mystic champs will do great to keep up the poisons, and champs who apply poisons themselves will be great too. Claire, Man thing, Dragon Man, Doom, Tigra etc. Annihulus can be a tough fight there, but a champ with accessible nullify works wonders.

Paradox - Special, Do you bleed, Quantum Power
This is a pretty straightforward path. What you want to do is bait out 3 specials, and then hover between 4 and 5 paradox. Each special they throw gives a paradox charge, each time you intercept you remove one. Obviously skill champs dominate here, although I'm sure other bleeders work well too. I used Moleman, BP OG, Nick Fury and Jabari Panther. Moleman is great to get those intercepts off well, BP works fantastic with his intercept playstyle. For mysterio, remember you can hit him during his sp1 damage reflect, since you won't be doing any damage except through bleed.

Paradox Buffs, Quantum Entangle, Spite
You have -100% DAAR until above 3 paradox. Each time you gain a buff you gain a paradox, well timed blocks remove them. Here, you absolutely do not want a buff heavy champ. Spite and paradox dissuade that. Any champ can do it, just dex and that counts as 2. Really, you just want to aim for a spite counter. Void, Mr Negative, She Hulk, Overseer, YJ can all do well here. The main issue on the path comes from Havok and Bishop, meaning you need a tech counter. I used Vulture here, and he was amazing. I brought the Tigra synergy (pretty necessary) and the Stealth synergy (helpful but not needed). Your specials also power burn based on how many paradox, so that's helpful for power control. This is a pretty tough node combo, with pretty tough defenders. So get a good team in. Make sure you keep up a few paradox and use them to power drain, with even your sp1 if necessary.

Stunning reflection, Mix master, best defence
This was a pain for me, but fun, it's a pretty hard path that requires specific counters. Evade counters with poison or incinerate. I can actually only think of two, Apoc and Archangel. Elsa is almost perfect, but unfortunately when the opponent evades you apply coldsnap instead of incinerate. In any case, I'd probably recommend going down the route of countering one aspect or the other. Either cope with the evading, and bring an incinerate/poison champ, or deal with basically stun immune champs and bring an evade counter. I brought Apoc and ramped him up on the Jane foster, he shuts down the evade nicely, and using sp1 can shut down the stun reflect. I also found Diablo worked nicely, MLM until you get a poison to stick, then parry heavy. I also brought Moleman and kept him under 8 monster mass, going in and out of frenzy. Prof X will work well too.

---> Acclimation, Triple Threat, Power Shield, Use it or lose it
This is a very fun path. Get your favourite mutant team and go wild. The theory behind it is very fun indeed, try and get debuffs on yourself, purify them and gain power, but don't hold onto your special for too long or you lose the power. You can either push for the next bar of power, or use the current special you have. Apoc is odd here, because he won't let himself purify the debuffs, but you go immune to bleed and incinerate so it's not too bad. Your specials hit very hard here. I used Prof X, Rogue, Apoc and gambit. But any hard hitting mutant will work well.

Rising Sun, Stacking Power, Stage Fright
Now I think this was more my champ choice, rather than the path but I really didn't enjoy it. I used Negative and Apoc, but I just felt like you get too much power from each buff, making it a chore to manage your power rather than fun. I used Apoc's sp2 in the end to reduce the furies I procced. And Negative not being able to parry due to disorient removing dark energy was a bit eh, but manageable. I found myself hanging around special throwing because of stage fright and just didn't enjoy it. I imagine champs like I-Hulk, Corvus and Hercules would have had a much better time.

Bosses
Spider-Ham can be a massive pain. The issue here, is that you want to dump your special one as soon as you get it, as that keeps his nonsense down. However, you're inflicted with a power sting when you reach a bar of power, so you can't throw it straight away. Obviously this is pointing you towards a debuff shrugger/ Evade counter. My number one suggestion is Elsa Bloodstone, she coldsnaps him preventing evade, and shrugs off all his debuffs. Other suggestions are Nick Fury, thought shifting bleed/poison immunity can slow him down. Moleman as long as you get into frenzy at the right moment. Stealth Spidey, although you wouldn't be able to use specials unless you timed it right. Or Shang Chi, focusing on debuff shrug and slow.

Sparky was an odd one. You need an evade counter right off the bat, you can't really build up to it. Your first parry will make him go unblockable, so She Hulk and Spidergwen with evade counters there and then work well. You also have heavy assault, so if you get him stuck in the corner, you'll be able to spam heavy and do tons of damage. I can imagine Nick Fury would wreck this fight, so would Elsa, Moleman, Falcon, Stealthy etc.

---> Stealthy is alright, foresight really helps, but you need an evade counter that doesn't rely on debuffs (due to his tenacity). I recommend Prof X (he really is an MVP for 7.3) but watch out for his true focus. Another option is Apoc, if you take him on the mix master path, there is a perfect opportunity there that you could use to ramp up his evade counter and then Apoc would counter loads about this stealthy, tenacity, evade etc.
Post edited by Kabam Porthos on
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Comments

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    LiquidkoldLiquidkold Posts: 192 ★★
    Wow this is fantastic. Thank you for your time writing it all down.
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    BitterSteelBitterSteel Posts: 9,254 ★★★★★

    Thank you @BitterSteel
    As someone who is planning to tackle this content very soon, I found this write-up extremely helpful.

    Wow this is fantastic. Thank you for your time writing it all down.

    You’re both welcome! Glad it helps :)
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    KRANꓘKRANꓘ Posts: 138 ★★
    Well done!
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    Kappa2gKappa2g Posts: 267 ★★★
    Champs that are immune to power drain (Terrax, King groot, Venompool) basically remove the degen mechanic from the warlock boss in quest5 and make it a much more easier fight.
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    JadedJaded Posts: 5,476 ★★★★★
    I hate reading novels for love cheat sheets. Ty @BitterSteel super helpful!
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    BitterSteelBitterSteel Posts: 9,254 ★★★★★
    Kappa2g said:

    Champs that are immune to power drain (Terrax, King groot, Venompool) basically remove the degen mechanic from the warlock boss in quest5 and make it a much more easier fight.

    That’s a great point, that’s why I brought in venom and I forgot to mention that in the post. I recently got 6* venompool and would be great to see how he did for that fight
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    WerewrymWerewrym Posts: 2,830 ★★★★★

    Kappa2g said:

    Champs that are immune to power drain (Terrax, King groot, Venompool) basically remove the degen mechanic from the warlock boss in quest5 and make it a much more easier fight.

    That’s a great point, that’s why I brought in venom and I forgot to mention that in the post. I recently got 6* venompool and would be great to see how he did for that fight
    It’s stupid easy. My r3 VP ran that guy over so quickly.
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    SirGamesBondSirGamesBond Posts: 4,218 ★★★★★
    Insightful!
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    TheHeroDeservedTheHeroDeserved Posts: 740 ★★★
    Thanks a lot! It's very useful.
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    PastorAmericaPastorAmerica Posts: 458 ★★★
    Thank you @BitterSteel ! I’m flagging this post and I’m sure I’ll be referring to it for a while as I work my way through this chapter.
    I’m sure this took a lot of time not just to do the content but to think it through and write it all out for us. Thanks for all that you do for the community!
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    Tx_Quack_Attack6589Tx_Quack_Attack6589 Posts: 603 ★★★
    But where are the nexus results
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    CreeseazCreeseaz Posts: 277
    Awesome
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    AverageDesiAverageDesi Posts: 5,260 ★★★★★
    Great wrote up will be using it.

    I found wasp works well for sym supreme. My r3 took off 80% in less than 100 hits. She can also apply concussion and he never went stun immune
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    AverageDesiAverageDesi Posts: 5,260 ★★★★★
    Also suggestions, keep each quest inside spoiler. Will be super convenient to look up and navigate
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    BitterSteelBitterSteel Posts: 9,254 ★★★★★

    Also suggestions, keep each quest inside spoiler. Will be super convenient to look up and navigate

    Ahh that’s a good shout, unfortunately I can’t edit it now, although if @Kabam Porthos would be a dream and has a sec to edit it for us that would be great :)
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    AverageDesiAverageDesi Posts: 5,260 ★★★★★
    Dang those are some nice pulls
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    2StarKing2StarKing Posts: 855 ★★★
    @BitterSteel Thank you!. For the first time ever I bookmarked a post. Good work!
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    BitterSteelBitterSteel Posts: 9,254 ★★★★★
    2StarKing said:

    @BitterSteel Thank you!. For the first time ever I bookmarked a post. Good work!

    You’re welcome! Glad it’s helped. Good luck :)
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    altavistaaltavista Posts: 1,291 ★★★★
    @BitterSteel Another great write up guide.

    Used your guide to complete some paths, now currently on 7.3.5. It definitely made planning which path to attempt for completion less stressful.

    Just some additional comments to help others as well:

    7.3.3 Bosses - Used Venom for Sparky, easy fight to not have to deal with evade. I imagine he'd work for Stealthy as well. Maybe for Spider-Ham as well.

    For 7.3.4, took the Paradox Debuff / Entropic Aptitude / Heavy Handed path.
    For Havok, I first tried Warlock but it can be both a blessing and a curse that you can't simply parry his medium attack (hurts when you're trying to build up paradox, but helps to avoid accidentally getting 9 Paradoxes). I instead used Guardian (easier to know when you are parrying).
    Note: Guardian has an incompatible interaction with Domino and Paradox. Since Domino reduces ability accuracy, Guardian places a permanent Shock debuff. Despite it appearing permanent, this resulted in my Paradox charges increasing over time, such that I quickly reached 9 Paradox charges without me attacking/parrying.

    Took boss Sorcerer Supreme. Like you said, a good power reverser makes it easy (I used Void; and once I had two Petrifies or FoTV on, I didn't have to worry about specials anymore; I could just do parry-heavy to not have to worry about too many staggers building up on me).
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    Strikerrx8Strikerrx8 Posts: 1,090 ★★★
    I been doing some paths with no help will read here first before doing more
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    PolygonPolygon Posts: 3,835 ★★★★★
    edited October 2021
    Sorry bud, but you couldn’t have been any more wrong on the 7.3.1 debuff path, where you mainly focused on science champs like torch. Torch’s prefight doesnt work here since it doesnt count as debuffs. You also made a huge false statement when you said its easy to manage the paradox charges. If you gain 9 of those you’re screwed, and you get them at a faster rate than you can throw off specials if youre a player that relies on parries/use beardo (not to mention theres a modok on the lane for those that parry heavy), then youre going to have a hard time with this path as the specials only drop the paradox charges by 1 per bar of power on the special, and on top of that they stack. Beardo relies on parries as well. I managed to bring cgr who was great for the mephisto and overall, but i regret bringing a team full of science champs like you said. I appreciate the effort in your write up, but when you state false claims about paths being “easy” just because you had an easy time, doesnt mean everyone else will. You need to keep that in mind when you write guides.
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    BitterSteelBitterSteel Posts: 9,254 ★★★★★
    Jaded said:

    Polygon said:

    Sorry bud, but you couldn’t have been any more wrong on the 7.3.1 debuff path, where you mainly focused on science champs like torch. Torch’s prefight doesnt work here since it doesnt count as debuffs. You also made a huge false statement when you said its easy to manage the paradox charges. If you gain 9 of those you’re screwed, and you get them at a faster rate than you can throw off specials if youre a player that relies on parries/use beardo (not to mention theres a modok on the lane for those that parry heavy), then youre going to have a hard time with this path as the specials only drop the paradox charges by 1 per bar of power on the special, and on top of that they stack. Beardo relies on parries as well. I managed to bring cgr who was great for the mephisto and overall, but i regret bringing a team full of science champs like you said. I appreciate the effort in your write up, but when you state false claims about paths being “easy” just because you had an easy time, doesnt mean everyone else will. You need to keep that in mind when you write guides.

    Ok, so I re-did the path after reading this just to make sure I hadn't missed something, I want this guide to be as accurate as possible of course, and I had just as simple a time. I'm not saying that as any sort of brag about my skill level, I'm content with that without using a 7.3 path to boast about it.

    I used Spider-Gwen, Mr Negative, Torch, Hyperion and I-Hulk this time. All pretty in line with what I said in the guide about the path. Science champs work perfectly for it in my opinion, Spider-Gwen worked just as well as I said with very long enervates that keep the enemy shut down, Torch's pre-fight doesn't apply, so only use it for Mephisto (who goes down very quickly with that) but his incinerates are very much extended and deal massive damage for an opponent like Mangog on the path. Mr negative worked great since you don't need to play him parry heavy.

    So regarding paradox, you said: "you get them at a faster rate than you can throw off specials if youre a player that relies on parries/use beardo" I feel like you kinda answered your own issue here..

    I think your issue is you ended up going for a champ like Cap IW who heavily relies on parry, or perhaps you as a player rely on parrying. As unfortunate as that is, I can't help but think it's not entirely my fault that you decided to use that champion or that tactic. I can't go through each path and say every champ who isn't going to work. It also sounds like you read my post, grabbed a bunch of science champs and dived into the path without testing and found yourself halfway through with a team you didn't like - if that's not the case, then that's absolutely fair, I'm just telling you how it sounds. As helpful as I hope this guide is, it's not a bible for which team to bring. It's suggestions for you to try out and based on what I did, if you have questions on paths and think, oh that's not working here, I'm more than happy to help suggest, expand and clarify on it - rather than someone get stuck partway through and lay all the blame at my feet.

    With that being said, I realise now, I should have added a couple lines in the guide. Firstly at the start saying "This is just a guide, don't take it as gospel, I may have easy times on paths where you struggle, and I may have hard times on paths where you guys breeze through and think "What the hell Bitter? Why you struggling?". Try these path suggestions out and if it isn't working, ask!"

    That's just how the game works, all I can do is talk about my experience and suggest based on that. I think you need to keep that in mind while reading guides. But I can include it in future if I do more.

    Secondly, I should have included a line in the path section saying try not to use parry reliant champions, that's my part of this that I'll easily own up to. I suppose when I did the path I used largely non-parry heavy reliant champions aside from Hyperion who is a different case since he has more specials to throw off to reduce his paradox if necessary. I hope you can appreciate I wrote close to 6,000 words on this guide, writing 24 path guides, 15 boss guides and a Kang guide. I'm gonna miss something somewhere..

    That being said, I'm absolutely happy to help out in any way I can so while it sounds like you're already finished on that path if you are stuck on any others, or running into other issues please ask! I'd love to help. And if you haven't finished this path yet let me know, and I can record a video using champs from your roster of how I'd tackle the path.
    I used HT x2, iAbom x2 and void 6*r3. The path was easy. You weren’t wrong. Can’t make everyone happy. Hopefully that doesn’t deter you from making more of these in the future. I definitely prefer to read then watch videos.
    It definitely won’t deter me. I’m sure I’ll do another one of these for 7.4 when it comes out. I honestly enjoyed writing it, I found that by thinking about the theory of the path and what it’s asking you to do it actually gave me a greater appreciation of the design.

    Plus it made me slow down a little and not burn as many units and energy refills..
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