Quick reminder (not a guide) you should try to do the Symbiote Incursion event, it’s very doable.

Just a reminder, if you’re in an alliance for sure do the Symbiote incursion event. It may seem like it’s impossible or it’s overly tuned for the first couple zones, but once you get to zone three or four, and you get enough of your pre-fights activated it just becomes a breeze.

I’m sure there are guides here for it, but really the only two or three things that I found that matter is just make sure you select the power drain one, the reverse control one, and probably the bleed, immune hack, and then just go wild. Remember Steve’s pre-fights are permanent so just spam them when you can. It’s a lot of fun. The rewards are great even if your alliance isn’t doing anything and definitely a W pass the first couple zones.

Comments

willrun4adonut

Piggybacking off of this, if you want the rewards but can't do (for whatever reason), your alliance mates can carry you. It will essentially just be like another regular run for them.

Use Venom the Duck (and knull if you have him).

Get the prefight devour, leech, enrage, annihilate prefights and apply on the first boss. On your third fight, apply annihilate and enrage. Save the last prefight charge for zone four. On zone four boss, apply annihilate and enrage again for the third time. You'll have no damage from the degen node.

For hacks, don't both with the immunities ones. The fortitude prefights will mitigate all/most

captaincush

For hacks, should definitely go with true sense, reverse control immunity, and grit as highest priority as it will ease a lot of potential node issues

Herbal_Taxman

Also, it’s fun as hell.

JediJones77

I did the 30 zones totally itemless, and I'm someone who used around 100 revives each on Act 8 Crucible, one lane of Epoch and one lane of Necropolis. I was definitely having trouble in the first few zones, and restarted 4 times. But the OP is correct that it rapidly gets easier after zone 4, and especially 8, and then once you're past 12 it's a cakewalk. One sp2 and most enemies are almost dead. Note that this is all using the "leech boost" trick. Fire an sp, dash back 15 times for prowess, and then fire an sp2.

Other great boosts are Grit to ignore Unstoppable completely, reverse controls immune (helps with Knull bosses) and bleed/poison immune. Also picked boosts for my fury, prowess, critical rating and armor, and also the true sense boost, even though I don't understand what it does.

Prefights are poorly explained everywhere I've seen. You absolutely need to understand exactly how to implement them. They are inaccurately and confusingly implemented as a prefight mechanism, when they are actually persistent buffs. Hence you can only pick one before a match, even though when you can later pick the second and third they STACK up, and none ever go away. This is the poorest part of the event design. It's baffling and non-intuitive. I just pulled up MCOCNoob's video where he has a screenshot showing which prefights to enable. But I also never noticed in game when I was actually being given the prefight ability, until 3 zones after it happened. Very, very confusing. Fully understand this before starting, as it bears no resemblance to anything ever done in incursions before.

Even the few "nightmare nodes" that came up after zone 8 just slowed things down, but didn't threaten to kill me. One node against Super Skrull made it impossible to gain any power at all, even though he could. Took much longer beating him with basic attacks only, but it eventually got done.

One nightmare node that killed me in zone 4 was the enemy reflecting damage while stunned. Lots of Symbiote's actions and prefights stun the enemy, so it rapidly killed me. I restarted after that, read every node in advance, and avoided it the one time I saw it come up in a lane I was going to take. Maybe that node is easier once he's fully buffed, but it was devastating in zone 4. It meant you could not do double mediums to build prowess and could not fire specials at all.

Supersha7

I’d have to disagree with the “don’t get immunities”.

I’d say get every immunity and then then power drain. And after that whatever.

the immunities will most likely help you avoid road blocks.

grit for unstoppable

Immunities to be able to easily survive all debuff dmg from bleed poison shock incin, coldsnap and frostbite.

Avoid miss and auto block and reverse controls
use synergy to avoid evade

Use synergy to heal

should be able to get to room 30 safely with no roadblocks.

Recommend avoiding any power steal immune champs,

but late in the game you can survive a couple of sp3 if needed. But better to not even need to 😀

willrun4adonut

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2894604#Comment_2894604

My original post didn't finish and I didn't know due to the weirdness since the forums 'updated'. It should have said don't get any damage immunities (as implied by the part surrounding it).

I don't know why everyone is saying to get damage immunities (especially poison and bleed). There is not a roadblock at all (opponents abilities nor nodes). Even if you do somehow get a bleed, poison, cold snap, etc, that is very damaging (which, again, I have only ever seen on the very first fight with a caltrops node, which could be avoided since you can choose three other defenders), you can throw a special and remove it after the first fight is done.

I will stand firmly by that fact. Other immunities like reverse control are great though.

NoahSansman

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2894607#Comment_2894607

100% agree. Prioritize the damage hacks and the utility hacks. Not once in my 30 zones did I wish I had chosen a damaging debuff immunity.

Herbal_Taxman

screw the DoT immunities, they aren’t needed. Prioritize the grit, vigilance and reverse control hacks.

Muppet17

While i feel like at times iv only got negative things to say about this game, this incursions saga was a big W imo. Not about roster and once u understand how steve works he feels like an 8* champ, great piece of content. As we have an ally of mixed skill levels u can carry ally members with relative ease with good comms u can select different hacks to reduce the chance of bad rng bosses.

JediJones77

I forgot to mention I used Venom and Venom the Duck as my synergy team the entire way. I was very happy with them. I think one is for healing and one for bleed.

I never bothered with the coldsnap/frostbite immunity. It only came up on an enemy once or twice. Incinerate/shock was fairly rare too. But bleed and poison came up a lot. I have no idea if I "needed" them because I got them very early. The incinerate/shock immunity i got late, because it seemed like I got everything else I could use at that point.

I also got a 50% stun duration boost, but it honestly didn't seem to work. The stuns, particularly after a double medium, still seemed way too short. I had to stop trying to fit an attack into that type of stun because I messed up a lot when I couldn't do it fast enough before the stun expires.

I got these next two synergies fairly late, but they seemed to make a noticeable difference: critical rating multiplied by 3 during specials, and gain a 10% intensify buff whenever you gain a fury buff.

One time, I beat a Medusa boss, but the game gave me a "lag" icon and then put me back on her node as if I never fought her. I have no idea WHAT happened there. Never saw that before except maybe in war years ago. Wasn't an easy fight either because I think she had some bad nodes like stunning you on her heavy attackd and other stuff.

Supersha7

you can get every immunity plus a few other abilities. Just because you didn’t get roadblocked by it, doesn’t mean someone else won’t.

The symbiote is more than capable of doing enough damage. The only thing that can cause it issues is infinitely high regen, insanely high debuff dmg, insanely high power generation from a power drain immune champ.

richtheman got road blocked by an ibom I believe? Try and take ibom without poison immune and see how quickly the acid burn will melt you if the other nodes stall you.

it’s about prevention. Getting through fights fast won’t help you, when you can’t get through a fight at all.

better to progress to room 30 without major issue and take a while, than race to your roadblock.

I myself managed a room 30 item less and without unit spend. My alliance mate did the same with the same strat.

id highly recommend everyone choose the safe option. But its everyone personal choice.

willrun4adonut

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2894620#Comment_2894620

It's not needed. For those who are still needing to do it, select almost anything else.

I did a room 104, and it wasn't needed. It wasn't itemless, but when immunities were needed, it was still doable. Items were used very late, but wasn't because of bleed and poison immunity lacking, with a very small exception, but that was at extremely high levels.

I have at least done 12 carries (with no help from a partner), which means I've done more than (30*3*12)+(103*3) fights. You will not be roadblocked by not having a DoT immunity before level 30. I am extremely confident in that. I don't even read the nodes anymore below zone 30 because they made Steve so OP (and had stopped reading the nodes after my fourth carry).

And I am not even a super great player. I think my Necro runs totaled over 400, and I spent over 24 reviews on every Ares take down.

JediJones77

I also read this nice little summation on a MCOCNoob video comment. Note this rotation only applies once you've got each pre-fight set, and have collected the Leech Boost hack:

His best rotation IMO

-Build sp1 using MM or regular combo;

- Use sp1;

- Dash back 15 times to gain 15 prowess;

- Build sp2 using MM;

- Use sp2;

Repeat the last two steps.

Dr. Crab

Really everyone, totally do it. It’s absolutely a W piece of content. There’s really good advice here but again, quick cheat sheet, from my experience, all you need to do plain and simple is get the power drain one, throw your special, dash back until you get 15 prowesses and then, it’s simply over. Every fight is just over I think except for one that I ran into. Reverse controls helps for sure, you’ll probably face a lot of Knulls, and also I’m not sure if this was a separate hack or a prefight, but the one where when you throw your special, the opponent gets stunned for a second, this is the perfect time to just keep dashing back for those prowesses. Definitely do it if you haven’t, It’s a total blast and the rewards are fantastic.

Sunstar19

I’m not great at the game but followed Willrunforadonut strategy for pre-fights which works perfectly, provided you don’t meet some nasty bosses so luck plays a part. Boss hacks as above, prioritise true sense, reverse control and leech boost roughly in this order

Dr. Crab

Oh, also I used Th Venom the Duck and Venom synergy the whole way through. I think VTD was great for that permanent regen and I think Venom is great for constantly bleed damage, but please don’t quote me.