When building a team in Marvel: Avengers Alliance, you often want to include heroes that can apply specific status effects. Other times you are more interested in the type of effect rather than the actual effect. Attrition effects are a type of effect that deals damage every round to a character afflicted. There are approximately a dozen unique attrition effects, almost all of which stack with different attrition effects. Stack enough on an enemy and the enemy will often die at the start of the enemy’s turn. The following guide to the best attrition heroes in Marvel: Avengers Alliance will help you choose the character that will best help your team.
Spiral – You basically have to own the Rhythmic Empowered ISO-8 to make this work, but if you do have it, Spiral is one of the best in the game for inflicting attrition effects. Dance Magic Dance applies breakdown, which randomly inflicts all enemies with up to five of the more obscure attrition effects in the game, one of which that stacks with itself. She can use this power every other round which is her one downside as an attrition hero. She doesn’t have any option to apply attrition during the cooldown rounds for the power. Still, if you want to put on a bunch of odd attrition effects all at the same time, she is one of the better choices to do so.
Dr. Doom – Dr. Doom has an attack that inflicts the chaos shot condition. This randomly inflicts up to seven of the more common attrition effects on the targeted character, though a character can’t have burning and chilled at the same time. This is only a single target attack, but on average it will put roughly three effects on an enemy and some of the status effects it applies will stack with same effect. You can only use this once per round, but even with that limitation, it is one of the fastest ways to stack attrition on a single enemy.
Iron Patriot – Iron Patriot only applies one type of attrition effect: radiation exposure. But, this effect can stack up to three times and Iron Patriot places three stacks of it on all enemies when he uses 21-Gun Salute. A total of nine attrition effects for a single attack, guaranteed due to Full Overcharge works, is a rather solid return on your investment.
Horseman of Pestilence – Horseman of Pestilence does not directly put any attrition effects on enemies, but instead can put ISO-8 contagion on all enemies as a quick action. After a few actions, this effect randomly morphs into various paragon and attrition effects. Additionally, if any ally of Horseman of Pestilence is affected burning, chilled, poisoned, or dark void, that ally has a 60% of passing that effect to any enemy that ally attacks. Furthermore, while Horseman of Pestilence is in a battle, negative status effects can’t be removed or prevented. On his own, this character practically assures that all enemies will be afflicted with multiple status effects. When combined with one of the other strong attrition heroes, he just assures that it happens quickly and that those effects can’t be removed. And if all that weren’t enough, the Jekyll and Hyde attack of this hero exploits attrition, adding additional value to these effects.
Nico Minoru – Nico Minoru is tricky. Her More Dots power will apply chaos shot to all enemies, but it can only be used once per battle. You need to be very careful on exactly when you use this or it could be completely worthless. If the enemy can’t strip debuffs, just start with it. If the enemy can, you need to be more cautious. Once this is used, she can also chilled on a single enemy once during the battle and soulfire on a single enemy once during the battle. Finally, she can also attack all enemies with a catastrophic attack that exploits attrition once during the battle. Assuming the battle doesn’t last more than four rounds, a very few do, this is a nearly perfect combination of powerful abilities.
Iron Man Mk 42 Armor – This variant of Iron Man can hit all enemies with both bleeding and burning with a single attack. Furthermore, he can apply radiation exposure to a single target with Repulsor Rays and since the effect stacks, it will be applied a second time 60% of the time when this attack makes a follow-up. That is a lot of status effects that can be applied in a short amount of time. In fact, if the opponents include a blaster, it is possible to use both attacks in the first round of combat.
Magik – Magik’s Unleash Hell attack can potentially put dark void, deathfrost, and soulfire on all enemies with a single catastrophic attack. She can’t possibly do this during her first action, but it is very easy for her to gain the two stacks of soul charge necessary to pull this off by the second round of combat. She also has a chance of applying poisoned to all enemies any time she attacks or is attacked. Combined that is four separate ongoing damage effects she can inflict. Making her just a bit better, she also has an attack that exploits attrition, allowing her to turn all of that ongoing damage into increased damage when she uses Soul Flare.
