Marvel’s Avengers – Tips and Tricks (Combat & Exploration)

General Tips and Tricks

• Press R3 or RS to lock on. The game will eventually tell you this but it will do so much later than you’d expect. You can lock onto enemies right from the start of the beta, which will make some of its opening sections much easier.

• If you’ve got a piece of gear that you particularly like, don’t worry about saying goodbye to it in favor of something with a better power level or attribute strength. You can Power Boost it instead using resources. Hold Square/X to Power Boost an item in the gear menu.

• When hovering over a mission on the War Table, press R2/RT. These will show you the mission’s modifiers. Build your character’s gear loadout based on these modifiers. For example: If the modifier is Blizzard, which means you’ll likely face cryo damage from enemies and the environment, see if you can equip gear that counters those effects.

• Blue, Purple, and Orange gear have perks. Usually, only one perk will be unlocked. You can unlock additional perks by spending resources. Unlocking a perk happens by power boosting a piece of gear. You power boost a piece of gear one level each time you unlock a perk. After unlocking all perks, you can continue to power boost the gear to its max level.

• To hit a power of 45, you’ll need to power boost high-tier gear to the max. It’s possible to hit in the beta but will require a lot of work and resources.

• Green gear can be power boosted three levels, blue gear can be power boosted five levels, and purple gear can be power boosted 10 levels. Note: While power boosting, you will likely be unlocking perks for the gear at the same time. What perks you will unlock while doing this are visible while viewing the gear.

• Each objective in a mission will be graded on a scale of one to five stars. You lose a star every time a hero is downed. To get five stars on a mission, don’t let a hero get downed.

• If you’re in need of some resources, or are finding your gear menu to be a bit busy, you can dismantle pieces of gear you’re not using by holding Triangle or Y with the cursor hovering over the gear.

• When hovering over a piece of gear, press and hold Square/X to upgrade it. This allows you to unlock a new perk for it but it will cost you some resources. This can only be done on rare, epic and legendary pieces of gear. Common and Uncommon gear pieces can only have their power levels boosted.

• The max level that can be reached in the beta is level 15. A hero’s level is based on the experience they’ve earned.

• The max power that can be reached in the beta is 45. This is a number determined by the gear your hero has equipped.

• If all of the gear numbers feel overwhelming and you just want to equip your character with the best possible gear, press and hold L2/LT to automatically equip the best gear.

• Changing the difficulty does not affect the guaranteed reward for drop zone missions.

• If a mission is particularly difficult, consider trying it out with a different hero. Sometimes the difficulty comes from trying to play Hulk in a tight space when someone like Black Widow might be more effective.

• This game will make your controller vibrate a lot. It vibrates when you run, when you jump, when you punch and more. If that gets annoying, you can turn off controller vibration in the game’s settings.

• This is less of a tip and more of a heads up: You can’t skip cutscenes in the game.

• You won’t be able to access the War Table, which is where you’ll find Drop Zone missions, War Zone missions, and HARM Challenges, until after you complete the first few story missions (of the beta).

• There is a secret mission in the beta. Check out our Secret Beta Mission: Snowy Tundra Vault guide to find it.

• Make sure to customize your nameplate for each Avenger. You can display a different nameplate for each Avenger you’re playing as in any given mission.

Combat Tips and Tricks

• When you stun an enemy with something like Cap’s Steamroller heroic ability, you can press Triangle/Y and Circle/B at the same time to knock the enemy out. Doing so will allow you to recover Willpower, which is essentially your health.

• If you’re wondering how to recover some health during a fight, look around for cylindrical breakables with a cross on them. Break these to gain some health. The game doesn’t explicitly tell you this but we learned the hard way after dying one too many times.

• As Hulk in some story missions, you’ll often find yourself fighting Prime Adept Synthoids. These are purple and teal robots that carry a large electrical stick, and they can put an end to Hulk’s longer attacks quickly. We found the best way to quickly remove these robots as a threat from the battlefield is by using Hulk’s R1/RB ability, Stranglehold.

• The game tells you to press R2/RT to use Hulk’s Rage ability. If you simply press it, you’ll find yourself seeing a bunch of “Use Hulk’s Rage ability” prompts on screen. That’s because it’s not a simple button press. You must hold R2/RT down while using other moves to use Rage.

• If something looks like it can explode, there’s a good chance it does. Give it a hit and see what happens. Often, these environmental explosions can be used to your advantage if you group up enough nearby enemies.

• When a hero is downed, a circle will appear around them. Stand in that circle for about 7 seconds to revive them.

• Dreadbots: They attack from four sides by shooting flames out of exhaust vents. Make sure to be out of the fire’s way. The vent will glow red hot before the flames shoot out — when you see that glow, get out of the way.

• If a mission is too difficult, head back to the War Table and drop the difficulty down. There are no penalties for doing this, although the higher the difficulty, the more loot to be gained.

• When you need to kill a high-value target, focus on doing that. There will likely be plenty of mob enemies around but your companion AI will take them out.

• Practice parrying. You will be dodging a lot and that works great, but because there will often be large swaths of enemies surrounding you, dodging over and over won’t solve the problem. If you can learn to easily land hits after dodging through the game’s parry mechanic, you’ll be much better off.

• Use the HARM Challenge rooms to practice your new skills and abilities. These are wave-based arena combat simulations where there’s no penalty for failing (although you will have to restart the challenge on the first wave).

• If you time your dodge right — dodge at the last possible second — time will slow down for just a second or two. Use this to gain the upper hand against your enemies.

Exploration Tips and Tricks

• The game tells you that Hulk can grab onto any scratched wall. What it doesn’t tell you is that you’ll often need to grab onto metal walls that aren’t scratched. If you are stuck on where to go and don’t see a scratched wall in sight, look for a metal one. Hulk can grab onto these.

• If you see a white glowing light, head to it and interact with it. You’ll usually learn something about whatever it is you’re interacting with or at the very least, hear your character make a funny quip.

• Listen to Jarvis when you’re out in the field. Jarvis will often let you know when a chest is nearby.

• Keep an eye out for corroded metal. When you see metal glowing neon-yellow, it’s corroded and it’s corroded because toxic terragin gas spews out of it. If you stand on top of this metal or under it (if it’s above), the terragin gas will spew out and damage you.

• You do not need to kill every enemy in an area before completing an objective. Complete the objective, be it interacting with a computer or destroying a server, and the enemies sent to stop you will disappear.

• If there’s a side objective behind a door you can’t open, look for rectangular machines with a large hexagon on the front of them. The door will likely have two to four yellow lights on it. Each light corresponds to a hexagon. Punch the hexagon until it turns blue and the yellow light on the door it’s attached to will turn blue. Turn every yellow light blue and the door will open.

• If you’re outside and looking for a way to open a door that leads to a chest, look around for tall cellphone tower-like towers. There will be yellow circles on them. Throw things at them to turn them green. When all are green, the door will open.

• In terms of traversal, Iron Man is the best. He can fly to virtually anywhere. Black Widow and Ms Marvel use grappling mechanics to get around. Hulk simply jumps.

• Resources collected during a mission are permanent meaning that if you quit the mission, you’ll still get the resources you collected prior to quitting.

• Side objectives in War Zones are available every time you launch into the War Zone. If there’s a chest in the War Zone, you can collect that chest every time you play in that War Zone.

• Replay Drop Zones and War Zones. These are side missions and while the main objectives generally remain the same, random chests and resources vary between different runs. We’ve even found that some puzzles in these missions are different on different playthroughs.

• If you want to explore the Chimera helicarrier after looking at the War Table, simply backing out by pressing Circle or B won’t do. You’ll need to select the helicarrier zone on the War Table and then select the Chimera mission. This will bring you out of the War Table, free to explore the ship once more.

• If you’re unclear of what to do in a mission once at an objective, look for something red and glowing to attack, or something yellow to punch and destroy. If you’re stuck on something enemy-related, look for red. If you’re stuck on something puzzle-related, like opening a locked door, look for yellow.