Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 is a lot of fun, but there is a ton of grinding involved. The game can get very difficult and you’ll find yourself repeatedly hitting a wall as your characters just aren’t strong enough to take on that next boss or clear that Infinity Trial.
To minimize the amount of grind and keep your characters in top shape with the least amount of effort, there are a number of tips and general rules you can follow. Keep in mind it’s a new game, so a lot of things are bound to change and you’ll have to make adjustments to your approach with each update.
10 Stick To Your Level
Many games incentivize the player to tackle challenges just above their character’s level by rewarding them with increased experience gain and other goodies. Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 is a different beast because of its steep difficulty plateaus. It turns out that it’s more efficient to stick with the challenges that are the same level as your heroes.
This allows you to grind through the levels faster and get the rewards sooner. So, if you want to maximize your time efficiency for the greatest gains, you’ll want to take on challenges appropriate to your level.
9 Infinity Rifts
These will be your bread and butter for grinding out everything from experience to ISO-8s. Some can be challenging and will require the right team to get through the level, but you won't find a faster way to level up heroes and scoop up goodies.
Wave rifts give you a ton of experience so don’t hesitate to run them, but perhaps the most efficient trial is the ‘Rush’ trial in the Psi Rift. You can burn through it rather quickly and get a good haul of experience, ISO-8s, and XP cubes. If you’re not sure what you should be doing, do this level.
8 Help Other Players
If you find yourself getting bored of running the same levels over and over again, one way to shake things up is to hop onto multiplayer and run some missions through with another player. This is a great way to do things you’ve already completed and can give you someone to talk to as you both grind out experience. You want to earn that XP fast, and that can get super repetitive.
It’s not the most efficient means of gaining experience, but if you find the grind getting a little too unbearable, it’s a great way to have a little fun while you rack up those points.
7 Focus On A Few Heroes
Practically any hero can be useful in the right setup, but you’ll quickly notice some heroes are better suited for your needs and your playstyle then others, so you’ll frequently be using them. Rather than divert your time trying to train up lots of heroes, focus on a few and maximize your efforts.
You’ll still need some variety, though, so make sure you aren’t only focusing on your four-character team. Generally speaking, focusing on grinding six to eight or even ten heroes is good. Just don’t expect to get very far very fast trying to level 20 heroes simultaneously.
6 Create A Farmer
While you should be building at least two teams to tackle most problems, you’ll want to hyper focus on one hero that you want to level up quickly. This hero could be a spongy tank or a brutal damage dealer that helps you breeze through missions, but should be adaptable enough to be useful in almost any situation.
This hero should be in every team and go on every mission. They’ll level up quickly and be a great farmer for carrying three weaker heroes when you need to. Getting your hero to level 100 will take quite a while, so get comfortable with your chosen hero.
5 Strategy Trumps Brute Force
Don’t misunderstand this entry: you definitely want strong heroes that are spongy or devastating damage dealers. But you want to use them wisely and not just throw them into a quest, button mash, and hope you win.
Learn the boss’s attack patterns, learn to use synergy attacks, learn what the throwables do and when is the best time to use them. You’ll get through missions much faster if you go in knowing what to do, as opposed to hoping your heroes live long enough to get enough attacks out. You’ll find tougher missions much more manageable too.
4 Using XP Cubes
XP Cubes are a great way to quickly level up your heroes and minimize the time spent grinding out levels. Generally speaking, there are three schools of thought when it comes to using these, all depending on your priorities and strategies.
Some players like to use them on heroes they aren’t ever going to be using, to get those ability enhancement points. Others like to wait until they hit a plateau and use the Cubes all at once to beef up their heroes and progress. Still others like to use them the second they get them for the immediate level gains. Any strategy is viable; it depends on you and your goals.
3 Spread Out Your ISO-8s
ISO-8s are a great way to edge out more effectiveness with your heroes and you should spend some time farming them, for deconstruction and upgrading purposes. In general, it’s best to ensure every hero has a solid set of ISO-8s rather than pile them on to one or two heroes.
It turns out that you get more of a benefit if your entire team has mediocre ISO-8s, rather than if you have a few powerful ISO-8s you’ve combined. Spread them out and make sure to routinely upgrade them across them board.
2 Blitz With Your Eyes Open
When repeatedly grinding out certain missions, it’s easy to get tunnel vision and stop paying attention to your surroundings. This can result in you missing out on valuable crates that would actually speed up the process.
Don’t be afraid to venture around once in a while to see what you can find. Getting that XP cube might be more valuable than the 20 seconds or so it took to find it.
1 Keep It Fun
The most important thing to remember when power-leveling your heroes is to keep it fun and remember it’s a game. If you treat this like a chore and you spend hours upon hours grinding out levels, odds are you’re going to burn out and quit playing.
Make sure to take a break every now and then to play a fun boss level, hop on multiplayer with a friend, or take a moment to explore more than you would otherwise. Losing some efficiency to have fun so you enjoy it and keep playing is much better than getting burned out and quitting.