With the release of Dark Dimension IV and Doctor Doom dangled as the carrot, everyone’s all gushing and rushing to figure out what teams to use in the five grueling lanes and whether it’s suitable to invest in the required characters (fortunately, the first lane doesn’t have any trait requirements).

For the veterans that believe in using the most compatible and efficient teams irrespective and regardless of Synergies, they would want to include characters with highly valued skills, such as Mister Sinister’s cloning, and perhaps take into account the time needed to farm and accumulate the necessary mini-unique orange gears to achieve Gear Tier 14.

This guide isn’t for that.

Well-known influencers, Khasino and OhEmGee have created videos and discord servers to discuss this, and these are truly what we at Gamepleton consider to be saluted.

Of course, the first image you’ll see if that of Doctor Doom. That’s pretty much the only reason you would want to conquer DD4!

The rest of us, though, are more willing to wait for some time before we’re ready to take on this devilish challenge. We are happy to simply enjoy this game the way the designers want us to. Hey, we’re already struggling in the corporate dimension. our bosses don’t care about no dark dimension! We don’t get our work done, they’ll throw us into the corporate dark dimension!

Let’s take a look at the lane requirements and the available teams as of patch 4.5.0., not arranged in any particular order of preference.

Lane 1: No requirements

Sweetness, isn’t it? You can make use of your other four teams so that you need only worry about 16 characters.

Lane 2: Non-Legendary Global

Lots of global teams out there, with probably lots more to come in the form of Astonishing X-Men and perhaps X-Factor team completion members. But what we have now can be sufficient as well. It’s all a matter of trying to decide whether to boost this team of non-legendary global characters to Gear Tier 15, or another participating team, or a team that’s not even part of this list!

Global Teams Not Reliant on a Legendary Member

Pym Tech

This team is pretty much designed for DD4 in mind! If you check Ghost’s Passive Skill, 5 out of the 8 effects only activate in Dark Dimension. In fact, all five members of the Pym Tech team have Dark Dimension-only effects. If this isn’t right in our faces, we don’t know what is!

Ant-Man applies Evade to all members upon spawning, and this will mitigate attacks from quick enemies, like Captain Marvel or Beast. This is essentially not just to safeguard your members before they can taunt or apply Defense Up, but to also heal them through Ghost’s Passive Skill that heals upon evading an attack. It isn’t a one-time application like Elektra’s Passive Skill. Ghost continues to apply Evade on a Pym Tech member’s turn, so they continue to heal as much as possible through the duration of the battle. Plus, this is on top of Wasp’s own individual Evasion rate too!

What’s also interesting is Stature’s synergy with her father, where she’ll taunt for the team when at full health. When dropping below 50% HP, she’ll transfer the taunt buff to Ant-Man in a bid to ensure Stature doesn’t fall from taking all the hits. Instead, dad takes over for daughter! What a loving parent, so self-sacrificing!

This is, indeed, a wonderful team for Dark Dimension’s non-legendary global characters requirement!

With that said, is the Pym Tech team the best? In truth, we might dare say, “not really.” If you had to choose one and only one team for the entire run of Dark Dimension, such as DD1 or DD2 that have no trait requirements, then the Pym Tech team might be the number 2 choice. Number 1 might be the City team we most recommend. For most of us, we probably already know who they are!

With news of Jubilee hitting the web, you’ll definitely want to boost your Pym Tech team up to at least 5 stars in order to unlock the latest Astonishing X-Men! From what we know of Jubilee’s Passive Skill, she’s going to be a game-changer in raids! Perhaps Dark Dimension too! Who knows, we might even start recommending the Astonishing X-Men team for the non-legendary global lane, while giving Jubilee a position in the legendary-only lane!

A.I.M.

It’s been a long time since A.I.M. had any kind of spotlight in the game, so we’re now bringing back this sexy team! This is especially so after their remake and inclusion of Graviton. Scientist Supreme, still the key figure of the team, provides the necessary healing you need to sustain your team in DD4. At the same time, her ability to revive, albeit at low, random odds, will provide the saving grace you need — DD4 no longer allows you to using Raid Heal Packs outside of battle!

Hope you noticed this, but we should highlight it again, just in case some of you skim past A.I.M.:

DD4 no longer allows you to heal outside of battle!

So, if you ever end a battle with a K.O.’d character, you’re in hot soup! Either you re-attempt that battle with the remaining surviving characters, or wait until the next day.

This is why we feel Scientist Supreme and her A.I.M. team deserve a highlight in this article, and with the ease in collecting the character shards for all the members of A.I.M., this team is more than capable to take on DD4’s non-legendary global lane!

Do note that as there are 7 different A.I.M. characters, of which 5 are minions, you’d be hard-pressed to decide which 3 to invest in. We’ll skip the flexible teams because it’ll mean you have to prepare and build up all 7 characters, which will probably make you pull your hair out.

For now, the consensus seems to definitely include A.I.M. Security and A.I.M. Monstrosity. Security is mainly due to her synergy with Scientist Supreme, which allows Security to retaliate any and all attacks by throwing all debuffs on your team onto the attacker. Monstrosity is mainly due to his incredible attack power! He buffs himself with Offense Up and applies Defense Down on his targets. Scientist Supreme typically goes first, so there’s a high chance your target is already debuffed with Defense Down, giving Monstrosity more than double the damage output!

A.I.M. Security and A.I.M. Monstrosity have no competition there! So between A.I.M. Assaulter, A.I.M. Infector and A.I.M. Researcher, who should you choose?

Again, there seems to be more discussion that Assaulter is the better member to dish out the damage and apply generous doses of Bleed. Plus, he’s really fast. Infector typically spreads debuffs all around, even with his counterattacks, which he can apply to his adjacent allies, so he’s like an assistant of Scientist Supreme. Researcher is also another assistant, applying buffs directly to allies and removing Bleed. She provides the team with more healing.

Which to choose depends on your play style, and it took us several weeks of trail and error to decide on A.I.M. Infector instead. We feel he compliments the playstyle of the other members better.

Whether Scientist Supreme can apply the mass of debuffs on enemies depends on her focus stat, enemies’ resistance stats, whether she is Blinded, and whether the enemies dodge. Infector can target those who evaded her debuffs, or if a specific target didn’t get a debuff you wanted.

A.I.M. Security applies Slow on herself, and even without that debuff, she’s already very slow. To give her more functionality in the team, so that she doesn’t become a mere meat shield, placing Infector next to her can apply Counter, allowing her to mete out some punishment to attackers, while applying Slow on them too. You can never have enough attacks.

A.I.M. Monstrosity works best against anyone with Defense Down — yes, we know, you just went “Duh!” in your head. But it’s not every time that you can successfully apply it onto your target of your choice. That’s where Infector comes in with his “random stuffs” punch! It’s still random, but it’s targeted and focused on your enemy of choice this time!

Graviton does more damage the more debuffs there are on his target. Need we explain more?

Marauders

First and foremost, Emma Frost is not considered a Marauder. She may have synergies with the Marauders, but she’s still an independent villain mutant (whom we hope will have synergies with Cyclops, but that’ll make things pretty complicated with Phoenix and the programmer at Scopely).

Okay, back to the main discussion — Yes, the Marauders can be an incredible team to use in DD4! They may have some additional effects when fighting in War, but Mister Sinister’s healing ability adds the sustainability you desperately need. He heals not just via his Special Skill, but also via his Passive Skill that activates on every Marauder or Emma Frost ally’s turn — it is healing throughout half the battle!

Mystique’s copying effect will grant her plenty of buffs from the enemies, plus, Stryfe will transfer more to Mister Sinister. Get in Mister Sinister’s turn, and your entire party will be well-protected from a furious blast of Captain Marvel, and even a sneaky snipe from Mercenary Snipers. If you can spread Deathproof around the room, you know you’re pretty much secured in this battle! (Unless there’s enemies with buff wipes, but let’s not go there!)

Hydra

We haven’t seem anyone mentioning the Hydra team being used for Dark Dimension at all. Well then, Gamepleton shall be the first!

This team, comprising of Red Skull, Hydra Armored Guard, Hydra Rifle Trooper, Hydra Sniper and Hydra Scientist, has two key factors that make them suitable for long, drawn-out battles. In fact, they might work better if the battle lasts longer! The first is Hydra Scientist, and the second is Red Skull himself.

Hydra Scientist’s new passive, post-rework, now heals as many as two of the most injured allies, and applies two random buffs on them. Continue giving him more turns, and he’ll eventually buff the entire team! Plus, he’s the only healer than applies Deathproof, and we all know how valuable that buff is! Successfully apply it on Red Skull, and your team is pretty solid! Well, if Hydra Scientist has to apply it on Red Skull, that would mean his HP is the lowest, and that’s actually a concern, so… Good luck on what the situation may be!

As you might expect, Red Skull’s main defining feature is his Passive Skill that gives him 8 charges and allows his minions to revive up to 8 times (unless facing Baron Zeemo or Black Bolt). This would mean as long as Red Skull has the 8 charges, you’ll never go into a battle with less than 5 characters, unlike Minn-Erva and Doctor Strange who must revive your lost characters before the battle ends, or your attempt for the day ends.

Think of it like this: You technically have 13 characters to bring into DD4! The initial 5 characters, plus another 8 revives that Red Skull grants! Well, it’s true that it’ll be almost impossible to keep Red Skull’s HP full at the end of a battle, not particularly in DD4, so 13 would be your limit, while S.H.I.E.L.D. Medic can continue to revive as long as she’s alive to do the deed, thereby theoretically giving you infinite characters. Really, though, can she survive long enough to accumulate enough energy to get in her Special Skill and be lucky enough to revive her other 4 team members?

Red Skull doesn’t have that problem! Your tank died protecting the team? Whatever, you’ve still got 8 more of him.

Also, Red Skull’s Special skill that summons more minions just had to include Hydra Scientist, and this summoned version just had to possess the same Passive skill as the non-summoned one. Get lucky, summon as many as 3 Hydra Scientists, and you’ll have so many buffs that Mystique will start drooling!

Hail Hydra? Hell yeah!

Which Team Should I Use?

If you want greater battle efficiency in DD4, realistically, the Pym Tech is much better.

You probably won’t need to develop them as much as you’ll have to for the other teams we mentioned above simply because they have buffs specifically for survival and advantages in Dark Dimension. For those of you who are willing to spend the effort and resources to build up an almost brand new team with Ant Man and Wasp, then, yes, focus your Pym Tech team for Dark Dimension 4!

Lane 3: Non-Legendary Cosmic

Do we really need to go through this? Honestly, we think we do! Well, at least, for the reasons why the other cosmic teams may not be all that suitable. But, for the main cosmic team that’s actually suitable to take on the toughest dungeon is:

Asgardians

The one team that’s been deemed as broken by those who’ve been traveling out to sea, getting themselves wet from the waves and having deposits on themselves when they dry.

Honestly, we at Gamepleton don’t think they are the least bit broken, nor do we even condone the term “free buffs” when it comes to this team. A buff would be free only if there are no conditions required of the character to activate that buff. In the case of Thor executing AOE attacks ever so consistently, do note that there are conditions to be met. Should there be no other Asgardians, his Passive Skill is pretty much a white elephant, taunting you (the reader, in real life, not in the game) with the potential to unleash devastating damage upon the enemy, but doing nothing simply because not a single Asgardian ally is attacked. That buff isn’t free – not in the least!

Instead, we feel that the Asgardian team is the most balanced out of most of the other teams in the game. Our Marvel Strike Force Raid Guide gives details on why they’re so effective in raids, so do take a look if you’re not familiar with them yet. After you familiarize with them, you, too, might fall in love with them!

There’s definitely a few other cosmic teams, but they aren’t all that suitable if you’re looking for a pre-designed team to save your brain cells from all that trial and error hardcore players go through.

Some cosmic teams have legendary characters in them, like the Black Order’s Ebony Maw and Guardians of the Galaxy’s Star-Lord. If they’re not tagged as legendary, we might actually recommend taking along the Black Order and even the Inhumans in the cosmic lane, due to their great levels of synergy between with Thanos and each other, or Black Bolt’s effectiveness in wiping off critically-injured enemies and preventing them from reviving. And, oh mother of pearl, do enemies revive in Dark Dimension! Even characters not known to revive can be seen reviving every so often!

Others are pretty outdated, like the Kree team that, despite having had a rework before, weren’t designed with raids in mind, especially not Fear the Darkness and Enter the Darkness. If you recognize those two dungeon names, you’ll know the ineffectiveness of the Kree team and their oddball powerhouse, Captain Marvel (she’s not ineffective in combat, it’s just that she doesn’t have that much of a synergy, even with Kree and military characters).

Well, if you’re the type that really wants to take things slow, we’d like to highlight that Longshot and Shatterstar are considered cosmic characters too. With their many synergies with each other, we’re pretty excited to know who the remaining 3 X-Factor members will be, and what incredible battle prowess a complete X-Factor team will have! Also, if you noticed in Doom War chapter (apologies for bringing up this campaign again, but it’s really related!) the requirement is “Inhuman Hero”. That means Inhuman villains are not allowed! The Inhumans might not be as well-known in pop culture, but there is a group of Inhumans that aren’t all that savory. But that, too, is another discussion for our Marvel Strike Force: Guessation!?

Such a pity about the Ravagers, though… Yondu is pretty good, but now, their Greek raid lane got replaced, so there’s really not much hope for them for the near future.

Lane 4: Non-Legendary City

Symbiotes

You knew this was coming! Don’t deny it!

The full 5-member team of Symbiotes comprising of Spider-Man (Symbiote), Venom, Carnage, Scream and Anti-Venom will let you breeze through DD4 like it was just a tutorial of the game!

Uhh… We were told not to write it like that, because that would be too absolutely overestimating ourselves. Oh well…

Seriously though, ever since the inclusion of SSM into the game, we started having characters designed for Dark Dimension, and with the effectiveness of the initial 3 symbiotes, SSM, Venom and Carnage, it makes absolute sense to fill out the Symbiote team and watch how they shall dominate the raid mode!

Yes, we have a break down of the Spider-Verse team in Marvel Strike Force Raid Guide, but it’s the old version that includes the original Spider-Man and Miles Morales. We might as well break down a Symbiotes team this time!

Spider-Man (Symbiote)’s Passive Skill heals your team for every one debuff applied onto the enemy, and considering that all the symbiotes can apply debuffs, you’re healing on almost every turn! Plus, his Ultimate skill is unavoidable and unblockable. This surpasses Dodge and deals damage uninhibited by Block, perfect for bringing as many enemies as possible into critical health (and disposing of all the terribly annoying summons from Nick Fury, Yondu, Nobu, etc. and etc. So many etc.!

Carnage grants every symbiote member a speed bar increase, which will speed up even further with Scream’s Passive skill if you can KO one – just one – enemy, even a minion. How many sweet turns are you going to get just from one massive AOE attack??

And after all these negative effects flying around the dimension, in comes Anti-Venom who gains positive effects based on the negative effects you force onto your target. Who says you don’t get back anything when you give something? :3

The most valuable thing that Anti-Venom has, other than proper, actual, active healing? Revival! He can revive any symbiote that’s been knocked out of the battle! Granted, you’ll still need to revive within that same battle, else that character is permanently unusable until the next 24-hour cycle comes around. So, do whatever you can to keep Anti-Venom alive (that’s right, use up your Special and Ultimate Skills even if there’s no real necessity!) and Anti-Venom will keep your team alive!

Lane 5: Legendary

This is the lane that hurts, particularly since there is no pre-designed legendary team! As of when we first started drafting this guide, Tadano Mac JAPAN and a few others had reached just the Non-Legendary Cosmic lane, and the world is anxiously waiting to see who will enter the Legendary lane with which characters from the legendary soup.

Today, as of this article’s live publish, we have our champions and their characters!

There’s definitely a mixture of characters amongst them, but a few have appeared among several players:

Doctor Octopus

Nick Fury

Ebony Maw

Invisible Woman

Phoenix

These two characters appeared once, mixed into the above list of characters:

Shuri

Black Bolt

Several players even completed DD4 with just four of the characters we’ve stated above. Sounds amazing! So, which ones should we prepare for use?

It looks like we’ll need to take a leaf from Khasino, OhEmGee and other players and friends to decide which of the legendary characters to bring into DD4. First, let’s look into these 10 characters and how their skills can be effective in DD4 and combat:

Star-Lord

The man with the energy! Maybe Yondu overdosed him with Red Bull or Monster when he was young, that’s probably why he’s granting so much energy to his team mates. It’s also one of the reasons Star-Lord is so tempting to use, especially in a team of Legendaries! Imagine all the Ultimate skills being fired off at every one or two turns, and all from characters such as Black Bolt, Phoenix, and Invisible Woman!

Yet, you don’t see Star-Lord being used at all for the list of top damagers in the DD4 nodes. I wonder why’s that?

This character will be great for boosting your other characters with energy to fire off as many AOE and burst attacks or healing skills as possible, which will be essential when you’re facing hordes of overly-tanky characters aiming to drop tons of pain and status ailments on you! Yes! He shall be your energy generator! (Keep him safe from burst attacks, aoe attacks, rain, sun and water spillages.)

Plus, Star-Lord’s Ultimate skill grants an assist from an ally, letting you dish out that extra amount of damage against a critical enemy, like, Mordo and Minn-Erva. And when you can’t see to get rid of that one impending doom that’s threatening to end your DD4 campaign for the day, Star-Lord’s Special skill shall stun one of them and (hopefully) blind the rest!

The day is saved by your hero of the galaxy!

…until he needs to be saved by your other members… He’s very squishy, being a controller and one of the earlier legendary characters released in the game. Pray hard he doesn’t take damage while suffering from Defense Down, or you’ll likely be working with a 4-man team for the rest of the day! Plus, his basic attack, the one you’ll have a high chance of using, chains to additional targets. Just pray again the additional targets don’t have the Counter buff…

Magneto

Magneto is special in his ability to blind every enemy on the field (sans those with higher resistance) and group them all together. But considering the hordes of enemies in Dark Dimension, his skill is pretty much moot.

You typically see the entire rows on the enemy side filled to the brim with non-summoned units, so there’s no space to group them in the first place. If the enemy count does drop to 6 or 5 or fewer, you wouldn’t be needing to group them anymore because they’re just stragglers. Besides, Magneto’s Ultimate skill requires a large amount of energy just to fire off, so it’s hard-pressed to convince anyone how incredible that skill is in Dark Dimension.

His Special skill is particularly nice in preventing an enemy Protector from taunting, or a critical enemy from getting the Deathproof buff, but considering how many tanks there can be on the enemy side, or the number of Groots or Hydra Scientists or etc., you’ll probably need either a mass-application of Disrupt, or have all 5 of your members be able to apply it.

Rather pointless, don’t you think?

Iron Man

Another founding member of Marvel Strike Force, Iron Man is a high-output character that will send enemies flying all over the place! Sounds cool, I know. He’s absolutely damage-focused, and that’s actually quite a good complement for the rest of the Legendary team that’s has a higher number of Support and Controller characters.

The main worry you might have with him, however, is that he’s pure damage-dealer and has few benefits to give him the edge in battle. Well, strictly speaking, almost all non-Support type characters can deal damage sufficient to take out even the hardiest enemies. Blind Iron Man, and his basic and Ultimate skills are useless. His Special skill is still valuable to get rid of all non-summoned units or reach a critically-weakened enemy protected by a taunting tank, so Iron Man still has a place within the Legendary team.

Providing the pain is what Iron Man will be important for, and if you can give him the support he needs – for healing, buffs, debuff clears – then, yes, he can become a very effective member of the team!

Jubilee

The latest legendary character to grace the Strike Force roster! Those of us who grew up watching the X-Men cartoon series are sure to be hit with a blast from the past as we chuckle with glee at the introduction of a well-loved character! Plus, her skills really are a blast with an Astonishing X-Men team!

This character is quite like a mix between Red Skull, SSM and Storm. Her Special skill can call on all Astonishing X-Men allies to assist her attack, which is more focused than Cyclop’s Special skill that spreads out the damage. Her Ultimate skill does very high damage, stuns the primary target, and slows every other enemy. Her Passive skill grants assist to a random Astonishing X-Men or Wolverine ally.

Having Jubilee in an Astonishing X-Men party is really a party!

But how about her role in DD4’s Legendary team?

For one, her basic attack has as much as a 70% chance to apply Blind, which is going to be incredibly helpful when you want to avoid getting the Heal Block debuff! Her Ultimate skill still does heavy damage regardless whether her allies are astonishing or not. And while her Special skill is optimized with a full team of Astonishing X-Men (and some clones, if you can!), she will still gain assists from 2 Legendary allies, albeit at half their usual damage.

Jubilee is a heavy damage-dealer and happy blinder, definitely useful to your Legendary team!

Shuri

For those of you who want a healer in your Legendary team, who better to provide the healing than the wildly-popular Shuri?

Shuri’s Ultimate skill is only 4 energy, which is much lesser compared to other characters’ Ultimate skills. Plus, if you readily use her Special skill – and we believe you will readily use it to gain her Defense Up buff! – she can deploy her healing every 3 turns instead! This is already much faster than, say, the S.H.I.E.L.D. Medic, so you’ll find yourself healing a little more often.

The other positive thing about her healing is that the amount is prioritized for members who need it more, allowing you a more balanced health management. In fact, it’s probably better than Scarlet Witch’s healing skill that can drop your entire team into the yellow zone if just one member is in the red. Shuri’s healing won’t affect the rest of the team’s HP. Just make sure your team doesn’t have Heal Block, as Shuri is the only Wakandan Legendary.

The third positive thing about her healing is that the highest potential amount she heals, assuming all 5 heals are on one character, is 75% of her maximum health! 75%! Even Ms. Marvel’s healing is only 50%, and that’s only for herself! Shuri’s HP stat isn’t anything to snort at. At maximum level, Shuri’s base HP is a whooping 220,000+! Juggernaut’s HP is about 310,000, which is expectedly higher than a Support character, but it’s a pity not even 0.5% of it goes into healing — not unless you sacrifice the ISO-8 Protector role for him and switch him to a Healer role. We actually did that for Hulk, but that’s a different discussion for the Wave 1 – Avengers team.

Note, though, that Shuri’s skills aren’t at all optimized for a non-Wakandan team, in fact, even her Ultimate skill’s potency is halved when applied on non-Wakandans. Her Special skill applies Defense Up, which is useful for anyone at all, but provides energy only to Wakandans. Her Passive skill allows her to heal the most injured ally on her turn, but we wouldn’t rely on that to do the vital healing you need, not since her speed isn’t all that great. The only other great thing about her Passive skill is the application of Deflect, which can indeed be useful when your characters are in danger. Anything to reduce that damage!

Black Bolt

The King of Attilan should really be the king of Marvel Strike Force, I tell ya!

Well, that’s not to say that his power exceeds Ultron and Doctor Doom, but we truly like how he’s a heavy-hitting powerhouse, and would greatly provide the damage you need for the Legendary team! What’s truly special about Black Bolt is his ability to prevent enemies from reviving. And, oh, do enemies revive so much in Dark Dimension! (we can’t help but repeat that again)

Black Bolt’s basic skill alone clears an enemy’s buff, so he’ll help greatly in getting rid of enemy taunts. Plus, his Special skill will ensure no dodgy ninja or Spider-Man is going to escape you! And when you’re sure that there’s no or little repercussion from enemy Counters, just blast away with his incredible voice!

Doctor Octopus

Perhaps the most interesting factor regarding the good doctor is his ability to summon a member of the Sinister Six, thereby (almost) effectively increasing your team count to 6. Plus, the first member he summons will be Shocker whose AOE attack can be rather effective in ridding enemy summons or critically weak targets. No worries about losing Shocker in battle, because he can always be re-summoned, just like how you would make another clone with Mister Sinister’s Ultimate skill. We just wish Doctor Octopus can summon the entire Sinister Six team instead of just one…

This character’s contribution to the Legendary team also include his Ultimate skill that flips 2 enemy buffs on all enemies, and that can be really sweet if you’re facing Nick Fury or even Captain America! Plus, what’s interesting is that Doctor Octopus’ Passive skill gives the team extremely high resistance against the Offense Down debuff.

No worries about losing damage output!

Nick Fury

The man of hour, whom even Captain America respects (seen in the comics)! He summons underlings to boost your team, he spread buffs to everyone, and he applies Assist on hero allies! What’s not to love about him?!

Well, if his Special skill also helps allies other than S.H.I.E.L.D. Minions, we might love him a lot more, and hate those who use him for making his team overpowered.

The minions he summons are the SHIELD Operator and SHIELD Security. The Securities will apply Slow with their basic attacks, and that’s pretty much the only use they have, since they don’t taunt when allies drop below 50% HP. The Operators are more useful, clearing enemy buffs and transfer them to Nick Fury (even taunts), plus, their Special skill can be a life-saver when your character is in danger of dying! That Stealth buff will properly shift enemy eyes away, but just pray that the enemies don’t use AOE attacks!

Successfully use Nick Fury’s Special skill while his minions are still alive, and you’ll create a solid team consisting of as many as 8 members, all buffed with Offense Up (from summoning SHIELD Security), Speed Up (from summoning SHIELD Operator), Defense Up (the Ultimate skill applies it to Nick Fury first, before the spread), and any other buffs Nick Fury gets from his allies (hint: the next character below) or from SHIELD Operators. This is perhaps one of the most incredible skills in the game, making the director of SHIELD consistently high-valued!

Ebony Maw

Before we launch into the effects Ebony Maw has in battle, we wish to highlight that Ebony Maw, the servant of Thanos, who enters battle and prostrates, and is seen as just the sidekick in Avengers: Infinity Wars and Avengers: Endgame, he is tagged as a Legendary character.

Thanos, however, is not.

In fact, Thanos is not even considered a member of the Black Order, which is actually fine, because he would be above them as their commander. But, still, Thanos has pretty much no title or name or tag that promotes him as someone special, other than being an Eternal. And the “Eternal” tag is currently as useful as the now-removed “Martial Artist” tag.

Okay, rant over!

Ebony Maw is one of those characters that seem to control the way the battlefield flows — in which you say snort at us and say, “Duh! He’s a Controller!” His Special skill drops the enemies’ attack while boosting your own defenses. In Dark Dimension, we noticed that while the enemies have extremely thick HP bars, their attack values are actually subpar in comparison to your own characters.

This is very much like a typical RPG game where the bosses have very long HP bars that seem to extend beyond the length of your TV screen, but when he deals damage, it’s probably about the same strength as your tank (not as much as your warrior or DPS, but much more than your healer). So imagine how much lower the damage can be in Dark Dimension. Now, imagine them even weaker. That’s the Ebony Maw effect for you!

What’s also interesting about him is his Passive skill when killing off enemy Hero Controllers, like Karnak and Jessica Jones. He’ll apply Immunity to all members, which will be invaluable when facing hordes of enemy Heal Blockers, and add a barrier to everyone. We may have stated above that damage received in Dark Dimension is lower in proportion to your own characters, but when you have as many as 10 enemies plowing you with attack after attack, this disposable barrier will truly save your skin when it becomes too much for even Shuri to heal. Plus, Shuri heals only 4 times.

Ebony Maw also heals with his Ultimate attack, bypassing the heal block debuff, but it’s only at a maximum of 25% of Ebony Maw’s HP. It is a lot, true. But so is the amount of energy required before you can pull of another attempt to heal. So, do plan and use this character’s Ultimate attack sparingly. If you’re needing it frequently and desperately, then perhaps you might want to consider buffing up your team further.

Invisible Woman

Wow, this character is really hot! It feels like no top-tier team can be without Invisible Woman, unless you have a full Black Order team. In fact, there was even someone who invested so much into this character that she reached 90,000+ power, while the rest of the Fantastic Four remained at a mere level 1!

Invisible Woman applies barrier – a lot of barrier! Her Ultimate skill can apply as much as 40% of her HP’s worth of barrier, which, considering she is a Protector with a huge amount of HP, is really a lot of protection! When things get tricky or you know some impending danger approaches, her Special skill will keep your guys protected with Stealth, Defense Up, and leaves only your most healthy character as bait to draw enemy fire while the rest of your team patch themselves up.

Don’t worry about your bait, because Invisible Woman will grant that character plenty of Deflect buffs and a 2-turn Immunity, which can make a non-tank tanky! Bravo!

Phoenix

Oh ho ho ho! Remember us rating Phoenix as a 6-star character in our Gamepleton Tier List for Marvel Strike Force? She surfaces again for the most difficult challenge in the game, so our rating of 6 stars is truly well-deserved for this omega-level mutant!

To clarify, the normal version of Phoenix isn’t all that incredible, other than her Special skill will takes away all her allies’ debuffs and unto herself. It very likely ends up killing her, thereby summoning the version you actually want:

Dark Phoenix

She is indeed incredible! Her basic attack clears 2 enemy buffs, and it’s AOE, so as many as 6 enemies can get their Defense Up and Offense Up taken away in just a flash! Her Special skill is an all-attack from which she takes 20% of it as HP recovered, while applying Regeneration on all her allies. Needing healing? That’s your ticket to heal-and-kill the competition!

The greatest game-changer of all is her Ultimate attack. It deals heavy damage to all targets; it removes all buffs on the enemy; it is unavoidable, so enemies with Evade cannot evade it, while having that buff removed too!

That’s why we find it quite the pity that once Dark Phoenix is summoned, your party shall be one short for the rest of the day. And Phoenix is quite a squishy character, so don’t expect her to last very long.

Well, think of it this way: when you lose a character, regardless whether it’s Phoenix or someone else, you’ll end up with a 4-man team anyway. Phoenix sends you a parting gift when she goes, so that you can have an almost guaranteed victory in the face of a team at less-than-optimal power.

Keep Phoenix alive as long as you can! And when you can’t, know that she’ll still help you try to clear at least one node in DD4 this day!

Which Characters Should be in the Legendary Team?

In light of all the information we have on these characters, the recommend team comprises of:

Ebony Maw, Invisible Woman, Doctor Octopus, Nick Fury, Phoenix

Note: We don’t have Doc Ock yet, so Shocker shall visually represent him temporarily. You’ll see — we’ll get him!

First to act will be the good doctor, with a max speed of 124. He’ll be able to summon Shocker to quickly add to your roster and slowly let his turn come in. By doing so, he’ll apply 3 turns of Regeneration to everyone, and by the time your characters get your turns in, they’re ready to heal. He’ll also generate 3 Charges for himself, and on his next turn, he’ll be applying Deflect and Speed Up to himself and his adjacent allies.

This is where Nick Fury comes in. Summon his minions, and there’s a high chance they will be standing near Doctor Octopus. If they survive till Doc Ock’s next turn, they’ll be granted Deflect and Speed Up, allowing them greater survivability. If Nick Fury himself is standing next to Doc Ock, that’s even better! When the director uses his Special skill, he can spread Deflect, Speed Up and Offense Up to everyone (that’s not taking consideration the buffs he’ll get by summoning the minions and the SHIELD Operator’s buff transfers)!

If you’re worried the minions and Shocker won’t be able to take many hits, then this is where Invisible Woman comes in to apply the necessary barrier you need to protect your underlings and Phoenix. Yes, Phoenix too.

If you’re seeing a pattern now, you’ll notice that this team is very heavy on support skills, and you’ll depend a lot on temporary, but disposable, characters to provide the offense.

Keep your SHIELD Operators and Securities, Shocker and Phoenix safe and healed, and you’ll have peace of mind when they launch attacks and receive counterattacks. Phoenix won’t have that much worries about being counterattacked, since she can remove enemy buffs, and she’ll be one of your key taunt-dispellers.

Don’t underestimate Invisible Woman, though! She’s a tank and has the 2nd lowest attack stat among the team (lowest is Doc Ock), but her Passive skill lets her counterattack every time her barrier takes damage or is targeted. This can happen often, so she’ll be like the SHIELD Trooper that annoyingly fires salvo upon salvo on you.

Thus, the character arrangement, as seen above, would benefit you as so:

Doctor Octopus has the highest HP and armor among the team (surprised, considering he is a Support type?) so there’s a higher chance he’ll be the one standing longest and will be Invisible Woman’s bait.

When he takes AOE damage, Invisible Woman will be beside him taking collateral damage and result in counterattacking often. Plus, she’s positioned within the middle so that she’s more likely to take damage both her left and right sides.

Nick Fury doesn’t have the highest HP, while his armor is second to Doc Ock, but his Special skill heals him, even if it doesn’t heal his allies. In this sense, Nick Fury has better survivability.

Phoenix is positioned to the far corner because she’s very vulnerable. Ebony Maw has very high HP and is not as vulnerable as Phoenix, but still, better to keep him safe.

What Legendary Team does Gamepleton Recommend?

Remember what we commented above, about the team being very heavy on support? Think back to the comments made by Khasino and OhEmGee — what they were trying to do was to create and build up a DD4 team as quickly as possible, with the least effort and expenses as possible.

If you review the 5 characters again, they are:
Doctor Octopus, Nick Fury, Ebony Maw, Invisible Woman, Phoenix

Note: This screenshot is the same as the one above, no need to check and compare!

Doc Ock is a tech, Nick Fury is skill-based, Ebony Maw is a cosmic being, Invisible Woman is considered Bio, and Phoenix is a pure-bred mutant. All 5 of these characters require different T15 gears, so there’s no need to get extra, say, Superior Mythic Geodes. If you’ve already started gathering T15 gears, you’ll know how difficult it is to get your hands on even one, much more so the 12, 24 or multiples of 24 Superior gears required!

That’s why this team is designed for speed and efficiency to clear DD4 quickly, and for the competitive ones, aim to be the first. Well, there’s no further need to be that competitive anymore! As we stated at the beginning of this guide, it is meant for those of us who are willing to spend a little extra time to build up a good team and clear DD4 without developing white hairs on our heads!

Thus, this begs the question again:

What Legendary Team does Gamepleton Recommend?

#1 Power Team A

Shuri, Phoenix, Iron Man, Star-Lord, Black Bolt

Shuri is your main healer and provides the sustainability you need in a dungeon. Her healing is extremely high, more so than Ebony Maw, and much more frequent since she gets an energy boost from her Special skill. She also provides the Defense Up all your characters need — and all your squishy characters will definitely be in need of them! — for 2 thankful turns. She may not have Invisible Woman’s Barrier buff, but this team shall focus more on delivering damage, and Shuri can efficiently take care of your defensive needs!

Star-Lord is placed in the middle of Black Bolt and Iron Man so that he can provide the energy boosts to give both characters more chances to execute their Special and Ultimate skills.

We already know how powerful Iron Man can be, particularly with his Ultimate skill, so letting him fire off his Unibeam will be great to take out dangerous enemies like Mordo and Venom as quickly as possible. Couple him with the Raider ISO-8 role, and he’ll have as much as a 50% chance to crit! Imagine that!

However, Iron Man is purely a damage dealer, which is why we place in him the middle, instead of Black Bolt. The king of Attilan also dishes out a lot of damage like Iron Man, but one key feature you would want is his ability to prevent enemies from reviving. As we said above, enemies in Dark Dimension revive a lot! Plus, whenever a character is brought down to critical health, or survives an attack with Deathproof, Black Bolt is there to do clean up! Remember, as long as an enemy is not dead, he can still launch skills and be healed, even to full!

Phoenix is actually a squishy character, and we would want to place her at a far corner of the team. However, we find Shuri to be a little more valuable, thus, positioning her next to Shuri instead. Should we position Phoenix opposite of Shuri, that will put Star-Lord in the middle – a dangerous position indeed!

The addition of Phoenix is not to get her killed quickly to bring out Dark Phoenix, because once normal Phoenix goes, she stays gone for the rest of the day! However, bringing along Phoenix is for her high usefulness in battle, clearing enemy buffs with her normal attacks and clearing negative effects in an emergency. When you do lose her – and there is always the possibility of losing any and all your characters – you’ll be compensated with a very powerful character indeed! Wonderful for when you know it may take a few days to defeat the boss node and all your characters will likely be downed anyway!

But, if you’d like a more sturdy character that won’t likely be brought down within the first battle, consider swapping her for Jubilee. Yes, Jubilee won’t be as powerful as Dark Phoenix, but at least she lasts beyond one battle and doesn’t leave your team hanging with only four characters.

#2 Power Team B

Shuri, Black Bolt, Phoenix, Jubilee, Iron Man

Note: We don’t have Jubilee yet, so Kitty Pryde shall visually represent her. For now.

This team is very similar to Power Team A above, but the damage output is more predictable. This is also only for those willing to spend the time and effort on building up the newest Legendary character, Jubilee.

Star-Lord is replaced, so all your characters will be gaining energy at a normal rate, giving you better predictability to plan and execute your skills.

With this team, Shuri remains the all-round supporter, providing the defenses and healing you need, and Phoenix shall provide the emergency debuff ‘removal’. All the remaining members (and Dark Phoenix) focus heavily on dealing as much damage as possible.

Jubilee is an interesting addition to the DD4 team because not only is she a heavy damage-dealer, she is actually a Controller that applies Blind, Slow and Stun, three of the most important debuffs you need to force onto the enemy! If anything, you might want to consider Jubilee an alternative to Phoenix, whereby she debuffs enemies, has a heavy ST attack, and has a burst AOE attack. In fact, why make her an alternative when you can include them both!

#3 Balanced Team

Ebony Maw, Invisible Woman, Black Bolt, Iron Man, Jubilee

Note: Yup, this screenshot doesn’t have Jubilee yet either, so she’ll be represented by Kitty Pryde again.

We already know the purposes for having Black Bolt, Iron Man and Jubilee. Now, let’s discuss why Shuri is being displaced by, not one, but two, characters namely Ebony Maw and Invisible Woman.

Both of them provide as many as two turns of Defense Up, so that’s not the main point of persuasion. Ebony Maw’s Utimate skill is what replaces Shuri’s healing. While he may not heal as much as Shuri, his healing effect bypasses Heal block! It’s rather uncommon to find such a healing effect in today’s characters, so to be able to counter a major problem in dungeon run can be seen as very valuable!

Plus, when Ebony Maw applies Defense Up to the team, he applies Offense Down to the enemies, so that’s like a 3/4 damage reduction that your characters will take! How incredible is that? Very. Why?

Combine those two status effects with Invisible Woman’s barrier, and you’re basically taking zero net damage!

But that’s not the only sweet thing about this character. Her Special skill clears up to 2 debuffs, and that shall be your ticket to ensuring your team continues to heal normally and to remove other icky and disgusting debuffs you may get your foot stuck in!

Then, comes the question: what healing? The beauty of the ISO-8 classes is that everyone can be a healer, and not just Ebony Maw! But really now, we’re not suggesting to make everyone a healer just because you can’t use the Med Kit outside of battles. Equip the Healer class on Invisible Woman as well, so that her very high health stat grants you more than average healed HP, and her above average speed allows Minor Regen to be applied more often.

While it may make sense to apply the Protector class on Invisible Woman, particularly when in her F4 team, acting as the tank, she doesn’t taunt. She can only apply barrier and Stealth, and you’ll need to hope the enemy doesn’t do enough damage to wipe out your team before she gets her turn in. So, consider the Healer class for her to increase her functionality. Besides, even if you set her with a level 5 Protector class, the amount of barrier you can have is limited anyway.

#4 Technology-Based Team

Shuri, Doctor Octopus, Iron Man, Star-Lord, Black Bolt

Note: As you already know, Doc Ock currently eludes us, so Shocker shall surprise us for now.

This is the one team that is very unlikely anyone else will try. Unless you’re one of us at Gamepleton!

As a tech-based team, obtaining all the necessary mini-unique orange gears will pretty much be pure terror due to the great amount of time and resources you’ll need to farm them all. So why would we even suggest such a team?

‘Cuz it’s fun.

No, we’re kidding.

The main factor we considered involves Iron Man’s Passive skill, which applies 15% crit chance to all Tech allies, plus another 10% more to all allies. Set all your four tech characters as Raider classes and get another 15% crit chance on top of all that! That’s a whooping 40% chance to do critical damage, and you don’t have to have the SHIELD Assault to achieve this! (Black Bolt can get a 25% chance, and that’s pretty high too!)

  • Unibeam with critical damage!
  • Elemental Blast with critical damage and assisted by a critical attack!
  • Superior Villain with critical damage and buffs flip!
  • Sonic Scream with critical damage and no-revival and extra attack on low HP targets!
  • Vibranium Gauntlets with crit— nevermind, scratch that.

Can you imagine the huge damage output from this team?? And since Shuri accompanies them, she’ll provide good defensive support to the team to ensure they keep on rocking and teching the Dark Dimension!

Oh, and Black Bolt is on this team as the 5th member because we still find revivals in Dark Dimension a great pain. Plus, he’s pretty much one of the two main DPS characters. And if you position Star-Lord in-between Iron Man and Black Bolt, those two will be executing plenty of burst attacks. Bursting with sweetness!

Ready to Face Your Fears?

There is never one team that fits all, especially not for Dark Dimension 4 and its grisly requirements! We wish you the very best of luck! Remember, our raid guide and SSM character guide are there to help you too!

If you’re one of those who braved it and completed it, tell us what characters you used and how you feel about this new dungeon!