Marvel Avengers Alliance Character Stats Detailed Guide by Deshin
So there’s something I’ve been working on in my spare time (yeah I make excel tables and databses in my spare time, I’m weird like that) and decided to share my findings with all you lovely people on the MAA forums. Here I’m writing an in-depth look at what a character’s stat numbers actually mean. Some might be confused and not know what statistic does what or why does a character’s skills on the Team menu have different numbers than in battle? The point of this thread is to help solve that dilemma and also hopefully add a new way of referencing characters’ stats across the board. NB: For my testing I’m using a Lvl.120 Agent.
Health: A simple one to start with, Health reflects your characters hit points, when this hits 0 the character is knocked out and remove from battle.
Stamina: Stamina is used to activate Abilities. You can regain Stamina by choosing “Recharge” at the cost of missing a turn with your character.
Attack: This stat indicates a character’s offensive capabilities. Basically the more you have the more your attacks will hit the enemy for.
Defense: This stat indicates a character’s defensive fortitude. Basically the more you have the less the enemy attacks will hit you for.
Accuracy: This stat indicates a character’s probability of hitting the enemy. It also contibutes to your Critical Hit % (see later).
Evasion: This stat indicates a character’s probability of evading an attack altogether. It also lowers your chances of being hit by a Critial Hit.
If an Ability inflicts damage or a debuff on the enemy it is classified as an “attack” skill. Attack skills have their own Stats:
Target: This indicates how many enemies the attack will hit. It’s either “One Enemy” or “All Enemies”.
Total Damage: This number indicates the minimum/maximum damage range your attack will land for. If the “Total Damage” says “150-200″ then your attack will land for a number not lower than 150 and not higher than 200 unless it’s a critical hit. Example: Could be a 164, then a 173, then a 198, then a 178. This is a RELATIVE stat which we will explain in detail later on.
Number of Hits: Shows the number of times the opponent will be hit by this attack. Special note should be taken as the Accuracy/Evasion check will apply to every single hit. The “Total Damage” number indicates the minimum/maximum damage is of ALL of the hits connect.
Hit/Critical: Shows your chance of hitting the opponent with an attack indicated as a percentage. If you have an 80% chance to hit then it means roughly 4 out of every 5 attacks will hit your opponent and 1 will miss. This does not mean that it’s GUARANTEED you’ll land 4 hits and miss 1 for every 5 attacks, due to the laws of odds and averages it’s a slim possibility you’ll miss all 5 hits entirely! The exact same formula is applied to Critical Hit percentage AFTER calculating your hit percentage. This means if you have 80% Hit and 20% Critical that 1/4 (80:20) of your hits will be Criticals and not 1/5 (100:20). Remember every attack of a multi-hit attack will have the Hit/Critical check applied to it! This is a RELATIVE stat which we will explain in detail later on.
Type: This stat indicates the damage type of the attack. The most important attacks types are if the attack is either “Melee” or Ranged”; some characters have resistances or immunities to certain attack types so always know what your enemy is capable of before you attack!
Critical Hits: A critical hit gives a solid +50% damage to your normal attack. Example: If you used Hawkeye’s “Sure Shot” attack and it hit the enemy for 100 damage if it was a critical hit it would inflict 150 damage instead. There are some skills which have a “Deadly Crits” which changes the modifier from +50% to +100% damage. Some skills have higher modifier values such as Mr Fantastic’s “Tumble” attack.
Buffs: Buffs are abilities which do not inflict damage on the opponent but instead provide useful bonuses to your own team. These can range from increasing your allies’ Attack for two turns or by shielding your allies from enemy attacks for a turn. There are far too many Buff skills to list here so please check the other excellent guides to characters and their abilities in the Heroes sub-forum.
Debuffs: These are the opposite of buffs in that they apply harmful status effects onto the opponent. Many attack skills do damage and also inflict a debuff. Debuffs range from inflicting Poison or Bleed effects that continue to damage a character every round to inflicting a solid negative penalty to a character’s stats. As with Buffs please see the Heroes sub-forum for detailed guides on the different debuffs each character is able to inflict.
Passive Abilities: These are abilities which do not need to be activated during battle as they are considered to be constantly active and affecting your character or team. These can be anything from debuff immunities to counter-attacking the opponent whenever this character is attacked.
Classes are a very important part of Marvel: Avengers Alliance, learning them is vital to defeating enemies by exploiting their weaknesses. Every single character has a class, some character even have multiple classes through alternative costumes and can change to them via the Team menu. The 6 classes are:
Generalist: The default class. Generalists have no strength over any other class but they also have no weakness. Later on in PVP the fact that a Generalist has no possible weakness is perhaps their greatest strength. Expect to fight a lot of these in the early missions but they’ll soon vanish for a more intricate playing experience.
Tactician: Tacticians are the thinker characters. Characters who would fight the most tactfully on a battlefield fill up this class role. Some famous Tacticians include Captain America, Mr. Fantastic, and Hawkeye. Tacticians are strong against the Blaster class; any Tactician inflicting a One-Enemy attack on a Blaster will gain an immediate second turn. Do note however this bonus will not occur multiple times per turn, even with such items or conditions where your Tactician has multiple turns back to back he will only be able to gain the Tactician bonus ONCE per round. Also note that this bonus will NOT work on an All-Enemies attack.
Blaster: Blasters are the heavy ranged firepower characters. Characters who are likely to stand back and fire off large amounts of destruction fill up this class role. Some famous Blasters include Iron Man, Dr. Strange, and Human Torch. Blasters are strong against the Bruiser class; all attacks from Blasters against Bruisers will be critical hits and ignore their Defense stat. This bonus is applied constantly and even occurs on counter attacks as long as the target is a Bruiser. If the attack is Multi-Enemy and only one of the enemies is a Bruiser then the bonus will be applied to him only and the other enemies will be attacked normally.
Bruiser: Bruisers are the walking goliaths and defensive battle-tanks. Characters who are likely to charge head-first into battle and shrug off enemy attacks are Bruisers. Some famous Bruisers are Hulk, Thor, and Thing. Bruisers are strong against the Scrapper class; whenever a Bruiser attacks or is attacked by a Scrapper they gain an “Enraged” buff which increases their Attack and Defense stats for two rounds. Enraged can stack a total of twice per character.
Scrapper: Scrappers are the physical combatants of the Marvel world. Characters who can enter into a melee fray with multiple enemies are classified as Scrappers; not to be confused with Bruisers who although being physical in nature are more inclined to shrug off attacks rather than inflict them. Some famous Scrappers are Wolverine, Luke Cage, and Daredevil. Scrappers are strong against the Infiltrator class; when a Scrapper attacks an Infiltrator they get an instant second attack (typically the character’s Lvl.1 Ability) without any extra Stamina cost. After attacking or being attacked (inculding All-Enemies attacks) by an Infiltrator, Scrappers gain a buff that grants them their bonus on any character they hit the next turn regardless of class. Note that hitting a Scrapper with this buff active will not let you hit for a total of three times but you will get the buff renewed at the end of your turn.
Infiltrator: Infiltrators are stealthy or otherwise acrobatic fighters. Characters who excel at moving around a battlefield and evading or setting up their opponents. Some famous Infiltrators are Spider-Man, Black Widow, and Nightcrawler. Infiltrators are strong against the Tactcian class; when attacking or being attacked by a Tactician the Infiltrator will gain a buff that increases their Damage by 30% and makes all their attacks “Stealthy” which allows them to bypass special protective buffs the enemies might have on them. This will also be granted if attacked by an All-Enemies attack from a Tactician.
Let’s talk about a characters stats on a numerical level. Every character has different stats yet they all fall into categories. This is a usually confusing area as some sources (such as the Wiki) will state “Hawkeye starts out with 117 Health and 31 Accuracy.” For a normal player this doesn’t tell you very much, are those good numbers? How do they scale as levels increase? Something important to note about a characters statistics are they will always be one of 5 possible values. I’m Lvl.120 at the moment so I’ll use that as an example: At Lvl.120 a character’s Health and Stamina will either be 1966, 2211, 2457, 2703, or 2949. Also at Lvl.120 a character’s Attack/Defense/Accuracy/Evasion will either be 393, 442, 491, 541, or 590.
These numbers are set in stone and will only vary thanks to ISO-8 or other buffs once in battle. Due to this I’ve come up with my own classification system assigning each value a letter from A to E denoting how strong they are. It’s a lot easier this way to say that “Hawkeye has a D-rating Health and an A-rating Accuracy.” That lets you know from an instant glance exactly where a character’s strengths and weaknesses lie without having to compare them to other characters. I’ve written my own handy table detailing all the heroes stat ratings by my own system. I can’t guarantee 100% accuracy due to my own human-error and some characters may have been modified since this time of writing.
This whole table gives you a quick view at a character’s strengths and weaknesses and their default classes. I MIGHT be setting myself up for a headache here but if there’s a lot of demand for it I’ll write up a second table with all the Boss’s stats as well.
So now we’ve discussed stats and the table above let’s talk about relative values. I’m going to use Missions 1.1 as an example with my own Lvl.120 characters.
If I look at Hawkeye’s “Sure Shot” ability from my Team list it states: “Total Damage 277-333 & Hit/Critical 100%/23%”. However as soon as I enter my first battle this number changes to “Total Damage 319-382 & Hit/Critical 100%/40%”. So what changed? Why are his stats all of a sudden increased? Did he drink some Red Bull on the flight over to the battlefield? The answer is simple: It’s using Relative Numbering.
Relative Numbering means that those numbers accurately reflect the current enemy. When the enemy changes so too do the numbers. Once again still in mission 1.1 using Hawkeye and “Sure Shot” I had the following fluctuating variable numbers.
Team: Total Damage 277-333 & Hit/Critical 100%/23%
Fight 1: (Hydra Soldier + Hydra Cannon) Total Damage 319-382 & Hit/Critical 100%/40%
Fight 2: (Hydra Burner + Hydra Soldier) Total Damage 334-400 & Hit/Critical 100%/40%
Fight 3: (Viper) Total Damage 277-333 & Hit/Critical 100%/31%
So what does this all mean!? Well we can see against Viper my Hawkeye’s damage stat returned to what it said on the Team menu, but his Critical rate was still higher wasn’t it? The answer, using my above method of classifying stats as letters, gives us the answer:
From the above data (feel free to interpret it however you want, it’s all there raw) we can see that Hawkeye’s Relative numbers on the Team menu are against a theoretical target with C in every stat. This is confirmed by the fact his Total Damage value against Viper (Defense C) returned to Team menu numbers while his Critical Hit value against Viper (Evasion D) still remained higher than the Team Menu’s number.
We can also see that during the first fight his Total Damage value was being compared against the Hydra Cannoner (Defense D) as he had the highest number on the enemy side while in the next fight the Total Damage value went higher as it was being compared against the Hydra Soldier and Burner (both with Defense E). As all the Hydra goons had an Evasion E the 40% Critical Hit rate was present for every encounter.
It’s important to note that these numbers are also still relevant as they are relative. During the first encounter Hawkeye attacked both the Cannoner and the Soldier and attacked with 2 crits vs the Cannoner (458 and 524) and then 2 crits vs the Soldier (567 and 581) showing that the “Total Damage” value for the Soldier was in fact being calculated as “334-400″ and not the “319-382″ that was being displayed on the combat screen.
Upon replaying after taking down the Cannoner (D Defense) and leaving the Soldier for last all of the attack abilities updated proactively to reflect the remaining highest possible defense value (E Rating).
In closing what can we take from the above? If I’m right (still all theory so far, not claiming it’s gospel or anything) on the Team menu a character’s abilities are all listed against a theoretical “average” opponent with C in every stat and once into battle the abilities are listed against the highest possible value on the enemy team. This means despite the numbers being as they are they’re only going against the “worst possible scenario” encounter and should be stronger relative to whoever you’re hitting. This also means that’s clear cut that a higher Attack value = Increasing the relative value for Total Damage and a higher Defense value = Decreasing the relative value for Total Damage. Same thing goes for Accuracy and Evasion affecting Hit and Critical chances. NOTE: Hawkeye has a 100% Hit Passive so that will explain the constant value throughout the fights.
Work in Progress
I’m off to do more testing over the weekend and I hope to come away with proving that Attack vs Defence and Accuracy vs Evasion scale as Percentages rather than as Actual Numbers (which means ISOs do in fact get significantly weaker the higher you level) and possibly even drawing up a scaled graph showing just how “base” Damage/Accuracy (theoretical C opponent) scales the higher stats rise. If I’m right it might mean that at endgame (level yet to be determined) the ideal setup for a character’s ISO-8 slots are in fact full Chaotics due to the return numerical values being so miniscule on a percentage scale that the sheer possibility of triggering one of 8x ISO-8 Bonuses to Attack/Defense/Accuracy/Evasion outweighs even loading up on the “best” ISO-8s of a specific stat.
I’ll consolidate all this into a proper post when I’ve gotten some more info:
Update 1: My initial findings are quite interesting. Once again using Hawkeye with an attack of 442 vs a target’s defense of 442 (equal) his Min/Max Damage is 319/382. When against a target with a defense of 393 (-49) his Min/Max Damage becomes 334/400. The difference in this is a +15/+18 with a variable Damage of 63 against equal and 64 against the -49. (considered at this point to be miniscule at best increase) Here’s the interesting part: Against a target with a defense of 491 (+49) his Min/Max becomes 277/333 which is a whopping -42/-49 compared to the equal rate. (and a 56 point variable damage score)
Conventional thinking would state that the -49 Defense = +15/+18 should mean the inverse of +49 Defense = -15/-18… but it’s not, not by a long shot. It almost reaches a 3x disparity between the -/+ alone.
Basically this means that once a character’s attack score reaches an number *equal* to an enemy’s defense it reaches a point of severely diminishing returns. This system might be in place to stop higher level characters from COMPLETELY face-rolling lower level characters but there’s still more testing to be done. Increasing Hawkeye’s Attack score via ISO-8 once (to 454) and then once again (to 466) increased the base damage against the 491 defense to 291/350 and 306/367 respectively. This means that anything under an equal score has a fairly steep linear graphing point until it hits equal values and then slows down tremenously and retains a secondary linear path. Mmm tests…
Update 2: Upping Hawkeye’s attack doesn’t seem to affect the linear scale shift. It’s possible the scale is calculated BEFORE ISOs and buffs… that would be kind of freaky wouldn’t it? If ISOs operated outside of the normal scaling algorithm in place, I might need to ask for some volunteers to help me test this out on a few other characters. Another oddity. Despite upping his attack by +12 every time (was expecting the scale to change along with it) his Min Damage to the Defense Tier BELOW his Attack Tier is equal to his Max Damage against the Defense Tier above him. There’re no coinsidences when it comes to math and numbers. If this goes somewhere it would mean the game’s damage algorithm is a lot more based around the Tier system than it is about pure numbers. Possibly meaning that characters with lower base Attack Tiers will still hit for less damage despite being ISO’d to match or even surpass the higher Tiers.Other Marvel: Avengers Alliance (MAA) Articles
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