Marvel Super War is actually built on the strategies used in Onmyoji Arena and Extraordinary Ones, where there is the laning phase, midgame and late game, with VERY STRICT lane roles attached to each hero type.
The main difference between the three Netease games is the farming mechanic, which will be discussed below. If you start farming wrong, you and your teammates will fall behind your opponents.
LANING PHASE
The laning phase is what its name means and will primarily involve the players to stick to their lane and FARM FIRST.
TOPLANE
Tanks, off-tanks, and fighters: They can sustain themselves by farming alone and hold off the top lane as long as possible. With little engagement early game, they can remain at the top with minimal returns to the base.
Engage only when you outcompete your opponent in level or when the jungler visits you for a gank.
MID LANE
Mage or energy heroes ALONE: Since it’s the shortest lane it’s the most important to protect. Also, it has access to both the top and bottom lanes.
Mage/energy heroes have AoE abilities to farm minion waves quickly and can then roam to either top or bot lane to support whoever is having a hard time.
A good mage who outcompetes its opponent in level should roam immediately to help the other lanes. When disadvantaged, ping that your enemy has roamed to warn the other lanes.
BOT LANE
Marksman(MM) and support: the support will have to babysit the MM until he completes his first few items, usually until LVL 8.
The support should build the support item S.H.I.E.L.D Badge FIRST ALWAYS, which halves the received coins and experience and share rest with the MM (or nearby allies).
This will help the MM to get his first few items sooner and snowball quickly. Even if the support last-hits the minion, as long as the support item is built, the MM will always get the majority of the farm.
The supports are still weak early game (with the probable exception of Groot or tank-support) so their primary role is to help with farm and continuous poke to the enemies to deny them farm.
JUNGLE
Marvel Super War have a dedicated jungler, whose means of farming primarily comes from the jungle monsters.
As opposed to other MOBAs (like ML), coins and exp dropped from the jungle are not shared, only last-hitter receives them, so it SHOULD go to the jungler during laning phase because that’s their source.
Conversely, a good jungler should not compete with the laner in killing minion waves, unless in some circumstances (see others below). The jungle is crucial because his role in the laning phase is to try to gank ALL lanes, priority is those having issues in their lanes.
So he needs to farm jungle and snowball quickly and be able to roam and gank effectively. This is also the reason why junglers have the Leech skill to kill off the monsters quickly.
Also note, a gank needs not to result in a kill (best when it happens). If you are able to force your enemy to use Blink and return to base, that is already a good gank because you were able to deny him/her farm.
OTHER NOTES: In higher ranks, at the start of the game, the jungle gets the top buff, while the bot lane (MM) gets the bottom buff. The top laner should help the jungler, while the midlaner helps the bot laners with their respective buffs to acquire them quickly, then they can go to their respective lanes.
This is why you’ll see some players going to the jungle buffs immediately at the start to help, they are probably OA veterans that it already becomes a reflex to do so.
For the junglers, don’t worry they won’t take your buff away. Most ML players will go to the lane immediately then to the jungle, so you’ll know the difference. Sometime during the laning, ONLY IF the jungler is busy somewhere else, the MM can get then bot buff again.
For the midlaners, DO NOT TAKE the minion waves of the top or bottom lanes when roaming, UNLESS you see them teleporting back to base. Only gank, then return to midlane.
The same is true for the jungler. Because the moment you take their minions, you are denying them the farm and they get behind their opponent. USE AND READ YOUR PINGS.
MID GAME
The midgame is started around lvl8 when people already have their ults (lvl6) and completed their first few items. This is also the level when the support item loses its gold-sharing effect, so the support can start roaming too.
The players then start to roam the different lanes and help each other. When done right with well-timed ganking, denying enemy farm and overwhelming them in the lane, it’s the top and bottom enemy turrets that usually gets destroyed first.
Immediately after this, in the bot lane, it is when the players attempt BAST (the purple panther) to get a TEAM-WIDE BUFF and gold. Bast is an important objective so should not be neglected.
Teamfights will start to break out when protecting the turrets. Junglers can start invading the opposing jungle and gank those that are roaming on the enemy side.
The support should always stick with the MM or energy heroes to protect them. MM’s goal here is to farm his remaining items while also joining team fights.
At this point, he can start killing off jungle monsters ONLY IF the jungler is not around. Buff priority still goes to the jungler, but the MM can get it ONLY IF the jungler is away.
Mage/Energy heroes are the strongest here at this point because everybody is yet to build energy resistance items, so their abilities will hurt. Sometime during this phase, Surtur appears, but it would take proper judgment to decide whether to try to repel him without a possible steal from opponents.
This is where the jungler’s skill is important, to secure objectives. The leech spell can be used on Bast and Surtur and is the factor that they can be stolen by the enemy team, so try to defeat the enemy jungler (and or energy heroes because of AoE ult) first before attempting Surtur. If your team snowballed early, then you can finish it at this phase.
LATE GAME
This happens around lvl15 where most should have obtained their 5th item, and will primarily involve team fights, this is where the tanks and supports will shine.
Tanks in MSW are very strong right now, if your team has no tank and you reach late game, you are definitely going to a disadvantage. The tanks can initiate, many of them have abilities that jump/disrupt in the middle of the enemy group, the bit will need a good followup from the other members.
Communication is the key, USE AND READ YOUR PINGS. Supports at this point should always be where the team fights happen, they SHOULD not be pushing the lane.
MMs gets their final items and become a heavy carry, but should never solo a lane unless doing it at a safe distance. Energy heroes are fragile and can easily be defeated by the enemy jungler, and so usually stay at the backline during team fights.
Junglers are not that good in team fights but will have to finish off those low-hp enemies escaping off or gank those enemies soloing in the lane. Anyone at this point can kill jungle monsters.
If your team was able to snowball, take out the buffs from the enemy side to deny them. They also have to secure the enemy turrets by split-pushing, since they are the most mobile at this point.
This will be when defeating Surtur will give a huge advantage to the team who repels him. This will also be the time where heroes must consider counter-building if they haven’t yet, building armor penetration, and energy resistance and penetration items.
OTHER IMPORTANT NOTES
The floating vision things beside Surtur and Bast can actually be destroyed in FOUR HITS. Everytime you hit it, it has a 1-2 second damage-immune period before you can hit it again.
Make use of the healing pods at the first turrets. They heal PER members, so even if a member passes by to heal, you still have your own to use. Junglers should make use of them to avoid going back to base and thus can roam more efficiently. This also emphasizes the importance of defending the first turret.
Once the inhibitor turret is destroyed, the minion wave of the destroying team FOR THAT LANE gets upgraded to super minions PERMANENTLY. So that lane will forever be at a disadvantage, even if your teammates are not manually pushing the lane. Take note of this in the late game, as it will be prone to pushing.
In higher ranks in OA, it is the support that brings the Subdue skill (Leech here). It’s probably because supports are more likely to survive a team fight around Surtur/Bast enough to secure the objective.
Why the ML strategy of Tank+Mage/Tank+MM will not work: because you’re essentially denying the carries their farm to complete their items quickly. The jungle gold/exp mechanic prevents rotation in the jungle for farms and should be exclusive to the jungler.
Also, the “roaming items” in ML is closest to the SHIELD Badge item, which is support-exclusive. Consequently, that is why at the end of the game supports have the lowest farm, but since common support items (including some defense items) are cheaper, they can still finish their equipment and at the same time with the other teammates.
So if you don’t want fewer farms while also not denying your carries. teammates their farm, DO NOT USE the ML strategy.
As mentioned several times, the jungle is for junglers at the start of the game, so there is no point in carrying the Leech skill for MM (unless he jungles, which is not recommended unless you’re Angel and you’re good at it) or energy heroes. So the ML strategy of carrying Retribution does not apply here.
As with all MOBAs, OBJECTIVES are the goal to win, not KDA. Initiate fights only if you are at par or at an advantage. Junglers/assassins/tanks have power spikes that allow them to 1v1 even with a level disadvantage.
Never neglect split-pushing enemies. They are times to give up a turret when the exchange in a team fight is better (results in kills on the enemy side). So don’t whine and blame your teammates if they ignore you engaging a 2v3 with an obvious level disadvantage vs defending your team’s turrets.
Netease is known for balancing their heroes effectively. And they will balance them according to their performance in the respective phases, e.g. If a hero underperforms in laning stage, they will adjust their damage mechanic in the early levels.
That’s why their bulletins often show hero adjustments on skills in a per-level basis, i.e. #/#/#/#/# corresponding to the skill upgrade level, with only an adjustment in the specific levels. This is in contrast to other games that receive a global ability upgrade/nerf, where the hero becomes either OP or unusable.
For me, as energy and support main, I believe the most crucial is the junglers, as they will dictate the tide throughout the game, especially at the laning phase where their judgment of ganks will affect how your team snowballs the game.
I’ve met some good junglers who knows the efficient mechanics and end up the MVP, while most of those playing the ML strat usually gets behind. I’d love to hear from others of your experiences and I hope this would encourage more discussion for the game and lessen the toxicity of players in the game.
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