Guide to Moon Knight in Marvel: Avengers Alliance
Overview – Generalists in Marvel: Avengers Alliance tend to be either brokenly good or unfortunately bad. Moon Knight is pretty much the latter. His potential is actually quite impressive, but he is so luck based that more often than not you will never see him perform anywhere near to his potential. And when he underperforms, he is basically sub par to just about any similar hero. His problem is that while he mimics three of the better heroes in the game, it is entirely random on any given round which of those heroes he is mimicking. Thus, it is impossible to build a strategy around him. This flaw is devastating and the only particularly good use for him is as a spoiler character on defensive PvP battles.
How to Obtain – To obtain Moon Knight, you need to complete a special quest and then spend 90 command points on him. If you miss the chance to complete the quest, he will likely be put up for sale for an increased cost as some future date.
Special Abilities – The White Knight / Lunar Lunatic / Berserker Rage (Wolverine Personality) / Inspiring Leadership (Captain America Personality) / Great Responsibility (Spider-Man Personality) / Avatar of Khonshu (Khonshu Personality) – The White Knight is one of two abilities this character always has. When an ally is attacked, this hero gains a stack of retribution. He can have up to 10 stacks of retribution and each stack increases his attack. Lunar Lunatic causes this hero to have a chance to change his personality each round. He can change into four personalities: Wolverine, Captain America, Spider-Man, or Khonshu. When he changes to a new personality, his class changes, he gains a new basic attack that is only used to counter and follow-up, and he gains one new special ability.
As Wolverine, he becomes a scrapper, has a basic attack that causes bleeding and exploits bleeding, and gains the Berserker Rage ability. With this ability, he counterattacks while at low health and protects while at high health. As Captain America, he becomes a tactician, gains a basic attack that puts targeted on the enemy, and gains Inspiring Leadership, which increases the attributes of all allies. As Spider-Man, he becomes an infiltrator, gains a basic attack that causes the winded debuff, and gains the Great Responsibility special ability. With this ability, he has a chance to protect against any attack. After doing so, he gains Great Power until he attacks, which causes him to deal extra damage. Finally, as Khonshu, he becomes a generalist and does not gain a basic attack. Instead, with the Avatar of Khonshu ability, whenever he would counter or follow-up he gains up to 10 stacks of retribution and immediately gains an extra turn.
Fist of Khonshu (Level 1) – Fist of Khonshu deals moderately high damage for a high stamina cost. The damage on this attack is actually potentially quite high, though. When you use this attack, all stacks of retribution are spent and for each stack of retribution spent, Fist of Khonshu hits an additional time. Unfortunately, the only attack this hero has that doesn’t spend retribution is Blood Moon, so this attack isn’t particularly useful until this hero reaches level 9. Furthermore, while this character is in Captain America personality, this attack also applies targeted and target focus to the enemy hit. This is a great finishing attack to use once this character has five or more stacks of retribution, but should not be used until then.
Crescent Darts (Level 2) – Crescent Darts deals trivial ranged damage to a single target for a low stamina cost. Additionally, this attack puts the impaired and pain debuffs on the target hit. If this hero has any stacks of retribution, this attack spends one stack and is a quick action. Furthermore, while this character is in Captain America personality, Crescent Darts deals additional damage. Use this attack to impair every enemy once this hero has at least three stacks of retribution, but other than that, it isn’t particularly useful.
Tripwire Tackle (Level 6) – Tripwire Tackle deals moderate melee damage for an insanely high stamina cost. In addition, it is stealthy, causes the enemy to be off balance, and has a low chance to stun. It also costs a stack of retribution to use. The low damage of this attack makes it usually a waste, but it is useful if you need a stealthy attack to avoid counterattacks. Also, while this character is in Spider-Man personality, this attack has an increased chance to stun for each stack of retribution. You should generally avoid using this attack until the character enters Spider-Man personality and then use it immediately.
Blood Moon (Level 9) – Blood Moon is the attack that actually makes this character work. It deals moderate melee damage to a single target for a very high stamina cost and also causes bleeding, ravaged, and hemorrhaging. More importantly, the attack grants a stack of retribution. This should be your default attack choice in all situations, only using the other attacks when personalities make them opportunistic. Already good, Blood Moon becomes amazing in Wolverine personality, because it puts three stacks of bleeding on the enemy instead of one.
Unlocks – This character is not currently required to unlock any Marvel: Avengers Alliance game content, and is unlikely to be required to unlock any content until at least 2015.
PvP – Moon Knight is about as terrible for PvP as he is for PvE. His random personality switches simply make it too hard to build a solid strategy around him. Heroes like Omega Sentinel or Punisher give the advantage of choosing your class, but he changes randomly, which means he can easily change to a class weak to your opponent’s classes. The exception to the above statement is that he does actually have a use on your defensive team. Defensive teams tend to lose anyway, so his randomness can actually be an asset. A poor change will assure a loss, but that will rarely turn a win into a loss. On the other hand, he random changes could turn a likely loss into a win. If you find yourself losing on defense a lot, throw him onto your team and see if random chance is on your side.
Variant Uniforms – No variant uniforms currently exist for this character in Marvel: Avengers Alliance, but it is possible that one will be released in the future.
