This is a quick comparison guide for any gamers tempted to emerge from their WOW cocoon, by the allure of 4 player superhero party co-op. It's intended to ease you in gently by drawing comparisons to WOW classes and roles.
The mechanics of the game are similar to Destiny 2 or the Division. It’s a multiplayer co-op looter shooter/brawler with RPG elements.
The Heroes that you can choose from at launch are Hulk, Ms. Marvel, Iron-Man, Thor, Black Widow and Captain America.
The party build isn’t anywhere near as important or Meta with regard to roles within the team as with WOW. The game is very accessible to any party makeup, although later more difficult missions and strikes would benefit from a more premeditated party composition and team synergy.
So lets look at the Heroes in the game an how they compare to those in WOW.
Hulk is first up, it comes as no surprise he is a tanky character. He would be most comparable to a DK tank with his AOE threat generation and self sustain.
He has a taunt ability and similarly to a prot warrior, builds rage by taking hits, this rage can then be channeled to both increase his damage output and to restore health (called willpower in Avengers) on each hit. The majority of his offensive abilities are AOE and these are further enhanced and gain increased range by bonuses further down the skill trees.
Ms. Marvel is probably most like a druid. She is the most “supporty” hero in the game with a dedicated team heal and insta-rez that can be specced into to provide a decent cadence of support for team members within range. That aside she is also very "polymorphy" and has decent damage output, especially with her ultimate and intrinsic abilities; both of which see her increase her size, range and damage mitigation. This makes her perfect to jump into the fray, heal up the team, dish a bit of damage and get out again.
Although she is a melee class her elasticity in reality makes her more of a mid-range combatant.
IronMan is the mage, the ranged damage dealer and a bit of a glass cannon. He deals a good amount of damage from afar but has no self-sustain so is reliant on health pickups and team heals, but mostly on well timed blocks and evades. As you open up the skill trees you gain access to an arsenal of high DPS abilities although some of these can leave him vulnerable while activating so timing,positioning and spacial awareness are all crucial player skills.
Thor is the enhancement shammy…. obviously. With his command of electricity the god of Thunder (well technically lightning) is a powerful melee hero with some ranged abilities, as well as AOE damage and CC. He has good maneuverability and defensive abilities as well as a certain amount of self-healing through take-downs. His ultimate ability is one of the most powerful in the game although it takes a little time to position accurately and trigger. This can sometimes result with the enemy dodging it completely or being knocked out of range by a “helpful” team member.
Black Widow is the rogue of the party. Her playstyle will be very familiar to any WOW rogue players, she deals extremely good single target dps and has the ability to stealth out of danger, dropping all aggro and being undetectable. She excels at guerrilla style in and out melee dps, but can also deal out some decent ranged damage with her pistols. These can optionally be upgraded within the skill trees to be, in effect sniper pistols, dealing a high dps single shot that can also be charged up for extra damage. While black widow has low base health she has extremely high maneuverability and is able to chain her Widows Line (like the rogue grappling hook ability) to move from target to target, dealing damage and dodging attacks.
Captain America is probably most like a prot paladin with a bit of warrior thrown in for good measure. The shield toss (literally “Avengers” shield) is the only ranged attack for this melee centered hero. He is extremely defensive with his intrinsic ability being a shield block that absorbs a finite amount of both melee and ranged attacks. He is neither the most resilient nor highest damage output hero, but is an incredibly useful utility character, buffing teammates with increased hit chance and reducing damage taken. He is fairly fast and agile and the only character to have a demon hunter-like double jump. His ability to keep foes CC’d by knocking them down, makes life a lot easier for the team on higher difficulty strikes.
There you have it, hopefully that sheds some light on the new Marvel’s Avengers game from the perspective of a WOW player! If you’d like to see a brief overview of the game or indeed some actual campaign gameplay be sure to check out our Video section. Any comments, suggestions or comparisons please leave them below or message me on Twitter @Aashraa1
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