Famine Saga
Introduction
Famine Saga is one of the four Horsemen Sagas you will need to complete to get ready for Apocalypse. You will also receive awakened abilities for Rogue, as well as her Horsemen costume. Completing her Saga at 3 Stars is required for you to progress in the Apocalypse Saga.
Originally, Famine Saga required players to use one specific team – Unlimited X-Men (Rogue, Gambit, Dazzler, Sunfire, Fantomex) but nowadays that team is defunct and no longer valuable. And while some of the characters from that team found a new home (Gambit joined X-Treme X-Men, while Sunfire is working with his fellow Canadians in the Alpha Flight team), the other characters are no longer being actively used, except Rogue who, as a Horsemen, still has some value. To avoid situations where newer players are forced to invest in undesirable characters, the developers decided to open up the restrictions, and now players will only need Rogue to progress and they can use any Mutants alongside her.
Each new difficulty will unlock once you have Rogue at the necessary Gear Tier or Iso level.
Famine Saga Heroic
The walkthrough you find below is from our original run, the moment the Saga went live. It can still be used for academic purposes, like priority targets, enemy placements, etc. But now, it is better to use Rogue with an alternative mutant team when clearing the nodes. One of the best options would be to use Rogue with X-Treme X-Men (instead of Sunspot); alternatively, you can use Rogue with Old Man Logan and other strong mutants you have. Any of the options will allow you to clear these nodes with ease since both the X-Treme team and Logan on his own are very powerful and will smash the nodes easily.
Node 1 [Archive]
- Rogue – Skirmisher
- Fantomex – Striker
- Gambit – Skirmisher
- Dazzler – Raider
- Sunfire – Striker
In the first Node, your goal is to incapacitate Kestrel and Hulkbuster at the start of the first wave. You can do that by placing Rogue’s special on Kestrel and Dazzler’s ultimate on Hulkbuster. There are 9 enemies in the first wave out of 12 in total, so your only job is to neutralize the most dangerous targets at the start and quickly eliminate the remaining enemies.
The only thing you need to do is use Sunfire’s special immediately and literally annihilate everyone with Sunfire’s ultimate and Rogue’s ultimate under the effect of Offense Up.
The spawn of Viv Vision and Phoenix means that you are almost done. It would be perfect to prevent Viv Vision with Gambit’s special but if you can’t do that make sure that she is down as soon as possible.
Do not rely on Dazzler’s Blind because neither Viv Vision nor Cyclops is affected by it. After neutralizing Viv Vision everything else is straightforward.
Node 2 [Archive]
- Rogue – Skirmisher
- Fantomex – Striker
- Gambit – Skirmisher
- Dazzler – Raider
- Sunfire – Striker
At the start of the second node, your main problem will be Young Avengers. Placing Rogue’s special on Kate Bishop seems like the most logical thing to do. After that continue slowly waiting for Gambit to reduce enemy numbers. Make sure that Rogue’s ultimate is saved for later.
You must prevent Sam Wilson from using his special. You can do that with Dazzler’s ultimate or with Gambit’s special (keep in mind that Gambit often lacks the focus to debuff Sam even if he is equipped with the Skirmisher). Also, do not use Sunfire’s special on the first wave – save it for later.
When the second wave spawns your goal is to continue controlling Sam (Rogue’s ultimate) and to bring down Maria Hill as soon as possible. Baron Zemo may be problematic but at this point, all of your CDs will be already used, so you will not be threatened by Ability Block. Also, Baron Zemo will be targeted by Gambit (due to his lowest HP) so you will eliminate him fast.
In the last wave, you will encounter Shang Chi alongside Ms. Marvel and Hawkeye. In perfect conditions, you will neutralize Shang Chi with Gambit’s special but even if that doesn’t happen you should not worry too much. Just be sure to kill Maria Hill before she uses her ultimate and everything will be fine.
Node 3 [Archive]
- Rogue – Skirmisher
- Fantomex – Striker
- Gambit – Skirmisher
- Dazzler – Raider
- Sunfire – Striker
Obviously, you need to incapacitate Ikaris with Rogue’s special before anything else. Also, try placing Ability Block on Phyla-Vell with Gambit’s special. If everything goes well, you will have the opportunity to save Dazzler’s ultimate and special for later. The same goes for Sunfire’s special as well.
When Mighty Thor and Taskmaster spawn you will have to decide who will be the target of Dazzler’s ultimate. Your decision should depend on their Speed bar – place Ability Block on who will play first. Sunfire’s special will provide an insane amount of AOE damage (as usual) which should make things a lot easier. As long as you eliminate Mighty Thor and Taskmaster before they can play you will have no problems.
When the last wave spawns (Ebony Maw, Phyla-Vell) focus on Phyla-Vell and the remaining enemies. Just ignore Ebony Maw until he is the last remaining enemy (you don’t have the means to remove his buffs, so just ignore him).
Node 4 [Archive]
- Rogue – Skirmisher
- Fantomex – Striker
- Gambit – Skirmisher
- Dazzler – Raider
- Sunfire – Striker
Node 4 should be opened with Rogue’s special on Wong. Preventing Wong from taunting will give you free control of the kill order. It would be ideal to kill Doctor Strange before he flips your positive effects but it is not mandatory. What is mandatory is saving Dazzler’s and Rogue’s ultimate for the second wave. Also, you will have to use Gambit’s special on Dagger and prevent her from using her ultimate.
When the second wave spawns, your main goal will be to prevent Cloak from using his ultimate and to Stun Deathpool.
If everything goes well, you will have Sunfire’s special when the third wave spawns. That will help you to dispose of Cloak fast and neutralize Yo-Yo’s presence. Everything else should be easy.
Node 5 [Archive]
- Rogue – Skirmisher
- Fantomex – Striker
- Gambit – Skirmisher
- Dazzler – Raider
- Sunfire – Striker
Node 5 is the only Node that requires specific RNG. It is mandatory that Red Hulk doesn’t affect Rogue with his opening, so Rogue can play before Stryfe and place her special ability on Red Hulk. If that doesn’t happen you will have to start over.
Once you incapacitate Red Hulk, everything else will be much easier and you will not have to fear Red Hulk’s ultimate. The next thing you need to do is to use Dazzler’s special and grant yourself a Barrier (that will also save you Dazzler’s ultimate for later). Stryfe’s Taunt will be annoying and you will have to save your CDs while trying to remove Taunt (stunning Stryfe will get you nothing in the long run).
Once you can transfer your focus to Red Hulk, start bringing him down as fast as possible. Try to avoid triggering She-Hulk’s Charges if possible (she needs 5 Charges to transfer all negative effects on you).
When you kill Red Hulk and the second wave spawns, your next target should be She-Hulk. While killing her you will slowly bring down others as well (after the second turn Brawn is no longer a threat to you). Do not use Sunfire’s special before the third wave spawns.
The third wave is tricky and you need to be careful. You will have to prevent Mister Sinister from cloning (Gambit’s special; Dazzler’s ultimate) and you will have to kill at least 1 Ghost Rider fast. Killing more than one enemy at a time while Ghost Riders are alive will be extremely dangerous because you’ll automatically receive at least 4 empowered attacks from them. This is the most dangerous moment in the whole Heroic Difficulty. Your victory will not be under question but you can easily lose some of your members if you are not careful.
In the video, you can see how I solved the problem – instead of calculating and delaying I put my feet on the speed and executed all CDs that I was saving for this moment. Using Dazzler’s ultimate, Gambit’s ultimate, and Sunfire’s special one after another was enough to annihilate the last wave without problems – the best way to save yourself from ghost Rider’s passive is to kill both Ghost Riders at the same time.
