Nova Trials | Marvel Church

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Intro

Nova is a new Legendary character, and his unlocking method will be similar to the Horseman’s Scourges, but in this case, it’s called Trials.

There are Pacts (same as Scourges in Horsemen’s events), that can alter the flow of battles either to your benefit or detriment. All Pacts have a points modifier that depends on the difficulty of the Pact, and by having more Pacts active you can increase your final Run Score.

The core of the Event will be the same. We will have 10 Difficulties for all ranges of player progression. All players who are level 50+ can participate in Nova Trials. And you can quit each node and try again until you reach the desired result.

Nova Trials and all the other Trials are now on a repeating schedule where they will be live every two weeks and will run for 5 days. This stability provides everyone with a good opportunity to plan ahead and get the rewards they aim for.

Unlock

Alongside the new schedule, there is also a new reward system. There are no longer any leaderboards where you can get bonus shards, now everything is centered around Milestones.

Here’s how the Milestones are separated in terms of Shards and Star Ranks:

Milestone 3 (475,000 Points) = 3-Star Unlock
- Milestone 4 (500,000 Pts) = 1 Red Star unlock
Milestone 5 (700,000 Pts) = 4-Star upgrade
- Milestone 6 (800,000 Pts) = 2 Red Stars upgrade
Milestone 7 (900,000 Pts) = 5-Star upgrade
- Milestone 8 (950,000 Pts) = 3 Red Stars upgrade
Milestone 9 (1,050,000 Pts) = 6-Star upgrade
- Milestone 10 (800,000 Pts) = 4 Red Star upgrade
Milestone 12 (1,000,000 Pts) = 7-Star upgrade

Requirements

Node 1 – No restrictions on all difficulties
Nodes 2/6/10 Difficulties 5+ – Masters of Evil, Quicksilver, X-Factor/ Diff 3-4 – Villains
Nodes 3/7 – City (Diff 3-4) / City Heroes (Diff 5+)
Nodes 4/8 – Bio (Diff 3-4) / Bio Global (Diff 5+)
Nodes 5/9 – Cosmic (Diff 3+)

Difficulty 1 doesn’t have any restrictions on all nodes, and difficulty 2 only has restrictions for the last 4 nodes (Node 7 – City/Node 8 -Bio/Node 9 – Cosmic/Node 10 – Villain)

Pacts

On the Offensive (10 Points) – Whenever a character clears Taunt, all characters on the opposite team gain Offense Up.
Man Vs. Machine (10 Points) – All Bio characters gain additional Critical Hit Chance, and all Tech characters gain additional Dodge Chance.
Bio-Charged (10 Points) – All Bio characters spawn with full Speed and Energy bars.
Bio-Armor (10 Points) – When a character dies, all Allied Bio characters gain Safeguard.
Avenging X-Factor (10 Points) – On Spawn, City Hero characters gain the X-Factor trait, and Mutant characters gain the Bionic Avengers trait.
Masters of Spider-Verse (10 Points) – On Spawn, Global Bio characters gain the Masters of Evil trait, and Spider-Verse characters gain the Tangled Web trait.
Evasive Maneuvers (10 Points) – When a character dies, their Bio Allied characters gain Evade.
Snake Eyes (10 Points) – On Spawn, player characters gain increased Critical Hit Damage, and all enemy characters gain increased Critical Hit Chance.
Supernova (15 Points) – At the start of a Striker character’s turn, they gain Barrier equal to +5% of their max Health. Striker characters also gain +1 Ability Energy on enemy Death.
Warp World (15 Points) – When any character drops to 50% Health, their allies flip their positive status effects to negative. Characters on the Opposing side flip their negative status effects to positive.
Power Dynamics (15 Points) – Whenever a player character removes their own negative status effects, they gain Trauma, and Enemy characters gain Slow and Offense Down.
Power Cosmic (25 Points) – All Cosmic Crucible Abilities are active during this Run.

In general, there are only 2 Pacts that you should avoid – Power Dynamics and Warp World. You don’t want your characters to have Trauma on then and you don’t need the unpredictability of the Buff/Debuff flips.

Power Cosmic will be greatly beneficial to you, especially if you intend to use Masters of Evil and New Warriors for City Heroes nodes. There aren’t that many enemies that will benefit from Crucible abilities being active, that said – there is a War Dogs team on node 3. New Warriors will be able to handle that team without many issues, but if you don’t have them upgraded, you should consider turning this Pact off.

Bio Charged is another one of the Pacts that may be tricky for you. but if we have Power Cosmic active, we should be able to mitigate those difficulties. Most of the dangerous Bio enemies are on Nodes 2/4/5/7. We do have Masters of Evil, New Warriors, Gamma, and Eternals available for use on those respective nodes, so it’s a manageable challenge. Plus, this Pact will help us overcome two Gambits that lurk on Node 6.

All other Pacts vary from mildly inconvenient to moderately annoying, but it’s nothing that we can’t handle.

Recommendations

To simplify things, we will provide node breakdowns for Difficulties 5 and above, since those are the difficulties you should aim for to comfortably get the unlock.

Node 1

Suggested team:
Full New Warriors. The task for this node is to build 5 charges for Deathpool, it will certainly be easier to do that with the full New Warriors team, but you could also take the Horsemen here + Deathpool. Just make sure to get the charges.
If you’re not using Bio-Charged Pact, this node is also a good opportunity to prepare Red Hulk’s Ult, we will need it for later.

Node 2 (Masters of Evil/Quicksilver/X-Factor)

Suggested team:
Masters of Evil + Quicksilver (instead of Absorbing Man). Stun Kate Bishop with Moonstone, then take out either Quake’s or Echo’s first, whoever gives you the most trouble. Make sure to summon Ultron minions before Black Bolt drops. After the second wave drops, Ability Block Coulson, and take out Kestrel first, then focus on Crystal’s, then clean up. With the Power Cosmic Pact active this fight shouldn’t cause you any headaches.

Node 3 (City Heroes)

Suggested team:
New Warriors + a fifth (Shang-Chi, Squirrel Girl, She-Hulk, Ghost-Spider). Deathpool is Cosmic, so you won’t be able to use her here, but any of the alternatives provided above will be sufficient. If you have Power Cosmic active this node won’t be hard, aim with Firestar’s Ultimate at Black Panther’s (1MM) and Nakia. After that eliminate the other Nakia and Shuri, with all the Damage from Cloak&Dagger you should be able to finish this node with ease. Make sure to prepare the Ultimate abilities for the next City Heroes node.

Ghost Rider (Robbie) and Ms. Marvel (Hard Light) are amazing for those nodes. So you can bring them with Cloak, Dagger and Gwenpool. They are new from when Nova Trials first released and are a great addition to existing characters.

Alternatives:
Spider-Man 2099, Spider-Man Noir, Web-Warriors, available A-Force.

Node 4 (Global Bio)

Suggested team:
Gamma+Captain America is the perfect solution for this node, Gamma will breeze through it and Captain America will add sustain to the team. If you have Bio-Charged active, you can go all out on this node and use Red Hulk’s Ultimate on his first turn, since you won’t have to worry about preparing it for next time. No kill order is necessary here, especially with a big Red Hulk.

Alternatives:
Rebirth+1. Moonstone and Titania are also available here, but it’s best to save them other nodes.

Node 5 (Cosmic)

Suggested team:
Ikaris, Sersi, Dormammu, Deathpool, Kestrel.

The first wave isn’t too complicated, you will get hit a few times if you have Bio-Charged active, but your team should be able to survive, especially with the help of Dormammu. Focus Ghost-Spiders and then Rhino, but save Deathpool’s Ult, which we charged previously, for the second wave. The second wave will have a Red Hulk, and he’s the reason we charged Deathpool. Use her Ult on Red Hulk and then focus Strange (Heartless) and Omega Red, you can stun them with Sersi and Dormmamu. The other enemies will fall down easily.

Photon is a great addition to the existing characters. It wasn’t in the game when Nova Trials first came out, but it is now, so take advantage of it.

Alternatives:
Kang, Vahl, Nova, Hela, Strange (Heartless), Silver Surfer, Infinity Watch. If you don’t have Dormammu you could use any one of the above characters, but it’s best not to use Kang here unless you want to prepare his abilities for the next fight.

Node 6 (Masters of Evil/Quicksilver/X-Factor)

Suggested team:
Masters of Evil + Quicksilver (instead of Absorbing Man)
This node will have two Gambits present at the start of the fight, which will make the fight tricky. The first thing to do – is to make sure that your Moonstone isn’t the lowest Health character in your team since Gambits will target her then, and to prepare their abilities beforehand (if you don’t have Bio-Charged). It’s best to have Power Crucible active for this.

Once the match starts, use Moonstine to stun one of the Gambits and try to get rid of the other one as quickly as possible. When you get to the second Monnstone turn you could stun the other Gambit with her other ability (both Special and Ultimate apply stun if Power Crucible is active). Once you get rid of Gambits, you can work on Hero Asgardians or Silver Surfer.

The second wave will drop once there are 10 enemies left, try to save an Ability Block from Titania and use it on Emma Frost.

The third wave drops when there are 6 enemies left, and it will include Rogue. By now you should be able to have one of the Moonstone’s abilities ready, so just stun Rogue. From this point it’s clean up and preparation for the next node, so make sure to have your skills ready for use.

Node 7 (City Hero)

Suggested team:
New Warriors + a fifth. (Shang-Chi, Squirrel Girl, She-Hulk, Ghost-Spider)
Use Firestar’s Ult on Captain Carter and Captain America, and take out Yellowjackets. Save Cloak and Dagger Ults for when Darkhold members start appearing. Once that happens, you can go all out. This is the last City Hero node.

Ghost Rider (Robbie) and Ms. Marvel (Hard Light) are spectacular for those nodes. So you can bring them with Cloak, Dagger and Gwenpool. They are new from when Nova Trials first released and are a great addition to existing characters.

Alternatives:
Spider-Man 2099, Spider-Man Noir, Web-Warriors, A-Force

Node 8 (Bio Global)

Suggested team:
Gamma+Captain America. If you have Bio-Charged, use Red Hulk’s Ultimate on turn one and Stun She-Hulk with Abomination’s Ultimate. After that get rid of her, then both Brawns and Phyla-Vell. Once Red Hulk gets enough charges he can Ult again, but save that for when the enemy Red Hulk drops. Once you eliminate Red Hulk everything else should be easy.

Gamma should be able to handle this easily and if at some point you get stuck behind Hulk’s Taunt, use Captain America’s Ultimate to clear it.

Alternatives:
Rebirth+1

Node 9 (Cosmic)

Suggested team:
Ikaris, Sersi, Dormammu, Deathpool, Kestrel
This is the last Cosmic node, so you could go all out. It’s a fairly straightforward fight, just save Dormammu’s Ult until Death Seed members drop.

Photon is a great addition to the existing characters. It wasn’t in the game when Nova Trials first came out, but it is now, so take advantage of it.

Node 10 (Masters of Evil/Quicksilver/X-Factor)

Suggested team:
Masters of Evil + Quicksilver (instead of Absorbing Man)

This last node is tricky, you need to be in control nearly the whole fight. Start with an Ability Block on Dazzler and a Stun on Archangel, then slow down Psylocks with Kang’s special, then take out this wave but save Moonstone and Dazzler’s skills for the second wave. Once that drops, stun Gambit and Ability Block Rogue. And start applying Disrupted on Darkhold members with Quicksilver as they drop. Eliminate this wave but save Kang’s Ult and Moonstone and Dazzler skills for the next one.

When there are 12 enemies left a big wave will drop, Strange (Heartless), Agatha, and Morgan Le Fay, plus a couple of She-Hulks and Brawn. Stun Morgan with Moonstone, and keep controlling her and Darkhold.

When there are 6 enemies left the last wave will drop, Apocalypse, Red Hulk, and Abomination. Use Quicksilver’s special on Apocalypse to remove the charge. At this point, it’s a good time to use Kang’s Ultimate. Ability Block or Stun Red Hulk and get rid of him, after that you can work on Apocalypse and clean up if there’s anything else left.

Conclusion

Compared to other Scourge events Nova’s Trials are a little bit harder, but with a good Masters of Evil and Power Cosmic Pact active, this task is far from impossible. Other nodes are arguably even easier to complete, most of f2p should have a decent Gamma at this point, and New Warriors can handle their nodes too, not to mention Cosmic nodes with Eternals and Dormammu there. With some preparation, there are no insurmountable tasks.

We hope that with our help this will be even easier for you. Good luck and have fun!

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