As is the case with any games-as-a-service title, there’s a lot to unlock in Marvel’s Avengers. Leveling and unlocking skills is only half the battle, though. You also need to know which skills to equip to get the most out of the hero you’re playing as. We’ve done the heavy lifting for you in this Marvel Avenger’s character guide, compiling the best builds for Kamala Khan, Iron Man, Black Widow, Hulk, Thor, and Captain America.
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How skills work in Marvel’s Avengers
Each hero in Marvel’s Avengers has three skill trees: Primary, specialty, and mastery. Primary skills simply give your hero more moves, so we’re not covering them in this guide. Basically, invest in the primary skills you want. You’ll unlock all of them eventually, which will allow your hero to pull off longer combos and use other moves. Specialty and mastery skills have a little more going on.
Specialty skills affect your hero’s three heroic abilities, and they each have their own tree. There are some main specialty skills for each hero, as well as two specializations for each tree. You can choose one of three skills for each specialization. That gives you two specialization skills for each tree, as well as the main skills. Mastery skills work in the same way. The only difference: Each mastery skill tree has three specializations instead of two.
This is how you “build” your character in Marvel’s Avengers — by choosing the skills you want to use from each specialization in each tree. Our builds are all focused around a theme for each character. Once you unlock a specialization, though, you unlock all skills within that specialization, so feel free to experiment.
Kamala Khan
Combo crowd controller
Given her extendable limbs, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Kamala Khan is great at dealing with crowds. Her sweeping attacks can knock opponents off their feet or into the air, and with a few key primary skills, she can even break shields. This build makes the most of Kamala’s range of abilities, but you can also dump skill points into the support heroic skill tree if you prefer a more passive approach. Healing Spirit is a great skill for healing the entire team.
Support heroic skills:
- Team Spirit: Healing Spirit restores some willpower to your team, but that doesn’t matter if your teammates are downed. Team Spirit fixes that, restoring willpower while automatically reviving any downed teammates.
- Will to Live: This skill gives you another use of Healing Spirit. This is a good early-game investment, but you should unlock Will to Fight as you earn more points. It gives you a third use of Healing Spirit.
Assault heroic skills:
- Down Low: Send a massive hand forward, pinning any enemies in its path to a wall. This skill is great for getting enemies off your back or helping out a teammate.
- Hand Clap: This is the first skill in the tree, so you can unlock it right away. Hand Clap gives you an extra use of High Five.
Ultimate heroic skills:
- Fists of Fury: Each enemy you defeat extends Embiggen by one second. You’ll defeat a lot of enemies when you activate your ultimate, so this skill speaks for itself.
- Obvious Distraction: A combo with Fists of Fury, Obvious Distraction draws enemies away from your teammates when you activate Embiggen. With the two, you can draw attacks away from your teammates while extending your ultimate. That’s a pretty good deal.
Utility skills:
- Air Combat Mastery: Kamala’s light attacks can send enemies into the air, so you’ll be fighting off the ground a lot. This skill boosts critical attack damage by 15% while fighting in the air.
- Combo Finisher Mastery: Compared to the other options in this specialization, this skill makes the most sense. Kamala is a combo-focused fighter, and this skill increases the damage of all of your combo finishers by 25%.
- Intrinsic Takedown Mastery: Spawns an Intrinsic Orb whenever you perform a takedown. If you prefer a support role, you can swap this skill for Willpower Takedown Mastery, which spawns a Regen Pack whenever you perform a takedown.
Ranged skills:
- Ranged Concussive Mastery: Your ranged attack sends a concussive blast, knocking back any enemies in its path.
- Grab Protection: Protects you from enemy interruption while holding onto an enemy. This skill works nicely with Harpoon and Nutcracker.
- Intrinsic Grab Mastery: Grants a 40% chance to spawn an Intrinsic Orb whenever you slam or throw a grabbed enemy.
Efficiency skills:
- Polymorph Efficiency: All three of these skills work toward making Kamala’s Intrinsic ability last as long as possible. This one reduces the activation cost by 40%.
- Polymorph Reduction: Causes Kamala to use 25% less sustained intrinsic energy while Polymorph is active.
- Polymorph Boost: Increases the intrinsic meter by 20%.
Intrinsic skills:
- Polymorphic Might: Increases stun damage by 25% when you use Morning Star, Palm Strike, Whirlwind, and Seismic Slam while Polymorph is active.
- Evasive Energy: Restores 30 points of intrinsic energy whenever you perform a perfect evade.
- Nimble Reflexes: Stops intrinsic energy from draining for 1 minute and 30 seconds whenever you perform a parry or counter. If you’re struggling with parrying, swap this skill out for Sixth Sense (20% longer parry window).
Iron Man
Ranged supporter
Iron Man plays a support role, backed by powerful ranged attacks. His ultimate Hulkbuster ability is great for dealing with mobs, but most of your time with Iron Man will be spent attacking from range before sweeping down to activate some support skills. Our build reflects that.
Support heroic skills:
- Arc Field: Activates a one-way field that blocks incoming ranged attacks while allowing outgoing ranged attacks to pass.
- Defensive Field: Whenever you activate Arc Field, this skill allows you to send incoming ranged attacks back rather than just blocking them.
Assault heroic skills:
- Reserve Capacitors: Iron Man’s Unibeam ability is tricky to aim anyway, and in most cases, you’ll spend some amount of charge firing at nothing. Reserve Capacitors reduce the duration of Unibeam but allow you to store three short charges.
- Concentrated Fire: Deal more damage to an enemy the longer Unibeam stays on them. With Reserve Capacitors, each additional shot on the same enemy deals 30% more damage.
Ultimate heroic skills:
- Disruption Pulse: Sends an EMP shockwave out while Hulkbuster is active, breaking blocks and immobilizing all enemies within range. This skill is great for downing a mob while your teammates catch their breath.
- Titanium Bravado: Hulkbuster attacks have a 50% chance to taunt enemies, drawing them away from your teammates. Draw them in, then use Disruption Pulse to down them.
Combat skills:
- Air Combat Mastery: Iron Man flies, so you’ll be fighting enemies in the air a lot. This skill boosts your critical attack damage by 15% while in the air.
- Intrinsic Takedown Mastery: Spawns an Intrinsic Orb whenever you perform a takedown.
- Ranged Combat Mastery: Boosts the damage of all of your ranged attacks by 15%.
Ranged skills:
- Repulsor Mastery: The alternatives for these skills all mirror each other, just with lasers and rockets. Feel free to swap them out if you prefer a different ranged attack. This skill increases critical attack damage by 15% when using your repulsors.
- Repulsor Specialization: Increases the rate of fire by 10% for all aimed repulsor attacks.
- Repulsor Efficiency: Decreases the intrinsic energy cost of using your repulsors by 10%.
Intrinsic skills:
- Arc Reactor Regeneration: Increases intrinsic energy regeneration by 10%.
- Stun Intrinsic Boost: Perfect for whenever you activate Disruption Pulse, this skill gives you 25 points of intrinsic energy whenever you stun an enemy.
- Overcharge Damage Boost: Increases the damage of all of your attacks by 12.5% while overcharged.
Utility skills:
- Energy Shield Efficiency: None of the skills in this specialization work particularly well for ranged combat. This one, at least, reduces the activation cost of Energy Shield by 15%, allowing you to effectively block attacks on the ground.
- Reflective Barrier: Basically a smaller version of Defensive Field, this skill reflects incoming projectile whenever you activate Energy Barrier.
- Air Superiority: An obvious skill for this build, this one boosts the damage of your ranged attacks while flying by 15%.
Black Widow
Rogue Avenger
This build is all about Black Widow dashing around the battlefield unseen, picking off enemies efficiently. What Black Widows lacks in power, she makes up for in maneuverability. She’s certainly one of the more specialized heroes, but as long as you’re willing to learn her moveset, Natasha Romanoff is a force to be reckoned with.
Support heroic skills:
- Night Terror: Increases the duration of Veil of Shadows by three seconds while also increasing critical attack chance by 25%.
- Eclipse: Increases the range of Veil of Shadows by 30%. This is helpful for open encounters where your teammates are likely spread out. In close quarters, swap this skill for Visus Obscuram, which extends Veil of Shadows by five seconds for all your teammates.
Assault heroic skills:
- Lighting Fist: Charges Widow’s Bite, turning it into a shield-breaking attack that sends enemies flying. This skill also increases the charge rate of Widow’s Bite.
- Lethal Bite: An essential skill for any build, this one gives you an extra use of Widow’s Bite.
Ultimate heroic skills:
- Vanquishing Surge: The other two skills in this specialization are powerful, but only if you combine Black Widow’s ultimate with her other abilities. This one works on its own. Each enemy you defeat while Power Surge is active has a 15% chance to drop Regen Packs for your entire team.
- Power Grid: Increases the duration of Power Surge by four seconds.
Intrinsic skills:
- Overcharge Ranged: Black Widow’s dual pistols can hand out some serious damage. This skill boosts that damage by 10% whenever you’re overcharged.
- Headshot Charge: Keeping with ranged combat, this skill gives you 25 points toward overcharge whenever you land a headshot.
- Willpower Overcharge: Recover one point of willpower whenever you deal damage while overcharged. It may not seem like much, but with Black Widow’s lightning-fast attacks, you’ll recover a lot of willpower quickly.
Ranged skills:
- Cluster Grenade: Throw three grenades instead of one, increasing the spread of damage.
- Voltaic Grenades: Adds shock damage to all grenade damage.
- Fast Reload: Reload your weapon 15% faster.
Invisibility skills:
- Invisible Status: Boosts all status damage by 20% while invisible.
- Invisible Willpower: Regenerate 1% willpower every second that you’re invisible.
- Critical Damage: Increases the damage of critical attacks by 15% while invisible.
Utility skills:
- Heroic Takedown Mastery: Spawns a Heroic Orb whenever you perform a takedown. This is useful for rushing toward Black Widow’s Veil of Shadows ability.
- Critical Headshots: Increases the critical damage of headshots by 20%.
- Melee Charge: Boosts the energy of all heroic meters by 5% for each light and heavy attack. This is an indispensable skill.
Hulk
Gamma tank
In a shock to no one, Hulk is the tank in Marvel’s Avengers. It’s nearly impossible to build him any other way. Hulk is all about drawing attention away from enemies while soaking up any incoming attacks. Once they’re close, large sweeping and stun attacks leave enemies on the ground and open to attack. Hulk is a brute, and with this build, he plays like one.
Support heroic skills:
- Boneshaker Regeneration: Hulk draws a lot of heat, so he’ll take a lot of damage. This skill restores all willpower whenever you defeat five enemies while Boneshaker is active.
- Savage Regeneration: Building on the last skill, this one causes defeated enemies who have been taunted by Boneshaker to drop Regen Packs.
Assault heroic skills:
- Irradiated Destruction: Spawns a radioactive pool at the end of Stranglehold, dealing gamma damage to nearby enemies.
- Barbaric Charge: Instantly charge Hulk’s intrinsic ability while taunting nearby enemies whenever Stranglehold is active.
Ultimate heroic skills:
- Ground Zero: This skill does a little bit of everything. First, it generates a vacuum whenever you activate Thunderclap, drawing in nearby enemies. It also, however, creates a radiation zone that deals gamma damage to nearby enemies while healing teammates by 2% for every second they’re within the radiation zone. This skill is a must.
- Thunderclap Taunt: Taunts the few poor souls unlucky enough to survive Thunderclap.
Melee skills:
- Combatant Shield: Allows you to hold a button while holding an enemy to block incoming attacks. If you successfully block an attack, you’ll drop the enemy.
- Regen Slams: Grants a 15% chance for enemies to drop a Regen Pack when you slam them with a heavy attack.
- Willpower Takedown Mastery: Performing a takedown generates a Regen Pack.
Ranged skills:
- Bedrock: Increases the damage of small rock chunks by 15% while also pinning enemies within the rock’s path.
- Ranged Damage: Further increases all ranged damage by 15%.
- Excavator: Increases the speed of picking up large and small debris by 15%. Enemies can normally interrupt these pickups, so this skill is essential for staying aggressive.
Intrinsic skills:
- Raging Recovery: Restore 10% willpower while dealing damage when Rage is active.
- Enhanced Damage: Increase all damage by 15% while Rage is active.
- Maximum Rage: Increases Hulk’s maximum amount of intrinsic energy by 15%.
Intrinsic overcharge skills:
- Defense Boost: Increases defensive strength by 15% while overcharge is active.
- Status Boost: Increases status damage by 30% while overcharge is active, which is perfect for Hulk’s gamma pools.
- Hot Head: Boosts intrinsic overcharge energy gained from all attacks by 20%.
Thor
Thunder attacker
Thor’s signature Mjolnir is just a tool for calling down lightning from the skies. This build is all about inflicting shock on enemies with powerful AoE attacks. Thor is a good all-around hero, with solid abilities from the get-go. His skill tree is more focused on offense than anything else, but you can take the build in a few different ways. Ours is focused on dealing a lot of damage to a lot of enemies quickly.
Support heroic skills:
- Ymir’s Wrath: Gives teammates within range of Warrior’s Fury a 25% damage boost.
- Hel’s Anger: Boosts critical attack damage by 25% and critical chance by 10% for all teammates within range of Warrior’s Fury.
Assault heroic skills:
- Thunderstorm: Gives you three uses of God Blast. Most similar skills only give you a single additional use, so Thunderstorm is a must-have.
- Overexposure: Grants 15% more normal and stun damage against shocked enemies. God Blast already inflicts shock damage, so this is just a flat-out damage boost in most situations.
Ultimate heroic skills:
- Alfheim’s Favor: Creates a healing zone with Bifrost that heals teammates by 10% for every second they’re within the zone.
- Asgard’s Light: Automatically heal 50% willpower whenever you return from Bifrost. Thor can get fragile if you’re not careful, so this skill is essential.
Melee skills:
- Heroic Charge: Thor is usually battling on the ground, so this skill is great to have around. It boosts the charge rate of all Heroic abilities by 1.5% for light attacks and 2% for heavy attacks.
- Combo Damage: Increases the damage of combo finishers by 25%.
- Willpower Recovery: Recover an additional 15% willpower whenever you perform a takedown.
Ranged skills:
- Manual Targeting: Although it removes your ability to pin enemies, this skill lets you target multiple enemies with Mjolnir to hit them with a single throw.
- Guard Breaker: Breaks the blocks of enemies whenever you throw Mjolnir at them.
- Charged Flight: Generates lightning while flying, releasing it whenever you land.
Intrinsic skills:
- Ionic Bolts: Strikes nearby targets with lightning whenever you defeat an enemy while Odinforce is active.
- Takedown Charge: Performing a takedown generates 30 points of intrinsic energy.
- Surging Force: Regenerate Odinforce energy 12% faster.
Intrinsic overcharge skills:
- Lightning Field: Strikes nearby enemies periodically with lightning whenever overcharged.
- Charged Resistance: Reduces damage by 50% whenever overcharged.
- Damage Force: Deal 15% more damage with all attacks while overcharged.
Captain America
All-American brawler
Captain America is about getting up close and personal, duking it out with enemies hand to hand while throwing his shield to pick off enemies from afar. Our build is focused on building combos and rewarding you for doing so while boosting the damage of ranged attacks. Captain America doesn’t have a lot of healing skills, trading them for defensive buffs instead, but we mixed a few in for balance.
Support heroic skills:
- Call to Arms: Buffs defense of nearby teammates by 25% while Rally Cry is active.
- Hold the Line: Enemies marked by Rally Cry have a 35% chance to drop a Regen Pack when defeated.
Assault heroic skills:
- Secret Weapon: Hold two charges of Steamroller.
- Vanguard Charge: Spawns a Heroic Orb for every two enemies defeated with Steamroller.
Ultimate heroic skills:
- Critical Acclaim: You don’t see guaranteed critical damage on most skills, so this one is excellent. This skill deals guaranteed critical damage and increases the impact of light combo finishers.
- Unfair Advantage: Comboing nicely with Vanguard Charge, this skill grants 25% more energy to Brooklyn Brawler whenever you pick up a Heroic Orb.
Combat skills:
- Combo Finisher Mastery: Our build is all about combos, and this skill is perfect for that. It deals 25% more damage for all light and heavy combo finishers.
- Combo Finisher Critical Mastery: Similar to the previous skill, this one boosts critical attack damage by 15% for light and heavy combo finishers.
- Takedown Support: Spawns a Regen Pack whenever you perform a takedown.
Ranged skills:
- Combo Finisher Pin: The ranged combo finisher now sends enemies into the air, pinning them to a wall.
- Power Throw Damage Mastery: Increases damage on all ranged attacks by 15%.
- Precision Heroic Dynamo: Gives enemies a 15% chance to drop a Heroic Orb with a successful headshot.
Efficiency skills:
- Takedown Energy Burst: Recover 40% intrinsic energy whenever you perform a takedown.
- Energy Boost II: Increases intrinsic regeneration speed by 15%.
- Block Reaction Efficiency: Reduces the intrinsic energy used with Shield Block by 25%.
Intrinsic skills:
- Defense Attack Efficiency I: Reduces the cost of intrinsic attacks by 15%.
- Intrinsic Rejuvenation: Restores all Shield Block energy for every two enemies defeated with Commander’s Parry.
- Commander’s Strength: Breaks enemy blocks with melee and ranged attacks while the Captain’s Charge buff is active.
