We’re closing in on two weeks since the Global Launch of Mortal Kombat Onslaught. And boy, have I seen some tragic mistakes made by new players (Please stop investing in 3-star Jax).
It’s a trend you see in every mobile game. No matter how active the community or how many resources are available, many mobile gamers will go into a game blind and do their own thing. And that’s an understandable way of playing video games.
But when it comes to mobile games, especially gacha games, it’s not the wisest way to go. In the long run, your enjoyment of the game may run out sooner, going at it alone than if you had utilized the resources available.
Mortal Kombat Onslaught takes some getting used to, and your room for error is slim. It’s not easy or quick to recoup on bad investments you make. So, the best thing you can do is not make bad investments.
Here are 10 Beginner Tips and Tricks for new Mortal Kombat Onslaught players.
Don’t Waste Any Resources. Ever.
Mortal Kombat Onslaught has bottlenecks; a lot of them. And the developers do a great job of tricking players into thinking they’ve got all the resources in the world.
As someone who has played Mortal Kombat Onslaught since the beginning of Early Access one year ago and does not have every character and relic I like ranked up because I can’t afford it, trust me. You don’t.
If you are careless with your character exp, relic exp, or tomes, you will quickly run out. And even we veterans have no options but to farm these resources painfully slowly.
The only resource you’ll start to build a decent reserve of is koins. And the only reason for this is because you don’t have the other resources needed to invest in characters, so you have nothing to spend koins on.
Minions are Useless
It pains me to say this as someone who loved using Mercenary Guard and Lieutenant in the earliest days of Marvel Strike Force. But minion characters are utterly abysmal in Mortal Kombat Onslaught.
With terrible stats, largely underwhelming abilities, poor Initiative, and damage, Minions have no redeeming qualities. Faction teams are still in the early stages and mostly impractical. But even if they weren’t, Minions still wouldn’t be worth using.
All Minions do is take up space in the 3-star fighter pool. Please don’t waste any of your precious resources on them.
Most Named 3-Stars Unfortunately Suck
The 3-star trap is one of the easiest to fall into in Mortal Kombat Onslaught. Mortal Kombat is a franchise of favorites and players like using their favorite characters.
Many fan-favorite characters like Mileena, Kano, Sub-Zero, and Nightwolf have 3-star variants. But unfortunately, you shouldn’t be investing in them.
The only 3-star characters you can comfortably invest in are Scorpion (I’m pretty sure Ed Boon made it illegal for Scorpion to be bad in any Mortal Kombat game) and Raiden.
The other 3-star characters mostly range from mid at best, like Kitana or Fujin, or downright terrible, like Jax or Kano.
A few 3-star characters might have some potential, like General Kotal as a tank or Mileena as a damage dealer, but due to the extreme character exp bottleneck, it is not worth the risk in case your investment doesn’t pan out.
Don’t Try to Level Up Your Entire Roster
Thanks to the numerous resource bottlenecks, spreading the love to your entire roster is not something you can do in Mortal Kombat Onslaught unless you’re a whale. I know that goes against how Hero Collectors usually work, but those be the breaks.
The smartest thing any player can do is focus on a small, core group of characters to carry you through as much content as possible. Many characters have comparable PVP/PVE potency and can run double shifts.
For PVP, new players should focus on their best Defender and three damage dealer units. Warriors, Attackers, Assassins, and Snipers will be able to perform best out the gate. Ranged attackers like Sindel are great investments since you will lack the gear to make your frontline offensive units bulky for a while.
The Healer meta is dead after NRS nerfed Shang Tsung, so you can ignore investing in healers for now. As for Support units, it depends on your roster. Shadowmancer Noob Saibot is a support unit, and if you’re running the Netherrealm/Brotherhood of Shadow team, definitely go for it, as it’s the best team in the game.
Other support units, like Fire Support Jax, can be good, but early on, with poorly built characters, new players won’t be able to draw out the full potential of some Supports. Some Supports like Deadeye Erron Black can be strong offensive units if you invest in them enough, but new players don’t have it easy.
After you have your core four units, I suggest picking another offensive unit for the Affinity you’re weakest in. If your core four doesn’t include a Mind offensive unit, pick one to invest in and slot into your PVP team whenever you face a Body-heavy team.
Pay Attention to Gear Set Effects
When you first start the game, you don’t have much gear (And even less gear that’s actually good). In the beginning, it’s understandable if you equip whatever you have.
But once you can comfortably farm gear from Boss Tower, pay attention to Set Effects. There are 8 Sets in the game, and each Set requires you to equip 2 or 4 pieces of that Set to gain a Set bonus.
Many of these Set bonuses are very significant, like 25% Attack for an Attack Set or 15% HP for an HP Set. Gear is one of the things that will take your team to the next level, so pay attention to your gear and equip it properly.
Oh, and don’t equip Haste sets. Ever.
% Stats> Raw Stats (Most of the time)
Gear sub-stats come as raw stats or percentage-based. You ideally want your gear to have as many percentage-based sub-stats as possible.
Percentage-based sub-stats can provide far more potent bonuses than raw stats (Say 12% Attack versus 250 Attack). There will be exceptions (10,000 HP is better than 1% HP, for example), but typically, percentage-based sub-stats are king.
Also, not all sub-stats can be percentage-based. Attack, Defense, HP, Critical Chance, and Critical Damage can be percentage-based or raw stats. The other sub-stats can only be raw stats.
Once You Pull the Featured Character, STOP SUMMONING
So far, every featured banner has only had one featured character, one 5-star character. After you pull that character, there’s zero reason to continue pulling.
I’ve seen many summoning videos this past week and a half of players wasting master orbs after getting the featured character, and it just hurts. Master orbs are very slow to farm. Do not waste them.
Don’t Chase 5-Star Kombos
The 5-star drop rates in Mortal Kombat Onslaught are abysmal. And that includes featured banners. Whenever you summon, pray to the Elder Gods and hope for the best.
Kombos are something NRS implemented shortly before launch, and they can power up your characters significantly. But this is clearly P2W-territory when it comes to 5-star characters. If you’re F2P or even a dolphin, you cannot afford to blow your resources chasing after Kombo dupes.
Not only that, but some 5-star Kombos aren’t worth chasing after. Wind God Fujin is a top-tier character, but his Kombo skills are situational at best. You can live without many of these Kombos and are better off saving your krystals and orbs to summon for 5-star characters you don’t already have.
Featured Banner Summons Rollover
The best way of tackling a featured banner is to wait until you have enough krystals/orbs to guarantee the 80-summon pity.
If you can’t do that, the next best thing is to focus your krystals/orbs on one featured banner character at a time.
Featured banners in Mortal Kombat Onslaught have concerningly short summon windows, much smaller than any other gacha I have played. Most F2P players will have no choice but to watch many banners come and go because you don’t have nearly enough time to farm the krystals/orbs needed to pity a featured character.
But it isn’t all bad. The saving grace of featured banners is that all your summons rollover. Let’s say you summon on Fire God Liu Kang’s banner 20 times before it goes away. When the banner comes back, your 20 summons on that banner will still count towards the pity.
Focus on PVE Content First, PVP Second
Mortal Kombat Onslaught has a back-and-forth process for building up your roster. The Arena store has lots of great resources for helping you improve your characters. The Arena also gives you krystals every week that you can use on anything from character summons to outright relic purchases.
But to do well in Arena, you must build your team well. And to build your team well, you need resources like skill tomes, gear, and maxed relics. If you want skill tomes, gear, and relic exp to level up your relics, the primary places to do so are Boss Tower and Chasm.
Arena Medal farming is respectable after you hit Gold or above in Arena, and that should be possible for new players so long as you make correct character investments. The best thing you can do for your roster is to focus on pushing as far as you can in PVE content so you can get more resources and better resources.
Curious to know what 5-star character is best for starting the game with? Check out our guide.
Stay tuned for more Mortal Kombat Onslaught Content.