Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: Post-Game Infinity Trials

Introduction

Last week, I posted my full review of Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3. In that review, I spoke a bit about the leveling and grinding needed to amass the large quantities of enhancement points needed to max out that Alliance Enhancement grid. I still haven’t decided if I’m actually going to play this game enough to do that, but I did try seeking out a few viable ways to gain levels quickly to push me in that direction.

To do that, I started going through the Infinity Trials with my strength heavy team and picked a few to do a more in depth analysis on ‘Time Investment X Reward.’

Before we get started, the following is a chart detailing the XP cubes that are available in the game. These drops can be used on any character and do not require you to play as that character. One of the strategies I looked for, were easy trials that had XP cubes as rewards. This way, you level your current four character team, while also generating resources to level another character later.

My team for these trials were Wolverine, Deadpool, Psylocke and Elektra providing a large strength boost to the team. I mainly play as Wolverine, who has a great and varied set of skills. His R+A ‘Primal Rage’ gives him an increase in attack damage, the R+B is ‘Berserker Barrage’ which has an A stagger rating once fully upgraded and his R+X ‘Adamantium Assault’ as a synergy attack with teammates does a ton of damage.

This team in particular has a ridiculous 18% boost to strength as well as other stats.

That being said, a common strategy would be to chip away at a bosses stagger bar, pop on Primal Rage, use Berserker Barrage to take away the rest of the stagger bar, then spam Adamantium Assault with a teammate to do some devastating damage.

This also isn’t the most powerful team. In the future, I really want to make a team of Captain America, Daredevil, Thor and Wolverine. The first two have team buffs that stack, Wolverine has his own attack buff in Primal Rage and Thor does some ridiculous stagger damage and is a stat machine.

Before jumping in to the trials I tested, I wanted to give a heads up on how much experience actual cube XP drops are worth.

Cube Experience: Before jumping in to the trials I tested, I wanted to give a heads up on how much experience actual cube XP drops are worth. We’ll be referencing back to this for two of the trials.

Each cube has a set amount of experience per use.

 

Defeat Nebula and 2 Bosses

The reason I went with this trial in particular is due to a few reasons. First, you can complete it fairly quickly (60-75 seconds), second, you receive a nice chunk of XP for a short time investment and finally, the recurring reward for completing the trial is a random XP cube.

After 15 runs, my average completion time was 1:13 and I effectively saw an experience gain of approximately 5,000 XP strictly from cube rewards each run. I also calculated the experience gain of each of my team members and combined, they averaged a 15,240 XP gain in total.

With this in mind, and giving seven seconds of downtime between each trial, I would be able to complete this trial 45 times/hour for a total XP gain of 910,800/hour. To break this down further, you would receive approximately 225,000 in XP cubes to be given to any character.

 

Defeat 30 or More Enemies on the Kree Ship

This trial is cited as a focus in many blogs and articles that I’ve seen since Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3‘s release. I can see why. The trial includes a flurry of Sentinel type enemies, who are immediately staggered if you hit them with another Sentinel’s core. You can very easily find yourself in a quick loop of ‘Kill Sentinel-> Pick Up Core -> Throw Core -> Kill Sentinel -> Repeat.’ However, that’s not always the case in this trial.

First, let’s see the results in terms of XP gain.

The main difference between this trial and the previous Sigma trial, is that you are forced to sit through three full minutes of Sentinel core throwing. It’s a great trial for less effective or lower leveled characters because you don’t have to do much work. Theoretically, once you kill a Sentinel, you have all the ammo you need to ride the time to the end of the trial.

Truthfully, I find this trial lackluster and frustrating at times. You will find yourself in a room full of Sentinels, each having different attack patterns. If you pick up a core and get hit, the core falls to the ground and is wasted. Your teammates also feel the need to pick up cores when they are available, and I continually witnessed them just whiff Sentinels and throw them in awkward directions.

Accounting for downtime between trials and load screens, lets say you are able to this trial 19 times/hour. Your net total would be approximately 810,000 XP/hour to the four characters you are using to complete the trial. There are no extra cubes that are rewarded here, so you are restricted to who you include in the trial.

 

Defeat Maximus

The third trial I looked at is more similar to the Sigma trial I spoke about earlier, as I wanted to depart as far away from Sentinel core throwing as possible. Lambda is included in the most difficult set of trials, which leads up to you unlocking the final character. You won’t be able to do this trial efficiently right away.

In it, you must defeat Maximus, the main antagonist from the very lackluster Inhumans stage during the campaign. He summons his drones during the fight and has high damage attacks using his gun.

This trial in particular, is Synergy based, meaning that only Synergy attacks with your teammates do any real damage to bosses and regular enemies. Luckily, the set up I mentioned earlier with Wolverine is perfect for this sort of trial. After the first two runs, I was able to get into a rhythm of when and where to use synergy attacks and power up Wolverine with Primal Rage.

The results speak for themselves below.

After 10 runs, my average completion time was 1:26 and I effectively saw an experience gain of approximately 9,800 XP strictly from cube rewards each run. I also calculated the experience gain of each of my team members and combined, they averaged a 15,440 XP gain in total.

With this in mind, and giving seven seconds of downtime between each trial, I would be able to complete this trial 40 times/hour for a total XP gain of 1,009,600/hour. To break this down further, you would receive approximately 392,000 in XP cubes to be given to any character.

 

Final Results

After checking out these three trials, we have a few different takeaways.

Most Experience Earned (Per Hour): The most combined experience between level rewards and raw earned experience was Lambda, Level 50: Synergy at 1,009,600/hour. However, Psi, Level 34: Boss Wave came in with 910,800/hour and can be completed with a much weaker team.

Easiest to Complete: Sigma, 34: Rush easily takes the crown here. It’s fairly easy to grab a group of lower level characters and start chucking Sentinel cores for some easy experience. You should make this trial a priority early on.

Best Drops: Coming ahead here was Lambda, 50: Synergy Trial. Ten total runs in Psi, 34 gave me a net of 54,000 experience worth of XP cubes for me to dole out to whichever character I chose. Lambda, 50 on the other hand, netted me 98,000 worth for a few more seconds per run.

Looking just at these three trials, if you want to level your four select heroes the quickest, go for Lambda 50 later on and Psi 34 with a lower leveled team. If you want an easy to complete, high efficiency trial, albeit more frustrating, go for Sigma 34. Lastly, if you want better XP cube drops, and even not far behind Psi 34 on the total XP/hour scale, Lambda 50 takes the cake.

That’s it for now! Just for a disclaimer, I’m not saying these are the most efficient trials overall, just the ones I sought out to test and find answers for myself. I’m going to continue playing around with Infinity Trials and start dabbling with ISO-8 stones that offer more XP and better drop rates and see what difference that makes.

Lastly, if you missed my review on Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3, check it out at the previous link.

If you want my opinion on the best way to level your characters and earn XP further into the game, check out my post here.