Characters for Dark Dimension VIII

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Intro

Dark Dimension VIII (or DD8 for short) came as a surprise to a lot of players because we were expecting Professor X to be the next Dark Dimension character (as was announced previously), moreover, everyone expected Odin to be just a Legendary character, since he is part of the Age Of X saga that will lead us to discover the mystery of what happened with Charles Xavier. Not to mention that this also breaks the tradition of DDs being an annual thing. However, some rules are meant to be broken, and this decision may have some benefits.

Normally, a competitive endgame player, even if they are fully free-to-play, can complete a new Dark Dimension in under 6 Months, so once that’s done they are left with no real goal in sight. But if we get 2 Dark Dimensions per year, it allows for the chase to continue. This might also mean increased revenue for the devs, which is ultimately a good thing because the game will stay afloat for longer. There can be a downside as well since this can widen the gaps between spenders, competitive free-to-play, and casual free-to-play players even more, but that is always an issue with free-to-play games.

A great thing about DD8 is that the requirements aren’t based on Gear Tiers but on Iso Levels instead. This not only allows for more control and character selection but also makes it more friendly and a lot of free-to-play players might complete DD8 before they get to DD7. And unlocking new powerful characters is always fun, so the more the marrier.

One important note, both City sections won’t see a lot of changes to their recommendations before DD8 launches, but other sections might see some slight changes so at this point, if you err on the side of caution, it’s best to not equip any Crystals at all, at least not until we get the release date and more info regarding any accompanying events. You can keep track of what Crystals you need using the Dark Dimension Planner on the MSF Website.

[Update] The official release date for Dark Dimension VIII is September 16th at 2 PM (PDT). Additionally, we now also know the correct order of nodes. Datamines also reveal that we can expect 13 nodes, meaning that the non-restrictive section will return.

Correct Order of DD8 Sections (Purple Iso-8 Level 3 required)

Non-Restrictive – Nodes 1-2
City Heroes (non-legendary) – Nodes 3-4
City Villains (non-legendary) – Nodes 5-6
Global Heroes (non-legendary) – Nodes 7-8
Global Villains (non-legendary) – Nodes 9-10
Cosmic OR Legendary – Nodes 11-13

Rewards

DD8 will feature Node rewards as well as First-Clear and Timed-Clear rewards.

Node Rewards:

Ravens (points for a special To Valhalla Milestone)
T4 Ability Materials
Mega Orbs
Elite 7 Credits
Diamond Orbs
Mega Gold Orbs
T3 Iso-8 Credits
T3 L1 Ions
Crimson Mini Uniques

First-Clear Rewards:

Character shards for 5 Yellow Stars for Odin
T3 Iso-8 Credits and T3 L1 Ions
Crimson Gear

Timed-Run Rewards:

Character shards to Rank Up Odin to 7 Yellow Stars
More T3 Iso-8 Credits and T3 L1 Ions
More Crimson Gear

As always, we only get rewards from the first 2 full clears, and afterward, we can continue clearing the DD8 to get an upgraded version of the DD8 Player Frame. A big difference for DD8 is that we won’t be getting Red Stars for Odin directly from DD8 rewards, instead they are relocated to a To Valhalla Milestone.

To Valhalla Milestone (live September 16th – October 14th)

This milestone will go live on the same day that DD8 launches and it will be the only way to earn Red Stars for Odin at first. We can progress by earning Ravens from Dark Dimension VIII nodes.

Milestone Rewards will include:

Odin Red Stars (up to 7 Red Stars)
Odin’s Fully Crafted GT19 Unique
T3 Iso-8 Credits and T3 L1 Ions
Crimson and Teal Mystic Gear
Ciphers and Sentinel Evolution Orbs for the Path to Orchis Event

Presumably, we can earn up to 7 Red Stars for Odin, but to collect enough Ravens to do that we might have to clear DD8 twice. This event has an expiration date (October 14th) which will give players only around a Month to complete DD8 twice. Red Stars will eventually be added to the Elite Store after a period of exclusivity, but that can take from a couple of months to half a year, so it is recommended that you complete as many sections as you can while the Milestone is live.

Entering Dark Dimension VII should be easier considering we are getting a lot of Purple Iso materials, and many active/competitive players should be able to clear DD8 in a month or less, even if they are fully free-to-play. But the developers recommend having GT19 on characters and using Super Skrull and Mephisto to clear the last section, meaning that the nodes will be extremely hard so be warned.

Requirements

The main requirement for DD8 is Purple Iso, but there are also node specific Trait requirements:

Mission 1 and 2 – non-requirements – Purple Iso-8 Level 3
Mission 3 and 4 – City Hero (non-legendary) – Purple Iso-8 Level 3
Mission 5 and 6 – City Villain (non-legendary) – Purple Iso-8 Level 3
Mission 7 and 8 – Global Hero (non-legendary) – Purple Iso-8 Level 3
Mission 9 and 10 – Global Villain (non-legendary) – Purple Iso-8 Level 3
Mission 11, 12, and 13 – Cosmic OR Legendary – Purple Iso-8 Level 3

Missions does not have any Gear Tier requirements, so other than needing to be level 85 to be able to equip Level 3 Purple Iso, any characters can be used for DD8. However, missions are fairly challenging so you will have a much better experience with stronger characters (the devs recommend that characters have GT19). Mythic characters like Mephisto, Apocalypse, Super Skrull, etc can be used for their respective nodes, so overcoming those challenges shouldn’t be too difficult. Mephisto and Super Skrull are also highly recommended for the last section.

The big advantage of the main requirement being Iso related is that we can choose any character we like since the resource investment and “price” for each character is the same, whereas in prior DDs the main requirements were Gear Tiers and different characters can have different costs for upgrading, so we couldn’t just use the best characters and had to instead go for cheaper options in some cases.

Upgrading one character to Purple Iso will take:

1 Crystal for each (Armor, Resistance, Health, Focus, Damage) and 7,500 T3 Level 1 Ions – Purple Iso-8 Level 1
3 Crystals for each (Armor, Resistance, Health, Focus, Damage), 50,000 T3 Level 1 Ions for fusing and 22,300 for upgrading – Purple Iso-8 Level 2
9 Crustals for each (Armor, Resistance, Health, Focus, Damage), 235,000 T3 Level 1 Ions for fusing and 45,000 for upgrading – Purple Iso-8 Level 3

The total for 1 character is – 45 Crystals (9 of each – Armor, Resistance, Health, Focus, Damage) and 359,800 T3 Level 1 Ions. we will need 25 characters to clear all nodes (5 for each section), meaning that our total in terms of Purple Iso resources will be as follows: 1,125 crystals and nearly 9 million T3 Level 1 Ions.

Initially, we could earn Purple Crystals and T3 Level 1 Ions from events and a special Store where we could selectively buy Crystals of different types, or purchase Ions using the special Radioactive Treats currency. Once the event store ends (September 15th) the only way to get more Purple Iso resources would be through Events (presumably in smaller quantities), until they eventually move into Raids or other game modes. The official launch of DD8 is also expected to happen at around the same time the Event Store ends, however, no official date was announced as of yet.

While we can have more freedom in choosing which characters to use for DD8, we can’t select our best characters blindly and will need to pay close attention to character combat role trait (Brawler, Blaster, Protector, Controller, Support) since Iso Crystals are also separated into the same Roles. So to clear DD8 as efficiently and quickly as possible, we need to balance our characters according to their Roles.

Ideally, we want to have 5 characters for each Combat Role (Brawler, Blaster, Protector, Controller, Support) but because we gained some Purple Iso-8 Credits from Events, we can use that to selectively open Orbs containing Crystals for any specific Role we want. We will try to provide you a balanced selection of characters, but will also add a few alternatives so depending on the Roster and the Crystals you got so far, everyone should be able to find a good combination of characters that will be useful in other game modes as well, not only in DD8.

Character Suggestions

We will provide the best suggestions for each respective section in a balanced way, meaning that we should have a similar amount of characters of all Combar Roles. We will also provide the best alternatives, in some cases the balance will remain intact, while in others it can tip slightly into one of the roles. We will try to account for team synergies in each sections, so that clearing the nodes is not too dificult. All provided characters should be useful in at least one of the other game modes to warrant the Purple Iso investment.

If DD8 starts with non-restrictive nodes, we should be able to easily clear them using Spider-Society, a team we’ll need for the next section. The developers mentioned that the difficulty of the first nodes will be lower compared to the previous Dark Dimensions, so we don’t foresee any issues with that. The difficulty will start ramping up once we hit trait-specific sections.

City Heroes (non-legendary)

Silver Sable (Blaster)
Daredevil (Modern) (Protector)
Punisher (Blaster)
Hit-Monkey (Blaster)
Gwenpool (Brawler)

Combat Roles total: Blaster x3, Brawler x1, Protector x1

City Villains (non-legendary)

Vulture (Brawler)
Superior Spider-Man (Support)
Hobgoblin (Protector)
Scorpion (Brawler)
Shocker (Blaster)

Combat Roles total: Brawler x2, Protector x1, Support x1, Blaster x1

Global Heroes (non-legendary)

Daimon Hellstrom (Controller)
Living Mummy (Protector)
Hellcat (Brawler)
Storm (Mighty) (Blaster)
Eclipse (Protector)

Combat Roles total: Protector x2, Controller x1, Brawler x1, Blaster x1

Global Villains (non-legendary)

Apocalypse (Support)
Omega Red (Phoenix Force) (Brawler)
Magneto (Phoenix Force) (Blaster)
Darkstar (Support)
Lady Bullseye (Brawler)

Combat Roles total: Support x2, Brawler x2, Blaster x1

Cosmic OR Legendary

Mephisto (Protector)
Thanos (Protector)
Shadow King (Controller)
Silver Surfer (Breaker) (Brawler)
Knull (Controller)

Combat Roles total: Protector x2, Brawler x1, Controller x2

Conclusion

Iso-8 – To utilize the Purple Iso-8 efficiently, we need to consider having a healthy mix of all Classes for each separate section. Healers will be an important class because they can clear 2 Vulnerables from all allies when they use their Ultimate ability. So it is a good idea to have 1 Healer for each section because characters in Dark Dimensions have a ton of health and if they are Strikers, their follow-up attack will deal a percentage of their Health as damage, which can often be enough to one-shot even a full health character. (Spider-Society team doesn’t need a healer because Peter B can clear Vulnerables passively)
Fortifier is a great backup option we can give to our Protectors because it allows them to clear 2 Vulnerables from themselves on Turn, so in some cases we can forgo having a Healer if we have a Fortifier character who can Taunt. Skirmisher Iso now provides even more focus, so it can be essential for characters which will apply a lot of debuffs. Striker and Raiders gain increases to effects they already have and it’s best to equip these on your biggest damage-dealers

Unlocking Odin should be an exciting journey and more players will be able to get to him faster than normally. As time goes on, even more characters will be added so we will have even more options. Not to mention that eventually, Purple Iso resources will become freely available, either from Raids or elsewhere, which should further speed up your progress.

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