Heroism: Phoenix

Dark Phoenix
(artist: John Byrne)

Introduction

Phoenix is available from the store for a bargain 48 CP, and has been since the beginning of the game.  Jean Grey is one of the most popular of the original X-Men, first featured in Uncanny X-Men #1 as Marvel Girl.  Her Phoenix persona didn't appear until Chris Claremont's run on Uncanny, and the Dark Phoenix "saga" is one of the iconic moments in Marvel history, being retold numerous times in the cartoons, as well as in X-Men 3:  Last Stand (for better or for worse).

She's also unique in Marvel Avenger's Alliance:  Her Phoenix 5 costume is the only costume that is unique to the game, having appeared nowhere else in Marvel comics, television, or film.

If you're interested in more about Phoenix, the Dark Phoenix run on the 90s X-Men cartoon is excellent, available on Netflix Instant, and features a ton of Cyclops saying the name Jean.  I suppose you could also watch X-Men 3, if you're into that kind of thing.  It's my wife's favorite of the X-Men films, but I can only speak to my previous memories of the film, as I haven't gotten around to rewatching it in time for the writing of this article.  And those memories tell me you're probably better off watching the cartoon.  Or you know what?  Maybe you should just take my word for it, or perhaps get a Marvel Unlimited subscription to read the comics.

Phoenix

Unique to M:AA, her Phoenix Five costume.
(The Comics featured Namor, who is for
legal reasons not in Avengers Alliance.)

Phoenix as mentioned before is a bargain:  She also has several alternate costumes, White Crown Phoenix and Phoenix 5 Phoenix.  The Phoenix 5 costume is a limited time only costume, having most recently been available during the Phoenix Five sale earlier this month, but it is arguably not as good as her always available White Crown costume.  Between her costumes and base abilities she has access to three classes:  Tactician, Blaster, and Infiltrator.  I personally use Blaster White Crown Phoenix, but you may find you prefer Infiltrator, or possibly even the Phoenix Five Phoenix as a Tactician.  Each has their own distinct advantages.

Her White Crown ability is that Phoenix Five refreshes Death and Rebirth, which allows her Phoenix Force powers to revive the first ally (including herself) that dies with 25% of their max HP.  It also unlocks her Phoenix Fire level 9 ability, a catastrophic attack that hits all enemies, does significant damage, applies soulfire to remove buffs, and removes debuffs from your team.  The ability to 'scroll' with her power as well as keep your team alive makes her one of the premier aggressive support team members in the game, and learning to play around her abilities and kill her before she can Phoenix Fire is a significant part of higher tier PVP.  She's also great in PVE, unlocking a premium mission, and is one of the first heroes I suggest new players to buy if they're looking to get into PVP while still playing PVE.

PVP Strategy:  Using Phoenix

On Attack

Phoenix has several attack abilities, each with their own applications.  Often, players are attracted to her Level 2 ability, Telekinesis, for the 60% chance to stun, and overlook her Psi Blast as being "just damage".  However, Migraine is a very powerful ability reducing the next attack's damage from the afflicted target by 30%, which is great for keeping your team alive through something like Modern Thor's Call Thunder, or other large aoe attacks (including opposing Phoenix Fire).  Additionally, Psi Blast is a psychic attack which makes it act stealthy, allowing you to ignore protect and counterattack abilities such as Rescue's Magnetic Attraction.  This can be used to pick off weakened targets or to attack targets weak to Phoenix.

Always available.
Always good.

Her Mind Link is another ability that recently received a buff making it a Quick Action.  Mind Link adds Focused to your team, but more importantly turns the target party member with Mind Link into a protector.  If you have an Agent with a Sinister Scepter, or a series of counterattack items, or are partnering with Kitty Pryde, you can set up teams that counterattack while being immune to damage.  You can also use this to spread the damage around, making it harder to focus fire individual team members who survive a single round.  This can also be used to help trigger Phoenix Fire.

Phoenix Fire is the big whammy:  A huge, hard hitting AOE that strips debuffs from your team, buffs from the opposing team by applying the Soulfire DOT, is catastrophic and cannot be protected or countered, and rarely misses (it can still be negated by special attacks).  This is what turns Phoenix from a good character to a great one:  She can take you from a losing position and catapult you ahead quickly. With White Crown Phoenix this refreshes Death and Rebirth allowing your team to remain alive even longer, possibly long enough to fire off a second Phoenix Fire if the opposing team lives that long

On Defense

Phoenix's AI prefers to Mind Link onto the character with the most remaining health:  It's for that reason that if you are running a Phoenix team that features Kitty or an Astral agent, you should consider only ISO-equipping that character with HP, to increase the chance that Phoenix will properly give the protect to the character you want soaking up hits.  Her AI is pretty darn decent, it will use Phoenix Fire whenever possible, and now that Mind Link is a quick action it doesn't always waste turns spamming useless buffs.

PVP Strategy: Facing Phoenix

It's something like this...
except with arguably better animation.

Fighting Phoenix is an important skill that will test you, particularly as you try to push into the later leagues (Vibranium and Adamantium).  The most important trick is to prevent Phoenix Fire from being used.  The best ways to do this are with specific crowd control abilities, and properly timing your focus fire so that you can trigger Death and Rebirth and then kill Phoenix before she has a chance to act again.  This means knowing the exact damage ranges of your abilities, being a bit lucky not to unintentionally kill characters with big crits, or spamming stuns on Phoenix after you trigger Death to hopefully keep her stunned for the round when she would fire off Phoenix Fire, allowing you to kill her.  Enough DOTs on her can also prevent her turn from happening, assuming that she's not partnered with a character or agent that can remove those DOTs.

She's very hard to kill with Psychic attacks, so keep that in mind if your plan is to attack her that way.  The most dangerous Phoenix teams feature protectors, making it very hard to target her on the critical turns.  Try to have an AOE ability or two you can use to hit her if she has a protector up, or have Stealthy attacks (or Psychic Energy from your own Phoenix, perhaps) to hit her when she's "down".

Phoenix is a top tier defensive hero, so expect to see her often, and learn to play around her.  Hopefully, you'll start seeing some success once you develop that important skill.