Here we are with the Marvel’s Midnight Suns Buffs and Debuffs guide. All the characters in the game have abilities. The ones that support you and help you from these abilities are called Buffs, and the abilities that harm and hinder you are called Debuffs. In this guide, we have explained all the Buffs and the functions of the Debuffs in the game for you.
Marvel’s Midnight Suns Buffs & Debuffs Guide
As you might have grasped if you’ve played even a fraction of the game before reading this guide, buffs and debuffs can play a substantial part in gameplay. Incidentally, if you haven’t played a fraction of the game before reading this guide, kudos to you for reading this. Seriously, that’s pretty cool of you.
Some buffs and debuffs are substantially more useful (or detrimental) than others, though. I feel it’s therefore necessary to lay out my views on them here, as this may help to explain my rationale on card analysis later. I have also included some enemy-specific debuffs, primarily because I like to be unnecessarily thorough (which is why this guide exists in the first place, really).
Buff Guide Explained
Block – Prevents incoming damage from most sources; capped at a maximum equal to the character’s health. Useful, but not hugely so as block values don’t tend to scale enough to protect from sufficient hits, and doesn’t prevent damage from sources like Bleed, Wounded etc.
Concealed – Cannot be targeted, though can be damaged through AoE. This status is highly desirable if you can land it at the end of your turn, as enemies whose target is concealed will typically just skip their turn entirely. That said, taking any action or taking damage will remove the status, making it fairly hit-and-miss as far as statuses go.
Counter – When attacked, will hit their attacker in return. Theoretically a very powerful effect – after all, if damage is good and screwing the action economy is good, this is both! – but in practice the damage it deals is simply too low to do anything more than kill off the minions you wanted to farm heroism on. Note that this isn’t true for enemy Counter, which tends to hit about as hard as the enemy usually would and should therefore be avoided wherever possible.
Cure – Not strictly a buff, so much as the absence of debuffs – Curing a target will remove any and all debuffs they’ve been subjected to. Extremely valuable as a secondary effect as it can remove effects which would otherwise completely screw up your game-plan, such as Wounded; generally not valuable enough on its own to be worthwhile.
Frenzy X – An enemy-specific buff which makes them act after every X cards played. Very dangerous, as you’d expect of something which messes with the action economy. Enemies with Frenzy should be removed as a priority so that you can go back to spamming your Quick cards at will.
Invulnerable – The Nirvana of buffs, the recipient cannot be damaged by enemy attacks. Currently only exists on Magik’s legendary card. Note that while invulnerable you can still receive debuffs – and due to Darkchylde’s Taunt effect you probably will – so pay attention so you don’t inadvertently kill yourself to Wounded damage on the following turn.
Protected – The target cannot be targeted or damaged with AoE. Remove this by removing the protector – either by removing their Block, or where possible, hitting them with Stun or Bind.
Resist – Invulnerable’s baby sister, but still extremely potent, a stack of Resist blocks a single source of incoming damage. Note that it won’t stop status damage from things like Bleed or Wounded, nor will it prevent debuffs from being applied (and a few bosses, like Dread Maidens, just ignore it entirely). All the same, Resist is incredibly useful for ensuring that the few stragglers left alive after your initial blitzkrieg don’t manage to pick someone off.
Strengthened/Overpowered – Increase the target’s Offence (and therefore their damage) by 50%/100%. One of the better buffs (for obvious reasons); unfortunately most of the sources of this are awkward to activate. The best and most reliable source of either is via Combat Items.
Taunt – Force the enemy to attack a specific target. Generally fairly weak as a buff since you usually want damage spread across your team so nobody goes down, but some abilities interact with it in a positive way. Also the only way certain heroes (coughWolverinecough) can be useful, since their only real purpose is to soak damage.
Debuff Guide Explained
Berserk – Extremely rare debuff which causes the recipient to attack the nearest unit, friend or foe, on their turn. Unfortunately forced enemy attacks seem to be inexplicably weaker than their regular ones.
Bind – Prevents the target from taking any actions, and unlike Stun is not removed by incoming damage. Remember that Supervillains get two actions, and this will only prevent one of them.
Bleed – Deals a chunk of damage to the target at the end of their turn, ignoring defensive buffs like Block or Resist. Damage seems to be based on the recipient’s max health. Unfortunately by its nature Bleed deals its damage after the target has been allowed to act, making it pretty much worthless as debuffs go. Its main use is in activating several of Blade’s secondary effects.
Confused X – Enemy-specific debuff, the hero will take a random action each time you play a card until the end of the turn or after X cards have been played. Although random, I’ve found Confused is more often than not a benefit – it’s common for a confused character to run off and use Environmentals to damage enemies without expending your precious heroism. It does, of course, render the character’s cards unplayable for the duration, but it’s still often not worth spending any resources to cure.
Wondering why Charge is my image for Confused? It’s because I’m confused why anyone would put it in their deck.
Corrupted – The recipient takes damage at the end of their turn, much like Bleed. Unlike Bleed, however, they then apply the Corrupted debuff to any nearby targets – friend or foe. This does mean you can run into a big group of enemies and then end your turn to give them all your Lilin-AIDS; this will make you laugh until you realise you just ran into a big group of enemies that all get to attack before they take the damage. Better to just make sure the recipient ends their turn well away from any friendlies.
Dazed X – The recipient hero is unable to act until X cards have been played. Unfortunately not removed by damage, so your only recourse is to disregard that hero until the debuff is gone.
Because it’s got damage for days! Get it? Ha ha!…Okay, look, work with me here, there aren’t any cards with Dazed on them. I’m doing my best.
Marked – Refunds the expended card play when killed, effectively making any card Quick. Note that like Quick, it will only refund the card play expended to kill the target – you don’t get any refunds for kills which don’t take a card play, nor can you refund more than one card play at a time.
Stun – Target is unable to act on their turn. Removed by any source of damage, so remember to only apply it to things you don’t plan on hitting for the rest of the turn. Note that you can remove it on allies with environmentals that happen to hit them.
Vulnerable – Target takes 50% more damage from all sources. Works slightly differently to Strengthened – this will increase damage from effects which don’t rely on Offence for damage calculation (such as Ghost Rider’s Judgement), but won’t give any additional benefit to cards which have effects calculated on Offence (e.g. Ghost Rider’s Immolate). Less valuable than Strengthened in general because you only have to apply Strengthened to one target – the hero doing all the work – whereas Vulnerable would need to be applied to every relevant target.
Weak – Target’s offence is reduced by 50%. It’s unclear exactly how this interacts with Strengthened. Regardless, not a particularly valuable status to inflict – you want enemies dead, stunned, or their damage Resisted. Better than nothing, though.
Wounded – The recipient hero takes damage every time they play a card. This applies equally to Free and Quick cards, so it prevents you from screwing the action economy too heavily (the horror!). It only applies to cards, though, so you can move around and use environmentals all you want without being hit.
Because if you have this in your hand, Wolverine is probably going to be wounded after the mission. That one wrote itself.