Marvel’s Avengers Ms. Marvel leveling and skills guide

Kamala Khan (aka Ms. Marvel) is the star of Marvel’s Avengers. She’s a combination support/utility character in the new super hero brawler, and she’s a ton of fun.

If you’ve played the campaign, you already have a pretty good idea how Kamala works, and you’ve probably leveled her up a few times. But it’s impossible to see how great of a support Kamala is until you play her in a group with some friends.

In this guide, we’ll pass on some things we learned while leveling our Ms. Marvel. Here are some tips for leveling Kamala Khan, including how to use some of her abilities, and which skills to pick up first.

Five quick tips for playing Ms. Marvel

If you’re starting to use Ms. Marvel in hard content for the first time, here are some quick tips to set you up for success.

• Heal often. Ms. Marvel has her own dedicated healing button that lets her heal herself and nearby allies. The key here is to use Healing Spirit frequently, instead of breaking Regen pack barrels, so you can save the resources for when you really need them.
• Think of Polymorph as a mini-Ultimate. Kamala’s Ultimate ability is Embiggen, which makes her giant and causes her to deal tons of area damage. But if you use Polymorph, her Intrinsic gauge, it temporarily grants her some very similar abilities — although it’s more finite than Embiggen.
• You’re not invincible while Embiggened. Thor, Iron Man, and Hulk are invulnerable while using their Ultimate abilities. Kamala is not. Just because you’re big and deal tons of damage doesn’t mean you can lax on your defense. Keep an eye on that health bar, or you’ll waste your Ultimate.
• Keep your distance. The best part about Ms. Marvel is how stretchy she is. While this is great for dealing damage in a group, since your arms flail around, it’s also great for keeping you safe. Kamala’s attacks have a much longer reach than most characters, which allows you to keep your distance from your enemies.
• Push enemies away. Ms. Marvel’s Assault skill is High Five, which pushes enemies away from her and deals damage. Kamala can also unlock an ability to pick enemies up and move them around. One of her biggest strengths is her ability to reposition the battlefield, so use it to your advantage to help you stay safe.

10 best skills for Ms. Marvel

Image: Crystal Dynamics/Square Enix via Polygon

When you reach level 50 in Marvel’s Avengers, you’ll have unlocked your hero’s entire arsenal of abilities. But getting to 50 is a commitment, and there are some skills worth picking up as early as you can.

You can’t access most skills in the Mastery tree until you reach level 15 or 20, so you won’t be able to grab them immediately. Some skills also require prerequisite skills above them, so think of this as 10 skills to work toward. Acquire and use these skills early to help you get a real feel for your hero’s potential.

Whirling Wallop (Primary, Light Attack)

Hold attack to leap upward while unleashing a flurry of uppercut swings that launches enemies into the air.

This is a great early skill for Kamala, as it gives her a solid way to start juggling enemies. If you’re juggling an enemy, they can’t hurt you, which makes it a safe combo against tough foes.

Catapult Kick (Primary, Heavy Attack)

Press heavy attack after performing the Double-Barrel Punch attack to kick forward, launching enemies away with incredible force.

This is a follow up to your guard break attack. It’s a great way to get some bonus damage on the target you just broke and move Ms. Marvel out of a bad situation.

Harpoon (Primary, Ranged)

Hold attack during a Whip Fist to grab standard targets on contact. Continue to hold down attack to keep the target held . Use the mouse/stick to move the target around, and then release attack to throw them.

Picking up enemies lets you manipulate the battlefield, taking a target out of play and throwing them somewhere else. This lets you deal with them later, and it even gives you a chance to throw enemies off ledges.

Nutcracker (Primary, Hammer Skills)

While holding onto a grabbed enemy, press heavy attack to reel them in and slam them into the ground, dealing damage to nearby combatants.

This is a great damage followup on Harpoon that lets you treat held enemies like weapons. It can also be a good way to interrupt a group of nearby targets, setting them up for a solid Ms. Marvel area combo.

Palm Strike (Primary, Intrinsic Ability)

Press heavy attack immediately after parrying an attack to trigger a high stun damage attack that breaks through enemy defenses and can slam enemies into the ground.

It’s easy for Kamala to parry enemy attacks, since Polymorph auto-dodges. The Palm Strike ability lets you take further advantage of your Hip Check parry by breaking guards and dealing high area damage to nearby foes.

Whirlwind (Primary, Intrinsic Ability)

While Polymorph is active, hold down attack to spin around and hit all nearby enemies. This skill can also be used while Embiggened.

This skill deals some serious area damage for Ms. Marvel and grants her ultimate a new way to deal damage in a group. This ability does a ton of stun damage against all targets and has a ridiculous reach. It’s perfect for when you get overwhelmed by a lot of small enemies.

Life Spark (Specialist, Support Heroic Ability)

Healing Spirit can be activated while downed, bypassing the need to be revived by a teammate.

This ability is useful in solo play and in groups, making missions much easier. Combined with the ability that eventually lets you resurrect all downed allies with Healing Spirit, Life Spark makes even the most difficult content safe as long as you have Kamala on your team.

Too Slow (Specialist, Assault Heroic Ability)

Adds a large explosion area to High Five’s impact.

High Five is one of Kamala’s best skills, and Too Slow makes it that much better for post-game content. The explosion on Too Slow is massive, letting you clear out and stun entire groups of enemies with a single activation.

Heroic Takedown Mastery (Mastery, Melee, Takedown Upgrade node)

Performing a Takedown spawns a Heroic Orb.

Lots of Heroes have this skill, and it’s one of the most useful in Marvel’s Avengers. Heroic Orbs refund tons of ability energy when you pick them up. If you’re using your abilities and combos properly, you should be using Takedowns on multiple enemies each fight, which now spawns an orb, which helps you refund your abilities so you can do it all over again.

Ranged Concussive Mastery (Mastery, Ranged, Ranged Upgrade node)

Whip Fist creates a concussive blast on impact location.

One of Kamala’s biggest weaknesses is her ranged attack, which is too slow to take out multiple enemies at once. Range Concussive Mastery creates a damaging explosion when you punch stuff, which is often enough to stun or outright kill secondary targets. It’s a huge relief to have when you go up against multiple targets too far away for you to deal with.

How to level and get gear

With your first character in Marvel’s Avengers, you’ll have a bunch of different quests to complete. They’ll point you in the right direction and net you some serious gear in addition to the mission rewards. But on your follow up characters, you have a bit more freedom on how to gear and level.

Most missions are usually good for one grind and not the other:

• Hive missions and HARM Challenges net some serious XP, but there are very few chests inside, so you have to rely entirely on enemy drops for new loot.
• Vault missions are easily the best gear grind, with plenty of chests to loot around each map and multiple chests in the final area. But you only fight a lot of enemies toward the end, so you won’t get a ton of XP.
• Priority missions, which rotate weekly, usually offer a good mix of both. However, some of them require a pretty high Power Level, so you won’t be able to complete them all until later in your journey.

Focus on gear and Power Level over your Hero Level. We haven’t had a single case of getting to the soft cap of 130 before hitting level 50. Plenty of missions gate you by your Power Level, but nothing requires you to be level 50.