acowsik
MK fan from India
MKX MOBILE TALENT TREE GUIDE
Overview
With the 1.11 update for MKX Mobile, a new system called the TALENT TREE system has been added to the game which allows players to increase various aspects of attack, defense and support mechanics beyond what is currently capable in battle through the use of character passives and/or equipment.
There are 3 talent tree categories available for players to invest in various skills. They are OFFENSE, DEFENSE and SUPPORT. The OFFENSE skills focus on dealing more damage through basic attacks, specials and increased chance and damage to critical attacks. The DEFENSE skills focus on increasing health, reducing damage taken from basic attacks or specials and increasing resistance to debuffs or DOT effects. THE SUPPORT skills focus on increasing power generation, reducing power cost from specials, reflecting damage or causing additional effects from certain specials.
In order to use the talent tree system, you have to earn TALENT POINTS to spend on unlocking skill tiers and buying skills and their upgrades
Earning Talent Points
Currently there is only one source of earning talent points which is the newly added SHAO KAHN’S TOWER. Before you play the tower for the first time, you are given 2 talent points right from the start. The tower has a total of 100 battles with increasing difficulty and you are rewarded 1 talent point for winning each battle.
However, there is one restriction that is in place which is in the rate at which you can earn talent points. You are limited to playing 3 matches each day by default. However, you can play more than 3 matches by spending 50 souls to refresh the limit and this can be done twice in a 24 hour period which increases your limit to 9 matches a day if you decide to spend souls to progress at a much faster rate.
Assuming that you do not spend souls to increase your progress rate, it will take a minimum of 34 days to complete the tower. If you do intend to spend souls each day to play the full quota of 9 matches, the tower can be completed in 12 days, but it’s not recommended to spend 1100 souls to finish the tower sooner and those souls are better spent elsewhere.
You can see the details of the tower including the opponents faced in each match and the rewards paid out in the spreadsheet linked here.. Talent Tree Chart
Investing Talent Points
On completing Shao Kahn’s Tower, you are rewarded with a total of 102 talent points which you can spend any way you like. There are 2 areas of the talent tree in each category where talent points can be invested, unlocking skill tiers and buying skills and their upgrades.
There are 7 skill tiers in each category and there are a total of 20 skills to choose from. The first 6 tiers have 3 skills each to choose from and the 7th tier has 2 skills. The first tier is unlocked by default and you are allowed to invest in one of the 3 available skills. In order to unlock the subsequent tiers, you are required to buy a skill in the current tier that is accessible to you and then spend 5 talent points. This is done by clicking the Add button at the bottom left of the tree. You are given a choice of spending 1, 3 or 5 talent points towards unlocking the next tier. Selecting the 5 points option will automatically unlock the next tier. This process of unlocking a skill and unlocking the next tier is to be repeated until you unlock the last tier in order to have a complete tree in a particular category.
Additionally skills can also be upgraded as well to increase the effect beyond what the skill provides at default. There are 5 upgrade levels and each upgrade costs 1 talent point, so a skill costs 5 talent points to master. In order to have a 100% complete tree in a category, you have to buy and master 7 skills and also unlock 6 tiers in the process. This will cost a total of 65 talent points. In order to have 100% completion in all 3 categories, the cost is 195 talent points.
The complete list of skills with their stats when fully mastered is listed in the spreadsheet linked in the previous section.
Choosing your skills and upgrades
This is the most crucial part of the whole talent tree system and it requires careful planning of knowing what skills to invest in. This requires a thorough understanding of your own play style, the kind of characters you use and knowing which skills from the list will bring the most benefit to the majority of the cards you use more often in Faction Wars.
You cannot purchase more than one skill in a tier per category at a given time, so you are only allowed to choose 7 out of the 20 skills in a category and have to be very clear on which 7 you want. The fact that you only have 102 talent points to spend means that it is possible to master 7 skills only in one of the three categories.
After having a look at all of the available kills across all 3 categories, investing of talent points more on the DEFENSE and SUPPORT categories is highly recommended and this guide will be covering them first. However, this guide will also list the skills under the OFFENSE category as well for those who wish to prioritize their spending there if you wish to focus more on beefing up your attack strength.
Below is a list of the recommended skills worth investing into in each category and tier.
DEFENSE
Tier 1
Bear Stance – This skill is a definite one to master without a doubt as it provides a 25% health boost to your entire roster. In comparison, the other two choices offer either a 22% recovery boost or 20% less damage from basic attacks which aren’t worth considering when a perk like a health boost is on offer.
Tier 2
Defender’s Bulwark – This skill is a definite game changer when mastered. This makes the characters that cause stun be on the receiving end of their own attacks as this skill grants a 75% chance to reflect damage when you are stunned. Considering that in Faction Wars, characters like Dark Emperor Liu Kang, Ravenous Mileena and few of the Scorpion cards inflict stun; this skill is a very good choice and one to master.
Reaver’s Armor – This skill is not a bad choice but would be a second choice compared to the one above. A 30% reduction in basic attack damage in Faction Wars means that you take less damage from all combos.
Tier 3
Shokan Dominance– This would be the first choice pick skill in this tier, as it grants you an additional 20% reduction in damage from blocked specials if fully mastered and is in effect always. By default a blocked special inflicts 50% of its regular damage so this skill will reduce the damage to 40% of its regular damage.
Centaurian Defense – This skill is a good alternative as it gives you a 20% chance to reflect all damage from unblockable attacks which means that unblockable basic damage and damage from unblockable specials will hurt your opponent instead. Against cards like diamonds who have unblockable special 2 attacks, this is another handy option to consider.
Tier 4
O.I.A Tech – This is a definite one to master as it causes power drain attacks from the opponent to drain 40% less power. Cards like Klassic Raiden who drains 66% of your power on tag-in can be countered a lot better by this skill. Additionally, with the recent introduction of Spec Ops Scorpion who has become a mainstay now in Faction Wars, this skill also will be able to counter his passive as every tag-in of his spec ops teammates cause power drain.
Since these two cards are regular cards in most Faction Wars defense teams, this makes it definitely a worthy investment.
Art of the Shield– This skill is a good alternative if you use a lot of characters that grant shields to themselves or the entire team like Kold War Sonya Blade, Revenant Kung Lao, Kold War Scorpion, Master of Souls Ermac and Nightmare Freddy Krueger. This grants you a 20% chance of preventing the shields from being broken by all special attacks and especially of those of characters like Klassic Sonya Blade, Heavy Weapons Jax Briggs and Kobu Jutsu Tanya as these characters can break the shields of the entire team.
Tier 5
Red Dragon Training – This is the only clear choice to pick from in this tier as it offers 20% chance to be able to resist stun and power drain attacks. Along with Defender’s Bulwark and O.I.A Tech, this really helps counter both stun and power drain to great effect if you have already invested in them. The other two skills in this tier pertain to countering DOT attacks so their use is rather limited.
Cyber Lin Kuei Programming – This is a good alternative choice if you want to focus on countering DOT damage. This skill reduces the duration of DOT effects by 46% if maxed so it translates to lesser health and power lost over time from DOT if this skill is invested in.
Tier 6
Revenant – This is an excellent choice if you are fighting against really strong cards like diamonds and your chances of having the opponent KO your character is high. This skill grants a 30% chance of your teammates being revived with a sliver of health and 5 seconds of being immune to any damage. This can even save you from sure defeat as the last character alive can be revived to be able to change a defeat into an unlikely victory by having that few seconds of immunity to be able to take revenge on the opponent that knocked you out. Highly recommended
Nightwolf’s Chain Lightning – This is the next best choice here as it guarantees to cause 30% power drain to those alive on the opponent team every time a teammate of yours dies. Despite the fact that this can be countered with the skills in earlier tiers to resist power drain, this is a useful option due to its 100% chance of being triggered.
Tier 7
Shinnok’s Teachings – Just like Revenant above which activates when your character is knocked out, this one gives you temporary invulnerability when you take damage from a special. The bone shield will appear like dark floating fragments around the character to indicate it is active which allows you to punish the opponent without taking any damage in return. This skill combined with Revenant can really make it hard for the AI to defeat your team.
SUPPORT
Tier 1
Hawk Stance – This skill is a definite one to master without a doubt as it provides a 20% resistance to all debuffs for your entire roster. The fact that only Cassie Cage, Jason Voorhees and Triborg cards have debuff resistance if they use their own signature equipment makes this one a worthy choice. In comparison, adding a 10% power generation boost for inactive characters or a 30% chance of stun aren’t worth investing in considering how useful debuff resistance is.
Tier 2
Spec Ops Tactics – This skill is a game changer if you use strong cards. This makes teammates who tag in generate power faster for 10 seconds which enables them to access their special 2 much faster. While it helps gold cards a lot, diamonds become even more stronger as they already have a 130% base power generation rate and using gear that boosts power generation, this skill makes them a force to reckon with.
Teamwork – This skill is not a bad choice but would be a second choice compared to the one above. Inactive teammates gaining 10% of power for each use of a special or X-ray from the active teammate helps increase power generation rate when tagged out. However, there is a downside to this. There is a tendency to players to use gear that reduces power cost like Soul Medallion / Subtle Tattoo. With the cost being reduced, the amount refunded on usage will also reduce basically limiting the potential that this skill can offer.
Tier 3
This tier is basically a shootout between which DOT effect is used a lot more by your characters so that the damage caused by specials on an enemy under DOT influence is increased. For the most part, its either bleed or fire.
Poison is only caused by Reptile or D’Vorah and in the current meta, their usage is almost none. Mileena’s Hunger augments damage against bleeding opponents and Scorpion’s Stare augments damage against burning opponents, so it’s a straight pick depending on how many characters you use which cause bleed or burn that will decide your choice.
Tier 4
Meditation – This is a clear choice in this tier as your power bar consumption to trigger a special 1 attack is reduced by 15% and makes invoking special 1 attacks a lot easier. In comparison, the critical damage reduction benefits only characters with higher toughness making its benefits limited and the 20% damage boost against resurrected enemies is totally useless as the Datusha gear from the FW store gives you a 300% damage boost on resurrected enemies.
Tier 5
Conditioning – This is a really good choice in this tier as your power bar consumption to trigger a special 2 attack is reduced by 20% and makes invoking special 2 attacks a lot easier. This is incredibly powerful especially with characters that use gear like Soul Medallion or Subtle Tattoo which has a 50% cost reduction for special 2. So if this stacks with the gear, you are getting a 70% cost reduction which is massive. Highly recommended
Weak Point Attacks – This is also a good choice if you use a lot of power draining characters like Johnny Cage, Kenshi and Kitana as this will give them a 40% chance to snare an enemy on power drain. Additionally, Spec Ops Scorpion causes power drain with his passive so this can also trigger the snare effect and is another good thing to keep in mind. If you tend to use your special 1 attacks a lot more than special 2 which is benefited by the earlier mentioned skill, this is the one to go for.
Tier 6
Lightning Blow – This is a sure choice to pick as you have a 15% chance to not only disables all enemy specials after using a special 1 attack, but even X-Ray attacks as well for a brief period. Normally X-Ray attacks cannot be disabled even with special attacks that cause cripple, so just using a special 1 attack to trigger this is a game changer against possible X-Ray starters like Dark Emperor Liu Kang, Hellspawn Scorpion, Klassic Scorpion, Kobu Jutsu Tanya or Master Of Souls Ermac.
The other skills in this tier are dependent on using characters that cause DOT or by not having skills that reduce specials cost as the refund reduces based on how much of power is spent.
Tier 7
This is a tough one to choose considering the recent changes to the game. Usually reflecting special 2 would be the one to go for considering that those attacks deal more damage but with gear like the Devastator increasing special 1 damage by 50%, it makes the special 1 reflection also a good option since cards like Triborg deal heavy damage on their special 1 attacks.
This would require some experimentation to see which one works best and stick with that choice as both are viable.
OFFENSE
Tier 1
Mantis Stance – This skill is the best choice as it increases damage of blocked attacks by 10% if mastered. Since the AI tends to block a lot more now and getting unblockable attacks are relatively hard to do so even with block breaking gear, it’s the one to go for. Increasing basic damage boost or ignoring toughness are relatively poorer choices.
Tier 2
Precision – This skill the best choice in this tier as it increases chances of getting a prompt to perform a combo ender by 30% and deal additional damage at the end of a combo more often as a result. This also helps to build up your power bar quicker which is the key to triggering your specials sooner.
Opportunist – This skill is a great choice if you heavily use Scorpion and Sub-Zero cards a lot in your teams as it increases damage on stunned and frozen opponents by 50%. If they use their own gear and it stacks with this skill, they will get 100% damage boost on stunned and frozen opponents.
Tier 3
In this tier, it’s a straight toss-up between increasing special 1 damage or increasing special 2 damage.
With gear like the Devastator already adding a damage boost of 50% to special 1 attacks, the Rapid Response skill will increase that to 80% but it will leave your special 2 shorthanded. Cards like Cyrax deal massive damage with his special 1 attack while diamonds deal heavy damage with their special 2 attacks.
Investing in Thunderous Blows will make things more balanced as you can have a 50% damage boost for special 1 with the Devastator and a 26% damage boost for your special 2 attacks but if using special 1 attacks more is beneficial, then the former would be your choice.
Tier 4
This is pretty much a mirror choice based on your selection in tier 3 of the Support tier that boosts damage of specials against enemies under the influence of a specific DOT effect. It’s pretty much a binary choice between bleed and burn so match your earlier choice that you made in the support category here as well. If bleed damage increase is needed, Baraka Instruction is your pick and Liu Kang Instruction is the choice if burn damage increase is your need.
Tier 5
Lin Kuei Tutorage – This would be the recommended choice as there is currently no equipment or character passive that increases critical damage to balance things. This skill would give you a 22% boost to critical attack damage. Normally critical attacks deal 150% damage compared to a normal attack, so this would increase the damage of the attack to 172% of normal damage which is really good. With the current gear offering a decent chance at getting critical attacks, each attack will hit harder than what they would without this skill.
Black Dragon Training – This is the next best choice as it further increases the chance for critical attacks on top of what character passives or gear can offer as of now. When mastered, this skill provides a 17% crit chance boost so coupled with gear (25% boost) or character passives (50% if using Hat Trick Kung Lao) which increases it to a maximum possible chance of 92%.
Tier 6
The Art of the Tsunami – This is a good choice to pick as it gives you a 30% chance of dealing 20% of damage to the entire team instead of focusing on just one target which the Death Mark Technique skill does. While that stacks 3 times, the effect is gone once that enemy is knocked out and it resets. This skill if it triggers will work on all targets that are alive making it a better choice.
Unbridled Savagery – This is also a good choice especially if you use diamonds or Gunslinger Erron Black who have unblockable special 2 attacks as it adds a 30% damage boost to unblockable attacks. However the one thing to be wary about is if the opponent has invested in Centaurian Defense which reflects unblockable attack damage, you can end up hurting yourself more if the damage is reflected so be mindful of if this fact if this skill is your choice.
Tier 7
Edenian Champion – This is the sure choice even if it gives you only a 10% chance to allow you to perform a special 2 attack without spending any meter. The fact that it takes longer to build meter for a special 2 makes this a better choice.
To make this even more effective, cards that use Soul Medallion or Subtle Tattoo can immediately follow up with another special 2 attack for just 1 bar to be able to deal a massive amount of damage in quick time.
Resetting the Talent Tree
As we have only 102 points to spend, there is bound to be a lot of trial and error in your skill choices to be able to find the best combination of skills that will work well to suit your play style and get the most out of the characters you use often.
In the likely event the current choices made do not work as well as you would have liked or you have just made a mistake in your spending and want to correct it, you can reset the points spent by clicking the “Reset Talents” button on the top right in the Talent screen. This will refund all your spent points into your bank and allow you to spend them differently. The one downside to this is that it resets all 3 categories and not just the one being currently viewed, so you have to do each category from scratch.
Resetting the talent points comes at a cost though. The very first time only, the game is generous enough to allow you to make any changes you want for free. After that, it costs souls to make changes. Once you have used your first reset, you will have to spend 2 souls, 4 souls, 6 souls and then 12 souls. Once the cost reaches 12 souls, it doesn’t go any higher and stays there.
Hopefully this guide is helpful in making your choices wisely so that you do not have to waste souls on resetting points to make any changes and that you get the most out of your playing skill and the cards that you use.
Good luck and most important, have fun with the skill bonuses you receive !!!
Overview
With the 1.11 update for MKX Mobile, a new system called the TALENT TREE system has been added to the game which allows players to increase various aspects of attack, defense and support mechanics beyond what is currently capable in battle through the use of character passives and/or equipment.
There are 3 talent tree categories available for players to invest in various skills. They are OFFENSE, DEFENSE and SUPPORT. The OFFENSE skills focus on dealing more damage through basic attacks, specials and increased chance and damage to critical attacks. The DEFENSE skills focus on increasing health, reducing damage taken from basic attacks or specials and increasing resistance to debuffs or DOT effects. THE SUPPORT skills focus on increasing power generation, reducing power cost from specials, reflecting damage or causing additional effects from certain specials.
In order to use the talent tree system, you have to earn TALENT POINTS to spend on unlocking skill tiers and buying skills and their upgrades
Earning Talent Points
Currently there is only one source of earning talent points which is the newly added SHAO KAHN’S TOWER. Before you play the tower for the first time, you are given 2 talent points right from the start. The tower has a total of 100 battles with increasing difficulty and you are rewarded 1 talent point for winning each battle.
However, there is one restriction that is in place which is in the rate at which you can earn talent points. You are limited to playing 3 matches each day by default. However, you can play more than 3 matches by spending 50 souls to refresh the limit and this can be done twice in a 24 hour period which increases your limit to 9 matches a day if you decide to spend souls to progress at a much faster rate.
Assuming that you do not spend souls to increase your progress rate, it will take a minimum of 34 days to complete the tower. If you do intend to spend souls each day to play the full quota of 9 matches, the tower can be completed in 12 days, but it’s not recommended to spend 1100 souls to finish the tower sooner and those souls are better spent elsewhere.
You can see the details of the tower including the opponents faced in each match and the rewards paid out in the spreadsheet linked here.. Talent Tree Chart
Investing Talent Points
On completing Shao Kahn’s Tower, you are rewarded with a total of 102 talent points which you can spend any way you like. There are 2 areas of the talent tree in each category where talent points can be invested, unlocking skill tiers and buying skills and their upgrades.
There are 7 skill tiers in each category and there are a total of 20 skills to choose from. The first 6 tiers have 3 skills each to choose from and the 7th tier has 2 skills. The first tier is unlocked by default and you are allowed to invest in one of the 3 available skills. In order to unlock the subsequent tiers, you are required to buy a skill in the current tier that is accessible to you and then spend 5 talent points. This is done by clicking the Add button at the bottom left of the tree. You are given a choice of spending 1, 3 or 5 talent points towards unlocking the next tier. Selecting the 5 points option will automatically unlock the next tier. This process of unlocking a skill and unlocking the next tier is to be repeated until you unlock the last tier in order to have a complete tree in a particular category.
Additionally skills can also be upgraded as well to increase the effect beyond what the skill provides at default. There are 5 upgrade levels and each upgrade costs 1 talent point, so a skill costs 5 talent points to master. In order to have a 100% complete tree in a category, you have to buy and master 7 skills and also unlock 6 tiers in the process. This will cost a total of 65 talent points. In order to have 100% completion in all 3 categories, the cost is 195 talent points.
The complete list of skills with their stats when fully mastered is listed in the spreadsheet linked in the previous section.
Choosing your skills and upgrades
This is the most crucial part of the whole talent tree system and it requires careful planning of knowing what skills to invest in. This requires a thorough understanding of your own play style, the kind of characters you use and knowing which skills from the list will bring the most benefit to the majority of the cards you use more often in Faction Wars.
You cannot purchase more than one skill in a tier per category at a given time, so you are only allowed to choose 7 out of the 20 skills in a category and have to be very clear on which 7 you want. The fact that you only have 102 talent points to spend means that it is possible to master 7 skills only in one of the three categories.
After having a look at all of the available kills across all 3 categories, investing of talent points more on the DEFENSE and SUPPORT categories is highly recommended and this guide will be covering them first. However, this guide will also list the skills under the OFFENSE category as well for those who wish to prioritize their spending there if you wish to focus more on beefing up your attack strength.
Below is a list of the recommended skills worth investing into in each category and tier.
DEFENSE
Tier 1
Bear Stance – This skill is a definite one to master without a doubt as it provides a 25% health boost to your entire roster. In comparison, the other two choices offer either a 22% recovery boost or 20% less damage from basic attacks which aren’t worth considering when a perk like a health boost is on offer.
Tier 2
Defender’s Bulwark – This skill is a definite game changer when mastered. This makes the characters that cause stun be on the receiving end of their own attacks as this skill grants a 75% chance to reflect damage when you are stunned. Considering that in Faction Wars, characters like Dark Emperor Liu Kang, Ravenous Mileena and few of the Scorpion cards inflict stun; this skill is a very good choice and one to master.
Reaver’s Armor – This skill is not a bad choice but would be a second choice compared to the one above. A 30% reduction in basic attack damage in Faction Wars means that you take less damage from all combos.
Tier 3
Shokan Dominance– This would be the first choice pick skill in this tier, as it grants you an additional 20% reduction in damage from blocked specials if fully mastered and is in effect always. By default a blocked special inflicts 50% of its regular damage so this skill will reduce the damage to 40% of its regular damage.
Centaurian Defense – This skill is a good alternative as it gives you a 20% chance to reflect all damage from unblockable attacks which means that unblockable basic damage and damage from unblockable specials will hurt your opponent instead. Against cards like diamonds who have unblockable special 2 attacks, this is another handy option to consider.
Tier 4
O.I.A Tech – This is a definite one to master as it causes power drain attacks from the opponent to drain 40% less power. Cards like Klassic Raiden who drains 66% of your power on tag-in can be countered a lot better by this skill. Additionally, with the recent introduction of Spec Ops Scorpion who has become a mainstay now in Faction Wars, this skill also will be able to counter his passive as every tag-in of his spec ops teammates cause power drain.
Since these two cards are regular cards in most Faction Wars defense teams, this makes it definitely a worthy investment.
Art of the Shield– This skill is a good alternative if you use a lot of characters that grant shields to themselves or the entire team like Kold War Sonya Blade, Revenant Kung Lao, Kold War Scorpion, Master of Souls Ermac and Nightmare Freddy Krueger. This grants you a 20% chance of preventing the shields from being broken by all special attacks and especially of those of characters like Klassic Sonya Blade, Heavy Weapons Jax Briggs and Kobu Jutsu Tanya as these characters can break the shields of the entire team.
Tier 5
Red Dragon Training – This is the only clear choice to pick from in this tier as it offers 20% chance to be able to resist stun and power drain attacks. Along with Defender’s Bulwark and O.I.A Tech, this really helps counter both stun and power drain to great effect if you have already invested in them. The other two skills in this tier pertain to countering DOT attacks so their use is rather limited.
Cyber Lin Kuei Programming – This is a good alternative choice if you want to focus on countering DOT damage. This skill reduces the duration of DOT effects by 46% if maxed so it translates to lesser health and power lost over time from DOT if this skill is invested in.
Tier 6
Revenant – This is an excellent choice if you are fighting against really strong cards like diamonds and your chances of having the opponent KO your character is high. This skill grants a 30% chance of your teammates being revived with a sliver of health and 5 seconds of being immune to any damage. This can even save you from sure defeat as the last character alive can be revived to be able to change a defeat into an unlikely victory by having that few seconds of immunity to be able to take revenge on the opponent that knocked you out. Highly recommended
Nightwolf’s Chain Lightning – This is the next best choice here as it guarantees to cause 30% power drain to those alive on the opponent team every time a teammate of yours dies. Despite the fact that this can be countered with the skills in earlier tiers to resist power drain, this is a useful option due to its 100% chance of being triggered.
Tier 7
Shinnok’s Teachings – Just like Revenant above which activates when your character is knocked out, this one gives you temporary invulnerability when you take damage from a special. The bone shield will appear like dark floating fragments around the character to indicate it is active which allows you to punish the opponent without taking any damage in return. This skill combined with Revenant can really make it hard for the AI to defeat your team.
SUPPORT
Tier 1
Hawk Stance – This skill is a definite one to master without a doubt as it provides a 20% resistance to all debuffs for your entire roster. The fact that only Cassie Cage, Jason Voorhees and Triborg cards have debuff resistance if they use their own signature equipment makes this one a worthy choice. In comparison, adding a 10% power generation boost for inactive characters or a 30% chance of stun aren’t worth investing in considering how useful debuff resistance is.
Tier 2
Spec Ops Tactics – This skill is a game changer if you use strong cards. This makes teammates who tag in generate power faster for 10 seconds which enables them to access their special 2 much faster. While it helps gold cards a lot, diamonds become even more stronger as they already have a 130% base power generation rate and using gear that boosts power generation, this skill makes them a force to reckon with.
Teamwork – This skill is not a bad choice but would be a second choice compared to the one above. Inactive teammates gaining 10% of power for each use of a special or X-ray from the active teammate helps increase power generation rate when tagged out. However, there is a downside to this. There is a tendency to players to use gear that reduces power cost like Soul Medallion / Subtle Tattoo. With the cost being reduced, the amount refunded on usage will also reduce basically limiting the potential that this skill can offer.
Tier 3
This tier is basically a shootout between which DOT effect is used a lot more by your characters so that the damage caused by specials on an enemy under DOT influence is increased. For the most part, its either bleed or fire.
Poison is only caused by Reptile or D’Vorah and in the current meta, their usage is almost none. Mileena’s Hunger augments damage against bleeding opponents and Scorpion’s Stare augments damage against burning opponents, so it’s a straight pick depending on how many characters you use which cause bleed or burn that will decide your choice.
Tier 4
Meditation – This is a clear choice in this tier as your power bar consumption to trigger a special 1 attack is reduced by 15% and makes invoking special 1 attacks a lot easier. In comparison, the critical damage reduction benefits only characters with higher toughness making its benefits limited and the 20% damage boost against resurrected enemies is totally useless as the Datusha gear from the FW store gives you a 300% damage boost on resurrected enemies.
Tier 5
Conditioning – This is a really good choice in this tier as your power bar consumption to trigger a special 2 attack is reduced by 20% and makes invoking special 2 attacks a lot easier. This is incredibly powerful especially with characters that use gear like Soul Medallion or Subtle Tattoo which has a 50% cost reduction for special 2. So if this stacks with the gear, you are getting a 70% cost reduction which is massive. Highly recommended
Weak Point Attacks – This is also a good choice if you use a lot of power draining characters like Johnny Cage, Kenshi and Kitana as this will give them a 40% chance to snare an enemy on power drain. Additionally, Spec Ops Scorpion causes power drain with his passive so this can also trigger the snare effect and is another good thing to keep in mind. If you tend to use your special 1 attacks a lot more than special 2 which is benefited by the earlier mentioned skill, this is the one to go for.
Tier 6
Lightning Blow – This is a sure choice to pick as you have a 15% chance to not only disables all enemy specials after using a special 1 attack, but even X-Ray attacks as well for a brief period. Normally X-Ray attacks cannot be disabled even with special attacks that cause cripple, so just using a special 1 attack to trigger this is a game changer against possible X-Ray starters like Dark Emperor Liu Kang, Hellspawn Scorpion, Klassic Scorpion, Kobu Jutsu Tanya or Master Of Souls Ermac.
The other skills in this tier are dependent on using characters that cause DOT or by not having skills that reduce specials cost as the refund reduces based on how much of power is spent.
Tier 7
This is a tough one to choose considering the recent changes to the game. Usually reflecting special 2 would be the one to go for considering that those attacks deal more damage but with gear like the Devastator increasing special 1 damage by 50%, it makes the special 1 reflection also a good option since cards like Triborg deal heavy damage on their special 1 attacks.
This would require some experimentation to see which one works best and stick with that choice as both are viable.
OFFENSE
Tier 1
Mantis Stance – This skill is the best choice as it increases damage of blocked attacks by 10% if mastered. Since the AI tends to block a lot more now and getting unblockable attacks are relatively hard to do so even with block breaking gear, it’s the one to go for. Increasing basic damage boost or ignoring toughness are relatively poorer choices.
Tier 2
Precision – This skill the best choice in this tier as it increases chances of getting a prompt to perform a combo ender by 30% and deal additional damage at the end of a combo more often as a result. This also helps to build up your power bar quicker which is the key to triggering your specials sooner.
Opportunist – This skill is a great choice if you heavily use Scorpion and Sub-Zero cards a lot in your teams as it increases damage on stunned and frozen opponents by 50%. If they use their own gear and it stacks with this skill, they will get 100% damage boost on stunned and frozen opponents.
Tier 3
In this tier, it’s a straight toss-up between increasing special 1 damage or increasing special 2 damage.
With gear like the Devastator already adding a damage boost of 50% to special 1 attacks, the Rapid Response skill will increase that to 80% but it will leave your special 2 shorthanded. Cards like Cyrax deal massive damage with his special 1 attack while diamonds deal heavy damage with their special 2 attacks.
Investing in Thunderous Blows will make things more balanced as you can have a 50% damage boost for special 1 with the Devastator and a 26% damage boost for your special 2 attacks but if using special 1 attacks more is beneficial, then the former would be your choice.
Tier 4
This is pretty much a mirror choice based on your selection in tier 3 of the Support tier that boosts damage of specials against enemies under the influence of a specific DOT effect. It’s pretty much a binary choice between bleed and burn so match your earlier choice that you made in the support category here as well. If bleed damage increase is needed, Baraka Instruction is your pick and Liu Kang Instruction is the choice if burn damage increase is your need.
Tier 5
Lin Kuei Tutorage – This would be the recommended choice as there is currently no equipment or character passive that increases critical damage to balance things. This skill would give you a 22% boost to critical attack damage. Normally critical attacks deal 150% damage compared to a normal attack, so this would increase the damage of the attack to 172% of normal damage which is really good. With the current gear offering a decent chance at getting critical attacks, each attack will hit harder than what they would without this skill.
Black Dragon Training – This is the next best choice as it further increases the chance for critical attacks on top of what character passives or gear can offer as of now. When mastered, this skill provides a 17% crit chance boost so coupled with gear (25% boost) or character passives (50% if using Hat Trick Kung Lao) which increases it to a maximum possible chance of 92%.
Tier 6
The Art of the Tsunami – This is a good choice to pick as it gives you a 30% chance of dealing 20% of damage to the entire team instead of focusing on just one target which the Death Mark Technique skill does. While that stacks 3 times, the effect is gone once that enemy is knocked out and it resets. This skill if it triggers will work on all targets that are alive making it a better choice.
Unbridled Savagery – This is also a good choice especially if you use diamonds or Gunslinger Erron Black who have unblockable special 2 attacks as it adds a 30% damage boost to unblockable attacks. However the one thing to be wary about is if the opponent has invested in Centaurian Defense which reflects unblockable attack damage, you can end up hurting yourself more if the damage is reflected so be mindful of if this fact if this skill is your choice.
Tier 7
Edenian Champion – This is the sure choice even if it gives you only a 10% chance to allow you to perform a special 2 attack without spending any meter. The fact that it takes longer to build meter for a special 2 makes this a better choice.
To make this even more effective, cards that use Soul Medallion or Subtle Tattoo can immediately follow up with another special 2 attack for just 1 bar to be able to deal a massive amount of damage in quick time.
Resetting the Talent Tree
As we have only 102 points to spend, there is bound to be a lot of trial and error in your skill choices to be able to find the best combination of skills that will work well to suit your play style and get the most out of the characters you use often.
In the likely event the current choices made do not work as well as you would have liked or you have just made a mistake in your spending and want to correct it, you can reset the points spent by clicking the “Reset Talents” button on the top right in the Talent screen. This will refund all your spent points into your bank and allow you to spend them differently. The one downside to this is that it resets all 3 categories and not just the one being currently viewed, so you have to do each category from scratch.
Resetting the talent points comes at a cost though. The very first time only, the game is generous enough to allow you to make any changes you want for free. After that, it costs souls to make changes. Once you have used your first reset, you will have to spend 2 souls, 4 souls, 6 souls and then 12 souls. Once the cost reaches 12 souls, it doesn’t go any higher and stays there.
Hopefully this guide is helpful in making your choices wisely so that you do not have to waste souls on resetting points to make any changes and that you get the most out of your playing skill and the cards that you use.
Good luck and most important, have fun with the skill bonuses you receive !!!