Strategy Guide for Constrictor in Marvel: Avengers Alliance

Constrictor is a very complicated character to use effectively in Marvel: Avengers Alliance. He is a tactician, but plays more like a scrapper. Unlike most tacticians, he does not build himself up for a powerful attack. Instead he sets up an enemy for a powerful finishing blow. Additionally, he is rather unique because he has an attack that can only be used once per combat. This limits his effective options, making him hard to use in longer battles. You are best using him in boss battles that require a team-up that the boss is the counter class of or against blasters. Beyond those uses, he doesn’t particularly stand out.

Constrictor was originally available by acquiring comic book covers from coiled lockboxes. Those lockboxes are no longer available in game, except during rare special sales.

Special Ability (Quartermaster) – This unique ability is one of the best special abilities in the game. Whenever this character makes an attack, he has a chance to use a random item. This random item does not deplete your item supply. At worst this will boost one of his attributes and often this will give him some special benefit like follow-up or counter attacks. Also, since this ability activates before he attacks, this is a rare special ability that can potentially remove a status effect like bleed or cower before it affects your attack. The random element is the only thing that keeps this ability from making him one of the better characters in the game.

Level 1 Power, Crackdown (One Enemy, Melee Slashing Electric, 5% Stamina Cost) – The main advantage of Crackdown is that this power applies generalized and the next power the target used becomes locked out for two rounds. This is particularly useful against bosses or other characters with multiple actions and almost completely nullifies Omega Sentinel in PvP. The main reason for you to use this power is to generalize an enemy that is a counter class to one of your characters. If you don’t need that benefit, though, you are generally better off using Lightning Lash, unless you are trying to conserve stamina.

Level 2 Power, Lightning Lash (One Enemy, Melee Slashing Electric, 25% Stamina Cost) – Lightning Lash deals slightly more damage than Crackdown for roughly five times the stamina cost. The big advantage of this attack is that it adds the incapacitated status and, more importantly, assures the next attack against the target will be a critical hit. This is a perfect set up for low accuracy, high damage heroes like the Hulk and you should use this attack basically whenever it is available.

Level 6 Power, Snake Eater (One Enemy, Melee Slashing Electric, 20% Stamina Cost) – Snake Eater is Constrictor’s big damage attack. The base damage is very high and it deals additional damage on a critical hit and against foes that are stunned or incapacitated. Against a blaster, it is possible to use this attack immediately after Lightning Lash and deal massively high damage, usually enough to defeat the enemy. Even without the proper setup, the base damage is so high you should keep an eye on enemy health and always be ready to use this as a finishing blow.

Level 9 Power, Distress Call (Self, No Stamina Cost) – Distress Call is a single use power. It has a number of advantages that almost entirely make up for this. First, it is subtle, which means it won’t activate enemy counter abilities. Second, it is a quick action. Finally, Distress Call doesn’t have a stamina cost. When you use this power, you summon a different lockbox hero that makes a single attack against the enemies. The one major danger to using this attack is the same danger to using distress call normally. You will occasionally summon a hero that actually helps the enemy more than it hurts the enemy. There are two main ways to use this. You can either open a fight with it or you can hold off until there is a round you can use it to finish off an opponent. Which approach you take basically depends on whether you are trying to finish a fight quickly or trying to take out a specific enemy in a specific wave.

Constrictor is a damage dealer and you should focus on that. Increase his attack and accuracy to deal high damage and assure critical hits. Health or evasion is probably your next priority after that. As much as it seems stamina is good to raise for him, his powers are so costly that it simply takes too much investment in stamina to give him even one more use of his expensive powers each battle and he can basically use Crackdown all day without any investment in stamina.

Constrictor is pretty much a rather bland damage dealer, which means there are almost no bad teammates for him. It also means he doesn't have a lot of great teammates either. His best team up options are any hero that can put either static charge or tenderized on enemies, since all of his attacks are both electric and slashing. This makes him a modestly good companion for Storm, Valkyrie, Wolverine, Ares, Shatterstar, Heimdall, and Thor when equipped with the right ISOs.

Constrictor is a wild card in PvP. His ability to generalize opponents can put you on an even playing field even when the enemies are stacked against you, but he doesn’t have the variety of special abilities that usually makes for a top tier PvP character. If you are going to use him, Ares is probably the best option because Ares can stun enemies and apply tenderized. Even with this combination, you are basically relying on lucky results from the Quartermaster special ability. If you get good results, you will get easy victories. If not, it is hard to win with this character.