34 Tips For Getting The Most Out Of Your Time With Injustice 2

Injustice 2 offers plenty to do for both veteran fighting game fans DC devotees alike. With a full story mode, multiverse, online play, and guilds to play around with and loot to grind for, it may feel a bit intimidating to get a handle on everything during your first few hours.

We’ve come up with with 34 tips to help ease you into every mode while getting the most decked-out character in the shortest amount of time.

Fighting Basics
1. The most reliable way to deal damage as you learn the game with any character is to press light, light, then heavy, and end with a special move (usually a fireball motion and punch). Not all characters have this combo, but it’s an easy base to work from as you figure out a character.

2. Once you learn a single combo with an opener, learn that same combo using different openers. Injustice 2’s combo system gives most characters high, mid, and low options to get in on an opponent, and if you can cancel a combo into a special, you can usually plug in the rest of your learned combo after the opener.

3. Don't rush into a conflict and calm down with the jumping. Most people's first instinct when they start playing an unfamiliar fighting game is to jump toward their opponent, but NetherRealm fighters in particular have strong (and easily executed) counters to jumping in. If you learn to be satisfied with standing still in battle every once in a while, you'll find that opponents will come to you and you'll be able to launch into your favorite combos more often. That's not to say that you should never be the aggressor, but you shouldn't feel like you always have to be.

4. Follow up after uppercuts! Injustice 2’s crouching medium attack will launch the opponent into the air, allowing you to follow up with anything from a simple string of punches, to a full-on combo into super, if you have your timing down.

5. The same applies to any move that makes opponents kneel for a second before falling down. Those are combo opportunities, so use them!

6. When practicing a combo, make sure you can do it not only in the corner (where only certain combos are possible), but in the center of the screen as well.

7. Once you have a combo down pat facing left (the default), make sure you can do it facing right as well.

8. Even once you think you have a combo down in training mode, it’s going to take some additional experience to perform the combo in a real match. The multiverse, again, makes it easy to practice on opponents and create situations where you’ll have to perform a combo on the spot.

9. A.I. opponents can teach you bad habits. Online, you’ll be doing a lot more blocking, and your opponents won’t always react the same way to your attacks. Keep this in mind.

10. If your opponent hits you with a combo you want to study (whether to see where it got you or to see if you can learn it yourself), you can either use your console’s share option to save the last match and study it, or head to the extras menus to watch the replay.

11. Be aware that in-game replays don’t have any playback options besides pause, so if you want to see a combo again and again, it’s best to save a replay of the match on your console then watch it there.

Meter Usage
12. Though your super is the flashiest thing you can use your meter on, it’s usually the worst thing to save it for. You’re better off saving that meter for clashes (which can heal you or deal damage depending on how much meter you bet), and in order to get out of the ground bounce state (up and R2 while airborne). This will keep you from getting heavily comboed by tough opponents.

13. On that note, always be aware of how much meter your opponent can bet. If your opponent only has one bar of meter, the reward for using all of yours is usually not worth being completely out of meter.

14. Damage dealt by clashes can’t kill, so if your opponent has only a sliver of health left, it’s best to just match their bet (if you can) instead of trying to beat it.

15. However, don’t be afraid to use your meter for meter burn renditions of moves. When learning new combos in training mode, using a single bar of meter can double the damage of your combo (if you figure out the best way to follow up on meter burn abilities), making them much more worthwhile than your super, since you’re more likely to land a regular combo that leads into a special move than you are a lone super.

16. If you’re playing a character that likes to get up close (like Black Canary), it can also be worth it to use a bar meter to extend the length of a dash and close the distance on an opponent, especially if they’re keepaway characters content on spamming ranged attacks.

17. Don’t be as judicious with your character power. Because they involve another meter to manage, you might think you need to conserve your character power for combo opportunities or key moments. However, the cooldown on most of them is short enough that you’re free to spam them when they’re available without fear you won’t have them when you need them.

Modes
18. Even if you’re not a fan of the DC universe, you should play the story mode before doing anything else. The fights are pretty easy and you’ll earn rewards that will jumpstart your leveling curve in the Multiverse and multiplayer.

19. You can do daily challenges (which offer Mother Boxes with loot rewards) in the multiverse unless they involve specific online modes (such as “play three king of the hill matches”) so don’t feel pressured to hop online every day. If you’re still learning, it’s okay to hit up the multiverse to get those quick mother box rewards.

20. Don’t tackle objectives above your level. The extra challenge of facing off against someone twice your level isn’t worth whatever the mission reward might be. You’re better off completing a bunch of objectives at your level than one that’s above yours.

21. Don’t feel like you have to level up in order to compete against other players online: if your opponent’s character level is higher than yours, your character will level up to match theirs.

22. You’ll still be at a disadvantage if you don’t have rare gear, but if you just want experience playing and practicing combos against live opponents, it’s fine.

23. If you’re looking to play on an even playing field offline, the tournament mode sets every character’s level to 20 and equips them with standard gear.

24. Online, ranked matches strip away all gear benefits, making them the best way to practice competitively.

25. You can play a particular challenge in the multiverse right up until the timer expires and complete after it expires. If you complete all the metaverse challenges after that challenge you entered, you’ll still get all the rewards.

Loot
26. Sell your gear! Unless it’s rare (gold) or you want to keep it for looks. Low-level gear with inferior stats are useless. You can sell unwanted gear by going into the character customization screen, then tabbing over to “inventory.” 

27. You can mark several pieces of gear to sell before selling them all at once and getting credits you can use to buy more (and hopefully better) loot.

28. Save your regen tokens for gold-level gear or pieces with outstanding stats for their level. Once you’ve outleveled a piece of gear, you can upgrade it to your current level. Gold gear benefits most from the stat bumps they’ll get from getting re-rolled to your current level.

29. In our experience, it’s better to spend 25,000 credits on five silver boxes instead of one gold box, especially if you’re just looking to stock up on gear. Silver boxes can still drop gold items, and though you get one less piece of gear per box, you’ll get more chances for gold gear overall.

30. Focus on leveling a single character up to 20 (the max level) instead of spreading around your practice. Once you get one character 20, you can start instantly leveling others using source crystals, though it does take a while.

31. The fastest way to level every character to 20 is to level one character while saving up to level up another through source crystals.

32. Matches against real players offer about as much experience as multiverse battles, so if you’re looking to get to level 20 as fast as possible, it’s better to grind multiverse events to level up and get gear.

33. Before you reach level 20, the best way to get the most out of your time is to complete daily challenges and multiverse objectives, which will add another objective on a multiverse event. Whenever you first enter a multiverse, check the objectives and see if you can accomplish them at your current level. If not, try another multiverse.

34. Join a guild! Most guilds don’t have much barrier to entry and offer daily and weekly rewards you can get easily across all your guild members. Game Informer’s guild ID is QE33Y on PS4, and 2QXMH on Xbox One.