I remember fliers coming in real handy because you can soar over large gaps and sometimes the team lands behind you when you're done. At least I think so. It's been awhile since I played it.

This tempts me to try my hand at a Ultimate Alliance run...but I'll sit on that idea, this is your moment.

I know the thing about healing items, both for life and power, are easier to dole out in the second one though.

Iceman can get rediculously powerful, especially against enemies that are elemental resistant, since for some reason he can bypass that with melee attacks, at least thats how I remember it. So I agree with you that that should be a team member.

Storm's ultimate power move (I forget what its called) is good for the Marrow fight, it can deal with those healing bastards that keep respawning her and the others around her. But if there's a better method, have at it, I'm not sure what else there is though.

Later on, if you get lucky, the AI of the other characters help out by joining in mutant power combo attacks.

personally I think Wolvie is neccesary to the team because of his healing ability, but I could be wrong.

theses are just my two cents, but i'm not 100% sure on some of it.

As for the second one, can't help you there, I never finished it.

Yeah, Cyclone Fury was what I was thinking of.

I remember iceman being able to take out just about all the Astral Plane versions of Blob, Avalanche, and ....well I don't remember all of them, but he put them down pretty good. The problem is that I don't remeber what I equiped him with to make him so powerful (something really enhanced him like no other, just wish I could remember what it was).

I may have forgotten that you have to stand still for Wolverine's healing factor to work, so if thats the case I see your point.

I can't remember if those flashback stories were optional or not, but if they are you're obviously skipping them, right?

And i forgot to ask this earlier but what's your estimated finishing time (EFT)?

Storm's Cyclone Fury might, but I never really tried that battle with anyone else, so theres a good chance I could be way off. Worse case scenario you end up with the same result as with Nightcrawler.

Another good way to gain experience or power ups if you need them ks the training missions. However that should probably be a last last resort if and only if you get deperate enough.

I wish I still had this game to run through again to see if I could find anything that might help you along the way.

I don't know if anyone is still running this game, but for what it's worth, I sat down and did an ss of Legends II for gamecube in 3:46 on Hard mode using the God Mode, Level 99, and insanely fast cheats (citation).  Team: Magneto, Nightcrawler, Wolverine, Toad.  MO: Secretion on screen entry (or if it faded), then Teleport to the end or wherever I needed to go.  Bosses went down in one hit (which probably affected my time compared to a normal run).

I spent a lot of time in menus, equipping things (for the heck of it - I really like the Epic gear for +85-100 damage), so I'm sure a serious runner could shave 10-45 minutes (or more) off that time.  Without the insanely fast and God Mode cheats (the former does wonders for a speed run, the latter gives infinite EP for teleportation), you would probably have to add 45~60 minutes for bosses, and maybe more for levelling.  But I think sub-4 hours is possible.

Bumping this topic with stuffs for the first X-men Legends.
First character related stuff:
Beast- Never use he is useless.

Colossus- Can one hit Sents at end game and has the strongest single hitting move in the game Power Smash and can clap so hard he can clear a path with his clap.  Really good character.

Cyclops- good for combos with Optic Slam and Optic Blast.  Has leadership also helps combos can do devastating things when you get those off.

Emma Frost-Fear, Fear, Fear, Fear it creates a path for like no cost at all, however you could also build her up melee if you really wanted to and use her Psychic shell stuff but there are characters better then her at that

Gambit- He is a melee god but his powers suck causing some problems later on if you are not controlling him

Iceman- Can build bridges, freeze people and bosses, does decent melee damage pretty good early on

Jean Grey- Honestly she is god damn useless until she has her shout tree at a good level.  Her melee is fantastic but at the end of the game you are not gonna do any damage to sents at all.  Oh yea and she has broken shield powers.

Jubilee-  Her buff is good, photo flash is good, has absolutely no offensive powers though meaning she would only be on a team to confuse enemies and would not be good in a boss fight.

Magma- Iceman with a fire form

Nightcrawler- Get level 13 put on Hammer of Nimrod and destroy every god damn sent out there.  Teleport Flurry is so good that because it hits so many times you can just use it once and get like 5 or 6 combos easy.

Psylocke-  Psychic bolts and blade master make it so that she can two hit sents one hit everything else in the game and she does massive damage to Master Mold she is way too OP not to use.

Rogue-  Honestly I have no clue about her her powers confuse me and I see no reason to use her unless someone figures out how she would be useful.

Storm-  Chain Lightning kill everything on screen repeat and she gets Leadership for the combo bonus and does crazy melee damage with her lightning buffs also has the second half of the broken shield combo

Wolverine- He is not the best at anything he does, melee damage is terrible compared to others with melee effects, powers are strong but others have better powers.

As for the problem of being underleveled yea this is gonna be a problem you really need strong powers when you have to start dealing with sents and being underleveled is gonna suck.  I tried using danger room to level but you make no progress in the game while doing it so it added about an hour onto my second test run (It should be noted however that by doing the stun freshmen danger room you get 39xp from each enemy just from stunning them which is 3 times as more xp then you get from anything at that point in the game).  Also Sophmore and Junior levels have no good danger rooms to get xp off of.

Also you can skip saving the Healer by just using Nightcrawler and teleporting into the room Gateway is in skipping some stuff.

Glitches that have to be avoided:
Don't talk to bishop as Nightcrawler he will fall through the ground and die in the abyss under the level (Confused the hell out of me when it happened).

Don't fly in the Sent Factory the ground there does not like it when you land and you will fall through to your death.

For the most part I used Storm/Cyclops/Jean/Nightcrawler and when I realized how broken Psylocke was replaced Jean with her since Jean is pretty useless against anything with Mental resistance.

okay, played through xml1 a few times over the weekend and got about a 5:30 game time without really trying.  think sub 5 is definitely possible, maybe even sub-4 if menus count towards game time because my menus are REALLY slow.

general notes:
-i think this run almost has to be single segment.  a segmented run would be an extremely frustrating endeavor of farming favorable equipment without deviating from your route while a single segment run allows you to not worry so much about rng manipulation and focus on consistent strategies that work rather than forcing obscure glitches (of which there are several, for example one time i got pyro to somehow glitch through the floor and instantly die, no idea how it happened, obviously useful, but without any way of replicating it, not a practical strategy).
-with one or two possible exceptions there is absolutely no reason to kill things you don't have to just to level up, only fights mandated by objectives should be taken on, as such mental damage characters like jean are pretty much useless as most things you have to kill are sentinels
-since you won't be killing things, tech bits, health, and energy packs are in extremely short supply and conserving them is tricky, mostly leveling up/ending missions will be the main source of healing.  if iceman dies in the haarp facilities tunnels, arbiter, or nuke plant when you still need him your run is probably over (but more on these levels when we get to them).  fortunately after the nuke plant jean's a bit more reliable option and you can maybe use magma as well if iceman dies and you hit an extraction point and either don't have or don't want to burn the tech bits.
-movement wise i think ice/lava tracks are the fastest method of travel after teleporting (which is generally too unreliable) though you'll only want to put one point into the ability and spam it as the more stats just make it cost more energy and make you burn through it too quickly
-though i have ideas how to assign skill points, i'm pretty clueless about how best to assign stat points.  it never seems like striking makes a huge impact, i get that body increases health and agility increases defense but i can't tell how important the distinction between having more health to take a hit and having more defense to minimize the damage from a hit actually is, focus is kinda the only stat that really makes any sense to me.

for ease of practice i think it's best to break the game into ten "segments" (even though again i think this run should be attempted single segment.  each "segment" is delineated by mansion interludes where magma can save in the subbasement.

"segment" 1: new york/trivia
-the only enemies worth fighting are mystique and blob (plus the minions who help mystique during her boss fight).  mystique is actually rather difficult as a wolverine who's never seen combat, and unfortunately you'll likely burn a ton of health and energy packs fighting her as much as you'll want to conserve those energy packs for blob.
-there are enough health packs on the way to mystique that you should have 10 for the fight, unfortunately the same can't be said about energy packs so you may want to break a few trash barrels en route in the hopes of a favorable drop (this goes for the whole game when your health and energy packs aren't maxed)
-if you kill everything between mystique and blob, cyclops will reach level 2, but i don't think there's anything that can be done with the extra level that makes the fight significantly faster than the time you'll waste killing guys to get the level.  try to conserve energy packs for the mystique fight as much as possible, though it's certainly easier said than done.  hopefully you'll get good rng for energy pack drops.
-after the blob fight it's just a race to the end.
-i did trivia to get everyone to level 3 for the haarp facility, but it's only 300xp i think and i question if it's actually worth it.  the major gain you get is that iceman will have ice tracks for the beginning of the haarp facility.
-the questions in the trivia are always in the same order and the answers are too, so if you can memorize the sequence it's a fast leveling option, though i'm not use it's all that worthwhile

"segment" 2: haarp facility
-the early levels of this game are pretty brutal, basically your best damage dealer is wolverine and everyone dies really fast
-i think the starting team should be wolverine, cyclops, iceman, doesn't matter who's fourth, probably storm
-if you do the trivia ice track around as iceman and put a point into his cold smash ability to take out the consoles as him, if you don't level him up then you'll want to kill all this as wolverine.
-i think it makes the most sense to grab the skill point as cyclops for reasons i'll explain shortly
-wolverine is by far the best tank killer available and you want him on the team just for this.  killing the tanks will get you at least to level 3 for your party possibly even level 4 (it definitely gets you level four if you do trivia)
-once you're inside switch out iceman for a team of wolverine, cyclops, storm, and jean then bee-line it for the guy holding the keycard.  he's physically resistant so i think the best character to kill him with is cyclops loading him up with as many upgrades to his optic blast as are currently available, most importantly point blank shot which makes a HUGE difference in killing him.
-once keycard guy's down switch to wolverine and try to avoid damage as you run to pyro.
-pyro has a very good chance of killing anyone and everyone in your team.  wolverine is the best damage dealer available for fighting him so hopefully wolverine at least lives.  you specifically don't have rogue on your team in the event wolverine should die either here or on the way to toad and you need a backup character for toad as she should be about 80% what wolverine can do damage wise (though imo her southern strike is way easier to connect with than eviscerate).
-after the pyro fight you want to switch iceman for wolverine once you reach the tunnels and ice track your way to the extraction point before toad where you should switch in wolverine, rogue, and try to have the other slots filled.
-toad goes down really easily to eviscerate if you can hit him and don't get hit by his sap power (and have the energy packs to recover).  the other enemies in the fight shouldn't make an impact if you go after toad the whole time.

"segment" 3: danger room/sewers/arbiter
-the danger room is great as it's loaded with health and energy pick-ups and forces you to level magma to level 7 (the rest of the team will lag behind at 6).
-burning rage and lava tracks are obvious musts and you should probably keep adding points her combat skills each time magma gets another level.
-i find that breaking a triple hit combo into knockback works the best for the robots but this is maybe too nitpicky a note.
-in the sewers you get nightcrawler, load up on his invisibility buff and use it judiciously throughout the level avoiding conflict as much as possible.
-i teleported into one of the pump rooms but maybe just switching to beast and smashing it is better?
-navigating the sewers is kind of a pain as enemies will frequently block doorways for nightcrawler, whenever this happens try to teleport through them.
-unfortunately it's too early to keep invisibility constantly on (unless there's maybe a super lucky equipment drop), you want to conserve health but keeping nightcrawler alive is of the utmost importance.
-initially team for sewers should be nightcrawler, jean, beast, and jubilee all of whom will be switching out for wolverine, cyclops, storm, and rogue for the marrow fight as wolverine is still your best damage dealer and you want the cyclops storm combo bonus and a backup in rogue.  the four characters in the initial party meanwhile are pretty much offensively useless.
-for the arbiter your starting party should be wolverine, cyclops, storm, and jubilee.
-all you're going to do is run from thing-to-smash to thing-to-smash till you throw the barrel and go below decks at which point i wonder if the bonus point is worth grabbing as iceman before ultimately switching your team to gambit plus the three characters from the initial party with the least health.
-gambit's staff slam has radial knockback which can be useful pushing guys out of the way getting through doors and there's no bridges that need to be built yet just consoles to be smashed which he can do himself with a stun combo if you level up his kinetic fists and staff combat abilities.
-you do not need to kill sentinels and should avoid engaging them.
-once you reach the brig you've made it to what is quite possibly the hardest part of the speedrun.  basically iceman is required to complete several puzzles in this section from putting out fires to building bridges.  what makes matters worse is that if there are guys anywhere near you during an interruption from jean, they probably will hit you while you have no control over your character so you want guys on your team with a lot of health distracting them (which is why rogue and beast are here).
-nightcrawler is useful for mitigating the aforementioned glitch if he's invisible and just running around waiting for crewmen.
-unless you've put out the last fire and built the last bridge as iceman, if he dies here you've probably lost the run.
-you'll probably be hurting for health and energy on the arbiter.  killing a character or two for a level up in the iceman section is both possible and not a bad idea.

"segment" 4: danger room (new york)/nuke plant/muir island
-replaying the new york level gives you a great opportunity to restock on health and energy
-basically you play the actual running around parts exactly the same as wolverine, avoiding enemies and collecting powerups
-mystique you can probably just beat to death with regular punches (you should be leveling up the burning rage tree) and blob you can defeat the same way
-the nuke plant party should be nightcrawler, iceman, jean, and storm
-the level's easy enough that jean and storm shouldn't die and you need them for the final puzzle (i think storm can complete it herself but it'd mean putting points in an ability that may never get used again)
-when there are nuke plant guards ice track around, when there are alcolites invisible nightcrawler's probably safer.
-there's one point where you're supposed to build a bridge then go into a room and flip a switch to access a door close to the bridge, i've seriously considered jumping over the bridge, separating your team, sacking who flips the switch then regrouping to enter the door, but i'm not sure this can be done reliably with ice tracks/teleport.  it's possible i may want to replace nightcrawler with rogue with some points in flight just to attempt this trick
-on muir island don't fight anything rebooting the computer.  it should be pretty easy

"segment" 5: grso mansion invasion
-you'll pretty much gain a level every couple enemies you kill, it's pretty hilarious.
-by the end of this you'll go from level 7 to level 13 for most characters and levels will stop being a major concern.
-i'm not sure now likely combos are here, but to be safe, i'd probably choose a party of colossus, storm, cyclops, plus magma for movement
-don't bother killing the sentry bots, just go for the soldiers

"segment" 6: astral plane/weapon x/sentinel mansion invasion
-i'm really uncertain if it makes more sense to do the astral plane or weapon x first.  astral plane is considerably easier but i wonder if having xtremes available would make it significantly faster (this assumes you'll even get the xtreme tokens which is probably asking too much of the potential of rng)
-in my playthroughs i did astral plane first.  you'll gain a few levels from beating it.  there's not much to talk about except figuring out how to level jean and/or emma.  making one of them a psionic brawler is more than enough to complete the level safely.
-cyclops starts weapon x at level 15-16 and you can push him to 17 after the havok fight if you get the bonus xp (which i do think is worth it).
-because cyclops' optic blast is ineffective against havok, it may be worthwhile distributing points into cyclops' buff and other abilities for the fight, but ultimately you can get havok into an endless trip combo juggle which will end the fight pretty fast if he doesn't block like crazy to start it (which is possible).
-wolverine should be a kill away from leveling up which is useful for healing as the guys here do a ton of damage.
-ideally the kill should be keycard guy and this fight is pretty miserable (probably the last really hard thing a single segment will have to pull off).  if you can get an xtreme, it'd probably be useful here, but like the consideration for the astral plane that's possibly asking too much of rng.
-the sentinels boils down to figuring out who's good at killing sentinels which i still don't feel i know for certain.  i'd go with cyclops, storm, colossus, and magma

"segment" 7: sewers/volcano
-nightcrawler's pretty much the only character on your party who matters.  by now he should be able to more or less stay permanently invisible and should be doing so basically until you reach avalanche.  i'd also take whoever's best for the avalanche fight (i was pretty successful just using normal punches on him as magma, but there's likely an even better option) as well as cyclops and storm for combos once again.
-i'm not sure what the deal is with getting healer to talk to you, he's pretty particular about how you approach him it seems.
-there's also a few shortcuts you can access as nightcrawler with his teleport ability

"segment" 8: muir island/new york riots/sewers
-i think muir island, new york riots, sewers makes the most sense for the order of these missions but perhaps muir island and new york riots should be switched as i don't think you get any xp from juggernaut anyway.
-for juggernaut take a party of colossus, rogue, cyclops, and storm and just wail on juggernaut with colossus' and rogue's primary mutant powers fully maxed (switching to whichever one he's not fighting).  he'll go down super fast.
-i guess for sentinels the best party is cyclops, storm, magma, plus your sentinel killer (still not sure who this should be, if nightcrawler is as good as previous posts have said without sacrificing his invisibility, he's got potential, colossus and gambit i think are the other candidates)
-in the sewers you want iceman plus three characters you don't care about
-ice tracks will be effective for movement, plus unlike nightcrawler, iceman can actually punch out ladders and teleporters
-this whole team will be dumped before marrow 2 in favor of cyclops, storm, and the best two boss killers (maybe just characters with available points to put into xtremes)
-not sure who should get the point from healer, but it's something to be aware of when talking to him
-marrow 2 is probably one of the harder things to figure out how best to handle and i have nothing to add to the discussion other than acknowledge like others have that this fight is slow and would be nice to be sped up.

"segment" 9: astral plane/sentinel factory
-for astral plane take a team of cyclops, storm, magma, and psylocke
-dark blob is pretty pathetic regardless who's on your team
-my best strategy for dark avalanche is hit and runs with psylocke's primary mutant power attack but it's far from perfect
-i can't for the life of me figure out how you're "supposed" to kill dark pyro.  it seems i can never hit him with anything but ranged attacks, so i just spam lighting on him as storm
-three of the four dark x-men don't have energy resistance allowing you to spam lighting as storm and hit all of them (and stun them) until just one remains whom you can take out as psylocke
-your team for the sentinel factory should be cyclops, storm, nightcrawler, and magma initially
-use lava tracks to race to all the tanks and kill them as magma, once inside the facility replace her with the best sentinel killer (if it's not her or nightcrawler that is (once again colossus and gambit are worth discussing)) and run through the facility as an invisible nightcrawler until you actually need to kill sentinels (gambit is great against the giant sentinels but not the person sized ones, not sure who's best for that)
-before meeting gateway you'll want a bridge builder on your team (as well as someone who one hits the electric fence generators if say other party members died)
-you'll also need someone strong enough to break the sentinel generators at the end of the level

"segment" 10: astral plane/asteroid m
-you need jean on your team for switches in the astral plane, you'll also want a decent damage dealer for the idol at the end, xtreme's wouldn't be unwelcome for clearing enemies away from the idol.  this section really isn't too bad though so it hardly matters who's selected so long as you have jean to flip the handful of switches she needs to flip
-i have no idea what to do with xavier's stat points against shadow king and generally find myself frustrated by how many health and energy packs i use during the fight, but i don't know what more to say about this.  in general i find xavier's radial secondary mutant power attack better than his primary mutant power attack but maybe that's just me showing how bad i am at doing this fight effectively.
-asteroid m is mainly just more invisible nightcrawler running around up until the first boss fight against magneto
-for the magneto fight, switch your team to iceman, storm, cyclops, and psylocke.  and use psylocke as your primary damage dealer throughout the fight, spamming your primary mutant power attack on him.
-after the fight just race to the end as iceman and switch to a mastermold team that includes cyclops and storm
-storm is great against the sentinels pre-mastermold and the combos should be helpful against mastermold but i have no idea who you should be using alongside cyclops and storm in this fight (or against the weapons platforms)
-a consensus on a mastermold strategy would be welcome, but simply spamming lightning and hoping for combos doesn't seem unreasonable

i think this about covers it.  i know this topic's totally dead and this post is long, but if anyone has additional insight it'd be appreciated.

managed a sub-4 and am now thinking 3:30 is about the ideal.  it looks like a muscle accelerator and the hammer of nimrod are worth buying (though techbits are still tight), power enhancers are worth keeping if you get a random drop, pretty much everything else should just be sold.  not sure if this has been mentioned but having blob kill wolverine is preferable to keeping wolverine in the fight as it allows him to level up against fire demons in the pyro fight for free healing.  also nightcrawler can teleport past the magneto fight (really need to test out some of his teleport potential).

3:35!

made some wrong turns in the astral plane and sentinel factory.  subpar menus.  biggest time lost was probably toad being super glitchy (for whatever reason some times he doesn't jump on the third plane which can cost a TON of time, (he failed to make this jump three times in the fight.  ugh)).  four cycled marrow2 and got cornered in the haarp tunnels but i don't think either were huge time losses, just frustrating.

the only reason i'm really posting is to make note of the infinite combo (BAABBAABBAA...), should be useful in the danger room and astral plane areas when you need to kill things (every other fight will probably be mutant powers).  also i'm wondering what psylocke's deal is in boss fights, it seems like she can insta-kill anything (including dark blob, dark avalanche, and dark pyro, not sure about master mold (if she can insta-kill this instead of forcing you to attack the sentinel controllers it'd be HUGE)) but i have no idea if it's totally random or there are ways to do it consistently or increase the chance (doesn't seem like combos matter, but i'm not sure).

also i feel like i should work towards speeding up the shadow king fight.  don't really have a great strategy currently.

just need to figure out good recording options with a shit computer and a longish run.

got a new computer that had a camera so i figured i'd try recording a run to allow me to take notes.  the quality is very obviously crap, but the recording produced a lot of useful information that i really needed to look at outside of playing the game.  if anyone's interested i can probably post video, though unfortunately a chunk of the sentinel factory is missing.

okay, on with the info dump, for the sake of clarity i'm going to break this into 33 (numbered 0-32) sections detailing each mission or interlude of the game and beginning with a general overview which i've numbered "0."

0. general information

-rewatching the run i think a lot of my strats are overly cautious with teams selected in an effort to prevent death rather than yoloing through the level, i'll try to make note of these areas as they come up in the run too, but off the top of my head the sewers 1 team (should be nightcrawler, cyclops, storm, and wolverine the whole time), arbiter team (should be gambit, iceman, nightcrawler, and rogue the whole time), nuke plant (should be nightcrawler, jean, storm, and iceman the whole time), and sentinel factory (should be nightcrawler, iceman, cyclops, and storm the whole time) teams are less than optimal and could all do without switching characters (maybe rogue should start in the nuke plant team and be switched out though).

-tech bit farming.  i really like the gear i get in the run, but i don't know how essential getting it actually is.  all the farming and equiping may cost more time than it saves, so i wonder how much i actually need.  at least one basic muscle accelerator (always on the character you're controlling unless you're in combat), one basic power enhancer, and the hammer of nimrod all seem like they save more time than they lose, but i'm less certain about if basic nanofiber armor makes any combat encounter significantly more survivable (it certainly feels this way) and i really should look into where specifically the armor is useful, and i don't know that buying a super muscle accelerator and super power enhancers on asteroid m make up for themselves time wise.

-i think it's been established teleporting is faster than ice/lava tracks is faster than flight is faster than walking, but teleporting is quite difficult to use as movement so i never really attempt it.  i'm also pretty bad about using ice/lava tracks and almost never use flight.  i still max out flight on both rogue and storm (though not immediately for storm), but maxed out ice/lava tracks burn energy too quickly so i only place a point there even though more might be better.  i don't really have the points to spare to put into teleport so i never put more points into this ability.  overall, the movement controls can be pretty frustrating, but if someone has a strategy it may be useful to share.

-i mentioned this earlier, but it's worth restating.  you can achieve an infinite combo by pressing heavy attack, light attack, light attack, heavy attack, heavy attack, light attack, light attack, heavy attack, etc.  the game thinks you're attempting and cancelling alternating stun and trip combos, which is useful in a handful of areas.

1) new york

-the route for this mission is pretty straight forward, there are a couple balcony's you can jump over, but for the most part you're just going from point a to point b as directly and fast as possible while fighting mystique and blob along the way.

-i spend A LOT of time destroying barrels hoping to get a basic power enhancer before mystique (i ultimately get one in the blob fight).  the basic power enhancer increasing wolverine's brutal slash damage from 30 to 40 and cyclops from 10 to 20, making the boss fights way faster.  this said i'm not sure spending significant time breaking stuff is a productive strategy, and ultimately i probably want to pick a barrel with a high drop probability that i destroy every time ignoring all others and restart when it's not a basic power enhancer (this would lead to a lot of resets though)

-i find that if you run out of energy against mystique heavy attacks work best cuz you can still connect if she strafes.  i generally try to throw all the trash barrels at her and intentionally finish the fight at low health (only using health packs to prevent likely death).  this fight is actually rather difficult compared to other bosses

-for blob, i try to land a combo before intentionally getting wolverine killed.  cyclops should just barely reach level 2 and this way wolverine will level up at more opportune times in alaska.  i also destroy just about everything in blob's area after the fight as boss rooms tend to have significantly higher drop probabilities.

-on the rooftops i still destroy quite a bit, which again i question.

2) mansion interlude

-first dialogue tree is skip 4, choose last option; next dialogue tree is skip 5, choose last option; forge dialogue tree is skip 5 choose last option

-magma's movement is affected by muscle accelerators in the mansion, which is worth keeping in mind if you're going to be passing one back and forth, this also applies to other non-combat areas

-you can get beast in alaska by talking to him in his lab, but let's face it, he's generally one of the worst characters in the game so you don't need him.

-in a segmented run, forge can be skipped entirely.  one of many glitches in the game in terms of mandating objective fulfillment.

3) haarp facility alaska

-starting team is the default (cyclops, storm, iceman, wolverine) and unless there's equipment to switch around (like giving wolverine a basic power enhancer) only cyclops even has points to assign and he doesn't need them yet so you can just hit start

-switch to iceman and have him build a bridge to go "the long way around" skipping a cutscene which i think is longer than the time it takes to come from behind

-wolverine should destroy all the transformers, the route for the first five seems fairly obvious to me.

-after the 5th transformer you should have just crossed under a bridge you want to be on.  everyone should level up, and giving a point to storm's flight ability should allow you to fly to the cutscene trigger for the bridge that will warp everyone on top of the bridge.

-kill the tanks as wolverine, i find getting the skill point between the 6th and 7th transformers to be just as fast if not faster than building the bridge as iceman.  i don't really know who should get the skill point so wolverine generally picks it up, but it may be useful for someone else to grab it (including considering starting with rogue or jean just for this reason (probably temporarily subbing out cyclops though you want him and storm gaining leadership xp and you actively need wolverine and iceman))

-the rest of the transformers again are straight forward.  if you hug the left wall approaching the second tank it won't hit you, and you can get your team to warp to you by running into one of the back corners rather than dying to fire (though they're fine if they're wearing basic nanofiber armor).  the area around the tank counts as a boss area so crates drop items at a higher probability.

-once inside is the first real point to level up.  everyone places all stat points in body.  wolverine spends skill points in brutal slash, sharpness, and critical strike.  iceman spends skill points in cold smash and ice tracks.  cyclops spends a skill point in optic beam and one in accuracy.  and storm only has one point to spend because one's been placed in flight which goes to lightning strike.  if one's not equipped to cyclops, he should get a basic power enhancer now (potentially taking it from wolverine).

-from here you more or less run to the guard with the keycard who's physically resistant and kill him with cyclops.  unfortunately he can do a lot of damage if you're not careful and in my run he essentially gets cyclops and iceman killed.  i finish him off with storm and have to run to pyro as wolverine even though i'd prefer to be iceman as iceman can shoot across a couple gaps with ice tracks.

-the pyro fight is all about landing combos as wolverine and hopefully kiilling him before he kills the rest of your idiotic team.  deaths to him are frequent and losing all but one character is basically run over as you need a second character distracting the enemy ai to make it to the elevator and clear the area.  i do destroy everything in pyro's room because of the increased item drop probability.

-the section between pyro and toad is in my opinion the hardest part of the game.  basically you just need to run from point a to point b staying on your feet enough so that the enemy doesn't gang up on you and kill your severely underleveled characters.  ideally iceman is the best for this, and if pyro kills him i revive him, if storm and/or cyclops die then i bring in rogue or jean (i think for now rogue is slightly better as she has more health and higher attack damage), levelling up their body stat points.  a bridge builder is also required for this section, meaning iceman or jean need to be on your team anyway.

-the toad fight can be pretty glitchy as toad only likes to jump on jets when you're standing in certain areas.  you also don't want to kill every soldier he sends at you because then he'll reinforce them so i usually leave the gun-toting one alive while trying to lure toad away from him so toad doesn't get a buff.  if cyclops and storm make it to this fight you can put a skill point into each of their leadership skills giving you a small damage bonus, but mostly you just want to use brutal slash as wolverine, who should have the highest damage output for at least the first half of the game, replenishing with energy packs as necessary.

4) mansion interlude

-you generally just want to get to the danger room or mission computer as fast as possible in these segments, but here i recommend stopping to visit forge on the subbasement xtraction point.  you should sell everything you're not wearing and all health and energy packs and purchase at least one basic muscle accelerator (2 if possible).

-equip the basic muscle accelerator to magma, put all her stat points in body, then put a skill point in burning rage and one in lava tracks

-the dialogue tree for the danger room is skip 1, choose last option, skip 3, choose last option

5) danger room

-use lava tracks to move, infinite combo to attack, you should finish part one having replenished the health and energy packs you sold to forge and maxed out.

-i generally level up magma again when she reaches level 5, putting all stat points in body, then a skill point in burning rage and one in critical strike

-you can start moving magma and attacking the first robot while the camera is still in the control room

-occasionally part 2 spawns green robots.  you really want to get as much xp as possible here.  i don't know what the win conditions are, but you want magma to be just past level 7 (so that nightcrawler is level 5) which happens most of the time but there are certainly times when it doesn't.

6) mansion interlude

-as magma isn't a team member yet any gear she has equipped is automatically returned to your inventory once you start the next mission

7) sewers 1

-my starting team is nightcrawler, wolverine, rogue, and beast but as noted above i'm beginning to think nightcrawler, wolverine, cyclops, and storm may make more sense.

-starting with nightcrawler, wolverine, rogue, and beast all stat points should be placed in body for all characters except nightcrawler who gets all points in focus (allowing him to do three shadow blends instead of two).  nightcrawler gets 2 skill points in teleport flurry and two in shadow blend.  wolverine gets two skill points in expertise and one in brutal slash.  rogue spends all her skill points in flight.  beast's skill points aren't worth spending.  this team is chosen mainly because wolverine, rogue, and beast have the highest possible health among the currently available characters, however, i question how significant survivability is here which is why i'm considering a team change.

-give nightcrawler the basic muscle accelerator and essentially run through the level using shadow blend, switching to wolverine in the few places you need to destroy things.

-i try to have wolverine (and theoretically storm, cyclops, and nightcrawler if i don't end up switching teams) at full health before talking to healer, from whom i buy health packs until i'm maxed.

-healer's dialogue tree is skip 3, then select visit store or exit, marrow's dialogue tree is skip one, then choose last option

-more shadow blending as nightcrawler.  currently i switch teams to iceman, wolverine, storm, and cyclops before the boss room but this may no longer be necessary.  iceman, storm, and cyclops get all stat points spent on body.  iceman gets a skill point in cold smash and one in critical strike.  storm and cyclops each get a skill point in leadership if they didn't in the toad fight.  cyclops also gets a skill point in optic beam and one in point blank shot.  storm also gets a skill point in lightning strike and one in flight.  (obviously if my teams change storm and cyclops get these skill points at the beginning of the mission and iceman, rogue, and beast would get their skill point upgrades when i next use them).

-the marrow fight can be annoying as the steam vents will absolutely destroy you're team if you're not careful, but she's the last boss until shadow king that's all that threatening.  like other boss areas breakable objects have increased drop potential in marrow's room (though you have to be careful not to be too close to gambit when you kill her if you want to explore)

8) arbiter

-this whole mission can be beaten most efficiently by a team of gambit, iceman, nightcrawler, and rogue, but i really can't see that team surviving the level so i start with a team of gambit, storm, nightcrawler, and jubilee which i may revise to replace nightcrawler with cyclops in the future.  gambit and jubilee get stat points in body (nightcrawler and storm (and cyclops) shouldn't have any to spend), and gambit gets the basic muscle accelerator as well as two skill points in kinetic strike and one in staff master.

-at this point in the game, only gambit is strong enough to destroy objects in one volley without energy which is why he's on the team as many enemies in this mission automatically drain all your energy.  so you use gambit to destroy things while picking up occasional flight shortcuts with storm until you get to the bit where you have to rescue crewmen.

-for the crewman section switch teams to iceman, wolverine, beast, and rogue.  none of these characters should have points to spend, but give iceman a basic muscle accelerator and basic nanofiber armor if you can.

-basically iceman needs to survive the majority of this section as he's your only bridge builder available (and as a bonus also puts out fires), causing massive time loss and potential game over should he die.  the other characters are mostly there cuz they have high health.

-there's a glitch in many parts of the game, but noticeable here where enemies have the ability to move and attack while you don't when entering and exiting cutscenes.  these scenes include when jean grey tries to hold leaks on the ship, leaving you super vulnerable which is why a team with high survivability that you can wedge between iceman and enemies is ideal.

-the first area is straightforward i think, save the crewman near you first, grab the second, return to door, exit.  you can drop off the first crewman before the second but i see no advantage to doing so.

-i found an interesting trick in the second area wherein instead of building a bridge to the third crewman you just fly to him as rogue.  this helps avoid the glitch that leaves you vulnerable, but separates your team.  because reuniting teams is a pain in the ass, i generally just kill rogue by walking her into the water after talking to the crewman.

-like the first area, i see no advantage to dropping off the third crewman before getting the fourth, though i do recommend turning off the electric fence before talking to the fourth crewman because of the glitch i mentioned (worth noting, you cannot take damage while talking to crewmen -- doesn't have much utility i've found but maybe it could counteract the glitch)

-the third area has an xtraction point where typically i will replace everyone but iceman on my team with cyclops, nightcrawler, and whoever has the highest health remaining.  nightcrawler can use shadow blend to run straight to the electric fence switch, and once again the area is best to complete collecting both crewmen before returning to the door.  in this area i find standing near the door and calling your teammates to help can prevent the doorway you need to go through once the crew is rescued from being blocked.

-the fourth area is where the glitch can be the most problematic, but is the most straightforward in terms of routing.

-be sure to dequip the basic muscle accelerator so magma has one.

9) mansion interlude

-equip the basic muscle accelerator

-i'm not sure if selling health and energy packs to forge is worth it, but it's a possibility worth considering here and on many interludes

-danger room dialogue tree is 1, 1st option, 4, 3rd option

10) danger room (new york)

-i tend to destroy way less barrels as magma vs. wolverine, but route isn't that different

-infinite combo mystique and blob to take them down.  not sure if destroying stuff in blob's area is worth it, but it probably is in mystique's cuz it's right there.

11) mansion interlude

-just go straight to briefing.  magma's on the team now so any equipment on her stays equipped which is significant for areas where you can't select magma.

12) nuke plant

-i start this mission with iceman, rogue, beast, and wolverine, which is a holdover from when i'd actually build ice bridges i can just fly over.  i think a team of iceman, nightcrawler, storm, and jean can beat the level, but i think i may want to replace one of those characters with rogue (probably nightcrawler as he has the lowest health) as the team will separate and my way of reuniting them involves going to an xtraction point which is a trick that only works if you change the team.  so yeah, the routing on this is probably the one most likely to experience significant changes assuming storm and jean can stay alive which i may be overestimating.

-jean may have stat points that can be assigned to her body but you don't need to worry about skill points for her and no one else should have leveled up since you last used them.

-anyway, as always the character being controlled gets a basic muscle accelerator as always, starting with iceman then nightcrawler (the flyer doesn't get it cuz i don't think it affects flight).

-much of the room with the guy you have to talk to can be flown through.  his dialogue tree is i think 4 skips, scroll to bottom.  i went pretty fast on some of these skips and can't tell too well in the video

-major skips activating the coolant pumps by having a flyer.  in theory storm or jean can do this, but rogue is best suited for it if afterwards i'm going to an xtraction point and using changing my team as a way of reuniting them anyway (death warping potentially kills your whole team as they frequently get stuck in the floor when you're not controlling them in this room).

-once the fans are on the last switch should be flipped by invisible nightcrawler, and other than building a bridge as iceman, you basically should be invisible nightcrawler in every room with enemies for the rest of the mission until the puzzle room which jean and storm are on your team to solve.

13) muir island interlude

-though the camera stays fixed at the start of the level, magma's free to move wherever if you can get a feel for where you're supposed to move her

-forge dialogue tree is 4 skips, 2nd option, 6 skips, 3rd option i believe (again i went pretty fast)

14) computer

-relatively straightforward mission with nothing to really comment on

15) mansion interlude

-emma dialogue tree is just one skip once xavier disappears then the last option

16) grso mansion raid

-team is wolverine, cyclops, storm, and emma.  wolverine there for damage, cyclops and storm for leadership, and emma to get a head start on leveling so that she can potentially have psychic bedlam in astral 1 (though it's unlikely i'd have the necessary xtreme token).  no one has points to level with quite yet, but massive amounts of levelling's about to happen.

-wolverine can move forward and kill soldiers while the camera's still locked.  essentially you want to kill the two in the center then work your way around the lawn counter clockwise ending on the one closest to the entrance to the front lawn.

-i level up wolverine after killing the ninth grso soldier in the back lawn.  giving him and everyone else all stat points in body, plus skill points in sharpness, toughness, critical strike, mutant mastery and two in brutal slash (or close to this if he's still level 9 and not yet 10)

-killing the next grso puts wolverine at level 12, and i level up again.  all stat points for all characters go in body.  wolverine gets another skill point in toughness and another skill point in mutant mastery.  cyclops gets a skill point in leadership, point blank shot, two in optic beam, two in toughness, and two in mutant mastery.  storm gets a skill point in leadership, two in lightning strike, two in toughness, and two in mutant mastery (she should have one skill point left).  emma gets two skill points in toughness.

-the front lawn you take out in roughly clockwise order, getting combos where possible.  it should go without saying but the sentry bots aren't worth killing and should be ignored.

17) mansion interlude

-dequip anything magma's wearing

-i'm not sure on the order of the next two missions.  i had been going in the default astral 1 then weapon x order, but i can see huge benefits to having an xtreme at the end of astral 1 so i may want to reorder these missions.

18) astral 1

-as mentioned above, i question if i should do this mission first

-give xavier the basic muscle accelerator then go to the switch on the right, switch to jean for the switch on the left, switch back to xavier

-so long as xavier doesn't fall down a pit, this mission isn't bad

-i level up jean once i grab the astral stone.  she gets all stat points in body, three skill points in telekinetic strike, one skill point in telekinetic fury, three points to telekinetic combat, three points to toughness, and three points to critical strike.  jean has two more points which i may want to apply to flight earlier in the game and use to solve certain puzzles, but for now i just note that they exist rather than strategize how to spend them.  emma gets stat points in body, and a skill point in toughness.  should jean die she also gets points in psionic strike, psionic fury, critical strike, and psychic bedlam.

-in my run the fight by illyana went extremely poorly, but i don't really have much to say about a fairly linear level with no shortcuts.

19) weapon x

-again, i'll mention my thoughts of switching the order of playing this after astral 1

-i go for the xp bonus even though i'm not sure it's worth it, leveling up cyclops after i pick it up.  if i do end up switching weapon x and astral 1's order some of this levelling will need to be tweaked but for now cyclops gets all stat points in body, skill points in leadership, toughness, and mutant mastery, and two skill points in optic blast.

-i level up before talking to havok so that talking to him levels me up again and restores me to full health.  i don't know if this holds true if i flip the order of astral 1 and weapon x.

-if you land a trip combo on havok you can keep him down until he's scripted to run away by spamming trip combos, though if you can hit him with an explosive barrel, the fight's much faster (though not quite easier).

-i level up wolverine once i get him (again this may need to be adjusted if i change the mission order).  wolverine gets all stat points in body plus three skill points in eviscerate, one in toughness, one in mutant mastery, and one in critical strike.

-for the most part cyclops runs around with the basic muscle accelerator (remember to take it off if doing astral 2nd) while wolverine still should have a basic power enhancer.  i control cyclops most of the time, only using wolverine to take out the one guy holding a keycard in  level that's once again rather linear.

20) sentinel mansion raid

-team is nightcrawler, cyclops, storm, and wolverine.  if someone makes a compelling argument for someone other than wolverine, i'd consider it, but the other three are virtually required.  nightcrawler gets all stat points in focus.  everyone else gets all stat points in body.  nightcrawler gets four skill points in teleport flurry, three skill points in toughness, three skill points in mutant mastery, two skill points in shadow blend, three skill points in shadow arts, and one skill point in sucker punch (i don't know if sucker punch or critical strike is better so i generally default to sucker punch.  i'm also not certain if they complement each other or cancel each other out).  cyclops gets skill points in optic blast, point blank shot, and leadership.  storm gets skill points in toughness, mutant mastery, and leadership plus two skill points in cyclone fury and three skill points in chain lightning.  i skipped levelling wolverine in my run and frankly as i'm not even certain he should be on the team, i don't think he needs to be leveled.

-go immediately to the xtraction point and buy the hammer of nimrod from forge.  equip it to nighcrawler, mission complete.

21) mansion interlude

-hopefully magma has a basic accelerator to wear

22) sewers 2/launch base

-right now my team is nightcrawler, storm, cyclops, and iceman, but i don't have a great boss strategy so if anyone knows a good one iceman could easily lose his spot on the team.  levelling up put all nightcrawler's stat points in focus, put everyone else's stat points in body.  nightcrawler should put one skill point in shadow arts.  storm should put one point in leadership.  iceman should put one skill point in cold smash, three skill points in cold crush, three skill points in toughness, three skill points in mutant mastery, and three skill points in critical strike

-morlock dialogue tree is 1 skip, 1st option, 3 skips, 2nd option, 4 skips, 3rd option, 3 skips, 4th option.

-relatively linear level that you just use shadow arts to get through.  nightcrawler has three shortcuts with teleport.  the first is getting to a switch that's behind a wall you're supposed to walk around.  make sure to target an enemy while teleporting so the team doesn't get separated.  if you're lucky some of your team will stay on high ground on the other side of the wall after flipping the switch allowing you to switch to them and proceeding.  the next skip is another door you're supposed to flip to open that you can just teleport through.  and the last is the door leading to gateway (thus skipping saving healer).  your team gets separated getting this last one but they reunite when you reach gateway.

-fly to the switch as storm once you're in the launch base

-i don't have a good strategy for avalanche.  combos don't seem to do a ton of damage and at this point i think i'm going to resort to just punching him as iceman.  ideas for strategies would be appreciated.

23) mansion interlude

-another scenario where i'm not quite sure of the order.  i'm fairly confident sewers 3 should be after the new york riots, but i don't know when i should fight juggernaut.  for now i go with the default.

24) new york riots

-team is nightcrawler, iceman, storm, and cyclops.  iceman gets the basic muscle accelerator, nightcrawler gets the hammer of nimrod.  no reason to level up at the beginning.

-for first area a clockwise circle with you starting at six o'clock makes the most sense.  keep in mind that getting mutants into ambulances can be frustrating.  the ambulance only takes one mutant every few seconds and you need to keep them moving to make sure the ambulance recognizes someone wants to be saved.

-for areas two and three i generally hit the alleyways first then circle back to the ambulance on the main streets.

-in area four don't be teleporting when bishop's sentinel dies.  there's a chance you'll wind up falling through the map.  i tend to make a backwards c around the map.

25) sewers 3

-team is the same as the previous level: nightcrawler, iceman, cyclops, storm.  you don't even need to level up or switch equipment quite yet.  just charge to the end as iceman, then pick up healer's skill point as nightcrawler (keeping nightcrawler alive to this point can unfortunately be difficult so try to monitor his health).

-the first healer dialogue tree is skip 1, select last option i believe

-the second healer dialogue tree is skip 3, select last option (again i did these a bit too fast in my video)

-level up before marrow.  nightcrawler gets all stat points in focus with three skill points in teleport frenzy, two in shadow mastery, and four in sucker punch (actually i think i screw this up, oh well, i'll look at it next run). storm gets stat points in body until she hits 30, the rest go to focus.  storm also gets three skill points in chain lightning, three stat points in flight, and one in leadership.  cyclops gets stat points in body until he hits 30, the rest go to focus.  cyclops also gets three skill points in optic blast, two in accuracy, and two in point blank shot.  iceman gets all stat points in body and spends the last skill point he will spend on maxing out critical strike.

-the marrow fight should take four cycles of just chain lightning til she dies, taking out two of her lieutenants with cyclone furies, more chain lightning, two more lieutenants dying to cyclone fury, marrow dead to chain lightning.  maybe 3 cycle is possible, but 4 cycles is actually pretty fast.

-marrow dialogue tree is skip 1, 2nd option, skip 7, 3rd option, skip , skip 5, 4th option, skip 4, last option (again i went too fast and need to recheck this)

26) muir island

-if someone wants to make a strong argument for a team go ahead, all i know is i don't want iceman.  this fight is insanely easy currently, but i do think it could be even faster.

-team i use is nightcrawler, cyclops, storm, and wolverine.  none of them should need to level up.  you just spam combos and follow him when he runs off, switching to a different character should one get knocked down or grabbed.

-juggernaut dialogue tree is skip 1, 1st option, skip 3, 2nd option, skip 2, 3rd option, skip 5, last option (yay! no more dialogue trees)

27) mansion interlude

-magma just starts in the briefing room from now on.

28) astral plane 2

-team is cyclops, storm, iceman, psylocke.  only psylocke needs to assign attribute points.  she assigns stat points to body until she reaches 30, rest to focus.  she assigns 4 skill points to psychic slash, 6 skill points to psychic hammer, three skill points to psionic strike, three skill points to psionic fury, five skill points to blade master, three skill points to toughness, and three skill points to mutant mastery.  she also gets a basic power enhancer.

-control iceman outside of fights, racing to objectives.  i do dark blob, dark avalanche, dark pyro, though the order's fairly arbitrary.

-psylocke has a weird instakill glitch on certain bosses.  i don't really know how it works but psychic slashing dark blob and dark pyro frequently takes them out way earlier than they're supposed to go down.  it doesn't seem to work on dark avalanche though, and i could use a more efficient strategy for him.

-at the start of the astral gladiator fight, just run forward as storm and begin spamming chain lightning and call for help.  everyone except the energy resistant one should go down super quickly.  finish the last one off as psylocke.

29) sentinel factory

-as mentioned i don't have a large portion of this section on video.

-currently my starting team is magma, nightcrawler, cyclops, and storm, but i'm thinking of revising my team to iceman, nightcrawler, cyclops, and storm and rolling through the whole level as them.  either way nightcrawler, cyclops, and storm put all stat points into focus.  nightcrawler tries to max out critical strike and frenzy legend (unfortunately i think i screwed up his leveling).  cyclops puts a point in accuracy.  and storm is done.

-for sake of argument magma puts all stat points in body.  one skill point in burning rage, three skill points in erupting rage, three skill points in toughness, three skill points in mutant mastery, and four skill points in critical strike. (iceman would put all stat points into body, but is done with skill points).

-using either iceman or magma, race through the mission killing whatever destructible objects need to be destroyed for objectives until you reach arm attachment where nightcrawler takes over flipping switches while using shadow mastery.

-in leg attachment there's a short cut with flying storm after flipping the second switch.

-there are shortcuts for nightcrawler in this area, but you have to pay attention to who he targets with his teleport attack to go the right way and avoid separating the team.

-use nightcrawler and the hammer of nimrod on the sentinels you have to kill but otherwise avoid combat.

-in my current route i switch out magma, storm, and cyclops for wolverine, iceman, and jean.  but i don't know that i really need to.

-for argument's sake wolverine gets all stat points in focus, three skill points into eviscerate, two skill points into critical strike, three skill points into sharpness, three skill points into expertise.

-i go left first to save the morlocks, but i hardly think it matters.

-wooden doors should be punched instead of opened, switch to wolverine or iceman in the last room to beat things up.  wolverine can take out a sentinel producing machine with eviscerate just as the cutscene starts.  i imagine other characters can accomplish a similar feat.

30) astral plane 3

-current team is jean, magma, iceman, and colossus.  magma is redundant to iceman, but i really only need the other three characters.  only colossus should need/is worth assigning attribute points to.  all stat points should be assigned to focus, with four skill points in power smash, six skill points in titanic smash, two skill points in titanic legend, five skill points in colossus charge, three skill points in toughness, three skill points in mutant mastery, five skill points in critical strike, five skill points in knockback, and two skill points in might (this is total overkill for a character you control for maybe fifteen seconds).

-just race through the level as iceman, flipping switches as necessary as jean, use colossus to destroy the idol at the end.

-the shadow king fight is something i struggle with, especially phase 1.  i question if strike may actually be worth it, but for now i just dump all stat points in body.  psychic maelstrom is great for clearing the minions whenever he spawns them

31) mansion interlude

-nothing to say

32) asteroid m

-you're forced to start with a team of emma, storm, iceman, and wolverine.  emma can't leave your team until you get below decks even though she's completely useless.  i switch out wolverine and iceman for nightcrawler and cyclops.  i'll level everyone up before master mold, right now the only thing to worry about is equipment.

-visiting forge i sell pretty much everything except the hammer of nimrod and health/energy packs (but if i don't have the cash the packs may be sold).  i want to buy a super muscle accelerator and three super power enhancers.  i have no idea if this gear is worth the time it takes to buy.  ultimately the super power enhancers will be worn by cyclops, storm, and psylocke while nightcrawler will wear the super muscle accelerator until switching to the hammer of nimrod for the final fight.

-knowing the route through asteroid m involves some flying from storm and there are a couple teleport skips in the lower levels, particularly when bridges are "out" (you'll notice there's no bridge builder on this team).  one of the flights involves flying back up after grabbing a key card and there's another flight before that that's similarly about navigating to a catwalk.

-this level is not programed like other levels and allows you to advance even when you "team is separated" so a couple times in the lower levels you can abandon your team with a teleport and still advance, the most notable of these being that you can skip the magneto fight entirely by just teleporting through the door that's supposed to open after you defeat him.

-before magneto i swap in psylocke for emma.  like dark blob and dark pyro, psylocke can kill magneto way earlier than he's supposed to be able to die, but then i found you can skip the fight entirely, though i still keep psylocke on my team (which my need to be reevaluated in favor of another character like wolverine or colossus, basically i'm gonna want the character who does the most damage to master mold)

-level up as the sentinel fight starts.  everyone puts all stat points into focus.  night crawler maxes out teleport frenzy, frenzy legend and if possible critical strike (this depends on if he gets the skill point from healer).  psylocke puts two skill points in hammer legend and five skill points into critical strike.  cyclops puts a skill point into accuracy and two skill points into legend blast.  storm puts two skill points into lightning legend.

-i'm fairly certain master mold can be killed before turning invincible.  i've gotten him about 800hp away from death (combos do about 3k damage) with a psylocke/nightcrawler tandem (nightcrawler goes into frenzy legend, psylocke hammer legends).  don't know if a different pair is better (though it's obvious cyclops and storm need to be there with their leadership bonuses).

-and that's it though i'm open to suggestions on certain parts, especially the avalanche fight and other areas where i indicated uncertainty.

ugh, so i've completely overlooked kinetic boost and feral rage, that they can be stacked on wolverine with a muscle accelerator to give wolverine a 70%-90% speed boost means i should probably be using gambit and wolverine in tandem more.  you don't get gambit until the arbiter and wolverine won't be high enough leveled for feral rage until sewers 1, though i do wonder if a team of wolverine, storm, cyclops, iceman (aka the default for the mission) might work.  iceman's freeze ability slows down marrow somewhat in the boss fight making him way less useless than nightcrawler and the level seems beatable without nightcrawler.

the arbiter team is staying the same as there's too much stuff that drains energy and you'd need to switch to gambit or iceman too much to make wolverine feasible.

i don't think it makes much sense to change the nuke plant team either as while there's certainly a couple places where wolverine/gambit would help, nightcrawler has a couple areas where he's useful, rogue's absolutely essential, and a bridge builder is required (the last puzzle however isn't a huge concern as there's an xtraction point right there).

the grso and sentinel raids both don't require tons of movement, and require people using energy for offense rather than buffs, so the only thing i may change is making the two raids showcase the two neglected characters of beast and jubilee.

sewers 2 is the first level where this strategy can make an impact, though i think i may want to swap someone out for cyclops and possibly magma before the boss.  avalanche still sucks as a boss and i don't know how to best deal with him.  the rest of the mission can be handled rather effectively with a team of storm, gambit, wolverine, and nightcrawler, which is certainly who i'd start with.

new york riot and juggernaut are both boss killing levels and i don't really think changing the team would have a huge impact.

sewers 3 (seemingly i missed this, the initial team was nightcrawler, cyclops, storm, magma (bridge building is necessary, wanted the free skill point for nightcrawler)) - a team of storm, wolverine, magma, and gambit may work throughout or possibly switching out wolverine and gambit for cyclops and nightcrawler at the end may be better.  i think i'd want to try the new team though.

astral plane 2 - if i can figure out how to ohko with a team of gambit, wolverine, psylocke, and storm i'd do it, but losing cyclops seemed to negate the ohko, so i may stick with the listed team and i need to test how bad the gladiator fight is without him as well.

sentinel factory - i'm very curious to try a gambit, wolverine, cyclops, storm team, though there is a bridge puzzle and not having nightcrawler for sentinels seems like a mistake.  this level's so huge though, that it's possible having a crazy fast wolverine is still worth it though.

astral plane 3 - jean, colossus, gambit, wolverine seems like a no brainer on this mission

asteroid m - nightcrawler still has some key shortcuts, but at least until master mold, i see no reason not to run wolverine, gambit, nightcrawler, and emma (cuz she defaults to the team).  then i'd switch gears for the mastermold fight which at this point seems to be cyclops, storm, nightcrawler, plus one more (it has been psylocke but that's a holdover from before i realized you can just skip the magneto fight with nightcrawler).  with point blank shot maxed, i think nightcrawler/cyclops combos are my best shot at a one cycle (was one hit away earlier today using this pair and think all i needed were points in cyclops' xtreme to have made it).

okay, i think i have a route that uses gambit/wolverine.  i now think around 3:10 is probably the best possible time but requires excellent execution and very good luck early in the game with drops (getting a basic power enhancer before blob saves about a full minute and maybe 30 seconds more if it drops before mystique).

the psylocke insta-kill seems to work by storm landing an indirect lightning strike with chain lightning and then slashing as psylocke.  hardly the easiest thing to do, but it can insta-kill dark blob, dark avalanche, and dark pyro if executed correctly.  it does not work on mastermold (it does work on magneto, though you can just skip him as nightcrawler so there's no real point).  still trying to see if he can actually be killed before he turns invincible.  even if it is possible, however, it seems too hard to pull off in a single-segment run, and a segmented run requires way too much rng manipulation than i have patience for.

there are a couple remaining debates over team selection at various points.  for the missions where you have options i think the default team (cyclops, storm, wolverine, iceman) is best for the haarp facility.  a team of nightcrawler, wolverine, plus 2 is best for sewers 1 (feral rage doesn't seem worthwhile here cuz of the problems with bottlenecking that nightcrawler can side step) which then transitions to a team of cyclops, storm, wolverine, plus 1 for marrow 1 (as long as wolverine has a basic power enhancer and basic nanofiber armor i seem to be able to survive this fight consistently now relatively fast.  i really need everyone full health though, so i don't think a nightcrawler, wolverine, cyclops, storm team is practical).  the arbiter continues to be gambit, storm, cyclops, jubilee til the timer starts then iceman, beast, wolverine, rogue to killing rogue and replacing with nightcrawler.  gambit's buff doesn't give a speed boost yet on nuke plant, so my team's now iceman, rogue, nightcrawler, wolverine.  replace iceman with magma if the team separates as you need a bridgebuilder who preferably isn't jean.  feasibly a team of storm, jean, nightcrawler, wolverine could work but i'd rather not risk losing jean and storm before the bit you actually need them specifically at the end and both will be way weaker fliers than rogue.

the grso raid really only requires wolverine, i try to include cyclops and storm for combos, but they don't generally make a huge difference.  all three (plus iceman) are the default team for the level though, so i stick with them.  the sentinel raid i still go nightcrawler, cyclops, storm, wolverine, and sewers 2/launch base is one of the areas i'm still debating a team.

i think a team of nightcrawler, wolverine, gambit, plus one makes the most sense.  in theory this plus one should have an xtreme, though having the tokens is kind of an issue.  the sewers also bottleneck like crazy and i don't find running through as wolverine all that reliable.  fortunately nightcrawler is very necessary for shortcuts and can blend by some of the problem areas.  i think i may try jean in the fourth slot as her and gambit wailing on avalanche should be a workable strategy to beating him.  but this and the mastermold team are two teams i haven't quite figured out.  currently my plan has been wolverine, magma, nightcrawler, gambit and then switching to cyclops, storm, iceman, magma once i reach launch base, but i don't actually need the leadership for the avalanche fight, just two characters whose melee attacks don't do physical damage (which is why i say gambit and jean may work (i also need a flier for one bit)).

i think my route for the riots is slow.  a team of nightcrawler, cyclops, storm, and wolverine makes sense to me, but i'd love to squeeze gambit in somehow and really amp up my movement speed.  i should test different methods of killing sentinels instead of assuming nightcrawler plus hammer of nimrod is fastest.

sewers 3 now has a team of gambit, wolverine, magma, and iceman.  i think two bridge builders is over kill, but i need one and i need both storm and cyclops for marrow 2, so a team change is necessary.  i still give the skill point to nightcrawler, but other than having him on the final team i don't know who should get that fourth slot.  currently it goes to one of the bridgebuilders, but it might make more sense to keep gambit for the experience (and likewise have cyclops around earlier for the xp as he misses out on a lot of xp on asteroid m and astral 2 at the moment).

juggernaut's a default team mission, though iceman can slow juggernaut's movement speed thus slowing down the mission, and should potentially be switched for someone else as he's useless in battle, but the level's so short, i don't see switching him out having a huge effect.

astral 2 is now wolverine, gambit, psylocke, storm.  this team destroys this level and i don't see any reason to change it.  sentinel factory i now go with cyclops, storm, wolverine, and gambit for the whole level and it seems to work out pretty well.  astral 3 is wolverine, gambit, colossus, and jean.  and asteroid m is gambit, wolverine, storm, and emma until i can replace emma with nightcrawler and then i sub out gambit and wolverine for psylocke and cyclops at th final room, but as i've mentioned, i question this team's efficacy and wonder if maybe there's a better option than psylocke and/or nightcrawler.

shaved 22 seconds off my pb with a truly horrible new york that cost me about a minute.  think it's been a while since posting so i'm not sure the route is up to date.

new york 1 - no changes

haarp - fight pyro aggressively, otherwise no changes.

danger room - no changes

sewers 1 - i've been experimenting with jubilee instead of beast and putting points into photo flash.  potentially this could help with bottle necking and allow wolverine to run through, but i'm still using nightcrawler then swapping out to a healthy cyclops, iceman, and storm for marrow, which seems to be working.

arbiter - i'm experimenting with having nightcrawler teleport to the last crewmember.  i think it should be faster, but so far it's slower with the time to clear the area of the guard.  it is, however, way safer.

new york 2 - no changes

nuke plant - right now my strategy is rogue, wolverine, nightcrawler, magma then switching out magma and rogue for storm and jean after turning on the coolant pumps.  a team switch is kinda necessary as storm and jean won't be nearly as good at flying as rogue plus the flying bit separates the team most of the time, but if there was a way to have the team not kill themselves on electric bridges and you just burned energy packs to fly, a team of nightcrawler, wolverine, storm, and jean is theoretically sound just very risky as the time lost if jean or storm die is huge.

muir island - no changes

grso raid - no changes

astral plane 1 - no changes

weapon x - no changes

sentinel raid - i've been experimenting switching out nightcrawler for gambit, and gambit seems about 30 seconds faster than nightcrawler just meleeing the sentinels as nightcrawler really doesn't become all that effective against sentinels til he unlocks frenzy.  i still pick up the hammer of nimrod here and equip it to nightcrawler for the riots (which stay the same), but i think gambit with shadowcat's touch equiped is the fastest here (though getting shadowcat's touch is pure luck as forge won't sell it to you)

sewers 2/launch base - jean destroys avalanche so a team of nightcrawler, gambit, wolverine, and jean works quite well

new york riots - no changes

sewers 3 - the team here is gambit, wolverine, cyclops, and storm and when i get to the bridge i just fly over and complete everything as storm til i get to the xtraction point and replace gambit with nightcrawler for the marrow fight.  wolverine gets the skill point as now that shadow blend on ever gets two points wolverine can do more with the boost than nightcrawler

juggernaut - no changes

astral plane 2 - no changes.  i now think the ohko may work by hitting the boss just before he loses invulnerability and then hitting him with a combo attack which confuses the cpu into thinking its dead maybe?  still can't get this trick consistently.

sentinel factory - no changes

astral 3 - i think i may want to rethink how i assign xavier's points for the shadow king fight and use a strategy that utilizes his powers more negating the necessity of putting points into strike.

asteroid m - my boss team is now cyclops, storm, nightcrawler, and gambit (as he's good clearing the room pre-fight).  unless someone finds a team that can one cycle mastermold, this team seems solid to me.  the rest of the level is more or less unchanged.

think that's it.  my best splits are now like 3:03:41 or something.  so sub-3 may in fact be possible with a little refinement and insanely good luck.  i think i spotted a nightcrawler shortcut in sewers 2, but it looks really hard to execute, might save as much as 30 seconds though.