X-Men Legends Character Guide: =-=-=-=-= Jean Grey =-=-=-=-= by noshorterversion Copyright 2004 Anastasia Ehlers Please only use this guide for your personal benefit. Do not reproduce it without my permission. Reach me by email at noshorterversion@hotmail.com, but please, be reasonable about it. I won't open it if I have the least reason not to. Table of Contents I. A Note On Stat/Ability Points II. Levelling Up III. Bio IV. Abilities V. How to Level Up the Abilities VI. Strengths/Weaknesses VII. How to Use Jean VIII. Comic Book IX. Danger Room =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- I. A Note On Stat/Ability Points =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- There are fifteen playable characters in X-Men Legends, the fifteenth is only available during certain missions and does not gain levels or utilize points like the rest. All characters can use the combos described in the Danger Room's "Moves" excersizes. Furthermore, their mutant abilities follow a similar patern, but more on that in a bit. A total of 45 levels can be gained throughout the game. For each level gained, customizable points are awarded. Level 1: no usable points, one (or two, if the character can learn "Might") ability block has already been filled in. Each level that is a multiple of five yields 2 stat points and 2 ability points. Every other level yields 1 stat point and 1 ability point. ===>You can use 54 stat points and 54 ability points to build up your super- ===>hero. Characters have a total of 63-67 ability blocks, meaning you cannot ===>max out your characters abilities. The whole point of this guide is to help you use those 54 points wisely. Only learn the best skills and how to use them efficiently in battle. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- II. Levelling Up =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- It comes as no surprise that you collect Experience Points (XP) to level up. Each level, use your points to enhance your stats and learn new abilities. Adding stats is a no-brainer. You may want to focus on stats inherent to each character (ie focus for Storm and strike for Wolverine). Strike is your strength, agility is your defense, body is your health, and focus is your mutant power. Body is not usually worth putting points into since high agility raises your defense sufficiently enough that high hit points won't matter. For ability points, unlocking a new skill often requires 2 points, indicated by the yellow outline of the block. One tip: you can see what higher levels have to offer by adding points and reading the description at the bottom of the screen. If you don't like what you see, then use the subtract button before you hit accept to exit the screen. All of the abilities are briefly explained when you highlight them, as long as your are able to unlock them. Mutant powers are multi-tiered. For example, there are 5 blocks of Telekinesis, 5 blocks of Telekinetic Mastery, and 1 Telekinetic Legend; all are progressively stronger versions of the same animation. =-=-=-=- III. Bio =-=-=-=- Jean is an original X-Man and Cyclops's wife. She is one of the most powerful telepaths on earth, but sadly, has serious control issues with her powers. Jean sacrificed herself to save the team (in space, NOT canada!) and was resurrected as Dark Phoenix. She came to herself with the help of the X-Men, but was changed forever to the Phoenix. Generally, her and Scott's mushy psychicly-bonded romance gets on my nerves, but in Legends, Jean is one of the most useful and powerful characters. Real Name: Jean Grey Mutant Powers: Telekinesis, telepathy Level 1 Stats: Strike-2 Agility-5 Body-3 Focus-7 Inherent Stat: Focus Default AI: Normal Ability Blocks: 67 Gained: End of first mission Use 60% of Jean's stat points on focus, 25% on agility, and 15% on body. Jean needs no strike. Psionic Strike/Fury make up for that, and besides, you won't use her hand-to-hand that much anyway. =-=-=-=-=-=-= IV. Abilities =-=-=-=-=-=-= *To the right of each skill name is the level required to unlock blocks. *If only "0" appears, then all blocks are available immediately. Telekinesis 0, 3, 5, 7, 9 Telekinetic Mastery 15, 17, 19, 21, 23 Telekinetic Legend 30 Moves objects and enemies along a straight line trajectory. Destroys objects and damages enemies when they hit a wall. Can also push enemies off ledges. Higher levels move heavier objects. You cannot control where things move around, which limits the usefulness of this skill. Also opens doors and flips switches; you need jean to flip switches on your third trip to Astral Plane. Builds bridges. I have not personally experimented with this skill much since i find Scream so handy. sabin01 says: "First, Jean Grey's Telekenisis. This ability which you have labeled as having limited control is actually quite controllable. In order to lift an object, face the object and press R2+X, this will initially lift the object, while holding R2+X and moving with the analog stick you can control the movement of the object jean is lifting, however once you let go, the object will be flung in the direction which she was moving the object. This attack, also increases in damage when you add points to Telekinetic Combat. Since it adds damage to ALL mental attacks, this will do damage even though the ability itself when at one skill point says that it does no damage. By far this ability need not be improved in order to be useful, as throwing enemies off cliffs and into pits is rather useful. However, at one skill point is limited to lifting only enemies and light objects, and will need to be sufficiently leveled to lift cars, however that is quite unneccesary as with only one skill point is enough to lift and throw enemies into each other, walls, or even your other allies instantly getting the Batter Up combo." So thanks to him! glacialfury also had some telekinesis strategy to contribute. He says: "This involves using Jean somewhat more as a melee fighter. As you mentioned, you can combine the two psionic damage skills to boost her melee damage to large numbers, and this is where telekinesis really shines. Control over is quite good. As long as you continue to hold down the power button (it doesn't take that much EP), they remain aloft and you can move/manipulate them anyway you want to. As you run into an area or down a corridor, trigger the telekinesis move and you will very often grab an enemy off screen that you hadn't seen yet; then push the control stick toward your party and release the power. The enemy will come hurtling toward you, taking falling damage and becoming separated from his buddies. When he collides into you or a party member (this does no damage to you), you can beat the snot of him without his friends nearby. Likewise, if you see an ally getting beat on, you can do a quick grab-yank-release and send the enemy hurtling away from your ally. This works very well in the protect and defend danger room missions too, because if you see someone attacking a car or student you can pluck them up and throw them somewhere else to deal with them. If an enemy is close to you, you can just quickly press the telekinesis button and the control stick away from you and you have an instant knockback attack that will send them clear across the room for very little energy. I don't think the hurling of objects is nearly as good or important as using telekinesis on the enemies directly. You can trash a room by picking up enemies and throwing them into each other, into walls, etc....it is a fantastic addition to melee fighting. Run up to a group, throw one guy into the group, knock them all down....start punching and kicking (with the extra mental damage adding +100 or so to your punches), as one gets up, grab it with telekinesis again, throw them over a cliff/railing, use it again to push one of the enemies down, punch.... The most important thing about this, as opposed to the killer Scream attacks, is that it's incredibly fun to play. You toss enemies around like rag dolls, flinging them at will wherever you want them. It gives you unprecedented control over enemy locations because you can relocate them at will. Jean has a fantastic combo with cyclops if you have a human player on cyclops; use telekinesis and maneuver the poor sod in front of cyclops, who can blast it out of the sky for a guaranteed combo. I can't tell you how many enemies we killed by doing this; Jean lifts the enemy and holds them steady, cyclops shoots them down out of the sky, doing massive damage in the process. I think it's called "Lifting Beam" but I'm not sure." Thanks a lot! Psychic Shout 5, 7, 9, 11, 13 Psychic Scream 20, 22, 24, 26, 28 Legend Scream 30 Jean's most damaging skill. Mental damage within in a circle around Jean. The radius increases with level. Legend Scream does 300-400 damage against average enemies, which although not too high, takes care of enough at a time to be very dangerous during melee. Slows enemies as well, though not as much as Bobby's Freeze Blast. This skill rocks; could even be considered cheap when it is maxxed out. Telekinetic Shield 5, 7, 9 Telekinietc Shell 14, 16, 18 Telekinetic Armor 23, 25, 27 Higher levels affect more allies. X-Men are surrounded in pink cylinders. -50 damage at highest level. Not energy damage, or mental damage, or physical damage, ANY damage. All attacks under 50 points will not hurt you at all. Lasts 36 seconds max. Also affects Professor X in the 400 level Danger Room exam. Phoenix Force 15 Jean lifts all enemies then smashes them back into the ground for damage more or less equivalent to Legend Scream. ...pink Phoenix wings...purty... Psionic Strike 3, 5, 9, Psionic Fury 12, 15, 18 Adds mental damage to physical attacks. This skill boosts Jean's attack power (as long as she isn't fighting mental resistant enemies) to compensate for her low strike stat. Telekinetic Combat 4, 9, 14, 19, 24 Boosts mental damage. Adds 150-165 damage to Scream, not sure about regular melee combos. sabin01 also informed me that Telekinetic Combat boosts damage as long as you have something invested in Psionic Strike/Fury. Toughness 10, 12, 14 Increases HP by a percentage. Mutant Mastery 10, 12, 14 Increases Energy by a percentage. Flight 0 Allows flight and improves mastery over it. Each block means less energy is consumed during flight. At three blocks, Jean can pick up enemies and X-Men. Needed to get to certain areas in levels for things like comics or sketch books. Speedy way to get around for backtracking. Jean can attack in the air but cannot use Telekinesis, Scream, etc. Fly by pressing the jump button twice. Pick things/people up with attack, dive with kick, land gently with throw. Try knocking off a sentinel's head for fun. Critical Strike 0, 7, 12, 17, 22 Increases odds of dealing a critical blow by a percentage. Criticals do serious extra damage in this game. Not an important skill for Jean since once you have her Psychic Scream, you'll not use her physical attacks anymore. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- V. How to Level Up the Abilities =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Try to keep Psionic Fury, Psychic Shield and Psychic Scream as high as your levels will allow. This gives Jean an early edge in almost every aspect. When you can't add to those skills, add to Telekinetic Combat to boost their effectiveness. Phoenix Force, Toughness, and Mutant Mastery can all wait until level 20 or later. Telekinesis is not as useful since it has limited controllable, but could be fun to send cars crashing into sentinels as long as your allies are out of the way. Level it up at your own discretion. Flight is just for fun since Telekinesis builds bridges. Dump anything left over into Critical Strike. Max for sure: Psychic Scream, Psychic Shield, Telekinetic Combat, Mutant Mastery =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- VI. Strengths and Weaknesses =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Jean's attacks are all Mental based, unless you don't add any points to Psionic Strike (which would be a bad idea), making her useless against enemies with mental resistances, but strong against the other ones. The problem with this is that later in the game, just as you realize that mental attacks kick ass, lots of enemies are mental resistant. Sentinels are too. In these cases, use Jean for support and she is still a valuable member of your team. Jean is a very well-rounded character, but her versatility really shows when it comes to puzzle time. She can build bridges and in some cases, is the only X-Man who can activate switches or get to high places. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- VII. How to Use Jean =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Melee Her moves are strong enough to keep up with the other members as long as you have her Psionic Strike/Fury. In large swarms of enemies, use Scream. Whoever it doesn't kill will be knocked back to a reasonable distance and slowed down. Telekinesis is not usually worth it, unless you want to push an enemy into something hard. Exploding barrels are nice. If you are good at flying, that's fun too. You can rely only on Scream, but it is a bit cheap. If you have no problem with that, be my guest. Bosses Telekinesis would come in more handy here then anywhere else since your attacks are more focused on one target. Use the terrain to your advantage. Remember, you can use objects with Telekinesis too. Try a Phoenix Force for a boss fight with multiple enemies. Make sure to use Psychic Shield at the beginning of the fight if it is at the level to affect multiple party members. Support Psychic Shield owns the support skills as far as defense is concerned. It doesn't discriminate among damage types and it affects the whole party at high levels. Fly to get out of a sticky situation quickly. Puzzles First off, you have to use Jean to flip the switches in the third trip to the Astral Plane. Have to. She's the only one. You can't even teleport and do it. You can also moves the arms at the nuclear plant with her. Jean also builds bridges for those levels when Bobby is useless and you don't have Magma yet. The only thing Jean can't do is weld. On a story note, she does hold the Arbiter together until somebody else can weld it, making her unavailable for this mission. Danger Room Jean is the best way to get experience in the Danger Room with Scream. Use it on Survival and bail before the time limit. Or even better yet: play the 400 level exam. Use Shield to protect the professor too. destroy all the statues but one, then focus on defeating enemies with Scream. Save another course open for item collecting. Before the timer runs out, blast the last statue to defeat the course. You need to defeat the course to get to the higher levels anyway. You still get the experience after the course is defeated, and it tells you how much. My highest is about 5.8 million XP. Happy leveling. Best Team Match Jean with an energy fighter and a physical fighter. Her husband is a good match. Jean is really flexible enough to put with anybody. Just make sure it isn't Iceman: the combo with Scream and Freeze does -1 extra damage. Equipment I prefer a DNA generator, but her Mantle of the Phoenix also works. A Nanofiber Armor and Focus Enhancer fill out the rest. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- VIII. Comic Book =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- +4 Focus During the second trip to the Astral Plane. Take the path to the right in the beginning of the Hall of Fire. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-= IX. Danger Room =-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Challenge Found: First visit to the Astral Plane. To the left after you open the second door Reccommended level: 20 Reward: Mantle of the Phoenix Objectives: Defeat twenty enemies in two minutes Strategy: Use Psychic Scream repeatedly and nobody stands a chance. Easy. Nightmare* Found: In the hangar at the X-Mansion when you help Wolverine and Beast prep the jet for your visit to Asteroid M. Reccommended level: 33 Reward: Shi'ar Body Shield Objectives: Defeat Sun Goddess twice in one minute Strategy: Focus on one Sun Goddess at a time, don't worry about the minions (HAARP soldiers). Use Ability Drain to stun her and then let loose with physical attacks. Try to get her backed up against a wall or pillar. Use Rogue's Iron Maiden skill for extra defense. Fly if she gets away since it is faster and time is tight. *You use Rogue in this training course, however I have chosen to place this in Jean's section since it is her nightmare. (Sun Goddess is the evil version of Jean and uses her attacks). Updates: 11/25/04 Happy Thanksgiving. Finished guide, submitted. 12/01/04 Thanks to sabin01 for info on Telekinesis and Telekinetic Combat. 8/12/05 Thanks to glacialfury for info on Telekinesis