Hey guys it's Livia, today we'll talk about one of the most interesting heroes I've ever played in Marvel Heroes, Winter Soldier.

 

 

PROS

- Hits hard
- Easily loses aggro
- Very rewarding if you play him correctly
- Voiced by David Hayter (Solid Snake from Metal Gear Solid) <3

 

CONS

- Can be squishy in certain scenarios
- Lacks AOE
- Very hard to master his rotation
- Quite expensive to build
- Requires carefull spirit management

 

QUICK INTRO

 

 

In this guide I'll show you the build I believe to be the strongest for Bucky, the items and pet I provided in the gearing section are the best ones you should aim for, the TTK and Kurse runs you'll find at the end of this guide were made with rushed/poorly rolled artifacts and uniques. That not only shows you how powerfull Winter Soldier is, but how rewarding he can be if you dedicate your time to learn his limits and find your flow!
PS: There is no right way to play a hero, when I say "right way", I mean the most optimal way, the one that will give the best numbers, but please, always play the way you feel comfortable, my guides are mere tools to help you better understand the heroes in question.

 

 

TALLENTS & TRAITS

 

 

Winter Soldier is a hybrid  melee/ranged character, that deals physical damage, he thrives on taking his enemies by surprise.
Althou we take Firearm Stabilizer, we'll never take  into our bar, it's damage is low and the weaken proc is nice, but we have other options, we mostly take this talent for the buffs on  and .
Infiltration Gear is a bait talent on the second row, as Knife Throw's damage and/or damage over time is not that great, Bionic EMP is great for a fully melee build, but the jackpot lies in "My Rifle, My Gun", it not only adds a dot layer to  but greatly increasses the damage output on our spender , if your aiming for the best numbers, then you can't go wrong with this one.
The third row is a little sad, Target Acquired is really the only option, the empowered buff provided by Defensive Tactics effect is just too low and has almost no uptime combined to a really long cd, plus using  means you're giving up fire power in trade for a lackluster buff.
The fouth row is honestly great, the best option is Small Arms Mastery for the single fact that is buffs  and gives us more charges to use on one our heavy hitters, we also appreciate the 10% ranged damage increasse, as most of our damage is ranged anyway. If you're planning on using a melee build use Bionic Weapon instead and if you think you need more clearing for terminals, or you are feeling too spirit hungry, use Relentsless Assault, however this will lower your damage numbers.
The fifth row is pretty staright foward, it doesn't matter the build, your best option will be Brutal Assassin, buffing  and  by a huge amount, those bruts will amaze you, they hit hard and the low cd makes them very consistent!

 

 

IMPORTANT NOTE

 

 

We all know that Gazillion made the wordings on this game so bad, so before you loose your mind, let me help you.
You see Brutal Assassin states that after you use  your next  or  will be a critical, but actually the buff applyes to both skills, and using one, won't make you loose the buff on the other. Let me show you a little better:

 

 

You see the buffs right there with  icon, you get those after only one usage, then you can quickly fire  and  in whatever order, one after the other, you don't have to use reposition each time you use one of the two, althou the bad wording gives that impression, so now you know how the buff works and you don't have to lose your mind over it!

 

That was it for the intro, now let's dive right in!

 

 

 

 

The key aspect of this build, is in my rotation, since I didn't feel like I was doing all the damage that Bucky is capable of unleashing while playing the most common builds, I felt the need to come up with my very very own, taking no inspirations and closing my eyes to the world out there, this is when I finally realized how Winter Soldier is supposed to be played, as a hybrid ranged/melee character.
Let's start by explaining our signature , yes it hits kinda hard, but it's used mostly for 3 key reasons:
1 - Snapshotting dot from  (snapshotting means after using your signature, you will proc the 1000 damage rating increasse from your catalyst, that way the damage over time will have it's proc for the entire duration).
2 - Recharging 

3 - Spirit recovery

Open with  to proc your buffs, follow by using  now that we have 1k damage increasse apply your dot with , immediately follow it with  as it's now buffed by the catalyst proc + our signature, use  to apply weaken and get close to your target so you can hit it with , follow it with , by the time you've done all this  will be back up, so fire it away, all this while holding down our spender .

SIMPLIFIED VERSION:

 >  >  >  >  >  >  >  all this while holding down 

 

Note 1: Whenever you use  your  will have it's damage buffed by 50% from 4th row talent for 6 seconds (also the 4 seconds 1k damage increasse from catalyst obviously), considering it has 4 seconds of cd, you can benefit from this damage buff for 2 casts, so play smart and take advantage of this!

Note 2:  must always be used to maintain the buff's from 5th row talent, since it lasts for 7 seconds it gives you an idea of when you need to re-apply , wich will usually be after the second cast of  in your rotation.

Note 3: ALWAYS use  before using , ALWAYS!; Otherwise you can easily miss dispatch and loose a lot of damage as it usually hits for 1.5k on bruts in my current "rushed" gears. So you can only imagine how hard it hits on a well rolled build.

Note 4: Don't be afraid to use your medkit for spirit management as sometimes  won't be enough, and most of the time you won't even be focused as part of our gimick is to be in/out of stealth constantly.

 

 

For lvl 80  is unmatched, if you're new and don't have access to lvl 80 legendaries, the use 

 

Slot 1:  is the best choice, his own unique  is a decent place holder until you can grab your fragment.

Slot 2: Sadly his own slot 2 sucks, so your best option here is a well rolled cosmic one as suggested above, look for +4 fighting with cri/brut damage or both, can be a decent substitute if you're not lucky finding a well rolled cosmic one.

Slot 3: His own  is great, your second best option would be  but it's not nearly as good.

Slot 4:   is unmatched, however if you don't have one  will be a place holder, switch it ASAP!

Slot 5: His own  is great  and unmatched as it helps a ton with spirit management and has sweet stats on it.

Here are some other viable options...

 

Offensive: , , , (even thou we don't stack power duration, the numbers on it benefits us greatly)

Deffensive: , , , 

Note: The artifacts are not listed in any particular order!


For insignias I would first recommend that you grab one with crit/brut damage, or both if you're lucky, otherwise, any high rolled crit/brut damage with crit/brut chance or even attack speed will do, after that you can hunt down specifc insignias, with your best options being as listed in order: Insignia of She-Hulk, , , .

 

Offensive:  with 3 Strength and CDR/BDR or BSR, a combination of BDR/CDR will work aswell, try to get that extra 3 strength thou, as it amplifies our damage by a lot in comparisson.

 

Deffensive:  and  tie with almost no difference in TTK, sling ring provides more TTL, so pick the one you like the best,  is not that great, but it's easier to obtain than the first 2.



 is by far the best choice here, some other viable options are:  and 

If you're dead, then you're not dealing damage!; For that reason I recommend , if you're all about dealing the damages, go with  for a little extra.

For rune words  is way too good,  would be the best second option (even if we're not fully ranged) and  is the worst out of the three options.

 

 

ENDING NOTES

 

 

I only posted the infinity points I currently have for this build, if you happen to have more, I would invest all of it in fighting!
I'm FAR from being a terminal speedruner, so you might be able to achieve even lower times than myself with this build, so take those timers with a grain of salt.
This is not an all content viable build, you might find yourself in hot water if you try to farm Ultron's terminal and Danger Room with, althou in Danger Room it can be easy with some specifc scenarios, but for Ultron you might wanna use a , it will make you a little tankier, so maybe you can survive the hords before they take you down, you Winter Soldier, lack AOE.
Thank you so much for reading my guide, if this build helped you, or if you liked it, consider upvoting it, I really appreciate it ^^.
As always if you have any questions you can always hit me up in game or on Discord, I'm on TAHITI's server.

 

 

THE END

 

 

 

 

 

 Winter Soldier TTK 2:04:

 

 

 

Winter Soldier Kurse 1:44:

 

 

Winter Soldier Danger Room (Deffensive Catalyst) 4:28: