Welcome to another CoA 1.0 build by DoomGodFiz! These guides are built and put together for enjoyment of the character and gameplay. These are not built for the meta, tier listings, or for any TTK rankings. That said, all of my builds are viable for all content.

 

 

** Disclaimer **

My builds are put together while playing on the Council of Ancients server. This server offers boosted Exp gains, CoolDown reductions, higher drop rates, and a few other percs. It's a server designed to be fast paced for those that have lives outside of gaming. While they should also be viable on other servers out there, they are specifically designed for this server. So keep that in mind when referencing my builds. 

 

Next up is a character who's story is easily one of the top three story arcs (IMO) in the whole Spider-Man universe. He's certifiably insane, one of the purest incarnations of chaos, and a powerhouse of destruction, giving absoluely no fucks. 

Carnage!

This build was put together on a random thought, paired with some back and forth conversations about build ideas. As this build became more and more fleshed out, I realized this was the final build for Carnage I was going to use. I'm not done building gear wise or IP wise yet, but as it stands now, I have no issues surviving any content. 

 

** Talents, Rotation, and Power Bar **

 

For our Talents, we go stright down the left side.  

• Cautious Carnage
  
  • Your Tier 1 talent can go one of two ways depending on how you're doing. This gives us an overall damage boost as well as reduced health spending for the cost of a smaller resource generation. I go back and forth between this and Savage Rebirth, and I will go into this further below.
• Rampage
  • For our Tier 2 talent, this is the only real option as we focus mainly on Axe and Claw abilities. We get an overall Axe damage increase, a buff everytime we use Southern Slam that boosts our Crit chance and Health Regen for 8 seconds. Given the CDR on this server, this buff can have a 100% uptime. We also get a 40% bump in our primary resource: Symbiotic Protection. 
• Mutilate and Mend
  • Our Tier 3 talent is kind of wasted with the bonuses it gives. That said, we get an overall boost to our claw powers in the form of a damage increase and a health on hit increase. This also gives Ravenous Claw 3 charges and allows it to reduce the cooldown of Slice and Dice by 3 seconds, when we hit someone with the ability. 
• Carnage Rules!
  • Next up is our Tier 4 talent, and this makes our build shine when clearing large groups of enemies. This boosts the overall damage of Reaping Time and reduces the cooldown by 1 second (capped at 10 seconds) for every enemy defeated while channeling. This also boosts our basic attack Slaying Swipes in that it takes on the benefits of all weapon modes and deals 100% more damage for 14 seconds. Against bosses this has an 80% uptime, while in swarms of enemies it has 100% uptipe. This also boosts the overall damage
• Timber!
  • Our final talent is a falt boost in Axe power damage, and turns Axe Sweep into a heavy hitting ability with a 3sec cooldown. It gives a flat boost of +125% damage and an additional boost of +125% damage vs Vulnerable targets, which is just about anyone hit with it.

 

Now for our Tier 1 Talent, I tend go go back and forth between Cautious Carnage and Savage Rebirth. The reason being is the survivability that the latter provides. We get an overall boost to our Symbiotic Protection (and its absorption), a flat 10% boost to our health, and a decent Health Regen / second (which at about 65k HP is a decent regeneration). You also get a 5min cooldown (which is 2.5min on CoA) extra life. 

So is the tradeoff worth it? That's up to you. I like having the additional damage as we do not have a lot of it to begin with. That said, we can survive anything thrown our way.

 

The way I have the power bar set up, is the same as I have it when I play (as I do with all my builds). I'll go over the main rotation. 

1. Our primary attack and filler is also the first ability we start with, Slaying Swipes. This would be one of the few instances I actually use a starting power at endgame. It has a solid damage output and attack speed. It also gets a benefit from other abilities depening on the type (axe or claw). Axe gets a boost to damage vs bleeding targets, while claw goosts the health on hit gain. When we use our Signature (thanks to our Tier 4 Talent) we also get the benefits of the Knife and Mace perks, boosting Critical Hit / Brutal Strike chances respectivly.  

2. Ruthless Webbing is our second ability, and used off cooldown. This provides solid damage, a 3second Immobilization, and Vulnerabilty in a wide area. We will have 100% uptime on keeping enemies Vulnerable. 

3. Next we hit with Southern Slam. This hits HARD, has a health cost, and provides a whopping 40% gain to our resource thanks to our Tier 2 Talent. As this is an Axe power, it also applies Grievous Wounds which lasts 5 seconds dealing bleed damage. This is used off cooldown. 

4. Your enemies meet an Axe Sweep to the face after you've landed on them. This is a short ranged arc aoe that provides a slow debuff and deals decent damage thanks to our Tier 5 talent. This is our second (and final) health spender in our rotation.

5. Pure Carnage this little ability here is where this entire build idea came from. My thought was how large of an AOE can we make this hit, and how well would it keep our survivability? The ansewr is fairly decent. With an attack speed of 2.5 per second, we are hitting enemies twice a second, regenerating a decent amount of HP with each hit. This ability is only used when there are multiple enemies around us. It can be used on boss fights as a debuff, as it also provides the Weaken debuff. 

6. So we just hit them in the face with a large symbiote Axe, now lets give em the ol' Slice and Dice. This hits 5 times each use, and each hit dealing a decent amount of damage, and each hit also restores a decent amount of health. This is used off cooldown.

7. Reaping Time, which is our signature ability, is a 4 second channled ability that is a large moving AoE. Each hit deals decent damage, restores our health, and on activation fills our Symbiotic Protection resource. On use, it also grants Slaying Swipes the benefit of all weapon form buffs.

8. This is the one where I keep going back and forth as far as which ability I want to use. 

• First option is our movement ability, Vicious Lunge. We have a whopping 7 charges of this, it does ok damage, and removes crowd control effects. This is the ability I tend to favor over our other option. 
• Our second option is Ravenous Claw. This ability hits hard, gives us a massive heal, and thanks to our Tier 3 talent, lowers the cooldown of Slice and Dice. The problem with this ability is that it is a movement ability. The hit only takes place at the end of the movement. When used, you lunge straight ahead swiping your claw at the enemy. Passing through an enemy does not count as a hit, only the landing spot. As we are constantly in the face of who we are fighting, the chances of actually landing this attack are slim to none. This also does not grant us that beautiful breaking of crowd control. 

 

As you can see, our Tier 3 talent is wasted based on how Ravenous Claw operates. I sometimes will use it in terminals where I know the boss jumps around a lot (looking at you Hood), as we will land the hit about 50% of the time. That said, more often than not we miss and if we get stuck, it does nothing for us. 

So the coice is yours, both are solid options and I will on occasion swap one out for the other.

 

Final rotation:  into  into  into  into a single tick of  then into  and using  as filler.

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** Gear **

** The above items are by no means the end all be all for this character, they are simply what I find works best for my build. **

 

The main stats for our insnae symbiote are Durability and Strength, I tend to focus more on Durability for the health and defense boost.. 

 

ARTIFACTS: The above is what I am currently using (or working on getting). There are two alternate choices I want to touch base on. That slot four has other options of course, but the following two would be those I'd consider most. Do you want to hit harder or take more hits?

• The Book of Demonicus is our slot 4 replacement/placeholder. As the above is quite hard to come by this is what I was using. As we are constatnly using our basic attack (especially on boss fights) we will have pretty much 100% uptime on the buff it provides. The +3 to all Attributes is a nice bonus as well.
• The second swap can also take place in slot 4 giving us some added survivablity, and that is Fred Dukes' Bodysuit. This can be found as a cosmic item, and I'd look for the same Cosmic Affix and Blessing. 

 

BLESSINGS: With this build, I would absolutely run the above for Odin's blessing. However, if you want more damage output, by all means go with the Blessing of Hela x4.

 

URU RUNEWORD: In a perfect world, you would have found that ever elusive Zod Rune and been able to craft yourself Courage of Asgard. But, as Zod is stupidly rare, I'm currently using: Viking's Vitality. Again, I want to build up as much Health and Health regen as possible. So the standard offensive Runewords don't apply.

 

MEDALLION: The whole concept of this build is that large AoE on Pure Carnage. As such, this medallion is only one of two "any character" items that provide that bonus to power radius. If that boost is not your thing, here are a few other options. 

• S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent Medallion for a more offensive alternative
• HYDRA Agent Medallion for a more defensive alternative
• Red Onslaught Medallion of course for raids
• Medallion of the Dark Dimension while not a main stat, Intelligence does boost crit damage
• Skrull Medallion Of Bravery for the best overall option (and my favorite Medallion period).
• Sabretooth Medallion is a perfect compliment to any Carnage build IMO. It provides health and boosted damage vs bleeing.

 

RELIC: I want as much health as possible, so this is the obvious choice.

 

LEGENDARY: We are all about survivabilty on this build, so again, this is the obvious choice. However, I do have a Savage Axe of Ares if I'm doing Cosmic Patrols with others.

 

RING: So, there are a few choices for your ring, and I'll list them here. Note that the ring in the build above is the one I'd go with. 

• Bloodstone Demonband as always, this would be the perfect one of these (max stat for Grade 63 Ring is given):
  • +1 Durability
  • +1 Strength or +441 Defense Rating
  • +513 Health
  • +294 Brutal Strike Rating
  • +279 Physical Damage Rating
  • Regenerate 63 Health when defeating a Demon
• Ring (defensive) with a solid roll of the following (in order from most important to least):
  • +3 Durability (or Strength)
  • +1800 Health
  • Medkit heals you for 20% more health
  • +1500 Defense Rating
• Industry City Signet (physical)

 

UNIQUES: This is always the second I'll get called out on. However, what I list is what I've tested, what I find works, and adds your own flare. I'm always open to suggestions, and will gladly test them out; but given the build, these work out well.

I am also on the hunt for a Cosmic Suffering that contains the listed affixes:

• +2400 Health
• +171 Health on Hit
• +3 Durability

And any of the following Cosmic Affixes

• Bulwark: 10% chance when hit to become invulnerable for 4 seconds.
• Devestation: 20% chance when attacked to let out a cosmic AoE blast hitting all around you for 20,001 energy damage.
• Starfall: 10% chance when you hit to fire a cosmic beam dealing 20,001 energy damage.
• Might: 10% chance when you hit to gain 8% Attack Speed, 8% Movement Speed, and 800 Damage Rating for 10s.

For our Enchants, we want ARMOR Damage Bonus in slots 1 and 5, and ARMOR Health in slots 2, 3, and 4.

For our Challenge Bonus, I go with +1 Durability in all 5 slots. 

 

CATALYST: **Disclaimer** If, and that's a big IF you happen to find one with both Durability and Strength on it, that's your go to, hands down! The other two stats wouldn't matter, nor would the cosmic as the +6 to our core stats would outshine anything else. I want to add that I have seen others link such items in chat or Discord, but have not seen anything personally. That said, what I have above is always a solid choice, but others will make a solid arguement for one of the below affixes.  

 With this concept, the above is really the only way to go. However, you can swap out the bonus health on Medkit Use for:

• 10% Experience gain.

 

INSIGNIA: I use Taskmaster as it's a great overall option. However, I'm also testing the following:

• Insignia of Mockingbird for the Attack Speed boost
• Insignia of Quake for the knockdown chance
• Insignia of Dum-Dum Dugan for the flat constant +1 to Strength

 

Our faithful pet (the Pet I have above is the optimal stats you'd want to have for each catagory).

• Green: +8% Base Health
• Blue: I also like the +5% SIF as this is also one of my main Cosmic Terminal farmers.
• Purple: +10% Brutal Damage
• Yellow: That +15% Power Radius on Signature use is too nice to pass up givin this build concept.
• Orange: +3 Durability

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** INFINITY **

** Infinity Points have no hard cap on how many points you can earn. So rather than putting points in the Infinity Tab, I list what I consider top priority starting at the top. **

 That said, here is my priority for Carnage:

• Attack Speed / Movement Speed
• Health
• Health on Hit
• Brutal Strike Damage
• Critical Strike Damage
• Critical Strike Chance
• Brutal Strike Chance
• Durability

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** TEAM-UP **

** Team-Ups are by no means build breaking. Always use who you like, but I'll give the reasons why I choose whom I choose and some solid alternate options **

 

Beta Ray Bill is a no brainer for this set up. When set to passive his grants the following:

A flat +300 damage rating to Melee powers

A flat +6% health boost

A Team-Up Away Power that applies a solid DoT

A Team-Up Away Power that applies a solid AoE Damage field that also acts as another DoT.

 

For an Active Team-Up, it's really up to you as they all work out quite well, but two stand out in my opinion: 

Agent Coulson takes the award for best Active DPS hands down. 

 

Rescue is, in my opinion, the best Active Healing Support you can find. She also does quite well in a passive role for healing.

 

For a more passive approach, and those that like to keep their Team-Ups locked away, we have the following: 

She is the award winner for best overall debuffing and crowd control support.

 & 

These two fit the bill for solid support and healing, along with decent DPS. 

Groot is going to be your option for devensive buffs and healing support. His healing falls short compared to Strange and Clea however. 

 

Summoners, my favorite kind of build to play, and we have so many sweet options to choose from. All of these options can be used passively or actively offering different benefits on both sides. 

Actively: She is a summoner that offers decent DPS and 2 summons of her own.

Passively: She offers +152 Damage Rating and +12% Summon Power Base Damage, along with activated summons and a Critical Hit buff. 

 & 

Actively: Our favorite Agents are summoners that bring a Turret and two summons to the table and offers mid range DPS.

Passively: He give us +152 Damage Rating and +12% Summon Power Base Damge, an activated Turret and Summon, along with an activated Defense and Deflect Rating buff. 

 

Actively: She summons a swarm of demons to fight alongside us, deals out some decent damage, and has a life steal ability.

Passively: She summons that same swarm of demons, offers +152 Damage Rating, +10% Summon Power Base Damage, and 33 health on hit. 

 

As far as DPS goes, passively you'll want to find a Team-Up that supports your character either with an Attribute Bonus or Stat bonuses. There is however one unique option that I sometimes play with. 

This Team-Up is unique in that it does not have an active setting. All of its powers are buffs and additions to when you call in an Air Strike by way of "summoning" your Team-Up. 

In the Companion (Active-Left) Role it offers a +3% Damage Reduction

In the Assit (Away-Center) Role its Air Stirke gets a +50% Damage Bonus and a 10% Cooldown Reduction

In the Extreme Conditioning (Away-Right) Role it offers a flat +228 Damage Rating buff. 

It's Air Strike can be used in any role, and the buffs that it gains from its powers apply to the Air Strike in any role. 

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** Closing **

 

At the end of the day, this is a game, and games are all about having fun, so play around and enjoy! I want to thank you for taking the time to read throuhg my guide and I hope you check out my other builds. I'll eventually have one build for each character. 

 

** Updates **

• 04/10/2026 - Finalized for CoA 1.0!