How to get exotic gear in Marvel's Avengers

Exotic gear is some of the best in the game, but it's not the easiest to get hold of.

In any game where gathering loot is a thing, like Marvel's Avengers, part of the endgame grind is to get your hands on the best gear you can. In Marvel's Avengers, there are different tiers of gear identified by their color. As you get to the current gear cap of 130, you're only really going to be interested in purple (epic) at a minimum, but more likely the yellow (legendary) and orange (exotic) tiers.

Epic and legendary gear drop from any regular mission, from mission chains, killing enemies, and though there's a pretty broad scope of perks and stats as well as named sets, you won't struggle to find anything. What you will have a harder time getting is exotic gear in Marvel's Avengers, and for some missions, such as the Omega Level Threat, the exotic gear could be the difference-maker.

So how do you get your hands on it? Unfortunately, it's really hard to come by most of the time. Here's what you need to do.

How to get exotic gear in Marvel's Avengers

There are guaranteed sources of exotic gear available every week, but with some big caveats. Drops from the weekly mission chains can only be gained once per week, per account. With nine characters in the game now, you can see the first problem.

There are in-game events, like the recent daily priority threat missions, which increase your ability to get exotics, but right now, the normal course of things sees these once per week affairs. Hopefully, this gets improved upon in the future because time gating the best gear is likely to put a lot of players off coming back regularly.

That aside, where can you actually get exotic gear every week?

Omega Level Threat — The hardest mission in the game currently, the OLT is located in Utah Badlands and requires a team of four (matchmaking is possible). In a somewhat ironic twist, the Omega exotic gear that drops from the OLT mission chain can make completing it a little easier.
Beating the Odds — You can get an exotic drop from defeating Monica Rappacini in the Snowy Tundra villain sector, currently the only permanently available villain sector.
Weekly priority threat sector — The quickest and easiest mission to complete to get an exotic gear drop is the weekly priority threat sector.
Mega Hive — The mission chain for the Mega Hive in Utah Badlands will drop Hive Mind gear on your first completion of the week.

There is also a low chance of exotic gear dropping from chests and other activities, but I've never seen any drop myself outside of these guaranteed sources.

Future game modes will likely also offer exotic gear drops, with the much-discussed AIM Secret Lab still MIA but expected at some point, and of course, the new raid landing before the end of 2021 will, you would think, offer some of the best rewards in the game.

Exotic artifacts in Marvel's Avengers

The major artifacts in the game are also classed as exotics, but they're a little easier to get. Well, mostly. Some have lengthy mission chains, but you only ever have to acquire them once and they're available to every character.

Some are awarded just for completing portions of the game. Assuming you've completed the main campaign you'll have acquired two of them without any additional effort. There's also one rewarded for completing the War for Wakanda expansion campaign. Others require a little more effort.

Here's a breakdown of what exotic major artifacts are available and how to get them.

Sacred Norn Stone of Lethal Will — Awarded during the main campaign.
Tactigon — Awarded at the completion of the main campaign.
Darkhold — Awarded for completion of the endgame Reigning Supreme mission chain.
Ring of the Nibelung — Awarded for completing the iconic mission chains for all six of the original heroes.
Vishanti Appendix XIII — Awarded for completion of the Taking AIM expansion campaign.
Void-Tech Transponder — Awarded for completion of The Future Wastelands mission chain (Future Imperfect expansion)
Kimoyo Band — Awarded for completion of the War for Wakanda expansion campaign.

These can all be upgraded to +10 and are required to hit the ultimate power cap of 150. Upgrades cost an increasing amount of Polychoron, which can be earned through doing daily faction missions and completing select weekly mission chains.

Is exotic gear in Marvel's Avengers even worth it?

The short answer is yes, the longer answer is a little more complex. Exotic gear is some of the best in the game, but it doesn't automatically mean it's worth it for whatever character you're building. The perks will always be the same, but even exotics will drop with different stat rolls. Gear is being reworked through the end of 2021, though we don't yet know what that actually means, but honestly, don't beat yourself up if you're not getting what you hoped for. Very few players actually are.

Using my own Iron Man build as an example, there are two exotic pieces of gear I use regularly out of the two dozen or more I've acquired so far. But I've also found legendary pieces that do a better job depending on the situation. I've also had multiple drops of the same items where some of the rolls are so bad they were just instantly dismantled.

Where it is definitely worth a look is the OLT, as if you're struggling to complete it without going down a lot, the Omega gear could well help you survive better. For everything else, get what you can get and if you get lucky, even better. When the gear reworking happens, we'll reassess the situation.

Concentrate on a single character at a time

Because you only get one drop per week, per account, from all these mission chains, the smart thing to do is concentrate on a single character at a time. You have to face the fact that you're not going to get a good swell of exotics for all nine heroes without waiting a long time. Hopefully, we'll get to a position where you can at least do these missions once per character every week.

It's also a good idea because if you're chasing Champion XP, there's a similarly long-winded grind to stack the stats you want. If you focus on one character until you're happy, then move along, you'll probably find yourself enjoying the grind a bit more than if you're bouncing around across all nine and not really getting anywhere.