Survivor Mode

Current gear set: 

Expires: March 24, 2016

Survivor Mode is a new game mode introduced in the 2.6 update. It allows players to create a team of three members (with three reserves) to fight more difficult enemies as they progress with different mechanics, and for rewards that culminate in a jackpot, and tickets for the Last Laugh minigame. Notable rewards include Augments and gear sets, which give set bonuses when 2 or 3 pieces are equipped.

Introduction
Survivor allows players to make a team of three members to start the battle. Unlike any other game mode, in Survivor, health holds over between matches. If a player wins a battle, they advance to the next round, and enemies get tougher, and mechanics are introduced such as disabled Special 1, or Heal Suppression. After every battle, players have the option to take their jackpot and end Survivor mode, or keep battling onward. If a character dies after a battle, the player can have up to (3) character changes, swapping eliminated team members out for new ones. If all three characters are eliminated with no reserves, the player will be forced to forfeit their jackpot, earning nothing from the mode except rewards from the Last Laugh tickets.

Mechanics
Unlike any other matches, Survivor matches do not consume or require Energy. Your characters' health bars are displayed in its place. Your team is also not saved between plays, and you'll have to create a team every time you start survivor.

You can heal characters for a certain amount (~25% maximum health) for 2500 Power Credits once per character per match in the start match screen.

Although you fight AI-generated teams instead of player-created (but still AI controlled) teams, Survivor uses multiplayer's rules for power generation - you gain very little power by getting hit. Additionally, your opponents can have various gears, such as The Ibistick, but you will not be able to see the stats and build of your opponent's team at any point.

Other than that however, Survivor largely follows single player's rules. It can be played without an internet connection, Super Moves are not able to be resisted, ensuring that they do maximum damage every time. Characters can edited (specials upgraded or gear changed) during a Survivor battle. The matches, especially match 6+, may have multiple crippling Modifiers (also known as challenges or handicaps) that makes progression even more difficult.

You can exit Survivor and close the app safely; you will keep your progress. If you quit during a match, your current team will be knocked out, although you can still opt to use reserves. However, you can force-quit by restarting your phone, which will still allow you to retry that match with a chance of new opponents.

KO'd teammates will continue to offer their team-wide passives as long as they are not swapped out.

If your team is KO'd, you will start where the battle left off (provided you have reserves), with the same enemy team health left.

Survivor opponents are noticeably more aggressive than other AIs, as they can often hit you before you have a chance to block or tag.

Finishing Survivor mode puts it on a 24-hour cooldown, but there are 4 daily buy-ins, which allow players to play up to 5 times in a row for an increasing price of Power Credits (starting at 15,000).

With the Patch 2.8 Update, most of the characters seen thus far appear to be potential opponents in Survivor. In later rounds it is very common to encounter the effects of signature gear items while battling these opponents.

Opponent scaling
While it is possible for the enemy team to be an assortment of bronze, silver and gold characters, characters on the same team would have roughly the same level of stats, up to far beyond what players can achieve. By match 12, characters can hit over 150,000 with s1, have over 500,000 health, and Deathstroke/Arkham Origins is known to hit almost 300,000 with his unblockable s1. By match 15, it is possible to face opponents with over 1,000,000 health who can hit over 20000 with every basic attack, and almost any character can hit over 200,000 with s1.

A very important detail to note is Survivor opponents scale according to your strongest character on your team. A maxed gold character will face opponents just as strong whether their teammates are also maxed or at base stats. Therefore, you are strongly advised to build your team around Raven/Prime - if she is not promoted, use a non-promoted team, etc.

Overall, it seems that Survivor's scaling very slightly favors a high level team over a low level team, provided both teams have balanced stats. For gold cards, assuming all else is equal, an E7 card has 5x the damage and health of a E0 card, but the Survivor opponents received are "only" about 3~4x as strong.

Rewards
Before every match, they are given a wheel to spin which grants them a specific reward dependent on their victory in battle. Rewards can be shards (3 of blue, red or green, or 1 purple), gear (1 or 2 star only, with 2 star being more common), 2x power credits multiplier, an augmentation card (which can only be Character XP augments), and one Last Laugh ticket.

Experience
Only character(s) on the team with the highest level (or close to it) will gain full experience (roughly 5000~8500, depending on stats and match). Below it, experience rapidly declines to a minimum of 1/10 of full experience. This is very useful for keeping certain cards within a good level range to maintain a balanced team, such as The Flash/Metahuman, who has extremely high base stats.

Recommended Characters
There are a number of characters who are especially strong in Survivor.


 * Raven: Undoubtedly the strongest possible pick for Survivor. Her passive gives her immense free ~80% max health "damage" and "healing" potential - twice. Not only the health swap means she can take down Survivor opponents with huge stretches of health, she could also restore her own health without it being reduced by Healing Suppression or Killer Frost/Regime's passive. In higher matches, enemy health rapidly increases to the point it will take millions of damage to win - making Raven all but mandatory.
 * Containment Doomsday: Despite his low apparent health, his three resurrections allows him to soak up Survivor opponents' ridiculous damage, particularly 1-hit specials (Doomsday, Zod, most versions of Superman, etc.) that often is difficult for Raven to deal with, and is excellent for brute-forcing an enemy Raven's passive if you can't avoid triggering it. His health reservoir system also allows him to take reduced damage from Radiation. Since his resurrection count resets with every match, he essentially irreducibly heals for up to 60% of his large total health between matches. Additionally, his deceptively low base stats can lean scaling to your favor.
 * Killer Frost/Prime: Her incredible power dampening passive (as well as further slows through her s1) are very useful in preventing opponents in higher matches from generating even one bar of power, as even their special 1s can inflict immense damage.
 * The Flash/Metahuman: While technically not possessing mechanics that are particularly of use in Survivor, his passive allows him to launch barrages of unblockable crit basic attacks for horrendous amounts of damage, and is one of the few sources of damage (other than % health damage) that would truly do more than scratch match 12+ opponents.
 * Darkseid/Apokolips: His passive grants him a chance to set a stacking permanent-until-tag-out bleed effect that deals 2% of max enemy health per second per stack.
 * Reverse Flash: Three times a match, he recovers from damage and status effects from specials, unaffected by heal suppression. He also has a theoretically infinite combo that can whittle down opponents without suffering any retaliation.
 * Doomsday/Prime: More readily available than Raven and also decent because of the +50% total health he gets from a knock out blow, even though it is not nearly as strong as Raven's passive. Note that his effectiveness diminishes towards later matches due to healing suppression.
 * Harley Quinn/Blackest Night Martian Manhunter: For their team healing effects.
 * Batgirl/Cassandra Cain: Her passive allows her to take out 25% of the enemies health upon tag in which can be a significant amount of damage especially as one reaches higher matches. Her s1 can also inflict immense damage with geared properly along with Cloak of Destiny.
 * Wonder Woman/Dawn of Justice: her abilities lets her heal her whole team upon using her specials.

Opponents to look out for

 * Darkseid/Prime: The scaling does not seem to take Darkseid's passive into account; you may face bronze characters with disproportionately high damage and health, as their stats are further quadrupled by Darkseid's passive despite they have already been compensated by Survivor itself.
 * Green Lantern/John Stewart: His passive makes his teammates invulnerable for 4 seconds once per match upon falling below 20% health, which can be quite frustrating especially in later matches when those seconds can often result in taking unavoidable and unrecoverable damage.

Gears
Notable gears include:


 * The Ibistick: When fully upgraded, it allows your specials to do additional burn damage over time equal to 10% of enemy maximum health, which is critical in higher matches.
 * Ra's Al Ghul's Scimitar: For the constant power drain you will find useful at any stage, and need to prevent match 8+ opponents from knocking your characters out with a single s1.

Matches
There are 16 rounds in total in Survivor Mode, and completing all rounds is known as a "Total Victory" without special rewards. However, it will take astronomical investments in the perfect characters, gear, augments, as well as extreme luck, skill and patience.

Most characters can appear as Survivor opponents. Any challenge character released after Bane/Arkham Origins (i.e. starting from Hawkgirl/Regime) cannot appear, but Metahuman Flash and Reverse Flash can.

Match 7
The heal suppression is only -20% and it doesn't have radiation/regeneration, making it a good chance to heal up, although the disabled second special can make it harder (Harley Quinn can't heal team with s2, and Raven/Killer Frost can't life drain from s2 either). For Raven, a good alternate option is the Fourth World Set, giving her health regen on s1, or Gauntlets of Azrael to life drain through basics. Doomsday's Mutated Bone Spikes and Bane's Venom Injection System is very good to use here. If you are using Harley, switch out her Dual .357 Revolvers for any heal on s1 gear.


 * Static, Superman/Godfall, Nightwing/New 52: Quite frustrating as Static is immune to power drain, while Ra's is usually so useful for keeping opponents from using specials by itself. His s1 is also a fast 100% stun special that does full damage, while New 52 Nightwing can do quite a bit of basic damage upon tagging in and has an effective s1 power drain.
 * Scorpion/Mortal Kombat X, Aquaman/Regime, Catwoman/Batman Returns: Generally the easiest. Their main threat comes from the heavy damage over time from all three characters; try not to switch your characters around unnecessarily as you will need to tag out immediately after being hit by a bleed special.
 * The Flash/Metahuman, Doomsday/Containment, Raven/Prime: The hardest of the three. Containment Doomsday's resurrections means he takes a long time to take down and often lands unavoidable s1s, and Raven's extraordinarily powerful health swap is always a pain to avoid. Metahuman Flash will also quickly wipe the floor with your team after using a special, due to his passive allowing him to rapidly fire an unblockable barrage of crit basic attacks. You can avoid this team by restarting the game.

Match 9
Where it starts to get difficult due to the powerful opponents and strong healing suppression.


 * Wonder Woman/Red Son, Deathstroke/Red Son, Batman/Red Son: Easily the hardest of the three. Wonder Woman allows them to gain power rapidly, Deathstroke makes their basics much faster, but the worst is Batman's passive: high unblockable chance on s1, essentially allowing WW and Deathstroke's s1 (which they reach very quickly due to WW's passive) to unavoidably one-shot most characters under 1000 base health unless significant alliance health boosts/gear were used. Batman's s1 deals reduced damage but due to its high stun chance another character will tag in and finish you off anyway. While enemy stats are "scaled" to your team, low level teams are at even more of a disadvantage: their s1 can do twice of your max health in unblockable damage.
 * Solomon Grundy/Boss, Green Lantern/Red Son, Superman/Red Son: The most tedious enemy team. Red Son Green Lantern and Superman has high base health and GL's passive makes them extraordinarily tough to take down. Boss Solomon Grundy also has high health and his basic damage skyrockets as his health depletes; unusually, he also has basic crit gear, further amplifying his immense damage at low health (note that if Raven's passive triggers against him, his basic damage modifier will stay at where it is, increasing by one level until it reaches the level he is supposed to be each time he takes a further hit; uses this to try and burst him down right after the health swap to prevent him from taking advantage of his absurd basic damage at low health).
 * Bane/Arkham Origins, The Joker/Arkham Origins, Harley Quinn/Arkham: Generally the easiest of the three, but that's not saying much. Arkham Harley's strength comes from her Arkham team-wide unblockable s2, but this is of relatively little concern here as at this level, if you let them get to two bars of power, you're dead either way, unblockable or not. Bane's passive is particularly dangerous, as he gives his whole team one bar of power upon falling under 50% health. Note that his passive shares a similar mechanic as Boss Grundy above; it won't be triggered directly by the health swap, but rather by the next hit after the health swap. If you can knock him out with one hit, his passive will not be triggered, which will be critical to survival. Joker's passive can do copious amounts of poison damage (which would also lower your damage dealt by 20%) even if you have block gear to tank the special itself, so tag out whenever he does s1.

Match 14
This is the point where it becomes simply impossible to the vast majority of players. Enemies could knock out almost any character with a single basic combo, and you can forget about taking a single s1. A single missed basic attack or combo ender will likely spell instant death. They can have over 20 times your health, and the whole team regenerates 1% of their gargantuan health pool every second (not affected by Killer Frost/Regime), making it a herculean task to even match their healing rate, let alone defeat them - further worsened by disabled special 1, which halves the efficiency of burns from % max health damage gear (e.g. The Ibistick). For some perspective, as The Ibistick, when maxed, burns for 10% enemy max health for every special used and enemies heal 1% every second (actually 3% combined, but it's assumed here you managed to focus on a single target first), it means you have to use a special 2 on the same character every 10 seconds just to barely break even.

Match 16
The most difficult and also the final round. This round allows healing on special 2 moves while disabling all special 1 moves. Random tagging is also present making this round extremely difficult to apply strategies.


 * Raven/Prime, Ares, Containment Doomsday: All 3 characters deal massive amounts of damage and have health above 1000000. Raven's specials are not as dangerous as Ares's specials as Ares's specials deal massive loads of damage even when blocked. His special 2 deals damage above 500000 which is the most important thing to look out for. A strategy would be to have Raven as the first member of the team with a very low health. This must be done during round 15 by allowing raven's health to detiorate until she has less than 10% remaining or slightly more as the opponent's raven's heavy combo deals damage above 20000. Once she has sufficient health for swapping with the opponent raven, allow the opponent raven to land the first basic attack and swap health immediately. With the Ra's Al Ghul's Scimitar attached to raven and with Batgirl/Prime as another member of the team, immediately activate special 2 to finish off the opponent raven.The damage must be close to 200% or the opponent raven will swap health. Once Ares appears, the random tag will activate removing raven with another member of the team. To handle Ares, Batman/Arkham Knight would be the best choice as he can immediately generate 3 bars of power and boost critical damage through his passive and batgirl's passive. Wait until raven tags back in again and try to ensure she swaps health with Ares. If she ends up swapping health with containment doomsday due to the random tagging, then the passive is wasted and chances of winning are extremely low. Constant basic attacks with the  Ra's Al Ghul's scimiter will allow raven to drain Ares's power and also generate enough power for herself. Once the health swap takes place, special 2 must be used to finish off Ares and he must not block it or he will survive and the chances of winning also becomes extremely low. Once he is defeated, containment doomsday can be slowly defeated using power drain from  Ra's Al Ghul's scimiter and  life drain from the Lexcorp Chest Armor with Raven. Arkham Knight Batman can also deal massive amounts of damage with his high attack stat. The key characters to use are Raven/Prime and Arkham Knight Batman. As for Batgirl/Prime, it is essential to sacrifice her during match 15 and not replace her during this round as the random tagging will end up tagging her instead of batman after raven's health swapping with the opponent Raven which makes things very difficult. If Raven swaps health with the opponent Raven and arkham knight batman tags in, it is essential to generate 3 bars for him with critical boost to finish off the opponent raven or she will survive and swap health with batman.

Trivia

 * Survivor has been updated multiple times after release, as at that time it was considered too difficult (for example, Killing Joke Joker from as early as match 6 is known to deal 20000+ damage on s1 against non-promoted teams with ~10000 health). The scaling is taken down significantly, heal suppression has been lessened in earlier rounds and random tag has been removed from all rounds except round 16 which is the final round.