Ares/The Merciless Metal



The Merciless is essentially an Ares card - although he is actually an evil version of Batman from the Dark Multiverse - introduced in the 3.0 update.

Currently, he cannot be unlocked and can only be obtained at a very small chance through the Nth Metal Pack, which can only be bought by using the new currency, Nth Metal, obtained from the new game mode, Phantom Zone. He also has a very small chance of being given as a reward upon completion of the Phantom Zone event, however, this will still not unlock him for direct promotions. Additionally, as a Metal character, it takes 44 total copies for him to get to EVII. As such, eliting him would take an extremely long time or a large amount of real money.

Despite his base stats being double that of the best gold cards, that difference becomes less significant once he gains elite levels.

Basic Attacks
The combo-ender is The Merciless performing a downward punch to the opponent’s head, then an uppercut - wherein a yellow trail can be seen - which knocks the opponent in the air slightly far away.

Passive
On every hit of his Basic Attacks or Specials, The Merciless gains a red aura, and it increases with every attack until his passive activates, which makes his next Special UNBLOCKABLE. This is denoted by the name of his passive appearing, and the red aura gaining a fiery appearance. His passive will gain stacks even if he is hitting an opponent taking no damage with Invulnerability. Once his passive is activated, it cannot be reset by being hit. If The Merciless is hit by an unblocked attack before the passive activates, the red aura disappears. Tagging out The Merciless will reset his passive, regardless of whether he is hit or not and whether it is activated or not.

Every time he or another teammate tags in, a blue shield equivalent to 5% of max Health can be seen over the main health bar, and it has the ability to absorb some hits similar to the Power Shield mechanism and Armor mechanism of Astro-Harness and Killer Croc/Arkham, respectively.

You can evolve him and any other metal character by fully upgrading his special attacks. After he evolves you can upgrade his passive, just like The Batman Who Laughs. These upgrades decrease the number of consecutive hits needed from 12 to 7, increases his armor on tag-in from 5% to 10% and increases his armor per Dark Power bar from 5% to 15%.

His character on the card also changes as his eyes start glowing brighter and you can see the glow actually moving on his card. This is unique to Metal cards.

You can also upgrade his special attacks a second time. This time, however, you will not increase the damage dealt but the DARK POWER CHARGE PER SECOND which can be maxed to 14% for SP1 and 7% for his SP2. This is also true for The Batman Who Laughs.

Good With

 * Hawkgirl/Prime: Faster tagging allows for more armor generation.


 * Astro-Harness: It can give The Merciless an unblockable special since it would give invulnerability at the start of the match - which can allow Ares to give a few more hits on the enemy to get an unblockable special.
 * The Flash/Regime: Despite being a silver character, he allows The Merciless to attack faster, by using his knock-back light combo 4-3 times, it guarantees an unblockable special.

Countered By

 * Superman/Blackest Night : He hinders his 12-hit Unblockable passive.
 * Any characters or gear that can do unblockable damage to reset his passive:
 * Batman/Blackest Night has a 10% unblockable chance on all attacks which increases up to 30% with other Blackest Night teammates
 * Soultaker Sword, Massive Sharpened Teeth and Custom Rifle  grant respectively 30%, 20% and 11% unblockable chance on basic attacks
 * Ares/Prime, Killer Frost/Prime and Superman/Godfall for their unblockable SP2


 * Superman/Injustice 2, Batman/Dawn of Justice, The Flash/Reverse Flash, Wally West/Rebirth, Riddler's Staff, Mother Box, and Astro-Harness: They can evade all damage done by his unblockable specials.

Abilities
Here are Ares' abilities.

Stats
Note that Metal characters cannot undergo Breakthrough.

Trivia

 * If you look very closely you can see that the glows of his eyes from the character on the card move once he evolved. This is unique to metal characters. It is only visible if they are your cards but not when viewing another player's metal cards.
 * It appears his tag in sound effect (a metallic noise presumably to represent the armor he gains upon tag in) is not considered part of the SFX sound effect, or any other category either. It can be heard even if all Injustice mobile sounds are turned off as long as your phone's volume is still on, similar to the "gunfire" sound effect upon the cards of a new enemy team appearing in Online Battle.