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Winged Avenger

Arkham Origins Batman using his special 2, Winged Avenger.

Special Attacks, also known as Specials or Abilities and occasionally referenced in the game as "SP", are attacks that cost power to use. They are different from Super Moves; Special Attacks can be blocked to halve their damage. However, some specials can be unblockable, while others can be chained from basic attacks, making them unblockable. For other methods to evade block, see the Block page. When an opponent uses a special, five red lightning bolts appear above their heads and the special's name appears.

Metal characters have additional access to upgraded versions called "Dark Specials", which is performed by consuming both Power and Dark Power.

Types[]

There are two types of Special Attacks.

Special 1 (new)
Special 2 (new)

Special 1 (also known as SP1 or s1) normally deals 20%~40% of the character's damage stat as damage, depending on your tapping/swiping performance. This can be upgraded to a maximum of 33%~66%.

Special 2 (also known as SP2 or s2) normally deals 60%~120% of the character's damage stat as damage, depending on your tapping/swiping performance. This can be upgraded to a maximum of 99%~198%.

It should be noted that the special description rarely states the amount of damage dealt in-game. While some characters would deal the stated damage, the vast majority do not. Generally, the descriptions are only a few percent from the actual damage, except in specific cases. The characters with specials dealing drastically different amounts of damage are:

Cat Claws

Catwoman using her special 1, Cat Claws.


A Special 2 generally deals three times as much damage as a Special 1, but only requires 2 bars of power, or 50% more damage per power bar. Because of this, the Special 2 is generally preferred for dealing damage. However, special 1 is more far more accessible, and is much more effective at triggering Gear effects such as Heal and Damage-Over-Time.

Starting from 2.18, all new characters' SP2 can only KO one opponent unless they are affected by bleed. It is currently unknown if this was intentional or a bug.

Increasing Special Damage[]

After being unlocked, specials can be upgraded by up to 9 times. The first 4 times give it a 10% damage increase each and the last 5 times give 5% each, stacking additively for up to 65%.

The increased damage a special does due to performance in quicktime events (QTE, or minigames) is counted as "bonus" damage and stacks additively with other sources of damage amplification. For example, if a special that has a normal damage range of 1000 - 2000 is boosted by a maxed Cloak of Destiny which grants 200% bonus damage against stunned, its damage range would become 3000 - 4000, not 3000 - 5000 or 3000 - 6000.

Most global damage boosts will increase special damage. Gear may also increase the damage of special 1, special 2, or both.

QuickTime Events (QTE)[]

QuickTime Events, also known as minigames, mini-games or mini games, are actions incorporated into Special Attacks that give players another way to increase the special's damage. Be noted that the mini-game performance just acts as a damage boost, not the "base" value of the special attacks, therefore, damage boosts from passives or gears will be still based on % of the minimum damage. Reaching 100% will make specials deal their minimum damages, while at 200% specials will deal maximum damage. Crit acts as damage multiplier, multiplying both the "base" damage and bonus damage from mini-games.

For unknown reasons, on one hand, some hits of certain specials cannot gain the damage boost from the preceding minigame, on the other hand, some hits of certain specials gain the damage boost from multiple minigames.

Most specials use one QuickTime event. Others itegrate multiple. There are seven main minigames.

Rapid Tap (circle)[]

An empty circle will appear onscreen to the enemy's position. Tapping into the circle will increase the special's damage. If not tapped right after it appears, it will quickly shrink and the attack will deal minimum damage. However, once tapped, the possible damage output will not decrease if left not continually tapped.

The % depends on the special used. Most specials add 5% damage per tap (20 taps to max), some add 10% per tap (10 taps to max), while a couple add other varying percentages per tap.

Meter Burn (bar)[]

A bar resembling a liquid thermometer will appear onscreen. Tapping anywhere will fill the bar, increasing the special's damage. Stopping will cause the bar to lower, reducing the specials damage. The damage isn't shown until the minigame finishes. It is generally easier to reach 200% than the Rapid Tap since tapping anywhere on the mobile device will cause the meter to fill.

Rapid Swipe[]

Rapidly swiping in the indicate direction to increase the special's damage, similar to rapid tap (circle) in that most add 5% damage per swipe, some add 10%, while a couple add other varying percentages per swipe.

Swipe[]

A rare minigame that only appears before or after a rapid tap circle to determine the base damage, and then swipe once each time an arrow appears to continue the special. Seen in The Flash/Prime, Wonder Woman/Prime, Rebirth Wally West and Green Lantern/New 52's special 2s.

Timing (target)[]

Tapping once while a marker moves up and down a bar; the closer the marker is to the middle, the more damage it deals. Deadshot/Suicide Squad can deal up to 250% damage instead of 200% on these, and him, The Arkham Knight and Deathstroke/Arkham Origins have a larger max damage zone.

Most target specials are tap to shoot; Batman's Explosive Batarangs are tap to shoot. Oddly, Aquaman's Trident Toss has tap to shoot, despite that he throws the trident, and on the other hand, Batman/Flashpoint has tap to throw on his special 2 despite that he shoots his grappling gun. It is possible that it is programmed to say "throw" only on Batman characters.

The Ares boss in Breakthrough Mode has a rage effect that uses a similar mechanic, except that your character would be instantly KO'ed, ignoring invulnerability or revival effects, if not defended by hitting the central area, which starts off very wide and gets narrower each activation.

Tap All[]

Tapping the multiple circle that appears at once to increase the special damage. Very rare and only seen in Catwoman/Prime, The Joker/Arkham Origins, and Wonder Woman/Red Son's special 2s.

Super[]

This event occurs only in Online Battle, when an enemy with full Power uses a Supermove. During the cutscene, a three-second countdown appears followed by a horizontal version of the Timing QTE. The closer it stops to the bullseye, the less damage the player's character take, up to half the damage of the super. The AI performs a hidden version of this QTE when a player use a Super.

Special Attack Timing[]

Special Attacks can be performed at anytime once you have the required amount of power. However, regardless of power, specials cannot be performed when an opponent is performing specials or very fast basics (such as The Flash), although it is still possible for the latter if timed very correctly.

Specials can also be performed right when the opponent starts using their basics without the special user getting hit or taking damage, making it difficult for the opponent to block in time. However, if the special has a slow starting animation (such as The Joker's Bang!), the opponent will still manage to block in time even after finishing their basics. This is, however, not an issue for unblockable specials as they can break block regardless whether opponent blocks or not, unless the opponent is Superman/Blackest Night or his Blackest Night teammate due to Superman's passive granting unblockable immunity.

While it is possible to perform specials while blocking opponent's basics, it is also possible while not blocking if timed correctly. This is easier especially against slow basics like Solomon Grundy, Doomsday, Darkseid, or Killer Croc as you can use specials during their heavy combo even while not blocking. It is also possible to perform specials during combo enders, which is noticeable against Solomon Grundy/Boss (you can use a special when he uses his combo ender but before you getting hit). These characters have a small delay in the middle of their basic combos, where you can perform a special while not blocking:

Amount of Hits[]

It is a common misconception that a special with more hits deal more damage, while in fact this has no direct bearing on the special's normal damage, which is calculated with the numbers above. However, there are different advantages to specials on either end of the spectrum.

Advantages of Multi-Hit Specials[]

  • More likely to apply gear effects more often, such as power drain or disable special. Crit is neutral as the effect scales with the damage of the actual hit, so it rounds out the same at average. However, a special with more hits would be more reliable in its increased damage. On the other hand, as Diablo Companion Card EVOLVED returns fire damage with every crit, this would be a slight disadvantage to having a lot of crits instead of one.
  • More likely to trigger block breaking chance effects during a special, such as those from the passives of Batman/Blackest Night or Harley Quinn/Arkham.
  • Able to hit the next opponent coming in after knocking out the first, or deplete additional health after revival effects, such as Hawkgirl/Blackest Night or Doomsday/Containment's passives, reducing waste of overkill damage. Note that this does not apply to Astro-Harness's power shield on knock out (not invulnerability) or Killer Croc/Arkham's armor, as the overkill damage from a single large hit would be automatically transferred to the next bar.
  • Specials with more than 3 hits can consume Black Adam/Regime or Black Adam/Prime's 3-hit shield and reduce reflect damage taken.

Advantages of 1-hit specials[]

  • Can bypass enemy passives that activates at a certain % of their health more easily, most notably with Raven/Prime. This also applies to Astro-Harness, which makes a character invulnerable for several seconds at 100%, 50% and 10% health.
  • Gives the opponent less power if they survive, as being hit by a special without blocking grants a good amount of power per hit.
  • While overkill damage may be an issue in some cases, on other cases, such as a SP1 team-wide nuke build with Cloak of Destiny and League Of Assassins Adept Knives, the "overkill" damage can be applied to the enemy team as well, bringing them to 1 health more easily; Batgirl/Prime's SP1 (1 strong hit) can be considered more useful than Batgirl/Cassandra Cain (3 meaningful hits) for this reason.
  • Usually involves less tapping/swiping, resulting in less finger strain and faster matches. This may also be a concern in Countdown matches as long specials can take up quite a bit of time.
  • The Tantu Totem will activate the last effect more reliably (e.g. if a long special attack is mostly negated by invulnerability which is not enough to negate all of the hits, the Totem's power refund on no damage will not activate).

Changed by block/invulnerability[]

Some specials are interrupted midway if they are blocked or they are negated by Invulnerability, further reducing damage. Those are distinct categories; usually specials that are interrupted by invulnerability is also interrupted by block, but not necessarily the other way round. This is not to be confused with specials that only changes the animation if blocked, which does not further reduce damage other than block's own effect.

Interrupted by block[]

Interrupted by invulnerability[]

Animation changed by block[]

Starting Automatic Hits without QuickTime Event[]

Some specials start with hit(s) before the QuickTime event appears. In these cases, the hits will never gain the damage boost from minigames. Because this negates the time while you normally tap/swipe, they tend to have fast starting animations, making them hard to block, with one notable exception being Batgirl/Prime's special 1. They tend to show up much more often on newer characters. Other examples include:

Boss Cards[]

"Red" or "Boss" cards may be able to use a different character's special, with a different amount of power. For example, Superman/Prison in the last match of Bonus Battle 6 is known to use Freeze Breath or Heat Vision with one bar of power, despite them normally being Superman/Prime and Superman/Regime's special 2s. The special name is not displayed whenever a "boss" card uses a special. However, whether they would count as a special 1 or 2 for the purpose of reflect gear and Black Adam/Regime's passive depends on how many bars are used. They can also use specials that do not exist at all elsewhere in the mobile game; for example, Black Adam/Regime in the second-to-last match of BB6 is known to use the "Lightning Bomb" move from the console game. (For more details, see Boss)

Special Immunity[]

Two specials at once

The player and the AI simultaneously using specials.

Characters are immune to most damage and status effects while performing a special attack. Damage over time will continue as normal. It is normally not possible to use a special attack or super move while your opponent is using one, but there is a very small gap in which it is possible (more noticeable on specials with slow starting animations, such as Explosive Batarang and Kryptonian Rifle as shown in the image). Characters will be immune to each other's special damage until their own special finishes dealing damage. However, if a Super Move is used while an enemy special attack has just started, the special attack will be negated and super damage will be dealt as normal. After this window, the character becomes completely invulnerable (except against damage over time) while the special continues to run. After dealing the last hit, there will be a short period in which they will have Super Armor but they can take damage as normal (specials that outlast the opponent's special will do damage as normal at this point but specials still cannot be initiated) yet cannot be knocked out. This is very noticeable on specials with long finishing animations, such as Nightwing/Prime's Staff Spin and Zod's Kryptonian Rifle again.

The Flash/Elseworld and Batgirl/Arkham Knight are exceptions, as their passives can interrupt an enemy special.

The partial invulnerability upon initiating a special attack is often helpful. Certain characters with powerful tag-in effects, such as Bane/Luchador and Raven/Rebirth, have a small delay between their tag in and the effect taking place, and starting your special in this window negates that effect. Starting a special attack can also be used to cancel the animation of some basic attacks, especially slow, heavy attacks (such as those by The Arkham Knight, Wonder Woman, Raven and Martian Manhunter), in order to avoid taking an enemy special that would otherwise be too fast for the basic combo to recover from in order to block.

Harley Quinn[]

(Main article: Bag-o-Tricks)

Harley Quinn's special 2, or the team damage boost effect in particular, has a slightly different effect: right after using the damage boost, she goes into the immune to flinching state first (damage can be done, specials can deal damage and be initiated, she cannot block but cannot be knocked out) for a short time before briefly turning full invulnerable and then back to normal. This means that uniquely it is possible, when immediately used after, for faster specials (e.g. Wonder Woman's Shield Toss) to deal full damage in the first stage without her being able to block, slower specials (e.g. Shazam's Bolt of Zeus) will hit her in her full invulnerable phase and do no damage and very slow specials (e.g. Batman's Explosive Batarang) can be initiated during this period but only hit when she has completely returned to normal. Multi-hit attacks can hit her in different stages; Darkseid's Omega Blast will have its first hit in the first stage (full unblockable damage), while the second and third hits will be in the second stage (no damage dealt). This delayed invulnerability is excellent when you can predict dangerous enemy specials and negate some of their damage.

Harley Quinn's special 2 in general also has a significant mechanic difference compared to other specials: it runs in real time, while most other specials (including Zatanna's special 2 despite similar option-choosing) take place in bullet time. There are a few noticeable effects: in-universe timers, such as Ares' block disable, will continue to tick down during her SP2; damage over time effects, while normally will continue to hit during a special, since specials take a short in-universe time (a much longer time in the real world while you tap/swipe) the damage is not as much, but Harley's SP2 runs in a long time in-universe so damage over time can have a much more significant effect.

Trivia[]

  • Generally, all versions of the same character have the same special 1 and different special 2s.
  • Newer cards may have a Special Attack animated differently, and is usually better than the original animation.
  • Special Attacks usually require you to rapidly tap and swipe to reach maximum damage. Swipe (several times in random directions) and tap all are rare; the first is only used by The Flash/Prime, Green Lantern/New 52 and Wonder Woman/Prime's SP2, and the latter is only used by Catwoman/Prime, Wonder Woman/Red Son and The Joker/Arkham Origins's SP2.
  • Special Attacks and Super Moves cannot be initiated once the words "VICTORY" appear on the game screen. Normally this has no bearing as you have already won, but a bug with Reverse Flash's passive allows him to revive after "VICTORY" appears, forcing you to use only basic attacks to take him down again.
  • While normally a Special Attack's damage is yellow (unless it crits), it actually depends on the time of the hit rather than the type of damage. By using certain specials (such as Killer Frost/Prime's Black Ice) from a long range, it is possible for some hits to fall out of the special's time range, turning those hits into white damage.
    • Additionally, there are some specials that always seem to have some hits that are white damage, such as Reverse Flash's Out of Time, and specials that may randomly include white hits, such as Batman/Beyond Animated's Future Bat. In these cases, blocking those hits would reduce the damage by 25%, same as blocking a basic attack, instead of the usual 50% for specials.
  • Using mutual special attacks, with at least one of them being a power drain, may sometimes cause the "Power Drain Immune" text to pop up even if they are not normally immune to power drain.
  • The five red lightning bolts effect that appear above the head of a character using a special attack is likely a reference to the combat in the Batman: Arkham games.
  • Upon finishing a special, the character would say a line which is a small selection of quotes from the voiced lines in the console game. For example, Wonder Woman may say one of the following:
    • "Face it, you're done."
    • "Thought you were a warrior."
    • "You're not up to this."
  • As of 3.0, the icons representing Special Attacks 1 & 2 have changed. The old ones can be seen here:
    Special 1
    Special 2
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