In Master X Master, there are 37 Masters with unique characteristics and abilities. You can choose two Masters among them, and use the Tag system to switch between two Masters depending on your situation in the game. 

Each Master has several upgrade options that you can use to specialize them for both PvE and PvP game modes via skill upgrades, weapon augments, and Node settings. With most of them however, you’ll need to invest strategically since it requires a lot of gold and materials to upgrade skills and weapon augments.

In the case of PvE, you may need to spend additional resources to upgrade your skills while on the Bridge, as upgrades there only apply to the stages. Since it takes considerable resources to upgrade all of the skills, you should choose the Masters that you’ll be playing in each stage and focus on investing in those Masters so that you don’t waste any of your gold or materials. This guide will walk you through how to choose what Masters to play in PvE.

▶ Choose Masters based on attunement in PvE!

If you enjoy PvE mostly, then you’ll need to pay attention to a Master’s attunement, their weapon attack damage, skill power, and survivability.

Attunement should be the top priority over everything else; each Master has one attunement out of Ardent, Helix, and Kinetic, and each attunement inflicts 15% more damage against its weaker attunement, and receives 15% reduced damage from that attunement. This means that if you play Masters with the right attunement, you can clear the stage 15% faster. If you enjoy playing PvE, then you should have at least more than two Masters for each attunement ready.

In order to clear a stage faster and efficiently, you should also take weapon damage and skills with AoE into account. Being able to quickly kill swarming monsters means that you can keep your Master safe from danger and also get yourself a high stage rating.

I recommend Taejin, a Nuker with great firepower and support abilities, for your Ardent-attuned Master. Taejin has Proximity Grenade and Explosive Barrage, abilities specialized in nuking with wide AoE, and also has DPS that is on par with a Markman’s. Notably, the supporting ability, Inspiring Presence, is a strength that only Taejin has, which makes him a must-have Master for Kinetic-attuned stages.

If Black ram Supply Chain TD is available, I strongly recommend recruiting Poharan. Poharan is one of the best Marksman that specializes in weapon attack since her weapon attacks are long range while providing powerful DPS and adequate Overheat buildup. Her skill power is great since her Blitz Grenade can stack up to 4 times, and BRATATATATAT lets her inflict damage for 8 seconds maximum (if upgraded to level 6) without Overheating.

▣ Ardent-attuned Master Recommendation for PvE

Juggernaut: Death Knight, Ignuma
Marksman: Taejin, Poharan, V-Merang

For Helix-attuned Masters, Vita and Demenos are two support Masters that are very valuable in difficulties at Extreme or higher. Vita can heal allies with her weapon attacks, as can Demenos. Also, she can boost her ally survivability in highly difficult games with her Valiabolt, which grants allies high HP recovery, and Aria of Life, which protects and heals allies with a wide AoE.

Sizuka, who is given upon completion of the tutorial, is another Helix-attuned Master that I recommend. She is an Assassin with overpowering attack damage and high mobility so she can be used as a main damage dealer for both PvP and PvE depending on her settings. Her passive skill stacks a bleeding effect (up to 5) on enemies, which has good synergy with Sizuka’s fast weapon attacks. She can also dash around the battlefield with her Snap Strike, a skill with a low cooldown.

▣ Helix-attuned Master Recommendation for PvE

Melee damage dealer: Sizuka
Long-ranged damage dealer: Ghost Widow, MBA-07, Vonak
Support: Demenos, Vita

I recommend Lua, one of the default Masters, as one of your Kinetic-attuned Masters. Lua’s weapon attack has decent DPS and does not build up any heat, which makes her an easy Master to play even for newbies. She has abilities that are long range with high power like Shrapnel Rocket and Molten Rain, so you can play her almost like you would play a Nuker.

If you are going for stages with difficulties at Extreme or higher, then I recommend using Nedien, a Master with great sustainability. Nedien poisons enemies with weapon attacks and skills, and his passive skill grants him 4% recovery of his max HP for every 3 stacks of poisoning. You can use this to get enemy aggro while recovering your HP endlessly, allowing your allies to safely deal damage from behind.

▣ Kenetic-attuned Master Recommendation for PvE

Juggernaut: Nedien
Long-ranged damage dealer: Eirna, Lua, Merope