Suicide Squad Beginner's Guide - Tips & Tricks

First Hour Checklist

Diving into Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League can feel overwhelming. The game throws a lot of UI, lore, and mechanics at you right out of the gate. To ensure you are building a solid foundation, here is a prioritized checklist for your very first hour in Metropolis.

• Complete the Introductory Mission: Follow the linear path until you reach the Hall of Justice and acquire your initial weapons. Do not skip the dialogue, as it sets up the core loop and introduces the core threat.
• Lock In Your Main Character: The game forces you to play as Deadshot during the prologue. Once you reach the first safe house, pick your permanent main for the foreseeable future. Do not try to level four characters simultaneously.
• Equip Your First Shield: Before stepping out into the open world, visit the vendor and equip a Shield. This is non-negotiable for survival in higher difficulties.
• Claim Your First Aura: Equip an Aura that provides flat stat boosts, ideally one that enhances weapon damage or max health.
• Initiate a Brainiac Invasion: Complete one "Incursion" mission to understand how the open-world loop works and how enemyscaling functions.
• Destroy 10 Loot Bottles: Fly around the immediate area and shoot the green glowing bottles floating in the air. You need these materials immediately for early crafting.

Key Systems Explained

To survive the alien invasion and the corrupted Justice League, you must understand how the game’s various systems interlock. Suicide Squad is a live-service looter-shooter at its core, heavily borrowing mechanics from the Borderlands franchise but wrapping them in a fluid, movement-based combat system.

Combat and Traversal

Combat in this game is entirely about momentum. If you stand still, you will die. Every member of the Suicide Squad is equipped with a "traversal mechanic" tied to a stamina bar. Deadshot has a jetpack, Harley Quinn uses a grapple hook, King Shark can leap massive distances, and Captain Boomerang uses the Flash’s speed force to teleport. You must constantly be moving, dodging, and repositioning. Firing your weapons while sliding, vaulting, or hovering increases your "Combo Meter." Keeping this meter high is essential, as it directly multiplies the damage you deal out. If you stop moving or get hit too much, the meter decays, and your damage drops significantly.

Melee combat is not a primary damage source; it is a utility tool. You use melee attacks to interrupt enemy animations, push away targets that get too close, and break enemy shields. Furthermore, every enemy in the game has a specific "Anti-Hero" class weakness. You will notice icons above their heads—Tanks are weak to Boomerang’s explosions, Heavies are weak to King Shark’s bull-rushes, etc. Exploiting these weaknesses stuns the enemies and drops their armor instantly.

The Economy: Loot and Resources

The game features a deep, multi-layered economy that can confuse new players. Here are the resources you actually need to care about:

• Weapons and Gear: These drop in five rarities (Common, Uncommon, Rare, Epic, Legendary). They dictate your base damage and come with randomized perks (e.g., "Bonus damage to shielded enemies").
• Shields: This is your actual health bar. When your shield breaks, you take health damage. Shields have varying recharge rates, delays, and elemental resistances. You must always have a shield equipped, or you will be one-shot by everything.
• Arcane Blasphemy (Green Crystals): The premium currency used to buy Legendary items from the vendor and craft high-tier gear. Hoard these. Do not spend them early on.
• Raw Materials (Brimstone, Fossilized Bone, etc.): Farmed by destroying green loot bottles in the open world and completing missions. Used for basic crafting.
• Breach Modules: Special items that add unique passive abilities to your weapons, such as "Chain lightning on critical hits." These are slotted into weapons at the crafting bench.

Progression Loop

Your progression is tied to two things: your Character Level and your Infamy Rank (Gear Score). Your Character Level unlocks new abilities and skill tree nodes. Your Infamy Rank is determined by the average gear score of your currently equipped items, which dictates what level of enemies you can reasonably fight. To raise your Infamy Rank, you must continually replace your old gear with higher-level drops from missions and open-world chests.

Build / Character Choices

While you can swap between characters at any safe house, trying to keep four characters geared up equally is a recipe for disaster. Pick one character to be your "Main" and pour all your high-level Legendary gear and resources into them. Once they are maxed out, you can go back and level the others. Here is a breakdown of the best starting options for a beginner.

Deadshot: The Safe Choice

If you are new to third-person shooters or feel overwhelmed by the chaotic movement of the other characters, play Deadshot. His jetpack offers the most controlled and forgiving traversal in the game. You can hover in the air, line up your shots, and easily dodge out of the way of ground-based attacks. His "Anti-Hero" trait is an EMP blast, which is incredibly useful for shutting down the annoying robotic enemies that swarm you in the early game. Deadshot excels at mid-range combat and feels the most like a traditional shooter.

Harley Quinn: The Aggressive Brawler

Harley is for players who want to be in the thick of the action. Her grapple hook allows for incredible vertical mobility, letting you swing between buildings like Batman. Her baseball bat melee attacks are fast and deal massive stun damage. Her "Anti-Hero" trait is a massive AoE ground slam that is perfect for clearing out clusters of weak enemies. She requires a bit more mechanical skill to master than Deadshot, as you have to constantly manage your grapple cooldown, but she is arguably the most fun to play once you get into a rhythm.

King Shark: The Tank

King Shark is exactly what he sounds like: a giant, bullet-sponging tank. He has the highest base health in the game and his "Anti-Hero" trait grants him temporary invulnerability, making him incredibly forgiving if you make a mistake. However, his traversal (leaping) can feel clunky and makes it harder to dodge precise, targeted laser attacks in the air. He is a great choice if you prefer to soak up damage and shoot from the hip rather than rely on precise aerial acrobatics.

Captain Boomerang: The Advanced Option

Boomerang is universally considered the hardest character to master. His speed-force teleportation allows for instantaneous movement, but it requires precise aim and a deep understanding of enemy attack patterns. If you teleport to the wrong spot, you will instantly die. Furthermore, his "Anti-Hero" trait requires you to manually detonate boomerangs, adding an extra layer of mental mechanics to his gameplay. Do not pick Boomerang as your first character unless you are intimately familiar with fast-paced looter-shooters.

Pitfalls to Dodge

The jump from the prologue to the open world is where most new players abandon the game. Avoiding these common rookie errors will save you hours of frustration.

1. Trying to Play All Four Characters Equally

This is the number one mistake new players make. The game gives you four characters and makes them all seem equally important. However, the loot economy is not designed to support four simultaneous builds. If you get a massive upgrade for Deadshot but you are currently playing as King Shark, you either have to bank it (taking up precious inventory space) or dismantle it for scraps. Pick one character and ignore the others until your main is at the maximum Infamy Rank.

2. Ignoring Shield Varieties

A common trap is equipping a shield just because it has a higher gear score than your current one, without looking at its actual stats. A shield with a fast recharge delay and a high recharge rate is vastly superior to a shield with a massive capacity but a 10-second recharge delay. In this game, you spend 80% of your time with a broken shield, waiting for it to come back. Prioritize shields with fast recharge speeds so you can dip in and out of cover effectively.

3. Hoarding "Arcane Blasphemy" in the Early Game

There is a fine line between saving resources and hoarding them. Many players will reach level 30 and still have thousands of green crystals because they were "saving them for endgame." The endgame is the legendary gear. Once you hit level 30, your entire goal is to acquire Legendary items. Spending 500 Arcane Blasphemy on a Legendary weapon at level 20 is a waste, but spending it at level 28 to get a weapon that will carry you through the final story missions is a highly efficient use of your time.

4. Ignoring the Combo Meter

If you are treating this game like Call of Duty—finding a piece of cover, crouching, and slowly firing at enemies—you are playing it wrong. If your combo meter is gray and empty, you are doing less than 50% of your potential damage. Always be sliding, always be jumping, and always be chaining kills. If you find yourself standing still, vault over a nearby wall or slide across the ground to keep the meter active before you start shooting.

5. Skipping Side Content and "Bounties"

The main story missions are enjoyable, but they do not provide enough loot to keep your gear score competitive with the enemies you are fighting. You must engage with the open world. Pause the game and look at the "Bounties" tab. These are mini-missions that task you with killing specific enemies or destroying certain objects. Completing these guarantees high-tier loot drops and is the most time-efficient way to raise your Infamy Rank between story missions.

6. Forgetting to Equip "Breach Modules"

You can have the best Legendary weapon in the game, but if you do not slot a Breach Module into it, you are leaving 30% to 40% of your damage on the table. Breach Modules are what make builds come alive. Whenever you are at a safe house, make it a habit to open your inventory, check your weapons, and ensure every weapon has a module equipped that synergizes with how you are playing (e.g., if you are using a rapid-fire weapon, slot a module that boosts fire rate or grants ammo on critical hits).

7. Fighting Fair (Not Using Environmental Hazards)

Metropolis is littered with environmental hazards: explosive red barrels, elemental canisters, and dangling debris. Shooting these is not cheating; it is intended game design. A single explosive barrel can strip the armor off of a Heavy enemy in a fraction of a second. Before you unload two full magazines into a tanky enemy, look around and see if you can blow up a car or drop a piece of concrete on them instead. It saves ammo, time, and shield integrity.

Next Steps

Once you have settled into your character of choice, understand the loot system, and have avoided the standard rookie traps, you are ready to experience the best parts of Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League.

Your immediate next step is to push through the main story campaign until you defeat the final boss and reach the post-game. The pre-endgame is essentially a lengthy tutorial. The true game—complete with higher tier difficulties, Legendary missions, and the actual endgame loot loop—does not truly begin until the credits roll.

After completing the story, shift your focus to Endgame Incursions. These are repeatable, scaled versions of story missions that guarantee Legendary drops upon completion. Start at the lowest "Incursion" tier and work your way up as your gear score improves. This is where you will hunt for specific Legendary items with the exact perk combinations you need to define your endgame build.

Finally, start paying attention to Legendary Expertise. Once you hit the maximum Infamy Rank, duplicate Legendary items will convert into a currency called Legendary Expertise. This allows you to permanently upgrade the stats of your favorite gear, pushing them beyond their normal limits. This is the ultimate min-maxing system in the game, allowing you to fine-tune your character to take on the highest-tier "Injustice" difficulty levels.

Remember, Metropolis is a chaotic place. You will die frequently, you will get caught by a giant laser beam, and you will lose your combo meter at the worst possible time. Embrace the chaos, keep moving, and let Amanda Waller deal with the consequences.