Marina Tideborn is the best thing in the Black Tide event, and it is not close.
That has almost nothing to do with her kit. She throws a harpoon, she drops an anchor every four seconds, and she summons parrots. Standard stuff.
It has everything to do with her 120 global: All Heroes, x1.1 damage to bleeding enemies. That is double what Swabbie and Inkbeard give you at the same tier, and it makes your whole roster stronger whether or not Marina ever sets foot on the battlefield.
The catch is the wheel. She sits at a 0.3% chance per spin, and buying her outright runs 15,000 Skull Coins, which is a couple hundred spins of grinding. So you either get lucky early or you plan the entire event around her.
Below I go through her level progression, her globals, her skills, and her forge, then show you what happens when the Harpoon evolves into Pirate Ship. If you do land her, I will also tell you which global to chase first.
| 10 | +15% Projectile Speed |
|---|---|
| 20 | -5% Cooldown |
| 30 | +10% Area of Effect |
| 40 | JAGGED HARPOON: Harpoon inflicts bleed to enemies dealing 50% damage per tick. |
| 50 | All Heroes: +10% Status Effect Duration |
| 60 | +5% damage to bleeding enemies |
| 70 | All Heroes: +25% Damage when dealing Physical Damage |
| 80 | ANCHOR DROP: Every 4s, a huge anchor deals 330% damage to enemies. |
| 90 | All Heroes that share Faction: x1.075 damage to elite enemies and bosses |
| 100 | PARROT SWARM: All kills fill the meter. When full, Marina summons parrots orbiting her, flying in on enemies to deal 140% damage. |
| 120 | All Heroes: x1.1 damage to bleeding enemies |
| 140 | Strong Stat Bonus: +3 Projectile(s) |
| 160 | All Heroes: +100% Damage |
The first thing I check on any new hero is the level progression, because the heroes that actually carry you early in the game all share the same four stats: cooldown, area of effect, critical strike, and projectiles.
Marina hits three of the four. Projectile speed at 10 is close to useless, but cooldown at 20 is great and area of effect at 30 is good. The line that really matters is 140, which is +3 projectiles.
Projectiles have diminishing marginal returns, but they are worth a fortune early. Going from one projectile to two is a straight 50% increase. By the end of the game you are sitting on ten or twelve, so each additional one is worth roughly x1.05 instead. Either way, +3 lands somewhere between x1.15 and x1.2 damage depending on how far along you are.
Her 60 reads as +5% damage to bleeding enemies. That is almost certainly a Swift typo for x1.05, because plus five percent of nothing is nothing.
Most heroes in this game end up as shelf heroes you look at once and never touch again, so the globals are what you are actually buying when you chase her on the wheel.
Level 50 is All Heroes, +10% status effect duration. I think that one is underrated and genuinely good late, when you need enemies frozen for longer. Level 70 is +25% damage when dealing physical damage, which is garbage.
Level 90 is x1.075 damage to elite enemies and bosses, but read the fine print. It only applies to heroes that share her faction, and she is Special. That still covers Bunni, Santa, Krampus, and Poseidon, so it is not nothing for Boss Brawl. It is just far narrower than a roster-wide global.
Level 120 is the real prize. All Heroes, x1.1 damage to bleeding enemies. Bleeding can be hard to come by, but once you have a source it becomes a permanent part of your status effects, and x1.1 across your whole roster is enormous. Swabbie and Inkbeard both give x1.05 at this tier, so she is worth exactly double.
Her 3-star forge is projectile speed, which you actively do not want. Too much projectile speed makes certain heroes miss the boss entirely in Boss Brawl, with Bunni and Assassin being the usual suspects.
If she is the one thing you pull off the wheel this event, put everything you have into reaching that 120 global rather than spreading your Skull Coins around.
Swift did not put percentages on any of these nodes, so some of this is hunch rather than math.
Barbed Tip raises Harpoon bleed damage. Chained Harpoon raises Harpoon return damage. Bleed sits on a single target and ticks, so I lean that way for single-target work. Return damage catches everything on the way back, so it should be the multi-target pick.
Dead Weight gives Anchor Drop a chance to stun for one second. Full Stop gives it 20% more area. The stun is the only disruption anywhere in her kit, so I take it whenever staying alive is the problem. Grab Full Stop when you are just clearing.
A wasted 3-star, since it is projectile speed. You do not want projectile speed on a Boss Brawl hero.
The Harpoon evolves and Marina calls in a pirate ship that continuously shoots cannonballs. This is the big one, and I cover what it actually looks like below.
Faster parrots, or a feather trail that damages along its path. Take the trail for Nightmare Mode, where consistent ground damage beats speed. Both nodes buff the ultimate rather than the base weapon, which is exactly why she will not break into Boss Brawl.
Her weapon is the Harpoon. It goes out, it comes back, and it does damage in both directions. Physical, which is a small point in its favor, since physical damage tends to be better supported elsewhere in your build.
The Harpoon inflicts bleed. That is unusual. Skills almost never touch your main weapon, and this one does, starting at 50% damage per tick and running up to 730% at level five. It is a much stronger skill than it looks.
Every four seconds a huge anchor drops and deals damage. Timer-based skills like this live or die on how much of the screen they cover, and this one covers a decent chunk.
Kills fill a meter. When it fills, parrots orbit Marina and dive onto enemies. The parrots stay very close to her, so the radius is tight compared to most ultimates.
The gap in the kit is disruption. She has no slow and no stun anywhere in here, which means Nightmare Mode and Hard Mode Arena are going to be rough. She also scales hard at four and five stars like most recent heroes, so mainning her means committing to those star levels.
Evolved, she is a genuinely strong hero. The ships drop bombs up and down the entire screen with continuous damage, which is about as good as a full-screen attack gets. Pair that with the globals and you have a hero a new player could main straight through Normal and Hard Mode.
The problem is still disruption. No slow, no stun, nothing outside that one forge node.
And her 5-star forge buffs the ultimate instead of the base weapon, so Boss Brawl is out. I was hoping the bleed would carry her there. It does not.
Marina Tideborn is my number one pick from this event anyway. Not to main, but for that 120 global. x1.1 to bleeding across your entire roster makes every hero you already own better, and that is worth more than another shelf hero.
I am Kolz, a high-level HVH player. Ask questions here, on Reddit, or on Discord.
And remember: Always do your adventures!
