Ability

Drax's Ability menu by default.

Abilities are a core gameplay element in Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy. They are the Guardians' special cooldown attacks, with each character having a set of unique abilities that can be used via Guardians Mode.

Overview

Each Guardian has four different Abilities, specializing in different things: Star-Lord's are varied yet tactical-oriented, Groot's focuses on crowd control, Rocket's deals long-range multi-target damage, Drax's are good at stagger damage, and Gamora's deal high HP damage. One ability is available by default, two must be unlocked, and the last one—their Mega Ability—is their ultimate skill that unlocks as the story progresses. This special skill is denoted in purple on their skill wheel, while the others are water green. Mega Abilities also operate on a separate cooldown, meaning players can use a character's Mega Ability and immediately use another Ability.

To use Abilities, press and hold [L1] to bring up the Guardians Mode wheel, select a Guardian, and then the Face buttons again to select a move; since time slows when using this menu, this allows players to plan one's next move without taking much damage. For Peter, the process is similar only that Abilities are activated by pressing [L3].

Ability Points are required to unlock all skills. Every 1000 XP points, earned through combat and Momentum bonuses, grant a new Ability Point. To unlock all Abilities, the player needs to acquire 25 Ability Points in total. Once a player earns all skills, they can no longer acquire XP (and thus, no Ability Points). Unlocking a skill is done by opening the Guardian Menu with tab [↹]. On the top-right-corner, players can see the Ability Points they can spend. In the center is the selected Guardian and to the left is the list of the Ability list. Players can watch a preview video and below this window they can the selected ability's description and focus. They are classified by four parameters (ranging from 0 to 4): Target, Stagger, Damage, and Cooldown.

Although most abilities deal damage, not all do; Peter's Shield of Spartax provides invulnerability, while Groot's Gift of the Florae will heal the team. The latter's Entangle or Mammoth Grab also deal no damage, instead being useful to pin enemies down for a short moment.

Details

• Star-Lord's Abilities
• Gamora's Abilities
• Drax's Abilities
• Groot's Abilities
• Rocket's Abilities

Gallery

Peter's menu with his Mega Ability unlocked.

Rocket's ability menu via Guardians Mode.