Ares

ARES
Bio: As the Olympian God of War, Ares is one of the most brutal and fearsome warriors of all time. He is a genius-level military tactician and a master of all weaponry, both ancient and modern. Though his half-brother Hercules may be stronger, Ares is meaner, and he isn't shy about demonstrating it.

Recruitment Message:

“Shall we dance together on the battlefield? Don't worry, I'll show you the steps. Just try to keep up.”

Cost: Complete Special Operations 12: Dark Reign

• Ares can also be recruited for 200

Default Uniform: Modern Ares
Passives:
Ten-Thousand-Yard Stare

• Chance to preemptively counter enemy attacks with Intimidated and Broken Will, reducing the damage of the incoming attack

God of War

• Grants party War Never Changes
• Chance to join in on an ally's single-target attack
• Chance to retaliate when an ally is hit by single-target attacks

Actions
Different skills can be unlocked as the heroes level up. Reaching levels 1, 2, 6 and 9 will guarantee access to new abilities. This can be done by gaining XP points for the characters and training them in the Team Management screen. Other heroes can unlock more than four abilities during combat. In some cases, alternative uniforms can offer new move sets as well.

Level 1:
Art of War
Target: One Enemy
Number of Hits: 2
Hit / Critical: 93% / 23%
Type: Melee Slashing
Effects:
Tenderized (3 rounds)

• Takes increased damage from Slashing attacks

Bleeding (3 rounds)

• Taking damage every round or after performing hostile actions
• This effect can be applied 3 times

Ravaged (3 rounds)

• Takes increased damage from Bleeding

Level 2:
Modern Warfare
Target: All Enemies
Number of Hits: 6
Hit / Critical: 86% / 21%
Cooldown: 2 Rounds
Type: Ranged Gun
Effects:
Hemorrhaging Attack

• Causes all applications of Bleeding to trigger

Despair (2 rounds)

• Removes and prevents resurrection effects while active
• Prevents most healing while active

Level 6:
Personal War
Target: One Enemy
Number of Hits: 3
Hit / Critical: 95% / 23%
Cooldown: 1 Round
Type: Ranged Gun
Effects:
Quick Action

• Grants an immediate free turn after using
• Does not trigger follow-up attacks

Weak Point (2 rounds)

• The next attack against this target is guaranteed to hit and crit

Level 9:
Crush Your Enemies
Target: All Enemies
Hit / Critical: 100% / 24%
Cooldown: 3 Rounds
Type: Kinetic
Effects:
Catastrophic

• Can't be Protected against
• Ignores most Avoidance effects
• Guaranteed to hit

Stun (1 turn)
40% chance

• Loses next turn
• Reduced chance to dodge

Remove Buffs

• Removes beneficial status effects from the target

Team-ups
Team-up bonuses are awarded when certain heroes are paired together in a battle. Some hero pairs get multiple team-up bonuses. This awards the players 50 points per bonus at the end of the battle. As part of the PvE score modifier, team-up bonuses improve the player's total score and increases the speed of obtaining chapter mastery stars. The pairing of the heroes are based on certain events that happened in the mainstream comic books of the Marvel Universe. This can range from existing or former organizations, to love pairings and couples.

• Assemble! – Any pair of core Avengers members
• Ares, Beast, Black Knight, Black Panther, Black Widow, Captain America, Hank Pym, Hawkeye, Hercules, Hulk, Iron Man, Mockingbird, Moon Knight, Ms. Marvel, Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch, She-Hulk, Squirrel Girl, Sunfire, Thor, Tigra, Vision, Wasp, Wonder Man

[li]Big Guns – Heroes with big guns[/li]

• Agent Venom, Ares, Bishop, Cable, Deadpool, Omega Sentinel, Punisher, War Machine

[li]Bloodlust – Heroes with attacks that cause Bleeding[/li]

• Ares, Black Cat, Black Knight, Black Panther, Elektra, Moon Knight, Sabretooth, Sif, Tigra, Wolverine, X-23

[li]Debbie Downers – Bonus for bringing heroes who are dour[/li]

• Ares, Black Bolt, Cable, Dr. Strange, Ghost Rider, Heimdall, Hogun, Magneto, Phoenix, X-23

[li]Fear of the Dark – Former or current member of the Dark Avengers[/li]

• Ares, Moonstone

[li]Godlike – Heroes who are mythological gods or demigods[/li]

• Ares, Heimdall, Hercules, Loki, Sif, Thor, Valkyrie

[li]Newly Assembled – Members who have recently joined the Avengers[/li]

• Ares, Dr. Strange, Havok, Iron Fist, Luke Cage, Red Hulk, Rogue, Spider-Man, Spider-Woman, Squirrel Girl, Storm, Thing, Wolverine

[li]Progeny of Olympus – Bonus for bringing two heroes from Olympus[/li]

• Ares, Hercules

[li]Safety First – Heroes who wear a helmet[/li]

• Ares, Black Knight, Heimdall, Iron Man, Juggernaut, Magneto, Rescue, Thor, War Machine

[/ul]

oddly the AI for Ares in pvp defensive is annoyingly good, better and more consistent than anyone else i've gone up against. He always targets the scrapper and i've never seen him make stupid moves (attack a phased character, randomly recharge stamina etc.)
I don't personally use him all that much but he's a challenge to fight.

They tweaked his AI. He now uses Modern Warfare, so annoying characters like Deadpool and Nico Minoru don't get a chance to resurrect and turn the tables. I used to run against him and Rogue, making for a pretty deadly team especially with their almost neverending counter-attacks and extra turns.

A hero still worth using even after all those nerfs and modifications done to him. 7.5/10.

Indeed! What really makes him so worth it is the proc rate of his passives, coupled with Personal War being Quick Action. Turn-crazy heroes like Rogue and Quicksilver get so much benefit if paired with Ares.

I use to hate this bastard with the helmet and now I laugh when I see him, ironic huh?

Tip: If it's down to your Havok and an enemy Ares USE HAVOK'S L6 AI is so predictable.

Ares is very good in pvp. to bad i didn't managed to recruit him when he was on sale cuz i didn't had the CP but next time i'll recruit him for sure, for whoever has him use it, he is a badass

Ares is overall very good in PvP and enjoyable in PvE.
The GOOD:
-War Never Changes! It's effectively like cooperative attack and defense rolled into one, and seems like it has better proc rates.
-EVERY move is useful.
--Lvl 1 that applies not only bleeding but also ravaged for the extra damage
--Lvl 2 that is an AoE applying despair--great for PVP. Think of all the PVPers using Shepherd's staff, Cube, scrolls, revival effects, heroes with healing effects, heroes with revival effects, etc.
--Lvl 6 that applies targeted as a QA with minimal cooldown
--Lvl 9 that is AoE clearing buffs and chance to stun, and is catastrophic.
-Bruiser class is good, given how many scrappers are being used lately in PVP

The BAD:
Very little bad here. There are no huge damage attacks, but if Ares gets a stack or two of enraged the damage is decent. The effects on the abilities balance out the lack of damage though.
I really dislike how they've illustrated him, but that's pretty minor!

Overall, I see him as a top 10 PVP hero (I used him on atk last season and was in Ada at lvl 300). I don't use him much in PvE but he is certainly good in some circumstances there as well.

One of my mainstay offense team members. Alongside X-23 he's an absolute beast, the combo of her bleeding attacks and his anti healing/anti buff AoE attacks is staggering Add that to the bonus attacks that they both bring to the field and....BOOM!

Ares is the God of War and the lack of decent base damage in his attacks is pretty disappointing, like @JamesKPolk pointed out. However, let's recall that this character used to have Hemorrhaging Attack on his Level 1 skill before getting moved to his Level 2. The triggering of Bleeding effect proves to be a major annoyance and can lower the health of an opponent very easily (Quicksilver, for instance) especially if it constantly performs counter and follow-ups.