How to power up Black Panther quickly in the War for Wakanda expansion

Like the existing eight characters in Marvel’s Avengers, Black Panther has a 50- level skill cap and a 150 power level cap to work towards. The former relates to the character’s skill tree and increases with XP. The power level relates to the gear you acquire through the game.

Getting to that ceiling is a lot easier if you complete the War for Wakanda with the highest level you can. Powering through the story quickly might get you back into endgame activities sooner, but you’ll be leaving plenty on the table.

As you play through the War for Wakanda expansion as Black Panther, these simple tips will help you end with a pretty decent power level and neither involves endless loot farming runs.

N’iix the Wakanda Gear Vendor

Unlike the gear vendors in the rest of the game, you should definitely pay regular visits to N’iix, the Wakanda vendor. It’s unclear if there’s some launch window generosity going on, but some of the gear he’s selling is amazing.

Visiting N’iix can help you jump several power levels in one visit. The key is to check the “Specialty Items” at the bottom. These are only for Black Panther and seem to be as many as 8 power levels higher than your current score. This might well get rebalanced in time, so definitely grab with both hands while you can.

The items aren’t any more expensive than at other vendors, either. You’ll have to hand over fragments for each, so if you have a large stash of these then it really is a no-brainer. Keep checking back as you level up to get the benefit over and over. Even when the campaign has finished, make N’iix your first port of call before leaving on any missions.

Chests are everywhere in Wakanda

It sounds obvious, but look out for chests. They’re everywhere. I’m sure that there isn’t actually a higher concentration of them in Wakanda than in other locations in the game, but there’s a lot. They’re fairly easy to spot as well, especially in the jungle, as the glow can be seen from quite some distance away.

They’re worth hunting out as you play through as well for an extra reason that doesn’t just relate to gear. Some of the chest locations in Wakanda also house collectibles, so if you’re the type of player that really does want to find everything, you’re getting double.

There are also plenty of chests in obvious locations through the Palace, too. Just have a wander around and you’ll find one in every room, one by the faction terminal on the lower level, and at the top of the stairs. They’ll only open once, though, so these are best left until you’ve finished the campaign to maximize their returns.

Get a good power level before moving on

By following these two simple methods, by the time the War for Wakanda campaign was done, I’d visited N’iix one final time and popped open all the chests in the palace, my power level was up to 73. Considering gear will only drop to 130 (you power up each piece to 140 as well as the major artifact to reach the 150 total), I’m over halfway there just from taking a little longer to finish the campaign but hunt down as many chests as possible.

These aren’t the only sources of gear, of course, but in the course of playing and checking out every corner of the various maps you’ll also come across high-value targets that drop something as well as the chance to just get random drops from regular enemies.

But you stand a better chance if you go into the campaign with the intention of getting your power level up as high as you can. It’s not a lot of work but you’ll also see a lot more of this wonderful expansion in the process.

Endgame leveling

When you’ve completed the campaign it’s up to you how to carry on with leveling up Black Panther. You’ll earn gear just by completing missions and finding chests, but it’ll take a bit of time.

The alternative is to find yourself a good loot farming run, set aside some time, and go chest farming. There are plenty of different chest runs you can do in the game, but the Out of the Shadows mission in Pacific Northwest suits Black Panther well. Another good run is on the Rocket’s Red Glare mission which has a guaranteed gold chest in the first part of the mission.

How you achieve this is up to you but farming chests is the quickest way to get lots of gear fast if you’re only interested in increasing power level. And don’t forget to pop back to N’iix in Wakanda from time to time to see what specialty items he has that could bump you a few more levels.