Mar-Astagua Wonder Weapon - Zombies Shadows of Evil

Posted in black ops 3

Black Ops 3 is no stranger to Wonder Weapons and the first of these is called the Mar-Astagua and it's included in the Shadows of Evil zombie map. Like other craftable items in the game such as the Rocket Shield, players need to find all the pieces before the Mar-Astagua can be successfully built.

The Wonder Weapon itself is fairly bulky looking; occupying a good proportion of the lower right corner of the screen. To the plain eye it looks like a squid with several eyes and tentacles but in reality it's a clear resemblance to the Margwa mini-boss and the general "Beast" theme of SoE.

What does the gun do?

Those of you who have played Ascension, or even Moon, from the original Black Ops game will be familiar with the Gersch device. This tactical grenade was only found in the mystery box but once obtained it unleashed a tactical void to give monkey bombs a run for their money.

Essentially the Gersch device created a kind of black hole that sucked zombies into it's oblivion and immediately out of the map. Like monkey bombs the effect was time limited but overpowered enough to give you and your team plenty of time for revives or a nice escape route from a horde of the undead.

The Mar-Astagua is similar in some respects to the original Gersch with the major exception that players can aim and shoot the voids (blackholes) in a purposeful direction. Any zombies caught in the void are immediately removed from the map, whilst nearby zombies are also sucked into the void. Just like the Gersch, the weapon gives you minimal (if any?) point rewards for doing so.


Leaked screenshot showing the Wonder Weapon in action. The purple blackhole appears after firing the weapon and it sucks zombies in from the nearby area.

This still means that the Mar-Astagua is a tactical weapon but it's not something you can deploy and forget about. It does occupy the weapon slot and comes with a single round magazine and 10 in reserve. Players will need to tactically fire the new Wonder Weapon, move to a safe position and reload before firing again.

There are two primary uses for the weapon, both of which are seriously OP. The first is to build a sizeable "train" then remove the entire group of zombies with a single shot. The second, defensive maneuver, is to fire the weapon at your feet in times of trouble. This will immediately prevent zombies from attacking you because they're sucked into the blackhole.

How to craft the Mar-Astagua

The Wonder Weapon is a craftable weapon which requires 3 parts:

• Margwa Tentacle - collect this by killing the huge Margwa boss that appears after round 5.
• [Unknown part] - after round 10 the spinning balls will appear, kill one for a chance to drop the second part.
• Margwa Tail - first collect the Fumigator from spawn (like the shovel in Origins). Wait until round 10+ for the pods/plants to change to purple. Now harvest them to get the third and final part.

Tips

• To kill the Margwa boss, shoot each of the three yellow heads, one by one. Once you've destroyed all three, the beast will die, leaving a power-up and possibly the weapon part.
• You can still harvest the pods before they're purple to claim free weapons and power-ups but the weapon part will not drop unless they are purple.