In most hero shooters, having a dedicated healer on the team is a standard strategy. However, in Marvel Rivals, Strategists are much more than simple health providers. This versatile class features characters who bring unique abilities and playstyles to the table, offering more than just healing. While healing remains a core function of Strategists, their effectiveness varies. Some characters excel at healing, others are decent, and a few are best at it. What sets them apart are their specialized abilities and how they fit into a team’s overall strategy.
That is why in this guide we have outlined the best Strategists in order and how to play them the best in Marvel Rivals.
7. Mantis
Mantis is an excellent strategist in Marvel Rivals but a little difficult to master due to micro-managing the life orbs she generates by firing energy thorns to deal damage. Because of this, Mantis is not an ideal choice for beginners. However, for experienced players who understand the intricacies of the Strategist role, she can be a rewarding character to master
How to Play Mantis
Despite her difficulty curve, Mantis has the potential to shine as an exceptional Strategist. To fully utilize her abilities, you will need a good grasp of timing, positioning, and teamwork.
- Aggressive Playstyle: Unlike most Strategists, Mantis thrives when played offensively. While Strategists typically avoid direct combat due to their lower base health, Mantis’s core abilities depend on generating Life Orbs, which are only created through critical hits on enemies.
- Team Pairing: To compensate for her lack of survivability, Mantis works best when paired with another Strategist who excels at healing. Jeff the Land Shark or Adam Warlock are excellent partners, as their healing abilities can keep you alive while you focus on landing attacks and supporting the team with buffs.
One downside of Mantis’s playstyle is her reliance on another Strategist to sustain her in combat. This dynamic reverses the usual role of Strategists as support units for Vanguard and Duelist teammates. However, when played effectively, Mantis’s offensive abilities can significantly enhance her team’s overall performance.
Mantis’s ultimate ability, Soul Resurgence, is her standout skill. It releases energy around her while allowing her to move, providing Healing Over Time and Movement Speed Boosts to nearby allies. Additionally, any excess healing is converted into Bonus Health, making this ability invaluable during critical team fights.
To maximize Mantis’s impact, don’t hesitate to use Soul Resurgence whenever possible. It is not a skill to conserve; frequent use can turn the tide of battle and keep your team in fighting shape.
Mantis is a high-risk, high-reward Strategist best suited for experienced players. While her dependency on another healer can be a drawback, her offensive potential and game-changing ultimate make her a unique and formidable addition to any team.
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6. Cloak and Dagger
Cloak and Dagger is a unique Strategist in Marvel Rivals, offering two distinct playstyles within one character. Cloak specializes in offensive tactics, such as dealing damage, escaping danger, and blinding enemies. In contrast, Dagger focuses on healing and providing support to the team, making this duo a flexible and dynamic choice.
How to Play Cloak and Dagger
To excel with Cloak and Dagger, you will need to balance their dual playstyles effectively. The key is to switch between offense and healing based on your team’s current needs.
- Dagger for Healing: When your team is pushing hard toward an objective, switch to Dagger to focus on healing and supporting your teammates. Dagger’s abilities are crucial for sustaining your team during intense skirmishes, allowing them to remain in the fight longer.
- Cloak for Offense: If your team is defending an objective and holding their ground, it is time to bring out Cloak’s offensive potential. Cloak’s abilities disrupt enemy strategies, creating opportunities for your team to maintain their position or counterattack
Cloak’s Terror Cape is a game-changing ability when it comes to disrupting enemy tactics. This skill deploys a Veil of Darkforce, dealing damage to any enemies it touches. It also applies Blind, severely limiting enemy visibility, and Vulnerability, increasing the damage they take.
This makes Terror Cape an excellent choice for breaking up enemy formations and giving your team a tactical advantage in Marvel Rivals.
While Cloak and Dagger can adapt to both offensive and healing roles, always remember their primary classification as a Strategist. Prioritize supporting and healing your teammates, especially during critical moments, as this is the cornerstone of their role in Marvel Rivals.
5. Loki
Loki lives up to his title as the God of Mischief in Marvel Rivals, bringing a unique mix of illusion-based attacks and ally healing to the battlefield. While he has the ability to heal teammates, Loki is best played as a disruptor and distraction specialist, creating chaos for the enemy team.
Unlike traditional Strategists who stay behind tanks or focus solely on healing, Loki thrives on movement and mischief. He should constantly roam the battlefield, casting illusions to confuse enemies while providing healing when needed. His ability to heal is important, but it is his knack for distraction and disruption that truly sets him apart.
How to Play Loki
Loki’s most effective ability is Doppelganger, which allows him to summon two stationary illusions that mimic his projectile attacks. These illusions do not move but rotate and fire projectiles from their scepter in the same direction Loki fires.
The key to using this ability is precise placement and timing. Strategically positioning these illusions can confuse the enemy team, often forcing their Duelists or Vanguards to waste time and resources targeting the decoys. This distraction gives you and your teammates the opportunity to capitalize on their confusion and launch counterattacks.
Loki’s illusions are not just for creating chaos; they also provide a clever way to escape tough situations. Once you have summoned one or two illusions, you can use Loki’s Devious Exchange ability to instantly shapeshift to their location. This allows you to teleport out of danger while further disorienting your opponents.
Even more impressively, Loki can turn his illusions into a source of healing with his Regeneration Domain ability. This converts the illusions into health pools with a 5-meter radius and a height of 2 meters. These pools last for 5 seconds and restore 100 health per second to teammates standing within their area.
Because these health pools are so valuable, enemy teams often prioritize destroying Loki’s illusions, adding another layer to his disruptive gameplay.
4. Luna Snow
Luna Snow is one of the best healer role strategists in Marvel Rivals. All of her abilities focus on providing healing, with some offering stronger effects than others. Overall, she is the best choice for players who want to focus solely on supporting their team through healing.
How to Play Luna Snow
Luna Snow’s greatest asset is her passive ability, Smooth Skate, which grants increased movement speed and higher jumps. This exceptional mobility sets her apart from other Strategists, making her an ideal pick for reaching vantage points to heal teammates or finish off weakened enemies.
To play Luna Snow effectively, position yourself behind another healer to provide continuous healing to both them and your team. While her small bursts of healing are useful, they might not be sufficient for situations where a Vanguard or tank character is taking heavy damage.
Pairing Luna Snow with Jeff the Land Shark can help mitigate this limitation. Jeff offers faster and larger health recovery compared to Luna Snow, making them an excellent duo. Focus on keeping Jeff alive with your heals, so Jeff can, in turn, sustain the Vanguard or Duelist with quicker, more substantial healing.
Luna Snow’s ultimate ability, Fate of Both Worlds, is a versatile tool that can either deliver powerful healing or provide a damage buff. However, the damage buff has limited utility due to its small radius and modest impact. For maximum effectiveness, it is best to use this ability primarily for healing, ensuring your team stays in the fight longer.
Team composition is crucial in Marvel Rivals, and Luna Snow benefits greatly from pairing with complementary characters. For offensive support, consider teaming her with Namor.
Namor’s ability to summon a Frozen Spawn, a minion with 200 health that attacks for 10 seconds, adds an extra layer of distraction for the opposing team. While the minion’s health is relatively low, its presence can be pivotal in creating opportunities for your team, all thanks to Luna Snow, of course.
3. Rocket Raccoon
Rocket Raccoon takes on the role of a strategist in Marvel Rivals, but unlike traditional healers, he shines as a buff provider, resurrector, and all-around support character.
His Repair Mode ability fires bouncing spheres that heal allies within a wide range. While the range is impressive, the healing output is fairly average, marking this as the peak of Rocket’s healing capabilities.
How to Play Rocket Raccoon
The key to playing Rocket effectively is staying close to a Duelist. His Bombard Mode ability fires energy projectiles that deal 16 damage per round, with damage falloff starting at 10 meters. This makes Rocket most effective in close-range combat when providing offensive support.
Teaming up with a Duelist allows you to heal them consistently while using Rocker for offensive abilities for finishing blows on weakened enemies. This pairing ensures you can maximize Rocket’s potential as a support character and the best Strategist in Marvel Rivals.
Rocket’s Ammo Invention team-up ability adds another layer of utility. This skill deploys an Ammo Overload device that grants Infinite Ammo and Faster Firing to allies like Winter Soldier and Punisher—both Duelists. Having these characters on your team creates a perfect synergy, enhancing Rocket’s overall effectiveness.
However, Rocket has limited mobility and lacks escape abilities like Jeff the Land Shark. His Wild Crawl passive compensates by letting him run horizontally and vertically on walls, which can help avoid danger. Use this to reposition or regroup with another teammate if your Duelist partner is knocked out.
If Groot is on your team, Rocket’s Old Friends team-up ability offers a unique advantage. Rocket can climb onto Groot’s shoulder to deal damage or provide heals while taking reduced damage himself. This combo is highly effective, but it is crucial to make it count by using it strategically for extended engagements.
While Rocket is not the strongest healer, his B.R.B. ability and C.Y.A. ultimate make him invaluable as a strategist. These skills provide resurrection and significant team buffs, particularly for boosting damage output during critical moments. They are game-changers when pushing for objectives or holding key positions.
2. Jeff The Land Shark
Strategists in Marvel Rivals are designed to prioritize healing and supporting their teammates rather than focusing on offense. If you’re looking for a character who perfectly embodies this role, Jeff the Land Shark is your best choice.
Jeff is an outstanding healer who excels at keeping both his teammates and himself alive, thanks to a variety of effective evasive abilities. His healing capabilities are so robust that you’ll rarely feel the need for a second healer on your team when Jeff is in play.
How to Play Jeff The Land Shark
The best way to play Jeff is to stick with one or two Vanguard (tank) characters. Tanks absorb heavy damage due to their large health pools and damage-resistance abilities, but they rely on consistent healing to stay in the fight. Jeff’s exceptional healing makes him the perfect Strategist for this critical task.
- Joyful Splash: This ability allows Jeff to fire a continuous healing splash, restoring 140 health per second to allies in front of him. With this spell alone, you can sustain multiple teammates, keeping them alive and battle-ready.
For teammates following behind, Jeff can summon Healing Bubbles, which provide a 15% health boost and a 60% movement speed increase for four seconds. This makes him a fantastic support for maintaining both survivability and mobility.
Jeff is not just a great healer—he is also surprisingly durable. His passive ability, Obvious Cuteness, reduces incoming critical hit damage by 50%, giving him a survival edge over other Strategists.
When the fight gets tough, Jeff can use Hide and Seek, diving underground to evade danger or reposition himself. This ability is particularly useful when the tank you are supporting goes down or when you are under fire from a distant sniper.
While Jeff is primarily a healer, he is not defenseless. His ultimate ability combines healing and offense, making it one of the best in the Strategist category.
- Ultimate Ability: Jeff dives underground and reemerges at a designated spot within a 10-meter radius, swallowing both allies and enemies in the area. Allies receive 225 health per second, while enemies take 25 damage per second.
For players familiar with the map, Jeff’s ultimate has an extra strategic layer: you can drag enemies to out-of-bounds areas and spit them out, eliminating them instantly. This tactic makes Jeff not only an incredible healer but also a cunning disruptor.
1. Adam Warlock
Adam Warlock is by far the best strategist in Marvel Rivals. He excels in multiple areas, offering a versatile mix of offense, healing, resurrection, and crowd control, making him a valuable addition to any team.
However, Adam Warlock does have one notable weakness: limited mobility. Unlike Luna Snow, whose passive ability allows her to move at incredible speed and outpace most offensive rivals, Adam Warlock lacks that level of agility.
This can pose a challenge if you die and respawn far from your teammates or the capture objective. The time it takes to rejoin the fight might leave your Vanguard or Duelist teammates vulnerable, as they will be forced to fend off enemies without your critical support and healing.
How to Play Adam Warlock
To maximize Adam Warlock’s potential, adopt a backline position within your squad. Staying at the rear allows you to observe the battlefield, identify teammates who are tanking or attacking, and provide timely support. This positioning also makes it easier to use Avatar Life Stream, an ability that targets an ally with a bouncing stream of healing energy.
Adam Warlock’s Soul Bond ability further enhances his role as a support. This skill creates a bond with up to three allies, granting healing over time and redistributing incoming damage among bonded teammates. By remaining behind your squad, you can efficiently tether all three teammates, making full use of this ability’s potential.
If you are playing with friends, consider pairing Adam Warlock with characters like Mantis and Star-Lord. Both can benefit from his Soul Perseverance ability, which grants rebirth upon death with a cooldown of 105 seconds. This synergy ensures your team has added survivability during intense battles.
Despite his strong support capabilities, Adam Warlock is not just a healer. His Quantum Magic attacks deal 55 damage per round, giving him respectable offensive potential. However, it is best to switch to an aggressive playstyle only if your team includes at least two other Strategists who can take over healing duties.
In most cases, focus on supporting your teammates and providing healing, stepping into an offensive role only when absolutely necessary. By balancing these roles effectively, you will ensure Adam Warlock remains an indispensable asset to your team.
That is pretty much all there is to say about the best strategists and how to play them best in Marvel Rivals. For more tips about the game, we recommend you check out How To Fix the Marvel Rivals DirectX 12 Error on PC guide.
Published: Dec 9, 2024 02:00 pm