Jonathan Almaguer
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17 Min read Anyone who has ever played or even seen Overwatch before can not help but see the strong resemblance with Marvel Rivals. From map design to combat mechanics, the resemblance is uncanny!
For all of you Overwatch players who are looking to get their hands on the Marvel Rivals beta once it becomes available, we got you covered on how to seamlessly transition between games based on the heroes you already know how to use.
We’ll compare hero abilities, play styles, mechanics, and functions between the current Marvel Rivals roster with the well-established cast of Overwatch. Every Marvel Rival hero can be viewed as an amalgamation of two or more Overwatch heroes.
Some similarities like Star-Lord and Tracer are so apparent they almost feel like a reskin. Other similarities are merely in singular abilities that function the same as abilities that already exist in Overwatch 2.
For a full breakdown of each of the three roles: Vanguard, Duelist, and Strategist, check out our Marvel Rivals Role guide.
Want to know who are the best heroes? Check out our Marvel Rivals tier list.
Cap’s shield, Living Legend, is a Genji Deflect rather than a simple barrier. He uses it just Genji to deflect enemy damage and projectile ultimate abilities! The basic flow chart for Captain America revolves around using Liberty Rush and Super-Soldier Slam to charge in and Slam onto the enemy like Mauga. Once in, he wants to keep his opponents in close range battles in order to maximize damage output also like Mauga. Freedom charge can be used similarly to Juno’s Hyper Ring because in addition to giving himself a speed boost, it creates a trail of speed boost for all allies moving through the same path.
The Hulk gives three different battle forms available to players: puny Bruce Banner, Hulk, and Monster Hulk. He shares the combined qualities of Winston, D.Va, and Zarya. Dying as the Hulk transforms him back into puny Bruce exactly like when D.Va’s mech gets destroyed and has to run around with her pistol as pilot D.Va.
While in regular Hulk form, he can give himself and nearby allies Zarya bubbles. Just like Winston, his ult gets him angry and transforms into Monster Hulk giving him a massive health pool and empowered leaps and melee. Unlike Monke jump, Hulk’s leap has a trajectory indicator and knocks airborne enemies down.
Although he is not a melee character, Doctor Strange functions as a Vanguard similar to Reinhardt as a tank. Strange has a Rein shield he can quickly deploy at will just like Reinhardt.
The skill of taking space while managing shield health and outputting massive damage is extremely similar between these two heroe. Furthermore, Strange’s Ult is basically an AoE Shatter that stuns every enemy in the circle around him. Strange can also open a portal his team can teleport through similar to Symmetra.
Using the portal puts the user in a bird’s eye view like Doomfist or Bastion ult, and can be placed anywhere on the map. A major difference between Strange and Symmettra’s TP is that everyone including the enemy team can walk and shoot through the portal.
“I am Grooooot.” Groot has 2 different versions of Mei Wall and can place three of them at one time. He can place two smaller vine walls that attack any nearby enemies he or his team are damaging.
The second type of wall is even larger than Mei wall and can be used to climb on and reposition Groot to high ground like Mei does. The giant Ironwood Wall also heals Groot when nearby enemies take damage.
The best way to use Groot wall is exactly like Mei wall and cut off enemy front lines from their back lines allowing for quick eliminations. Groot’s ult fires a vine cluster version of Zarya’s Graviton Surge and immobilizes any caught enemies allowing for strong combos with allies.
Floating just above the ground, midrange explosive projectile primary fire, and a deployable shield make Magneto out to be the Marvel Rivals Sigma. The basic playstyle of Magneto and Sigma are extremely similar in that they both attempt to control space through poke pressure and damage mitigation.
For his ult, Magneto flies up into the air and selects a location to strike a circle of effect just like Sigma’s ult. Magneto’s shield, however, is on a long cooldown like Rammatrra and has infinite health. Metal Bulwark is Magneto’s Zarya ally bubble.
Similar to Projected Barrier building charge for Zarya, allies who take damage while in Metal Bulwark empower Magneto’s other cool-down Mag-Cannon.
Peni Parker’s gameplan revolves around setting up traps and controlling specific areas on the map. She places mines and web traps on the ground which can be hidden by her other web abilities.
Junkrat players who have found creative ways to get enemies to walk into his Steel Trap should enjoy having an unlimited supply of mines. When Peni Parker ults she runs around like Mauga Overrun, booping enemies and spamming mines all over the battlefield.
Players often use her ult like Wrecking Ball Minefield to cover a choke or objective point and prevent the enemy team from being able to advance.
The God of Thunder is one of the more offensive-focused Vanguards in Rivals. Thor’s strongest ability is Awakening Rune and gets used similarly to Ramattra’s Nemesis Form because Thor instantly generates bonus health and gains access to a high-damage attack.
Mjolnir Bash is how Thor navigates the maps, where he charges up his hammer to increase the distance traveled. Doomfist’s Rocket Punch also charges up to increase the distance traveled, both abilities lock the characters in a slow-moving channeling animation and both abilities apply CC to their targets.
Unlike Doomfist, Thor can use his bash to propel himself in any direction and into the air. When the ultimate charge is full, Thor flies up, shifts into overhead view then chooses the spot to slam down with a massive explosion of Thunder like how Meteor Strike does for Doom.
A dive tank that swings into enemy backlines with, initiates with a slam then generates overhealth? You must be talking about Wrecking Ball! Venom’s play style is extremely similar to the playstyle of our hamster friend from OW2.
Venom’s swing is much faster than Wrecking Ball’s and can be used like Widowmaker’s Hook Shot to propel him straight forward, as well as swing on an arch like Hammomd. Symbiotic Resilience generates over health similarly to Adaptive Shields.
The main difference is Venom generates more health based on how low his current health is, whereas Wrecking Ball’s is based on the number of nearby enemies. Each character’s bread and butter combo is to swing into position, slam down ([F] Frenzied Arrival for Venom), primary fire the enemies knocked into the air, tank damage with overhealth generation, and then swing away to safety.
When Venom is walking around smacking people in the face, he feels a lot like Ramattra. Nemesis form has Ram generating bonus health and pummeling his targets with mid-range melee hits, and can use Ravenous Vortex to slow retreating enemies just like Venom using Cellular Corrosion to inflict a slow debuff on his targets.
Black Panther’s primary weapons are his Vibranium Claws. Players who enjoy battling up close and personal with their enemies should give The King of Wakanda a try. Genji mains will feel right at home with Black Panther’s dash reset ability “Sprint Rend.”
First, a player must attach a Vibranium Mark onto an enemy by hitting them with his flying kick or spear. Hitting a marked enemy with his dash instantly resets the ability’s cooldown! Maximizing damage and evasive movement from Sprint Rend feels very similar to how Genji’s dash cooldown resets any time he confirms an elimination on an enemy with the attack.
The same way Genji can quickly slice and dash between multiple enemies during his Ult is how Black Panther can repeatedly dash attack between multiple enemies, given that each one has been marked. As part of his movement kit, Black Panther can also double jump and wall climb like Genji.
Everytime he lands Sprint Rend on a marked enemy, Black Panther also receives bonus temporary shield health that can be stacked repeatedly. Due to the shield and reset functions, landing the initial melee attacks are crucial for his effectiveness and survival.
Playing as Black Panther also feels similar to playing as Doomfist in that they are both melee heroes who rely on generating shield health from landing their abilities.
Black Widow = Widow Maker
All widows are snipers. Natasha Romanoff jumps into Rivals as the first and only scoped in sniper! Just like Widowmaker, Black Widow controls long lines of sight through her threat of instant headshot eliminations. Also like her OW2 counterpart, Black Widow can chose to shoot without scoping in. Unlike Widowmaker, however, her sniper retains its same single shot bullet whether or not Natasha is ADS.
Hawkeye = Hanzo + Zen
The two archers share an abundance of similarities. Both Hawkeye and Hazno use a bow and arrow that need to be drawn and charged for maximum damage. A sniper playstyle will be the primary use for Hawkeye, although, like Hanzo, he has extra abilities that let him be effective in close-range engagements as well. Hawkeye, like the current iteration of Hanzo, is able to oneshot the standard 250hp hero. Players will need to be locked on to activate Archer’s Focus then land a critical hit in order to oneshot.
Crescent Slash functions like Zen’s kick because its a strong, “get off me,” tool which can be used to set up easy follow up shots against the CC’d target. Positioning for Hawkeye is essentially the same as Zen or Hanzo because he wants to abuse he superior range damage while preventing the enemies from closing in on him.
The Goddess of Death is a fitting title for Hela’s feature in Marvel Rivals. Her primary fire has no damage fall off and headshots do insane damage. Her Overwatch counterparts are Widowmaker, Cassidy, and Sojourn.
Currently, there isn’t a true sniper hero in the game but Hela plays very much like a sniper. Imagine OW1 Orisa’s Halt, Sojourn Overclock Ult, Echo sticky bombs, and Mercy rez in one Hero. Yeah, that’s Hela. Nighsword thorn is a low ammo and slow rate of fire hitscan similar to Cassidy, but with no recoil.
You can think of her primary fire like permanently using Sojourn’s Ult but with very slightly less damage. Hela is extremely versatile and can be played like Widowmaker, sniping from behind your team or on off angles, or like Sojourn in mid to close range, then use her escape ability to Moira Fade at any angle in a straight line including upwards to high ground.
Empowered by Shou-Lao, Lin Lie uses his martial arts to defeat all who stand in his way. Quickly navigating the environment by wall riding and jumping around feels very reminiscent of skating around as Lucio. He also has a great boop ability where he kicks the enemy to launch them backwards like Lucio’s Soundwave.
When Iron Fist goes in and gets met with the enemy’s retaliation, he can block enemy damage and convert blocked attacks into bonus health and an empowered attack. Compared to Doomfist’s Power Block, Iron fist takes no damage, but also gains his most powerful attack after successfully absorbing damage!
Combine Pharah’s and Echo’s kit into one person and you basically have Iron Man. His primary fire, Repulsor Blast, is essentially Pharah’s primary fire, and his secondary fire, Unibeam, is literally Echo’s Focusing Beam.
Hyper-Velocity (SHIFT), propels Iron Man forward through the air as you’d imagine from cartoons and movies, but at a much slower speed.
His SHIFT functions more like Echo’s SHIFT except that it lasts much longer. A major difference between Iron Man and his OW2 counterparts is his ability to permanently fly.
One day Reinhardt decided to trade in his shield to gain Doomfist abilities; He then became Magik. The Soulsword wielder has a really awesome and unique design that every Rein main needs to experience.
While not a Giant Tank like Rein, Magik’s large arching sword swings are reminiscent of the way Rein swings his hammer and her right click is even a wind-up into Fire Strike.
Similar to Doomfist, however, she relies on gaining shield health from successful attacks. Umbral Incursion looks like Doom punch but ends with his OW1 uppercut.
Magik has an install ult which transforms her into Nano-Reinfist, er… I mean, the demonic Darkchild!
Moon Knight, the Fist of Khonshu joins the battle! His playstyle resembles Echo as both heroes play at a distance and utilize their superior mobility flank and disengage during team fights. You can use Moonlight Hook similarly to Echo’s flight since both abilities give the heroes a sudden burst of movement, and sets them up to use their glide passives, and continue their aerial assault. Also like Echo, Moon Knight wants to play around his big damage cooldowns, go aggressive when they’re online and passively when they are recharging.
Hazno shares qualities with Moon Knight as well with the ability to control high ground and a high damage AoE ultimate that gets maximum value when combined with another CC stun ability.
Imagine that Orisa’s Javelin throw wasn’t super annoying and didn’t stun you. Now imagine Torbjörn’s Turret did such abysmally low damage you could just ignore it every team fight.
Finally, take Mei’s Ice Block but make her have to float above the enemy while not healing herself, only to unfreeze and die. Well, that pretty much gives you Namor. He possesses two types of Tridents or Javelins to hurl at his enemies and can summon an octopus turret that slowly auto fires weak shots at nearby enemies.
When death seems certain for Namor he can save himself by summoning the same giant ball of water Aang froze himself in for 100 years. The only difference is Namor’s water ball only protects him for a few seconds, and forces him into the air where he can easily be shot at as soon as he begins falling out of his watery prison.
The wandering warrior is the first hero in Rivals to feature a stealth ability like Sombra’s. Psychic Stealth grants a movement speed boost while invisible for a duration of just a few seconds. Her primary fire is hitscan like Sombra, but instead of Virus she has Wing Shurikens which grant bonus shield health similar to Venture’s passive when using Venture’s abilities. Psylocke also has an attack dash like Venture, and her Primary fire reduces her other abilities CDS, similar to how Burrow does with Venture.
The Punisher brings his full arsenal to the fight with four different guns at his disposal. He is the Call of Duty archetype or Marvel Rivals’s Soldier: 76. The primary fire assault rifle called Adjudication has zero spread and zero recoil.
Compared to Soldier: 76, aiming and hitting shots with The Punisher is even easier. Similar to Widowmaker, he also has a grappling hook but his attaches a zipline he can ride back and forth as many times as he wants making for creative quick maneuvers mid fight.
Press Q and Frank Castle basically become Mauga with a gun in each hand and a smile on his face. The Punisher’s double chain gun form, Final Judgement, is more like if Mauga was holding two turret form Bastion’s in his hands because that is how fast he absolutely deletes his enemies during the Ult.
Moira mains are feasting in Marvel Rivals right now. Scarlet Witch’s left click is nearly identical to Moira’s and has a large area of auto aim attached to the targets.
She also has two Moira-style Fades which she can fly during to escape and reposition herself safely and freely. As with Moira’s suck, Scarlet Witch’s primary fire refills her secondary fire resources.
The only difference is Scarlet Witch isn’t concerned with healing her allies so her secondary fire is a ranged AoE explosive missile of magic. For her ult, she turns herself into a D.Va bomb where the player can slowly control her flight for a few seconds until she explodes and instantly kills any enemy in range.
You’ll need to treat using her ult like using Pharrah Barrage because you can be killed before detonating and are moving so slowly in the air she can easily be shut down.
Spiderman has the highest skill ceiling, and being in total control of his vast movement abilities is the most important skill to possess. Genji players skill set carries over nicely to Spider-man with his wall climbs, double jumps, dash attack, and even his Web-Cluster fires like Genji’s single shuriken primary fire.
Additionally, Spiderman can use his webs to pull his opponents to him like a Roadhog hook, then uppercut them into the air for followup damage like OW1 Doomfist.
Primary fire lobs a projectile that bounces off walls like a Junkrat Frag Launcher. Her secondary fire chucks a large slow moving projectile which traps a hit enemy in place as if they were caught in Junkrat’s Steel Trap.
Star-Lord and Tracer are practically 1:1 clones of each other. He literally dual wields fast-firing pistols and blinks around the map. Instead of recall, Star-Lord has a mini Reaper Death Blossom ult on cooldown, which exactly like Death Blossom auto-fires at every nearby enemy.
When he ults Peter Quill flies up like Illari ult and uses the Soldier: 76 Tac Visor from the air. Players who enjoy Tracer’s flank and assassinate playstyle, 100% should be picking up Star-Lord as he is essentially a more aggressive version of Tracer.
Storm flies through the air while launching wind blades at her enemies. As a flying damage-based hero, she shares her play style with Echo and Pharah. The lack of burst movement in the air makes her flight mechanics feel more like when you briefly fly as Illari during her ult.
Two different separate damage and speed boosts are available to Storm. One cool down boosts her allies and a separate cool down gives the boosts to herself. Just like Lucio, her ally speed boost effect is an AoE aura whose range is visually indicated on screen in a circle around her.
Omega Hurricane, Storm’s ult, turns herself into a tornado with Zarya’s Graviton Surge pull but additionally rapidly applies damage to everyone sucked inside.
Bucky controls the pace of a fight with his Bionic Hook that reels in enemies to him like a Roadhog Chain Hook. He also has a low ammo Shotgun like Hog that deals huge damage up close. Similarly to Doomfist, Winter Soldier has a Rocket Punch that launches enemies vertical instead of straight back. When his ultimate, Kraken Impact, comes up he flys up and slams down like Doom’s Meteor Strike. Even better though, Winter Soldier can gets his Ultimate meter instantly reset if his targeted enemy dies from or just after being hit by the ult.
Adam Warlock’s Ultimate is literally Mercy’s team rez from the early days of OW1. Karmic Revival, however, can additionally rez allies who die at any point during its 10 second duration, but all revived allies come back with roughly 30% of max health.
When his Team-Up ability with Star-Lord or Mantis is activated, they can instantly get rez’d at the position of their choosing. Also his main healing ability, Avatar Life Stream can be thought of as a mini version of Mercy Valkyrie healing. The same way Valkyrie healing chains to multiple allies and gives Mercy self healing, Warlock targets one ally with Avatar Life Stream and that healing chains to nearby teammates while also giving healing to himself.
With his healing resources having only limited availability, Warlock spends most of his time focusing on dealing damage. Much like Zenyatta, he has two types of projectile attacks. His primary fire is a repeated single fire shot and his secondary fire adds additional projectiles the longer it is channeled. Both heroes output higher average damage over time with primary fire or can surprise a target with a huge burst of damage from a fully charged secondary fire!
The ferociously mischievous shark is one of the more unique characters of Marvel Rivals. His ability to dive underground with Hide and Seek may appear similar to Venture’s Burrow but the two function very differently. Jeff’s dorsal fin remains above ground and can be damaged, he can climb up, across walls and down walls, whereas Burrow makes Venture invulnerable, but has a slower cast time, and she’s completely exposed when going off a ledge.
For healing abilities, Joyful Splash works like Moira’s Biotic Grasp heal, in that each function as an AoE healing spray which goes through multiple allies. The Land Shark also gives out Healing Bubbles that simultaneously heal allies and amplifies the healing received from all other sources just like Ana’s Biotic Nade when used to heal allies.
Like Ana, Jeff needs to thoroughly consider positioning because he is very susceptible to enemy flanks and dives.
The god of mischief provides high damage and good healing for his team. Like Ana’s unscoped primary fire, Loki’s staff shoots out projectiles that both damage enemies and heal allies. Both the healing and damage projectiles explode on impact dealing additional healing/damage in the AoE similar to Baptiste’s healing projectile. Loki’s ult is Echo Copy with the additional option to copy his own allies!
The moment Loki becomes another hero he immediately has ult ready, so he doesn’t have to build it like Echo. If Loki is killed during his ult, however, he dies for real rather than becoming Loki again. An Immortality Field like ability called Regeneration Domain not only prevents death but also converts damage to healing.
The final hero Loki resembles is Sombra since he too can turn invisible for extended periods of time and freely run around the enemy team unseen.
Playing as Luna Snow feels an awful lot like playing Kiriko. Both output incredible amounts of healing and Luna’s Dark Ice primary fire is nearly identical to Kiriko’s Kunai.
Luna doesn’t possess an auto aim heal like Kiri, instead, the same shot both heals and damages like Ana primary fire. Zenyatta also shares qualities of Luna’s kit. Share The Stage is Luna’s version of Zen’s healing orb which attaches to an ally and continually heals them as she heals anyone with her primary fire heal.
Her stun, Absolute Zero, travel speed is close to Ana’s sleep dart and freezes the enemy in place for about the same 3.5 seconds that Ana sleeps people for. Last but certainly not least, Luna’s ult rapidly heals all allies in an AoE just like Zen’s Transcendance.
Her ult is super powerful, and if the team doesn’t need the healing Luna can switch to a damage boost AoE instead.
For players who like to focus on enabling their teammates instead of trying to be a solo playmaker, Mantis is an excellent choice. She provides both healing and damage boost to allies which makes her function in any team comp very similar to Mercy.
Soul Resurgence gives Mantis Brigitte’’s Rally in the sense that she provides simultaneous heal over time and speed boost for the duration of the ult. Players who use Mantis have to be aware of resource management since her Life Orbs which allow Mantis to heal and damage boost run out and can be restocked by landing headshots with her primary fire.
Therefore the ability to consistently land critical hits is a crucial component of Mantis’ kit just as it is with Kiriko. The same way Moira runs out of heals and is forced to offensively engage the enemy to regain resources is how Mantis’ Life Orb mechanic functions.
Rocket Racoon could be understood at the Baptiste of Marvel Rivals. He has great damage from his primary fire which shoots projectiles like Sojourn’s Rail Gun.
Additionally, he shoots healing orbs with secondary fire Repair Mode like Baptiste except his orbs continue to bounce around the map like a Moira heal orb. The strongest tool in the raccoon’s arsenal has to be the B.R.B. (Battle Rebirth Beacon) which instantly Mercy resurrects a fallen ally at its location.
Rocket throws down the B.R.B. like Baptiste throws down an immortality field because both deployables have low HP and are best placed behind cover where the enemy cannot destroy them. Have you been missing Orisa’s Bongo from OW1?
Now you can once again enjoy instantly giving your entire team a huge damage boost as Rocket throws out his ult, C.Y.M. (Cosmic Yarn Amplifier) with almost identical properties as Orsia’s old Bongo.
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