Marvel RivalsMarvel Rivals Black Panther Character Guide

The super-powered king of Wakanda lies in wait to pounce upon enemy backlines. Out of all the heroes in Marvel Rivals, T’Challa has some of the best mobility. Combine his high mobility with bonus health generation and you have a hero who can survive deep in enemy space all on his own.

Unfortunately for the king, players can’t afford to mess up his dash reset because a single mistake often costs him his life.

Whether he scoring solo eliminations or just getting the enemies to use up all their resources, Black Panther can be a lethal asset to any team he is on.

Find out where Black Panther ranks in our Marvel Rivals tier list.

TLDR

As

• Vibranium Mark management. The most important factor in playing Black Panther is to keep track of what enemies are marked, and how many more times you can apply a mark.
• Flank. Never enter into fights head-on, you want to try and take your enemy by surprise and not have taken any damage before initiating your attack.
• Plan your escape. While dumping all your abilities can help secure KOs, your primary objective needs to be staying alive. Plan an escape route like a wall you can run up, or save either a dash or kick to run away.

Against

• When a Black Panther is giving your team a lot of trouble, the easiest solution is to swap to either Peni Paker or Namor. Set up mines and turrets near the heroes he’s trying to attack to shut him down. 
• Heal through his attacks. His damage is much slower than it seems and even when he has ult, his damage can be out-healed.
• Don’t get isolated, and don’t ignore him. If T’Challa finds you alone, he has the advantage. Likewise, if he’s trying to isolate your teammates, make sure to turn around and help them fight him.

Strengths

Extremely Evasive

Dashes, spin kicks, wall runs, and double jumps make him extremely evasive and challenging to track. Other than Cloak & Dagger, Strategists all greatly struggle to KO Black Panther due to the difficulty of landing abilities on him.

Survivability

Every time he earns a Spirit Rend refresh by dashing into a Vibranium Marked enemy, he generates 30HP of bonus health. The ability to chain together dash resets has Panther constantly generating bonus health and gives him a high level of survivability.

Backline Threat

The king of Wakanda is the king of harassing enemy backlines. The enemy can never relax when Panther is alive since he can pounce at a moment's notice. In order to survive his combos, they have to use defensive resources, and if he gets enough of them out, the rest of his team has an opportunity to make a huge play.

Weaknesses

Lacks Versatility

The gameplay loop of Black Panther is very linear. Stage, look for a grounded and isolated enemy, Spear Toss, Dash, etc. He doesn’t have any other way to get value so this makes him predictable. He also struggles to adapt his playstyle against counters due to the limited practical uses of his abilities.

High Skill Floor/Ceiling

Duelists with projectile weapons are pretty straightforward. Aim and fire at the enemy. Black Panther’s ability can’t just be used, they have to be strategically planned out and combed together. He takes time to learn just the basics and is even more difficult to master.

Triple Strategist

Against triple Strategist team comps, he’s not killing anyone. The top-level Rivals community has jokingly been calling Black Panther the tickle monster because it feels as if he is merely tickling rather than attacking the enemy. As this strategy has been rising in popularity, the high sustain of triple Strategist comps makes them the worst team comp to run Panther into.

Primary Fire: Vibranium Claws

Tips for Primary Fire: Vibranium Claws

• Although Vibranium Claws are his primary fire, they should be your least-used ability.
• • You don’t want to be stationary, standing next to your opponent for extended periods and holding down primary fire
  • Instead, focus on using his other abilities as your primary source of damage.
• Good for finishing off targets.
• • Often after a combo, the enemy will be left with a sliver of health. Chase them down and use Vibranium Claws to get the last hits in.

Secondary Fire: Spear Toss

Tips for Spear Toss

• Combo Starter
• • The vast majority of the time, you’ll want to begin your attack with a Spear Toss. From behind, above, or the side, attach the Mark and immediately go in the dash resets.
• Aim between enemies
• • Always try to take advantage of the explosion radius and attach Vibranium Marks to as many enemies as possible. This raises your damage and gives you an easier time chaining dashes together.

[SHIFT]: Spirit Rend

Tips for Spirit Rend

• Engage and Disengage
• • Panther’s entire gameplay loop revolves around Spirit Rend and its resets. 
  • Keep track of Spear Toss and Spinning Kick availability. If you don’t have either to attach a Vibranuim Mark, use your final Spirit Rend to disengage rather than attack.
• Do not miss
• • Ideally, you’d never miss an ability on any hero, but if you miss your Spirit Rend with Panther, you are definitely not killing the enemy and you are most likely dying yourself. 
  • • Taking the time to line up your dashes is more important than dashing back and forth at lightning speed.
• End out of your target FOV
• • Your Dash always needs to be followed by a Spear or Kick, so you never want to end your dash and be standing right in front of the enemy.
  • • Try to use dash sideways, or finish behind the enemy, so they have difficulty adjusting their aim to you.

[E]: Spinning Kick

Tips for Spinning Kick

• Higher Damage way to attach Vibranium Mark
• • Spinning Kick deals nearly twice the damage as Spear Toss. The main purpose of both abilities is to apply the Mark, but when you need a bit more damage, Spinning Kick is the better choice.
• Escape
• • Instantly doing two Spirit Rend dashes back and forth is your fastest burst of damage. Doing so will leave you without a reset, however, so you’ll want to save Spinning Kick to escape from the enemy with your life.

[SPACE]: Subtle Step

Tips for Subtle Step

• Wall Run
• • Wall running is your best ability for setting up your surprise flank attacks. Wall run to high ground areas where you can get an overhead view of the battlefield and pick out the perfect target to Spear and jump on.
• Double Jump
• • Running up a wall and double jumping is excellent mid fight for evading damage and buying a bit of time to refresh cooldowns. 
  • Double jump over your target, chuck a spear and go into your standard combos.

[Q] Ultimate: Bast's Descent

Tips for Bast's Descent

• Large AoE
• • Bast’s Descent has a very wide hitbox and attaches Marks to everyone in the ults path. 
• Don’t Dasht through everyone at once
• • If you can angle your dashes to hit some Marked enemies, but leave some targets with a Mark still on them, you’ll be able to dash reset more times before having to use Spear or Kick to apply a new Mark.
• Secure KOs
• • Focus on using your ult to convert your combo damage into actual eliminations. 
• Watch for stuns
• • The startup animation of Black Panther’s ult is the easiest time for the enemy to stun him. Try to be behind where enemies with stuns are looking when activating your ult.

[PASSIVE]: Panther's Cunning

Tips for Panther's Cunning

• Don’t try to purposely activate
• • 20% damage boost can be very helpful but you should never be trying to get so close to death just to gain a slight increase in damage.
• Clutch duels
• • As you are dueling an enemy, and you are both damaging each other, sometimes that last second boost in damage will help turn the tides in your favor and win a closely matched duel.

[C] Team-up: Wakandan Master

Tips for Wakandan Master

• Temporary health
• • The health you get back is shield HP which depletes after a few seconds, so make sure you get healed back up before reentering the fight. 
• Dump all your CDs
• • When you have Wakandan Master rewind available, you can dump all of your cooldowns and use the portal rewind to escape and start refreshing the rest of your abilities.

Combos

Both Combos deal the exact damage needed to KO. If an enemy started at full health and gets any healing during your attacks, they will likely survive.

• 250 HP
• • Spear -> Dash -> Spear -> Dash
• 275 HP
• • Spear -> Dash -> Kick -> Dash

Team Comp Synergies

Team comps built around Black Panther enable his flanker playstyle. The king of Wakanda can struggle to secure solo elims, so he wants allies who can follow him into enemy territory and attack the same targets as him.

Teammates will be receiving zero protection from Panther, so he pairs best with heroes who have good survivability. The goal of Black Panther is to disrupt and distract the enemy backlines and get them to use up their cooldowns on him.

T’Challa doesn’t need to kill, but he does need allies who can quickly take advantage of the opportunities he creates. If the enemy’s strategists had to use their stuns, escapes, and healing abilities to survive your attack, call for the rest of your team to hard engage as they’ll have a short but major advantage in the fight.

• Vanguards: Hulk, Magneto
• Duelists: Black Panther, Magik
• Strategists: Adam Warlock, Clock & Dagger

Hero Synergies

Vanguards: Hulk

Leaping into the backlines with his Wakandan ally, Hulk can either be the one to initiate or follow up on T’Challa’s attacks. The two diving heroes also divide up the attention and resources of the defenders and can easily get in and get out as needed. While it may not be easy, Hulk can also help deal with fliers who Black Panther essentially has zero counterplay against.

Duelists: Magik

You want the Team-Up, but more importantly, you want her burst damage. All you have to do as a Black Panther Magik duo is attack at the same time from opposite sides. The sudden burst of damage and chaos is extremely difficult for any non-Vanguard enemy to survive against. The one downside is they both get countered by the same heroes so you’ll need other teammates to make up for their weaknesses.

Strategists: Adam Warlock

Warock’s healing isn’t much help to Panther as they’ll usually be positioned outside each other's range. With all his bonus health, Panther doesn’t need to rely on healing to survive. Instead, he needs coordinated damage and someone to deal with fliers. Warlock's constant ranged damage makes him the best Strategist to perform both of these tasks. Additionally, during really aggressive pushes, Soul Bond greatly increases Bast’s Descent’s lethality as Panther can just focus on rapidly chaining dashes and not worry about getting picked.