Marvel RivalsMarvel Rivals Black Widow Character Guide

Natasha Romanova is the only sniper you’ll ever play who doesn’t one-shot with headshots. Armed with a sniper rifle and her batons, Black Widow requires a high level of mechanical skill and a deep understanding of hero movement patterns.

If you can click heads, you’ll still have a lot of success with Widow as long as you're receiving damage boosts from either Mantis or Storm.

The only things holding back Natasha, besides player skill, are the raw stats and damage numbers of her abilities. Even with a damage boost to enable one-shots on 250HP heroes, less than half of the roster falls into that category.

Those who still choose to play her for the challenge and enjoyment of sniping do well when they constantly change their positioning and keep the enemy unaware of where her next headshot will come from.

She may receive a minor buff that changes her breakpoints and makes Widow a meta pick, so don’t let her current power stop you from playing her if she’s who you enjoy.

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

TLDR

How to Play As

• Always follow up Edge Dancer’s zip kick with a rifle shot. The enemy is briefly stunned and unable to dodge.
• Combo the slow of your ult, with the AoE damage of a teammate's ult like Namor.
• Ask for a teammate to play Mantis, and for them to constantly have damage boost applied to you. Otherwise, you won’t be able to KO 250HP enemies with a headshot.

How to Play Against

• Avoid long sight lines and her LoS. Widow has the advantage at super long ranges, so stay hidden from her.
• Ping her location. Alert your teammates of her position by pinging her so they can be prepared to avoid her LoS.
• The easiest way to shut her down is by using a hero who has the mobility to quickly get to her position and either KO her or force her to retreat. Every role has a hero who can flank her.

Strengths

No falloff damage when scoped

Black Widow has the only hitscan weapon with no falloff damage. The slow rechamber speed and difficulty of landing a lot of headshots hold her back, but she still has the advantage in areas with long sight lines.

Oneshot potential

When damage boosted, she has one of the few non-ultimate abilities capable of eliminating an enemy in a single instance of damage. Oneshots have immeasurable potential in Marvel Rivals because of the high amounts of healing. Black Widow can kill Cloak & Dagger during their ult as an example of her potential power when damage boosted.

Versatile melee and ranged kit

Most heroes just get one or the other, but Natasha has both extremes. She can use Edge Dancer to combo the enemy to death at melee range. No other sniper kit hero has a melee kit to go with it like Widow does.

Weaknesses

Relies on allied damage boosts

Without a damage boost, she is a super hard-to-use sniper who doesn’t even kill when she lands the rare headshot. Even when paired with Mantis, she can’t realistically have a damage boost at all times. Damage boost from ults like Rocket Racoon opens up the possibility of 300HP hero elims but for such a tiny window.

Extremely limited in who she can potentially oneshot

There are only 15 heroes who widow can potentially KO with a single headshot. She gets the most value when eliminating a Strategist, but Luna, Mantis, and Invisible Woman all have 275HP, so they can never be one shot even with a regular damage boost.

Nearly useless ultimate

Most top Widow players just use their ult to follow up their headshots that didn’t kill. The fact that she has to charge up and then fire a slow-moving projectile gives the enemy team too much time to prepare their countermeasures.

Primary Fire 1: Widow's Bite Baton

Tips for Primary Fire 1: Widow's Bite Baton

Situational swaps

• Since you’ll mostly have your rifle out, look out for a few scenarios where you’ll want to swap to your batons.
• • Damages through shields
  • Example: If an enemy like Dr. Strange jumps on you, switch to your batons after landing a couple of shots to keep attacking him while he’s shielding.
• You are in a close-range fight, and out of ammo
• Dueling a melee enemy whose movement is difficult for you to track.
• Melee combo starter (see tips for Edge Dancer).

Primary Fire 2: Red Room Rifle

Tips for Primary Fire 2: Red Room Rifle

Stay unscoped at close range

• Falloff damage doesn’t begin until 10 meters, and close-range shots are easier to hit unscoped.

Look for low-health enemies

• Even a body shot starts at 120dmg and can be a reliable way of finishing off enemies already at low health.

Harsh falloff damage

• At only 20m away, you are already only dealing 50% of regular damage so a headshot would only deal 120dmg. Make sure to scope in unless very close.

Secondary Fire: Straight Shooter

Tips for Secondary Fire: Straight Shooter

Maintain distance

• As the only true sniper in the game, Widow has the advantage against the rest of the cast in long-range engagements.

Can’t quick scope

• If you’re familiar with quick scoping in other games, it doesn’t function the same for Black Widow. Only after a minimum of 0.3 seconds spent scoped in will she gain infinite damage range and not have falloff damage.
• You can still quick scope to help with accuracy, but know at ranges past 10m you will be dealing reduced damage.

Always use cover

• Never stand in the open when ADS. You are a super easy target. You can also use cover to hide a portion of your body or to make your shot timing less predictable.

Watch for movement patterns

• Things like jumping, falling, or certain movement abilities like Spider-Man’s Get Over Here to Amazing Combo have fixed movement patterns.
• If you learn these patterns and then watch for them, you’ll be giving yourself multiple opportunities for easy headshots.

[SHIFT]: Fleet Foot

Tips for [SHIFT]: Fleet Foot

Change positions frequently

• Use sprint to constantly reposition where you are sniping from. When the enemy doesn't know what angle you are shooting from, landing shots is much easier.

Jump Shots

• When enemies are safe behind barriers, walls, and shields, use Fleet Foot jump to leap into the air, ADS, and get a shot in.

Save at least half energy to escape

• Never get caught without any sprint resource. You’ll want to save a bit in case you suddenly need to run and jump away from where you just ran to.

[E]: Edge Dancer

Tips for [E]: Edge Dancer

Her most underrated ability

• • Normally, the way to get an easy kill on a sniper is to dive them and get in their face. Edge Dancer combos make Widow dangerous at melee range as well.
  • Swap to your batons to get in more damage before using Edge Dancer’s knockback.

Melee Combo:

• • 2 baton hits -> Edge Dancer spin kick -> zip kick -> unscoped shot
  • KOs 275HP heroes

Ultimate: Electro-Plasma Explosion

Tips for Ultimate: Electro-Plasma Explosion

Great for finishing off enemies behind cover

• The large AoE of the ult allows you to shoot at the floor next to a target hiding behind cover.
• When you almost KO’d someone and they are retreating, look to convert the elim with the explosion

Large AoE for damage, slow, and Vulnerability

• Target grouped-up enemies, and they’ll all take damage plus be significantly slowed by the 80% movement penalty debuff

Team-Up: Pulse Rifle

Tips for Pulse Rifle

Can't critical hit

• Landing headshots is kind of the whole point of playing Black Widow. Activating the Team-Up can be a nerf to your lethality.
• Remember to cancel the ability when you need to go for one-shot kills again.

Good for spam damage

• Pulse Rifle shots have an increased rate of fire, which makes it good when trying to finish off low HP enemies.

Animation Cancel

• Fire one Straight Shooter, then immediately activate Pulse Rifle and fire.
• The activation cancels your recovery animation and allows Widow to quickly fire two shots.
• Great "one-shot" combo if you land a headshot with Straight Shooter, then a body shot from Pulse Rifle.

Piercing effect is niche

• Natasha is best positioned on off angles and soft flanks where the enemy can be caught by surprise. Her positioning and target prioritization don't put her in many situations where multiple enemies are in a straight line with one another.

Farm ult

• Against enemy teams playing stacked behind each other, you can farm your ult faster by using Pulse Rifle over your standard ADS shots.

Team Comp Synergies

Team comps built around Black Widow contest space for her, and make it difficult for flankers to get behind her. She wants a stable frontline that takes up a lot of the enemy's attention so she has more time to line up her shots before being shot at.

Her advantage in map areas with long sight lines helps her Vangaurds to contest space as standing in her LoS makes them vulnerable to big burst damage from headshots.

Running shield comps gives Widow the freedom to position directly in front of the enemy team behind the safety of her team's shields. Most importantly, Widow wants Mantis, or another form of damage boost which empowers her to KO with a single headshot.

Team Comp Example

• Vanguards: Magneto, Strange
• Duelists: Black Widow, Spider-Man
• Strategists: Mantis, Loki

Hero Synergies

Vanguards: Dr. Strange

Strange has the best shield to enable Widow’s sniper playstyle. Since he can activate it at any point, they can coordinate much easier and Widow can watch for when Strange is staying forward and shielding. He also mitigates a lot of the poke damage that would either threaten to KO her or force her to play slow and wait for healing.

Duelists: Spider-Man

Neither of these heroes are currently well known for their consistency. As a specialist duo, they are surprisingly lethal and super hard for non-Vanguards to deal with. When Widow attacks first, the damaged target is easy for Spider-Man to zip to and finish off. If Spidey goes first, his web pull and uppercut give Widow two opportunities to land a follow-up critical hit and instantly delete any Duelist or Strategist.

Strategists: Mantis

Damage boost from Mantis’ Allied Inspiration transforms Black Widow into an actual threat. Lasting for 8 full seconds, Mantis can reapply the buff as needed. Many of the most popular Duelists and Strategists fall into the 250HP category. With Mantis’ damage boost, Widow can eliminate all 250HP enemies with a single headshot. She just needs to have the mechanical skill to do so.