Marvel Rivals Roles Explained

The Marvel Rivals roles are divided into three main categories: Vanguard, Duelist, and Strategist. While every hero within each of these roles varies greatly from one another, there are overarching themes in their designs and abilities.

Below, we’ll break down each role, their shared qualities, how they function in their respective role, and what qualities separate the three roles from one another.

Based on what type of play style you prefer, knowing the purpose each role serves in any given match can help you narrow down your choice of what heroes you’d most enjoy taking the time to learn.

How Marvel Rivals Roles Work (FAQ)

Are roles locked?

As of now, Marvel Rivals roles are NOT locked. This makes it similar to the early days of Overwatch when you could have no limits in choosing heroes as long as everyone on your team chose a different hero.

This means you can play with six Vanguards, five Strategists + one Duelist, and so on.

Can I swap to a different role?

Unlike VALORANT where you are stuck with your agent choice for the duration of a match, you can switch to a different hero (that isn't selected by your team) when you die.

Will more roles be added to Marvel Rivals?

The likely answer is no, as the game is mirroring the roles of Overwatch. DPS is Duelist, Tank is Vanguard, and Support is Strategist.

• Captain America
• Doctor Strange
• Groot
• Hulk / Bruce Banner
• Magneto
• Peni Parker
• Thor
• Venom

Vanguards are the tanks of Marvel Rivals. These heroes tend to be physically bigger and have significantly larger health pools than Duelists and Strategists.

Their large health pools allow Vanguards to stay alive longer and soak up damage from the enemy team without dying. To give them further survivability, each of these heroes also have at least one way to block or mitigate damage.

Abilities like Groot's Ironwood Wall, Dr. Strange's Shield of Seraphim, and Hulk’s Indestructible Guard can completely protect heroes from sustaining any damage. Huge amounts of HP and these damage-mitigating abilities make Vanguards the perfect front line in a team's assault against their enemies.

At the beginning of every match, both teams come out of spawn and generally have 30 seconds to fight for position before the objective becomes active. During this crucial time, whichever team's Vanguards are able to take more space or control more areas of the map will have a massive advantage in winning both the team fight and the objective.

The heroes advancing forward first naturally take the most amount of damage as they are the first targets the enemies can attack. That is why it is crucial to have a minimum of at least one Vanguard in every team composition because if a Duelist or Strategist is the frontal focus of the enemy's attack, they will be instantly sent back to spawn.

The responsibility of contesting the objective and controlling choke points typically falls onto the Vanguards. When both teams are contesting a Domination control point, Vanguard survivability allows them to stay on an objective to continue making capture progress or prevent the enemy team from making capture progress.

No Duelist or Strategist hero can possibly compete with the gargantuan 1550 health of Monster Hulk as he boops the enemy off the objective to gain complete control.

Furthermore, damage mitigation abilities like Magneto’s Magnetic Curtain can save their entire team from certain death by ults like Scarlet Witch’s Reality Erasure.

Peni Parker and Groot excel at creating advantageous positions through environment-manipulating abilities. The ability to create walls at will to section off enemy teams or create cover to hide behind allows Groot to make the battlefield itself be an asset to his allies.

Peni Parker's mines turn the floor into a hazard which forces enemies to waste their cooldowns to bypass the hazard, give up time repathing or use their resources to destroy them.

• Black Panther
• Black Widow
• Hawkeye
• Hela
• Iron Fist
• Iron Man
• Magik
• Mister Fantastic
• Moon Knight
• Namor
• Psylocke
• Scarlet Witch
• Spider-Man
• Squirrel Girl
• Star-Lord
• Storm
• The Punisher
• Winter Soldier
• Wolverine

The heroes whose design centers around maximum damage output are called Duelists. They typically have abilities that only affect themselves. Players will normally find that Duelist heroes are best positioned in front of their team's Strategists but behind their team's Vanguards, or on the enemy's flank. All of their ultimate abilities are also focused on damage and eliminations.

Marvel Rivals has a lot of damage mitigation from Vanguard abilities like Groot’s Vine Walls and Magneto’s shield. Due to all the ways to block damage, it can be extremely effective for Duelist heroes to play on off angles from their teams.

If a Duelist stands immediately behind their Vanguard allies, the majority of their team's projectiles and attacks will be coming from one single direction and therefore can be easily blocked by the enemy Vanguard’s damage mitigating abilities.

The pool of selectable Duelist heroes is more than double that of available Vanguard or Strategist heroes. Due to the higher number of options, it can be helpful to organize Duelists into smaller subcategories.

The kits of each Duelist emphasize either ranged or melee abilities. Ranged damage simply means a hero can best output damage on their enemies from a distance and melee damage requires super close striking range.

Based on their abilities we can categorize them under ranged poke, ranged flying, ranged flanker, melee, and frontline Duelist. Heroes who position themselves in the frontline like a Vanguard, have high sustain and a specialized role against the enemy Vanguards fall into the frontline Duelist subcategory.

Here are some examples:

Ranged Poke

• Black Widow
• Hawkeye
• Hela
• Moon Knight
• Namor
• The Punisher
• Squirrel Girl

Ranged Flying

• Iron Man
• Storm

Ranged Flanker

• Psylocke
• Star-Lord
• Scarlet Witch

Melee

• Black Panther
• Iron Fist
• Magik
• Mister Fantastic
• Spider-man
• Wolverine

Frontline Duelist

• Mister Fantastic
• Winter Soldier
• Wolverine

Every hero can technically be used in any style, and every hero can flank or choose to play at range, but each hero’s kit is primarily optimized for one of these styles. Flankers have good movement abilities and ways to quickly reposition during an engagement like Star-Lord's Stellar Shift.

The best flankers have escape tools such as Scarlet Witch’s Mystic Projection to get out of a fight alive after effectively confirming a kill or taking up the attention and resources of the enemy team. Melee heroes are inherently designed for some type of flanking since they are forced to get in close to their opponents and a frontal assault often results in them losing half their life before they even have a chance to deal damage themselves. Spider-Man can use Web Swing to quickly approach the enemy while making himself a difficult target to hit.

• Adam Warlock
• Cloak and Dagger
• Invisible Woman
• Jeff the Land Shark
• Loki
• Luna Snow
• Mantis
• Rocket Raccoon

The primary function of a Strategist hero is to enable and support their allies. Typically they will be positioned behind the rest of their team. Healing the damage dealt by the enemy is the main way Strategists support their team.

Luna Snow’s ult outputs such an immense amount of healing that it is near impossible to die no matter how much damage is taken while in its area of effect.

Although healing remains an important component of a Strategist’s kit, their true power lies in properly combining every supportive ability in their arsenal. Mantis, Luna Snow, and Rocket Racoon all have ways to damage boost their allies. There are many occasions where enabling an ally by damage boosting their abilities is far stronger than spamming heals.

Additionally, Mantis and Luna both have a stun ability which creates opportunities for their allies to easily land attacks on the immobilized target. A single ability like Rocket’s B.R.B. which resurrects a fallen ally can change the outcome of an entire match all on its own.

Strategist is a fitting name for the function these heroes serve because strategy is of the utmost importance when choosing when, where, and on whom to use their abilities. When Loki has his ult available he can choose to become any hero on either team. Depending on the specific situation and which heroes are in his current LOS (line of sight), the best target for God of Mischief can completely change.

Does the team need Loki to use a huge Duelist ult like The Punisher? Perhaps the enemy is retreating, and becoming Mantis will provide the speed needed to pursue and finish off the enemies. Maybe the final fight for the objective in Domination means using Peni Parker ult to cover the battlefield in mines would be the strongest move. Strategists have to make complex split-second decisions like these over and over again throughout a match.