Marvel RivalsMarvel Rivals Phoenix Character Guide

Phoenix is the newest hero to join the Marvel Rivals roster for Season 3!

Her fiery kit makes her one of the deadliest flankers because she has burst damage, mobility, and self-sustain.

Telekinesis Burst (Secondary fire) can easily stun targets from nearly infinite range, so her enemies have to always be on guard. The ability is a hard stun so it can cancel ults like Dr. Strange's Eye of Agamotto.

Once she has ult online, any enemy with a Shield, Bonus Health, or deployable has to play cautiously and strategically because Endsong Inferno destroys them all with its massive AoE.

The power of her ult makes Bonus Health or Deployable ults completely useless, so if the enemy team has a good Rocket Raccoon, Phoenix is an easy hard counter.

Find out where Phoenix ranks in our Marvel Rivals tier list.

TLDR

As

• Stay on the edges of team fights. Phoenix is best played as a soft flanker. Attack the enemy from the side and divide their attention
• Focus on triggering Spark explosions. To maximize damage and self-sustain, prioritize attacking targets with Sparks already applied.
• Take advantage of your mobility and self-healing instead of depending on team healing resources. When your health is low, trigger your healing and disengage.

Against

• Play spread out. Every Spark explosion applies a Spark to nearby heroes, so position spaced out from your teammates.
• If your ult is a deployable or grants Bonus Health, make sure to save it until after Phoenix uses hers or she will hard counter you.
• When she ults, quickly focus fire her while she's floating before she has time to dive bomb and you can kill her.

Strengths

Equally strong in 1v1s and firing into groups

In 1v1s, Phoenix can combo primary, secondary, and SHIFT for big burst damage and rapid triggering of Spark explosions. Then she starts healing herself and makes it almost impossible to win the duel. When firing into groups of enemies, every Spark explosion applies a Spark to all enemies hit. This allows her to continually stack Spark explosions on subsequent enemies. Both Telekinesis Burst and Endsong Inferno have larger AoE and are best used against crowds.

Self-sufficient

Phoenix has two movement abilities, self-healing and a get out of jail free card in her ult. She can be very difficult to kill and doesn't need to rely on allies to peel or save her. Between her damage and sustain, Phoenix is free to take flanks and go on solo missions separate from her team.

Ultimate Counters Everything

Enemies with Barriers either have to recall them while Phoenix is ulting, thus exposing themselves, or keep them deployed to get instantly destroyed. Ults like Rocket, Mantis, Venom, and, Captain America that grant Bonus Health are hard countered by Endsong Inferno. The Bonus Health gets destroyed and makes them and their allies easy kills.

Weaknesses

Mechanically demanding and complex

Phoenix requires steady aim, quick decision making, and the muscle memory to execute cancels and combos. She can be very fun and rewarding but has a higher than average skill floor. If you don't have the mechanics to consistently land successive shots and trigger Spark explosions, you're going to struggle on Phoenix.

Ult is not good for initiating

Unlike most Duelist ults, Endsong Inferno is primarily useful as a counter-ultimate. When your team is struggling to take space or secure the first kill, Phoenix's ult won't be very helpful unless you have a Luna ult damage boost. Her ult won't win a fight on its own or get a team wipe unless the enemy is already very low health.

Weak against dive

While she has good mobility, her only true escape is on a long 12-second cooldown and travels only a short distance. Dive heroes like Spider-Man can be difficult for Phoenix to hit, and have an easy time chasing you down. Against multiple dive heroes, good positioning becomes crucial to your survival because she'll get run over.

Primary Fire: Cosmic Flames

Tips for Cosmic Flames

Prioritize Spark explosions

• Try to keep attacking the same target until you can apply the 3rd Spark. You'll want to trigger explosions as often as possible for the burst damage and self-healing

Strong into groups

• Even though the attack can only hit one person at a time, the explosions apply Sparks to nearby heroes. Firing into groups farms ult faster and effectively reduces to only needing two body shot or one critical hit to trigger each followup explosion.

Secondary Fire: Telekinesis Burst

Tips for Telekinesis Burst

Only the first flame stuns

• When planning to stun an enemy out of their ult, be sure to direct hit the first explosion.
• Save Burst for channeled ults like Doctor Strange, Psylocke, and Scarlet Witch that can be cancelled.

Good for poking

• Becuase Phoenix can select an area anywhere in her LoS and the Spark explosions and aren't affected by damage falloff, Phoenix is really good at long range poking.

Blocked by walls

• Flames do not penetrate walls. The ability ends when it colides with terrain and won't fire the remaining explosions.

[E]: Dark Ascent

Tips for Dark Ascent

Reposition

• Get into flank positions quickly with Dark Ascent. Once the enemy starts trying to counter attack, activate it again to get away to safety.

Increase your uptime

• Instead of always reloading manually, take advantage of the ammo replenish to stay in the fight.

[SHIFT]: Telepathic Illusion

Tips for Telepathic Illusion

Spark combos

• Primary fire, secondary fire, SHIFT, and Ult all apply Sparks. You can get creative cancels and combos to quickly trigger Spark explosions.
• • Headshot → SHIFT
  • Bodyshot → melee → SHIFT
  • Right Click → Bodyshot →Right SHIFT
  • etc.

Escape

• Combine with Dark Ascent for rapid movement and achieve maximum evasiveness.
• Phoenix moves in the held direction or in the direction of your camera.

Ultimate [Q]: Endsong Inferno

Tips for Endsong Inferno

Counters, Deployables and Summons

• Barriers, shields, Groot Walls, Turrets, and all other deployables are instantly destroyed by your ult. The radius is huge which makes it easy to destroy everything the team has out.

Counters BONUS HEALTH abilities and ults

• Rocket, Venom, Mantis, Cap, the Bonus Health of Storm Ult, and any other ability that grants Bonus Health just gets deleted by Enson Inferno. The damage dealt ignores the Bonus Health and is calculated after the Bonus Health is destroyed.

One-shot when boosted by Luna Ult

• On its own, the damage is not particularly good for a Duelist ult, but with he 40% damage boost from Luna, Phoenix can oneshot 250HP heroes.

Positioning

• Phoenix always reappears where she cast the ult, not where she lands and explodes
• She can't use it to traverse the map quickly. But it comes in handy because you don't end up in danger like Human Torch Meteor Strike.

2nd Life Escape

• You can activate the ult when near death because Phoenix heals herself for 250 Health.
• Can't be killed during the 20 seconds of free flight.
• Can be killed while floating before activating dive bomb.

Team-up Ability [Passive]: Mind's Grace

Tips for Mind's Grace

• Extremely strong for Wolverine. The Team-Up is worth players swapping if they are comfortable with the picks.

Team Comp Synergies

Team comps built around Phoenix enable her poke and flank playstyles by providing direct assistance through sustain or by pulling attention away from her.

Traditional Poke comps work great with Phoenix because the frontline protects her from damage which frees her up to spam and continuously trigger explosions.

She also fits surprisingly well into Dive comps because she has good mobility, self-sustain, and outputs a lot of off-angle pressure. The divide and conquer style of Dive creates a lot of openings for Phoenix to catch enemies off guard with her burst damage combos.

Example of a team comp built around Phoenix

• Vanguards: Magneto, Emma Frost
• Duelists: Phoenix, Wolverine
• Strategists: Luna Snow, Mantis

Hero Synergies

Vanguard: Magneto

Magneto is the best Vanguard to run with Phoenix because of his frontline control and damage mitigation. Phoenix can either play behind Magneto and use him for protection, or play on soft flanks where Mag can bubble her when she goes for a high-risk, high-reward play.

Every time Magneto has ult, it's a direct threat to the enemies' backline. The most common way they survive his ult is getting shielded by an ally. Phoenix's ult destroys all deployed barriers, so the only counterplay to their ult combo is outmaneuvering the Magneto.

Duelists: Wolverine

Wolverine has always been a menace to Vanguards, and with the new Lifesteal Team-Up Ability with Phoenix, he's on a whole other level!

Simply pick these two heroes and have Phoenix pressure the Strategists while Wolverine snatches and kills a Vanguard. They are one of the strongest pairings going into Season 3.

Strategists: Mantis

The Season 3 Version of Mantis makes her a better healer and enabler than ever. Mantis can stack 16 seconds of healing and damage boost onto Phoenix, who then becomes an unstoppable backline assassin.

While Phoenix's self-healing is slow, and Mantis' healing is the lowest of any Strategist, together, it is more than enough sustain for Phoenix to play super aggro.