Marvel Rivals characters tier list and the best heroes

The hero roster in Marvel Rivals is already large, and has expanded with the Season 1.5 update, bringing two new characters and a swathe of buffs and nerfs. With the Human Torch and The Thing to contend with in Marvel Rivals, the roster is now up to 37 characters. That's a lot to get your head around, and every hero has their strengths and weaknesses. However, we’re here to offer some guidance with our Marvel Rivals character tier list, which should give you a good idea of the current meta and which heroes you might want to consider playing.

Marvel Rivals characters and heroes explained

All Marvel Rivals characters have a primary attack and several abilities that have limited charges and cooldowns. Many also have access to passives, and when put together with the right rotation of active abilities, they can create devastating combos. Each character also has a powerful Overwatch-Ultimate-style ability that charges up as you play and can turn the tide of a fight when unleashed.

Each character also belongs to one of three roles that you'll want to bear in mind when forming your team, particularly if you're playing through Marvel Rivals ranks. There's no role-lock like in Overwatch either so it will be up to you and your team to put together a reasonable composition. As a rule of thumb, two of each role is a generally balanced approach, but there are other variances that can work - just try to avoid six Duelists.

• Vanguard – These are the tanks of Marvel Rivals, packing massive health pools and abilities that suit fighting on the frontline, protecting allies, and taking space.
• Duelists - Varied, damage-focused characters whose main job is to apply pressure to the opponent and pick off key targets when the opportunity arises.
• Strategists – These Marvel Rivals characters are the support characters, providing healing and other buffs to allies. That said, all of these characters can also hold their own in combat.

What characters your team picks can also determine the Marvel Rivals Team-Up abilities that are available. These can be passive or active abilities, with one or all the heroes involved gaining some sort of benefit. For example, having Venom on your team grants Spider-Man and Peni Parker an entirely new symbiote spike ability. While, when Black Panther and Magik are on the same team, Black Panther gains the ability to create a Limbo Disc, allowing him to teleport.

Marvel Rivals character tier list

With lots of different abilities, character roles, and Team-Ups, choosing which Marvel Rivals character speaks to you can be tricky. However, one deciding factor for you might simply be how good a character is. While any hero can work with enough perseverance, there are definitely heroes who excel in their current state. If you want to jump into one with some pre-built-in power, here are my recommendations for the current meta picks.

• S-Tier: Supremely powerful characters that work in almost any team composition and have the ability to often decide games.
  • Doctor Strange
  • Magneto (Up one tier)
  • Storm (Up one tier)
  • Winter Soldier (Up one tier)
  • Luna Snow
  • Invisible Woman (Up two tiers)
• A-Tier: Great heroes who bring plenty of power but either require a bit of support or practice for maximum effect.
  • Groot
  • The Hulk (Down one tier)
  • The Thing
  • Black Panther (Up one tier)
  • Hela (Down one tier)
  • Human Torch (New Entry)
  • Iron Man
  • Namor
  • Psylocke
  • Star-Lord
  • Cloak and Dagger (Up one tier)
  • Mantis (Down one tier)
  • Rocket Racoon (Up one tier)
• B-Tier: Good characters with solid abilities that are effective in the right hands and some game knowledge.
  • Captain America (Up one tier)
  • Thor (Down one tier)
  • Venom
  • Hawkeye
  • Magik
  • Moon Knight
  • Mr. Fantastic (Up one tier)
  • The Punisher (Up one tier)
  • Wolverine (Down one tier)
  • Loki (Down one tier)
• C-Tier: Middling heroes that can still contribute to the team effort and win games but often need one-trick specialisation or support from a team.
  • Peni Parker (Down one tier)
  • Iron Fist
  • Scarlet Witch (Up one tier)
  • Squirrel Girl
  • Adam Warlock (Down one tier)
  • Jeff the Land Shark
• D-Tier: These heroes are not awful, but they are the hardest to get consistent value out of. They can work, and even excel with enough perseverance, but most will struggle to get a lot of value.
  • Black Widow
  • Spider-Man (Down one tier)

MARVEL RIVALS S TIER HEROES

Doctor Strange

Doctor Strange is one of the most reliable Vanguards in the game and is the definition of a barrier tank. His massive Shield of the Seraphim provides ample protection and absorbs a lot of punishment. He also fires precise ranged attacks, releases short-range, area-of-effect blasts, and can fly – is there anything he can't do? Oh yeah, and his Pentagram of Farallah is a teleport that can essentially be placed anywhere on the map (even though it is funny, I’d encourage you not to teleport your team off the map). His Daggers of Denak can be tricky to aim and Dark Magic buildup needs to be carefully managed, but his versatility makes him fit to lead any team.

Magneto

Magneto's slow-firing iron projectiles make him one of the better-ranged Vanguard characters, suited more to poking approaching characters and keeping enemies at arm’s length. He also provides nearly unparalleled protection with his Metallic Curtain shield and Bulwark bubbles. Players have also figured out his ultimate now, with it being used as one of the few abilities that can kill supports while they’re using their powerful ultimates, such as Luna Snow, Mantis, and Cloak and Dagger. Even if you’re just competent with Magneto, you’re always going to be of use to your team.

Storm

Storm's meteoric rise in power from the start of Season 1 hasn't slowed even with a couple of nerfs in the midseason patch. Her damage buff to her team means as long as she’s near her allies, everyone has an implicit advantage over the enemies if they don’t have a matching Storm. She also has the strongest damage ultimate in the game, which has only become more powerful thanks to the Human Torch team-up that turns it into a fire tornado, which rounds out her very strong kit. Because of all this, she is often banned above Diamond, as players struggle to deal with her wild, airborne damage.

Winter Soldier

Bucky is a very powerful duelist who can do a lot. The Winter Soldier can act as a tankbuster once his abilities are cycled properly, but he can also work as a 1v1 flanker or someone who looks after supports. There is a rotation to learn around his attacks, and thus isn’t beginner-friendly, but he’s a very versatile damage dealer.

As players have improved with him, he’s become a real menace, pulling enemies out of position and shredding them by cycling shots. You do have to have decent accuracy, but the Winter Soldier has evolved into a server admin, especially with so many strong fliers in the game that he can easily counter.

Luna Snow

K-Pop sensation Luna Snow packs exceptional healing and is able to flip team fights with her Fate of Two Worlds Ultimate. She’s able to apply healing across heroes, allowing for big team heals too. Her ultimate is also one of the most meta-defining, as it’s very hard for her teammates to die if they are in its radius - and it can feel like it goes on forever sometimes.

She can also freeze enemies making them easier for your team to hit while allowing her to create distance between her and enemies, though Luna herself can pack a punch too. Many of her abilities also self-heal, giving her very good survivability. That’s on top of having one of the smallest character models too, so she is a pain for most Duelists to deal with.

Invisible Woman

Susan Storm has a lot going for her. She has a lot of utility, damage, and healing, giving her the trifecta any character could hope for. Her invisibility makes her very survivable if she is ever in danger, and her push and pull are exceptional for repelling flankers, with her outright canceling many of their mobility abilities if timed well. The shields she provides are very useful too.

Her ultimate is strong as well, both giving a lot of healing and concealing her team, making it very hard to kill anyone. She has it all going for her, and is absolutely one of the strongest characters in the game. She will always find value.

MARVEL RIVALS A TIER HEROES

Groot

Groot specializes in placing several plant-based barriers, shaping the battlefield to his advantage. Fittingly, enemies will feel like they are chopping through dense forests to be able to even start doing damage to a team. Groot is arguably the most defensive Vanguard hero there is and if others get too close, he can pack a punch. He can block off any major flanks, as well as threats coming down the main lane with his walls. If you want to control the battlefield at your pace and make it a slog for the enemy to get at you and your allies, Groot is as good as it gets.

The Hulk

The Hulk has really flourished as players have gotten more time with him. His mobility is exceptional, meaning he can get from the front to the backline very easily and while he is a big green target, he has a lot of options to survive, with his bubble shield being excellent for jumping into a team, stunning them, brawling out, and then leaping away. He also has excellent team-ups with Iron Man and Doctor Strange, making him a natural partner to both. From damage to utility to mobility, The Hulk just has a lot going for him and he’s one of the more multifaceted Vanguards in the game.

The Thing

The Thing is ‘simple but effective’ incarnate and then covered in rocks for good measure. There is nothing complicated about his kit, as he loves to punch, run in, jump and punch some more. His ultimate is also very strong, displacing and stunning enemies across quite a wide cone.

On top of that he can reduce incoming damage for himself and one other hero, making him excellent in two tank compositions. There’s nothing flashy about him, but if you want to jump in and be the embodiment of a brawler, there’s so much to love about the Thing.

Black Panther

T'Challa is an acrobatic, melee-focused hero with exceptional mobility. His kit revolves around applying Vibranium Marks to enemies and then hitting them with Spirit Rend to gain bonus health and fully recharge the ability. He has a steep learning curve since missing a Spirit Rend while diving on an enemy will leave you exposed and with no out, so he can be very vulnerable.

That said, the playerbase is definitely getting better at Black Panther and in skilled players’ hands, he tears apart backlines. He has some of the highest lethality of all the flankers, and the mobility to get out when the going gets tough. When you play against an exceptional Black Panther, you will feel it.

Hela

The Norse Goddess of Death has long been one of the strongest Duelists in the game. While it’s getting easier to deal with her, she is still a menace in the right player’s hands. Her Nightsword Thorns, Piercing Night, and Queen of Hel abilities reward accuracy with massive damage, and she can very often take over entire games. It is oppressive when an excellent Hela is in a lobby, and her ceiling is higher than any other character. She shuts down a lot of other duelists, especially fliers, although she’s fairly vulnerable to getting dived on, so if she doesn’t have a Strategist near her or help from a Namor, she can get diced up by other flankers.

Human Torch

The Human Torch won’t be for everyone, but he is undeniably strong in the right hands, facilitating two opposing playstyles. His first is being a good area-denial defensive option with his Pyro Prison and Supernova ultimate, dissuading the enemy from wanting to put themselves in range of his immense close-range firepower.

The other option is to use him as a flanking dive bomber. When stacked with several Blazing Blasts, his Flaming Meteor can outright delete heroes. He also has a quick kill combo that is hard to interrupt. He has to be careful though. Even when flying at full speed, he’s not that hard to punish, so he has to be sure to secure kills when going this route. Of course, the perfect play style will be mixing both that defensive potential with his extreme lethality. If you can master that, you’ll be one of the scariest on the field.

Iron Man

Iron Man is doing very well right now, and while he has strong counters, if played smartly he can become a nuisance to an enemy team. A lot of his power comes from his Armor Overdrive, with the Unibeam in particular melting opponents. It’s one of the easiest abilities in the game to secure kills with, and if you can dive from the skies and vaporize a Strategist, you’ll be getting immense value. Smart players who understand the push and pull of working around his Armor Overdrive will get value, but you will need to play with cover when the enemy team is inevitably forced to switch to a ranged hero to deal with you. On top of that, his Invincible Pulse Canon can kill Strategists in their ultimates, making him one of their biggest counters.

Namor

Namor is Marvel Rivals’ resident turret Duelist, with his Monstro octopi he can place on the battlefield applying damage from range. He’s great at defending points and coupled with good aim to hit his tridents, he often can put out the best damage in a game. He’s also not the most popular, meaning many sleep on how good he actually can be. If you can learn to hit your shots and place his turrets in excellent positions, you will terrorize teams pushing into your space. He also has a surprising amount of range which not every hero has, meaning he can contest and deal a lot of damage, all while remaining relatively safe. And even if a pesky flanker comes for him, his turrets will make their life difficult.

Psylocke

Psylocke is one of Marvel Rival’s strongest Duelists. She is an excellent flanking hero, able to sneak into enemy backlines by becoming invisible and utilizing her dashes. This also makes her exceptionally hard to pin down, with a lot of escape options if the fight becomes stacked against her.

What’s more, she has a lot of lethality, with high damage, meaning she’s a real ninja that can tear backlines apart. Her ultimate is also exceptional against grouped-up teams, meaning it can come in clutch in tight, objective-based scenarios.

Star-Lord

Star-Lord’s entire kit focuses on movement tricks and his short-range Element Guns. He's easy to learn but hard to master as he can be caught out if he doesn’t manage his cooldowns properly. In the right hands though, he’s one of the best flankers in the game, alongside sporting one of the best ultimates. If you get great with Star-Lord, you will be able to carry games by shredding anyone who is isolated.

Cloak & Dagger

Cloak & Dagger is a really interestingly constructed hero that lets you switch between the two personalities at will. Cloak is more offensively minded, doing damage and making enemies vulnerable, whereas Dagger is more healing-focused. There is a skill to knowing when to be one or the other and when you should get aggressive or focus on healing.

Their ultimate, which charges ridiculously fast, can negate some of the biggest damage in the game while making it hard for enemies to contest. They fall off at higher ranks, but for those not used to dealing with them, it can become exceptionally hard to know how to fight them - especially when they use their ultimate every fight.

Mantis

Mantis can have a massive impact on games, capable of providing plenty of healing and damage buffs to herself and allies. She’s truly fitting of the Strategist moniker, as she really can change fights by healing and applying the buffs at just the right moment in a team fight. She can even stun enemies with Spore Slumber, and unlike Ana in Overwatch, it’s not much of a skill shot. This makes putting pesky flankers into a snooze very easy. She needs to get critical hits to restore her all-important Life Orbs, so she does have to be alright at aiming, but she’s otherwise a highly effective support character in almost any team composition.

Rocket Raccoon

With a range of deployable gadgets, Rocket Raccoon supports the team with healing projectiles, revives, armor packs, damage boosts, and jet packs. Pair all that with his surprisingly punchy machine gun and Rocket Raccoon is one of the most varied Strategist characters in Marvel Rivals, capable of supporting the team in the most important ways. Best of all, he's quite easy to play too. While he doesn’t have the insanely powerful ultimates of the likes of Mantis and Luna Storm, he can offer an ungodly amount of healing and a lot of varied bonuses to his team that are all welcome at the right time.

MARVEL RIVALS B TIER HEROES

Captain America

Captain America is a quintessential brawler Vanguard in Marvel Rivals. He does all the things you’d expect Steve Rogers to do - shielding, punching, running, and throwing his shield like a frisbee. He has received some decent buffs in the Season 1.5 patch, and despite being the least popular Vanguard, his strength is beginning to emerge. He may not be for everyone, but the power of his kit is becoming apparent. While some might not have figured him out yet, that can be to your advantage as you jump into enemy faces and give them a good whack.

Thor

Wielding Mjolnir, Thor is a good brawler tank with potent melee combos and a few ranged attacks that all synergize nicely. He can do a lot of damage when his abilities are cycled properly, and he is threatening to most other heroes in the game. He also has access to mobility and exceptional team-ups with Storm and Captain America that are really, really good. He’s also just very fun to play which doesn’t hurt either. If you want to enable your team while putting out your own damage, he’s an excellent Vanguard to run with. That said, you’re likely going to need a more protective Vanguard to pair him up with.

Venom

Venom is robust, even for a Vanguard character, due to his Symbiotic Resilience ability. When used well it can buy you a lot more time in a fight to secure a kill before needing to swing away and escape or wait for a healer to arrive. When managed properly, it can make him pretty hard to kill.

That said, he’s fallen off a little since the game launched as players have learned how to deal with him, and his one-dimensional dive-bombing playstyle hurts his overall kit. Specialists have a lot of escapes, and teams have learned that if they work together and all shoot him at once, he can be toppled. However, if you are wise with your engagements and stay in line of sight of your own healers, he can be a real threat that disrupts his enemies.

Hawkeye

Hawkeye was once one of the strongest Duelists in the game. However, a combination of minor nerfs and the playerbase understanding the game more means he isn’t as oppressive as he once was. He still retains one-shot potential on smaller targets though and that is always dangerous. If he can find vantage points, he can rein down immense damage onto enemy teams and also has some escapes for when others inevitably come to contest him. His exceptional neutral game means he’s not reliant on abilities, meaning if you can hit your shots, he can still be a handful.

Magik

Like Black Panther, Magik is a melee-focused Marvel Rivals character, delivering slow but powerful attacks with her Soulsword. The variety of attacks, including a dashing uppercut and a wide spinning slice, means Magik has the potential to deal great damage with the right combos. She is a hero that specialists will gravitate towards, and those who put the time in to learn her combos, they will excel. She can be very lethal and a total handful for enemies to deal with. If you're good with Magik, your opponents will hate you as you dive in, tear up the backline, and get out, all before they know what hit them. That said, it’s probably going to take quite a bit of practice.

Moon Knight

Moon Knight is a powerful duelist who can take over games if there enemy team ignores the source of his power. That comes from his Ankhs, which he can place in the middle of grouped-up teams to bounce his Crescent Dart off. If these are not dealt with quickly, it can obliterate entire teams. However, enemy teams have gotten much better at destroying Moon Knight’s Ankhs quickly, meaning his power is much more limited.

His movement is okay, but his Moonlight Hook takes a second to activate, and he’s still susceptible to being shot when gliding away, really hurting him if his positioning is bad. His Ultimate did receive a buff though and is much easier to get kills with now.

Mr Fantastic

The leader of the Fantastic 4, Mr. Fantastic is perhaps the strangest character in the game. His kit, centered on his elasticity, is very goofy but also makes him a bit of a Vanguard hybrid character. He can absorb a lot of damage and can even end up in a larger, Vanguard-esque form if you build his meter properly.

That said, his ultimate is silly as hell, acting like Winter Soldier’s by way of a circus. It got some good damage buffs in the Season 1.5 patch, making it much better at securing kills. Many still don’t understand this character, but trust us when we say he brings a lot of value. Having a Duelist who can still secure kills while being able to absorb a ton of damage makes your team much harder to topple. It still feels like the community is trying to figure him out, but for those putting time in, there is untapped value on the table.

The Punisher

The Punisher is the basic rifleman of Marvel Rivals but don’t take that as meaning he’s one-dimensional. He packs a versatile assault rifle, a shotgun that shreds at close range, smoke grenades, a zipline for fast movement, as well as a deployable mounted turret – that's pretty much everything you need in a DPS character. He's very easy to play and packs plenty of power for minimal effort. He also becomes downright vicious when powered up by Rocket Raccoon's Team-Up Ammo Overload Device.

Still, he can find himself a little isolated if pushed without his zipline, so always be thinking about your positioning when taking on the role of Frank Castle. However, when played with some consideration and when he’s able to hunker down in his turret in a strong position, he can be hard to break.

Wolverine

As players have learned Wolverine's strengths and weaknesses, his power has become apparent. Logan isn’t the most dynamic of heroes, but he has one very basic job - kill tanks. He does increased damage to Vanguards, and his kit is custom-built to displace the front line, and then in a flurry of adamantium claws, dispatch them. He also has a surprising amount of mobility as his dash is on a very short cooldown, which allows him to get in and out of engagements.

It’s a little bit of a tightrope walk that can be easy to overextend with, and the community has adapted to him after a couple of weeks of dominance. This means he’s waned in power a little bit, but he’s still banned in most games in higher ranks purely because he’s such a pain for Vanguards to deal with.

Loki

Loki is a great support character in Marvel Rivals with one of the most unique kits but he is also probably the most complex. As the god of trickery, he’s suitably hard to pin down, both being able to turn invisible, but also places several decoys on the field that he can teleport to. The enemy will struggle to figure out exactly where Loki is. His healing output is modest but can be massively increased with the effective use of his doppelgangers, especially when choosing to deploy his very powerful Regeneration Domain. Still, Loki will often have the least healing, so he needs to offset it by doing equal amounts of damage.

His ultimate, God of Mischief, can also be a game changer as it allows him to copy another hero, enemy, or ally and use their Ultimate immediately. There are a lot of strong Ultimates in the game, so you have a wealth of choices to turn fights - if you know how to use other characters properly anyway. You will have to work a little harder to get maximum value out of Loki, but if mastered, teams won’t know where you are, or how you’re keeping your team so unkillable.

C-Tier Heroes

MARVEL RIVALS C TIER HEROES

Peni Parker

Thanks to her SP//dr mech suit, Peni Parker is the Vanguard hero with the most range, but her Cyber-Webs and traps also make her very good at holding objectives, particularly on Domination maps. Her Bionic Spider-Nest, which creates a large Cyber-Web and spits out Spider-Drones, can be devastating if ignored by the enemy team. Coupled with her Arachno-mines, she is good at controlling space, with opponents having to really think twice about pushing into her webbed areas.

However, as players have learnt to sniff out and destroy her nest, it’s becoming less powerful. Once it has been destroyed, Penni can struggle to find value, and doesn’t have many self-preservation abilities. That’s why she becomes weaker the better lobbies there are - but that doesn’t mean she can’t help lock down areas anyways.

Iron Fist

Iron Fist appeared to be a menace at the start of Marvel Rivals. His ability to lay into backlines and 1v1 most characters in the game meant that if you were isolated, he could relatively quickly dispatch you. The problem is as players have gotten better at the game, those real 1v1 opportunities have become rarer. Teams now peel much better, and he is much less intimidating than he was at launch. That said, if you learn the sweet spot of when to strike, he can still terrorize isolated enemies like no one else.

Scarlet Witch

Wanda Maximoff has been seen as the weakest DPS since launch, especially in higher tier matches. However, thanks to a buff to her survivability in her ultimate, it does feel like that tide is turning a little - albeit slowly. Her primary fire does increased damage against non-Vanguard heroes, though she lacks the spikiness of other Duelists meaning that unless the other player misses, she often will lose 1v1s. Her Mystic Projection allows her to get out of bad situations, but it’s easy to track and many will follow up on you after you use it. However, thanks to the added health, her Reality Erasure ultimate is stronger and is securing more picks.

She’s no world beater yet, but anecdotally, we’ve seen an uptick in Scarlet Witch players, including ones who are starting to see some production too.

Squirrel Girl

Squirrel Girl has arguably one of the simplest kits in Marvel Rivals, but don’t note that down as her being weak. Her Burst Acorns can do a lot of damage around chokes and corners, especially to burn down bunched-up teams. Her Squirrel Blockade is also a death sentence in most cases, as she can apply a ton of damage at once on trapped heroes. However, she struggles in a lot of matchups, essentially unable to interact with flyers and often lacking the precision to take on other heroes one on one. She can definitely be pretty spooky in the right map against the right heroes, but she is somewhat limited in her effectiveness.

Adam Warlock

Adam Warlock is a bit of a Strategist and Duelist hybrid. With his quantum magic powers, he has solid healing abilities that let him keep several allies topped up at once and good damage output. However, he is in a bit of a strange spot as other Specialists can output so much more healing more consistently, but for those who really specialise in him, he has potential to be a strong pick.

His longer cooldowns mean you must use his abilities wisely. His Regenerative Cocoon and Karmic Revival abilities, which let him resurrect himself and his allies respectively, are useful, able to utterly reverse lost fights. That said, these can be countered with burst damage and following his ghost around, so it can be hard to get a lot out of them.

Jeff the Land Shark

Jeff is a simple healer with excellent healing output. He's a solid all-rounder but is best when he can heal multiple allies at once with his Joyful Splash. If he ever finds himself jumped on by flankers, he can use his Hide And Seek ability to evade danger. The "It's Jeff!" ultimate ability is also great as you can gobble enemies and then spit them off the map for easy kills. That said, his kit is very one-dimensional and he lacks any real utility that makes the strongest Specialists thrive. He’s a bit of a healbot, but doesn’t offer much else to a team in the way of buffs and debuffs or lethality like the others in his role.

MARVEL RIVALS D TIER HEROES

Black Widow

Black Widow needs more help. Despite some big buffs in Season 1, she is still arguably the worst hero in the game. The problem is, since she doesn’t have the ability to one-shot characters, she has to prepare each shot. She doesn’t have the lethality to take out heroes fast enough before they are healed again, and she doesn’t do enough sustained damage to make a serious dent into team healthpools. If you are exceptional at aiming you will get value and kills, but right now, without one-shoting heroes (which wouldn’t be great for the health of the game), she is hurting quite a bit. If you do want to play as a sniper character, Hawkeye and Hela are just much better options right now.

Spider-Man

Okay. Look, we’re calling it. We admit, good Spider-Man players exist, and if completely ignored, he can terrorize backlines. But when you have to become a scholar in a character to find similar value in a hero you can just pick up and play, that hero maybe isn’t in a great spot.

That’s not to say he’s got no value though. He's easily the most mobile character in the game thanks to his web-swing, double-jump, and wall crawl. From here, you can use his Web-Cluster to target one foe, then follow up with a range of melee attacks to form a devastating combo. He’s easily the hardest to learn in the role though, and you are going to have to put in twice the effort to get the equivalent output of an easier to use Duelist. He is a feast-or-famine character, but even for those who saw earlier success, it’s becoming far more famine than feast.

© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.