There are lots of Marvel Rivals characters to choose and our ranked tier list should help you decide which are best for you. Rivals has launched with a staggering 33 superheroes, including well-known Avengers and X-Men, like Thor, Spider-Man, Storm, and Magneto, fighting alongside or against loveable Marvel oddities like Jeff the Land-Shark.
What makes picking the best tricky is that almost every character in the game has the potential to be great if you know how to use them. There's a lot of varied playstyles here and, depending on what sort of character you play, you might want to investigate changing your Marvel Rivals crosshairs to better tune your aim.
However, there are some clear heavy hitters that are obvious priorities, so here’s our best Marvel Rivals character tier list.
Marvel Rivals characters and heroes explained
All Marvel Rivals characters have a primary attack and several abilities with limited charges and cooldowns. Many also have access to passives, and combined 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 Marvel Rivals ranks There's no rolelock 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.
The characters your team picks can also determine which Marvel Rivals Team-Up abilities are available. These are either passive or active abilities with one or both heroes gaining some sort of benefit. For example, having Venom on your team grants Spider-Man and Peni Parker an entirely new symbiote spike ability. Meanwhile, 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
Choosing the best Marvel Rivals character can be tricky, with lots of different abilities, character roles, and Team-Ups. 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 of 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.
- Hawkeye
- Iron Fist
- Luna Snow
- A-Tier: Great heroes who bring plenty of power but either require a bit of support or practice for maximum effect.
- Groot
- Venom
- Moon Knight
- Psylocke
- Spider-Man
- Star-Lord
- Winter Soldier
- Cloak & Dagger
- Jeff the Land Shark
- Mantis
- Rocket Raccoon
- B-Tier: Good characters with solid abilities that are effective in the right hands and some game knowledge.
- Doctor Strange
- Hulk
- Magneto
- Peni Parker
- Black Widow
- Hela
- Namor
- The Punisher
- Scarlet Witch
- Squirrel Girl
- Adam Warlock
- Loki
- 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.
- Captain America
- Thor
- Black Panther
- Magik
- Iron Man
- 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.
- Storm
- Wolverine
S-Tier Heroes
Hawkeye
Hawkeye is currently the strongest Duelist in the game and currently the only character who can get one-shot kills on characters. 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, but with a strong ultimate to boot, he can dominate lobbies more so than any other in the role. Obviously, you need to hit your shots though.
Iron Fist
Melee characters can struggle in Marvel Rivals against competent ranged heroes but Iron Fist is a menace. He excels for a couple reasons: he is very fast, bouncing around a lot, while wailing on you with his fists, making him one of the best 1v1 heroes in the game. He has strong aim-assist too, so hitting punches is pretty easy. He often will snap to heroes in his flurry, and can even stay in the air indefinitely meaning he’s actually a strong counter to the likes of Iron Man and Storm. However, he truly excels at diving into the backline, quickly destroying an isolated Strategist and getting out. If a team’s backline isn’t peeling for each other, there will be little they can do to the barrage of punches Iron First can rain down.
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. She can also freeze enemies making them easier for your team to hit, while allowing her to create distance between her and enemies.
She packs and punch and many of her abilities also heal herself, giving her very good survivability. That’s on top of having one of the smallest character models too, so she is going to be a pain for any Duelist to finally put away.
A-Tier Heroes
Groot
Specializes in placing several plant-based barriers at once, 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 attack 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.
Venom
Venom is fantastically robust, even for a Vanguard character, due to his Symbiotic Resilience ability. It instantly generates bonus health when at low health, buying Venom time to get a kill, escape a fight, or wait for a healer to arrive. It makes him very annoying to fight against. Additionally, his Venom Swing allows him to dive on backlines and apply a lot of damage to Strategists, before he swings out again. The only thing keeping him out of S-Tier is that he has a tendency to over-extend and, while he can take a lot of punishment, he will fall to several characters focus firing him. However, if you are wise with your engagements and stay in line of sight of your healers, he can become an unkillable monster.
Moon Knight
Moon Knight is a powerful duelist who can take over games if the 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 teams. However, once enemy teams are on top of destroying these Ankh’s quickly, 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. His ultimate is also relatively easy to avoid, so it can be tricky to get value out of.
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.
Spider-Man
Spider-Man is the ultimate hit-and-run flanker in Marvel Rivals. He's easily the most mobile character in the game thanks to his web-swing, double-jump, and wall crawl, which allows him to get over and around enemies with ease (though they can be a bit janky to use). From here, you can use his Web-Cluster to target one foe, then follow up with a range of melee attacks for a devastating combo. Spider-Man is a bit of a feast-or-famine character though, sometimes taking over games where enemies can't deal with him, and sometimes unable to break apart well-supported teams. He has a very high skill ceiling, but in the right hands, he’s one of the best Duelists in the game. Just be prepared to put in the time to learn him.
Star-Lord
Tracer players in Overwatch will definitely gravitate towards picking Star-Lord as his entire kit focuses on movement tricks and his short-range Element Guns. He's easy to learn, but hard to master and can be totally caught out if you don’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.
Winter Soldier
Bucky is a very powerful duelist who can do a lot. He can act as a tankbuster once his abilities are cycled properly, but he can also work as a 1v1 flanker or someone who sits on his supports and looks after them. There is a rotation to learn around his attacks, and thus isn’t always going to be the absolute strongest, but he’s a very versatile damage dealer.
His big weakness is movement, as only his Trooper’s Fist gives him any mobility. Even then it’s a short distance and it’s a long cooldown, so positioning is key to stop him from getting into any bad situations. Once he’s in a bad position, it’s hard for him to get out without blasting his way through.
Cloak & Dagger
Cloak & Dagger are 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. However, if you master it, you will be putting out a lot of healing and damage, and affecting the battlefield in massive ways.
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. Its area of effect is enormous, and it's almost impossible to avoid if you’re caught in the middle. That said, you can also rip teammates out of position and ruin a fight – so, be a little careful.
Mantis
Mantis can have a massive impact on games by 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 fight. She can even stun enemies with Spore Slumber, and unlike Ana in Overwatch, it’s not 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, jetpack dash ability, and climbing 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.
B-Tier Heroes
Doctor Strange
Doctor Strange 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.
The Hulk
The Hulk is one of the most mobile, yet cumbersome Vanguards in Marvel Rivals. He can do super jumps whenever he pleases, meaning he can move around the battlefield in ways unparalleled by other Vanguards. That said, he’s also a brawler, so he needs those jumps to get in and punch the living daylights out of his enemies. However, it takes a couple of seconds to charge up and can be hard to hit precisely. He can withstand a decent amount of punishment with his high health pool and Indestructible Guard. That’s good because being big and green, he often attracts a lot of attention. Thankfully, if he runs out of HP, you get a second lease at life by trying to charge the Hulk up again as Bruce Banner, though you are very vulnerable in this state.
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. His Ultimate can be hard to get kills with, but it actually counters bullets too, so is a great counter if you hear The Punisher letting loose his Ultimate.
Peni Parker
Thanks to her SP//dr mech suit, Peni Parker is the Vanguard hero with the most range, but her abilities are all to do with creating buffing Cyber-Webs and traps. She’s a very unique character, focused on her cybernetic webbing and robotic spiders, so it may take some getting used to. Her Bionic Spider-Nest, which creates a large Cyber-Web and spits out Spider-Drones, can be devastating if left to fester by the enemy team. Coupled with her Arachno-mines, she is exceptional at controlling objectives and space, with opponents having to really think twice about pushing into her webbed areas. In the right hands, she can lockdown the map and make it impossible for the enemy to get comfortable.
Black Widow
Black Widow is far from the menace people thought she might be but she’s still very good in the right hands. Rivals is full of open spaces and line of sights, and that’s where Natasha thrives. Sniping people who can’t get at you from afar allows you to apply the smackdown on teams. She also has good repositioning and can even push off people with her Edge Dancer ability when an attacker gets too close.
Her damage is lacking compared to others, and you generally are better off going Hawkeye, but if your aim is on point and you have space to hurt enemies, you can still apply a lot of pressure to a team.
Hela
The Norse Goddess of Death is a great sharpshooter and her Nightsword Thorns, Piercing Night, and Queen of Hel abilities reward accuracy with massive damage. A good Hela player can be a huge asset to a team, easily shutting down weaker Duelists and Strategists. However, she lacks solid defensive or movement abilities. Now that the game has introduced more flankers to get at her, she’s far more vulnerable than she was in the beta where she truly excelled.
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. That said, he’s not got great options if enemies break through his defenses, and he will often need to be situated near a Strategist to thrive. Still, he’s a sneaky good pick that many underestimate, so you can surprise a lot of people with him.
The Punisher
The Punisher is the basic rifleman of Marvel Rivals but that doesn't mean 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.
Scarlet Witch
Wanda Maximoff is powerful and easy to use – a lethal combination in Marvel Rivals. Her primary fire makes her an easy 1 v 1 duelist without having to have pinpoint accuracy. Additionally, her Mystic Projection ability makes her hard to pin down, and able to get out of bad situations. That said, she struggles at range, and many can whittle her down before she gets on top of them. Also, while her Ultimate was super strong in the beta, most are learning how to avoid getting killed by her Reality Erasure, or even kill her before she can get it off.
Squirrel Girl
Squirrel Girl has arguably one of the simplest kits in Marvel Rivals, but don’t think that makes 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 is able to apply a ton of damage at once. She may struggle if flankers get too close to her, as her movement is limited to her Tail Bounce. However, if she is able to roam without getting under too much pressure, she can apply an unrivalled amount back on a team trying to push or defend an objective.
Adam Warlock
With his quantum magic powers, Adam Warlock has solid healing abilities that let him keep several allies topped up at once, but longer cooldowns mean you must use these powers wisely. His Regenerative Cocoon and Karmic Revival abilities, which let him resurrect himself and his allies respectively, are hugely useful in any match too, able to utterly reverse lost fights. Because of this, expect to be the focus of many Duelist’s ire. They don’t love it when you reverse their hard-won kills.
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. Suitably for the god of trickery he’s hard to pin down, being able to both turn invisible and place several decoys that he can teleport to. Using this enemies can struggle to pin-down exactly where he is, but in inexperienced hands players will likely struggle to get the most out of it. His healing output is modest but can be massively increased with effective use of his doppelgangers, especially when choosing to deploy his very powerful Regeneration Domain.
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 fight - if you know how to use other characters properly anyway. You will have to work hard 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
Captain America
Captain America is the quintessential brawler Vanguard in Marvel Rivals. He does all the things you’d expect Steve Rogers to do - shielding, punching, running, bashing, and throwing his shield like a frisbee. He’s not got immense damage, but characters who are being charged down and beaten on will need to give him attention to survive. That said, if the enemy team is able to ignore him, he doesn’t provide exceptional protection for his own team, and if he engages too eagerly, he can be isolated. It’s a push and pull with Cap, and finding the sweet spot is exceptionally important. Even if that happens though, you may be a little underwhelmed with his impact on a game.
Thor
Wielding Mjolnir, Thor is a good brawler tank with potent melee combos and a few ranged attacks that all synergize nicely, but he's not as resilient as you'd hope the God of Thunder would be. His health is on the lower end for a Vanguard character and the fact that his three Mjolnir-based abilities all go on a short cooldown after using just one of them means you've got to make every hit count. That all means Thor should act as more of an off-tank and needs allies to back him up.
Black Panther
T'Challa is an acrobatic, melee-focused hero with solid 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. For many, this won’t be an intuitive power, as if you miss a Spirit Rend while diving on a hero, you will be stuck there, exposed with no out. This makes Black Panther exceptionally vulnerable. That said, in skilled players’ hands, he can absolutely go up several tiers. When you play against an exceptional Black Panther, you will feel it - but it might be a pretty long journey to get to that level yourself.
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, but these can be incredibly difficult to pull off in the heat of battle, and more agile heroes can easily outmanoeuvre her.
Iron Man
Iron Man, and most aerial characters, struggle a little right now due to strong counters. That said, he can work with smart play and positioning. A lot of his power comes from his Armor Overdrive, and the Unibeam in particular melting opponents. That said, after 10 seconds of use, the ability goes on a long cooldown where you will then need to play much more conservatively. Smart players who understand the push and pull of working around his Armor Overdrive can likely bump him up by a tier or so, but again, he and the skies are kept in check by Punisher, Winter Soldier, Hawkeye, Black Widow, and bizarrely, Iron Fist.
D-Tier Heroes
Storm
Storm suffers heavily by having multiple counters that are strong right now. So, take everything said about Iron Man, except Storm has even less manoeuvrability. She also is not an exceptional damage dealer, relying mostly on giving her team speed and damage buffs to utilise her best. While it’s likely there is a spot for her in a very coordinated team making use of these buffs, if you are just picking her up for yourself, you’re likely going to find yourself grounded by more active heroes. Her Ultimate is a highlight though, and can obliterate teams - but it’s one of the slowest charging in the game.
Wolverine
Wolverine hasn’t come into Marvel Rivals in a particularly strong position. He’s a melee Duelist, which already struggles against ranged Duelists, and his compensations for that are limited. Undying Animal’s damage reduction is not that significant, and by the time he is low health, it’s hard to be able to make use of his Berserker Rage passive before he dies. Add on top of that, his unwieldy Feral Leap, and he’s just a bit of an awkward hero design. You still can absolutely get decent production out of him, and he’s quite an effective Vanguard shredder, but you’re going to be working harder than pretty much anyone on the team to make him a consistently viable pick.
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