Viewing: www.thegamer.com

How To Play Vanguard In Marvel Rivals

[4]

By Sanyam Jain

Published Dec 27, 2024, 11:30AM EST

Sanyam Jain is a Staff Writer at TheGamer who has worked as a professional gaming journalist since 2022.A Journalism and Mass Communication graduate, he has been testing the limits of the games he plays for as long as he can remember.

An expert in RPG, Open-World, and Gacha games, Sanyam's articles are based on hours upon hours of testing with every new character, mechanic, or puzzle to ensure that you get every information you'll need about it.

After playing the quick match mode in Marvel Rivals for a bit, you can start queuing up for the competitive mode, and this is where things change drastically. In this mode, having a balanced team with two characters from each role becomes highly important, which means that you might have to adjust sometimes.

[Black Widow intro screen in Marvel Rivals.] Related

Marvel Rivals: Pro Tips To Play Duelist

Be the last hero standing

Posts 1

By Rishov Mukherjee

If your team has already picked two Duelists and Strategists each, you have no choice but to go Vanguard if you want to win. However, this is arguably the hardest role to play in the game, making it important to learn what you're supposed to do.

You Can't Stay Behind Your Team

[Marvel Rivals Thor running into the mission area.]

The most important thing to remember while playing the Vanguard role, and unfortunately the most forgotten one as well, is that you're supposed to be the tank of the team. Vanguards have much higher health by default, and most of them have abilities to increase their own health, get some bonus health, or pop out a shield.

This makes it important to stay in the team's front line and protect everyone even if you're playing ranged Vanguards like Peni Parker or Doctor Strange. Ideally, you should be engaging with the enemy team's Vanguards while also giving your DPS characters enough space to take out their back line.

The battle against enemy Vanguards, especially in competitive, can be grueling since they'll consistently get healed as you slowly damage them.

Choose The Right Tank

[Marvel Rivals picture of all vanguards together.]

Even at launch, there's quite a variety of Vanguards you can choose from. However, unlike Duelists or Strategists, you can't main a specific character as a Vanguard player. This is mainly because each character in this role has a special type of kit that helps them create pressure on the enemies in a specific situation.

Here are a few examples of the best tanks to use in some common situations while playing competitive:

Clearing up the enemy's defense line	Thor, Hulk, Venom
Defending an objective or an area	Peni Parker, Groot
Protecting your teammates	Doctor Strange, Magneto
Acting as a sub-DPS	Thor, Captain America

While you can still win with tanks that aren't efficient in a specific situation, you'll still be giving the enemies an advantage by using them.

Watch For Flanks

[Marvel Rivals Iron Fist introduction animation.]

As a tank, you need to understand that you're not the main target, and the enemies will always try to get past you to reach your Strategists. This is especially true when the enemies have characters like Iron Fist and Spiderman, or if escorting the payload where it's much easier to reach into your back line.

At all times, your focus should be on your team to locate any enemy trying to flank. As soon as you see someone getting close to your squishy teammates, you must mark them and ask your teammates to change their positioning. Meanwhile, you also have to dive these flankers while making sure the enemy front line doesn't get to push.

This micromanagement is what makes this role one of the hardest, even though it might be one of the least appreciated.

Don't Overextend In Enemy Territory

[Marvel Rivals Thor beating up Jeff.]

As mentioned above, Vanguards have the highest HP pool among all roles in the game, and this makes you feel a little powerful, especially if you're playing tanks with high damage like Thor. In these instances, it's important to remember your boundaries and figure out how far you can go without putting yourself at risk.

Unfortunately, there isn't a specific line that you can draw for this since it's different for every game. For example, if your enemies have characters that can easily allow them to push like Luna Snow or Mantis, you'd want to keep them a bit far from the objective so that they can't reach it even with heavy Ultimates.

Your team's position also matters in this since you wouldn't want to be in the enemy's spawn by yourself.

On the other hand, if you know that your team has some ultimates ready to facilitate a push, you should wait for them to start and coordinate with them to catch the unsuspecting enemies.

Single Out Enemy Squishies

[Marvel Rivals Thor about to dash to Moon Knight.]

The battle against enemy tanks on the frontline might get a little boring after some time, but it's an important part of the game since this is where the team's patience is tested. Eventually, one of the Duelists from the enemy team might get bored and attempt to push into your back line, and that's the moment you should wait for.

As soon as that happens, your job is to push the tanks away so that your team can single out the squishy target. Keep in mind that your job is not to get the kills, but to help your teammates get them, which will also boost their confidence in both you and themselves.