Marvel Rivals: Strategist hero tier list (January 2025)

If you’re used to hero shooters, Marvel Rivals‘ Strategists may surprise you. Working in a supportive role on the battlefield, Strategists behave more like combat medics. But you don’t need to focus just on healing tanks to keep the dream alive. No, it’s time to fight back as the ultimate support.

There are eight Strategists as of Marvel Rivals season one. These Strategists are the healers of the lobby, making them a vital part of the team. While it’s best to pair Strategists together, you’re not forced to play particular heroes (unless a Team-Up is required). Instead, Strategists are more than capable of dealing damage while healing themselves and their teammates, making them the foundation a team is built around.

Marvel Rivals: Strategist tier list (season 1)

This list has considered multiple factors when coming up with the tiers and entry order. We have thought about their strength in healing and fighting, their impact on a team, how they affect the opposition, and finally, how easy they are to use compared to other heroes.

Let’s dive into our Strategist tier list for Marvel Rivals.

S tier

Mantis

Mantis is the easiest Strategist to get your head around. Her heals are pretty much continuous and she deals decent damage across the board as long as you’re protected by team members. Mantis can be played both aggressively or defensively, and how you choose to play her really depends on your playstyle. She can pocket a DPS, buffing their damage through inspiration, or protect them during their ultimate. Mantis performs best when she assists her team through shooting and switching to healing when they get critically low. She doesn’t deal as much damage as Luna Snow or Adam Warlock, but her simple kit and continuous healing make her a support you can rely on.

The greatest thing you can do as Mantis is time your sleeps for the prime moment. Playing alongside your team, Mantis can halt an enemy’s movements, allowing you or your team to quickly and easily pick them off. This is highly effective against tanks like Venom, Hulk, and Thor.

Pros

• Deals continual healing to self and teammates.
• Heal teammates and sedate enemies to halt their movement, letting any Vanguard or Duelist beside you quickly kill them before the effects wear off.
• Her kit is incredibly easy to use.
• Her sleep ability is crucial for when enemies dive on her, this can disrupt ultimates and freeze enemy Duelists with attacks that never let up (Spider-Man, Iron Fist, Wolverine, and Black Panther.)
• Strong enough to win one-vs-ones.

Cons

• Required to play next to the Vanguard or multiple Duelists at all times.
• Limited defensively if caught out by enemy Duelists.

Luna Snow

The hardest Strategist to use if you’re terrible at aiming, Luna Snow can heal and damage enemies all with a click of a button. Her ultimate is a great distraction, stalling for her team or keeping them alive during overtime. Her projectiles deal damage similar to Warlock’s charged attack, increasing her overall threat level to Strategists and Duelists.

Snow’s freeze is similar to Mantis’s sedation, which also stops enemy’s movements. This is incredibly helpful against movement heroes and tanks who are trying to isolate you from your team. Snow can play across all ranges, but she needs teammates with her to make most use out of her kit and stay in the fight for as long as she can.

Pros

• Has a hilarious ultimate that makes Luna immortal while buffing or healing teammates (a combination of Overwatch‘s Lucio and Zenyatta).
• Fast mobility to get onto the objective.
• Can freeze enemies in place. Timing this with teammate ultimates or when Duelists are near you is key to effectively using her Absolute Zero. You can also use this to stop incoming enemies from jumping on the convoy or point (ending the overtime countdown).

Cons

• Difficult to shoot with, making her less effective than others if you’re not good at aiming.
• Dishes minimal damage unless you rely solely on her Ice Arts.

A tier

Cloak and Dagger

Cloak and Dagger is the hardest Strategist to master because you have to handle two heroes in one, managing DPS and support roles within a single character. While they are self-sufficient and capable of protecting themselves and aiding others, Cloak and Dagger can easily tunnel vision. Swaying more to the DPS side, you may find yourself choosing to stay as Dagger for your own benefit and swapping to Cloak when you’re critically low.

This self-sufficient kit makes Cloak and Dagger more like a solo hero (similar to Namor), where they aren’t playing with the team as much as other Strategists. But when you play Cloak and Dagger as intended, supporting the team with damage and heals, this hero becomes borderline unkillable.

Pros

• Can obscure enemy vision.
• Unkillable if their kit is utilized properly (switching between the two heroes seamlessly while taking damage).
• All-range fighter, capable of dealing damage close and at long range.
• No aiming required to heal, making her one of the easiest healers to use.
• Best survivability out of all the healers.

Cons

• Consistency and timing are crucial to mastering Cloak and Dagger’s kit.
• You must pay close attention to your and your teammates’ health and positioning so you don’t miss out on healing any critically low heroes.

Invisible Woman

Released for season one, Invisible Woman has an all-rounder kit, but it requires more strategy than any other Marvel Rivals healer. A unique mix of damage and healing over time, Invisible Woman adapts to the play in front of her by keeping enemies at bay and confusing the enemy lines. Her abilities are reminiscent of Cloak and Dagger, Hela, Iron Man, and Jeff the Land Shark. She can place a shield for a teammate of her choosing, letting her usefulness be in two places at once as she continuously heal with her projectiles while playing objective.

Invisible Woman’s downside comes from her restricted ability to self-heal. She can only do this by erecting Guardian Shields to protect your teammate, to then use it on yourself while the shield stays active. Another healer is essential to keep Invisible Woman alive, similar to Cloak and Dagger. Invisible Woman is a great pick for those looking to easily heal teammates while being able to put out good damage to pick up kills throughout a match.

Pros

• Balanced kit that deals consistent ticking damage while providing healing through her Orb Projection or Guardian Shields.
• Good mobility.
• Can manipulate the battlefield in her favor by pushing and pulling enemies around the objective and making a section of the map invisible, confusing enemy lines.
• Small cooldowns, making you a persistent threat on the battlefield.

Cons

• Requires another healer on the team due to her low survivability.
• Cannot self-heal, making her a weaker healer than other Strategists.
• Deals minimal damage.
• Unlike Mantis, Invisible Woman cannot win one-vs-ones.

Adam Warlock

A reliable hero for heals and damage, Warlock is a great Strategist for Marvel Rivals season one. His charged attack deals significant damage to Strategists and Duelists alike, rendering them critically low or swiftly killing them as he assists his team. He does have a downside, though: His healing is far more limited than other Strategists. This can leave the team in a vulnerable state if he’s the only healer. Therefore, determining when to heal requires more strategy than if you’re using Mantis or Luna Snow.

You cannot continuously heal, and you’ll have a longer cooldown than every other Strategist. But Warlock’s ability to safely reposition if he is killed—paired with his revive ultimate that can be a real gamechanger in a match—makes him our go-to pick as the backbone of a team filled with tanks and DPS heroes.

Pros

• Within a limited timeframe, Adam is invulnerable as he repositions himself while respawning. This is incredibly helpful if you’re moving the convoy or trying to stall time so your Vanguard and Duelists can get back into the action.
• Quickly revives multiple teammates inside his Karmic Revival, bringing heroes that would otherwise by too slow to get back onto the objective. Timing this perfectly is crucial in the final moments of a match.
• Heals multiple teammates at once with his soul bond.
• His charged attack can quickly kill DPS heroes (if you’re accurate when releasing the charge), while his standard attack can pick off critically low enemies.
• Capable of healing an entire team as the only active Strategist.

Cons

• Extremely limited mobility.
• Basically a sniper hero, so his damage is only as good as your aim.
• Long healing cooldowns.
• Can become targeted by Duelists if Adam is the only healer on the team. His kit is long-range, making him somewhat hopeless if heroes like Iron Fist, Spider-Man, or Wolverine attack him.

B tier

Loki

Out of all the Strategists, Loki is the hardest to kill. His health pool seems never-ending, as he can quickly heal himself while distracting you with his clones. Capable of swiftly moving around the map without being spotted, it can take a few moments before you clock where the real Loki is. This lets him move around unnoticed and safely heal his teammates while his fellow Strategists get targeted. Yes, his clones are easy to kill, but Loki can take their form whenever he pleases, making him a difficult target to keep track of.

Pros

• Confuses enemies with his clones, who stand stationary and shoot anyone within their line of sight This wastes enemies’ time and ammunition, giving your teammates the opening they need to kill them.
• You can take control of your clones at any point, which can either put you in an advantageous position or backfire if you make a poor decision.

Cons

• As you’re trying to trick opponents, you are often forced to play in the background and hide from the enemy line of sight. This makes Loki’s kit feel wasteful and perhaps better suited to someone like Punisher, who can place turrets that act similarly to Loki’s clones.
• Deals minimal damage without his clones.
• Timing is key to correctly utilizing this hero.
• You need to manage your heals for your teammates while simultaneously keeping an eye on your clone positions at all times.

C tier

Jeff

We all know how annoying Jeff can be. Easily distracted by his cuteness, Jeff punishes those who play as a unit by swallowing them whole and spitting them out of the map—but this move is only over-powered during overtime. His heals are weaker than others, as he needs to frequently replenish his beam by eating a fish, leaving his team to fight by themselves. While his Hide and Seek mode distracts enemies and protects Jeff most of the time, it means he spends more time playing for the highlight reel rather than healing his team when it matters most. However, when paired with Groot, Jeff is a fantastic support (so long as he doesn’t spend the entire time waiting out his ultimate cooldown).

Pros

• Adorable.
• Acting as a sacrificial lamb, Jeff can pick up multiple heroes in his ultimate and move them to a spot that’s far from the objective.
• Excellent mobility that makes his hitbox minuscule, making him a difficult target to track.
• Can place healing bubbles near the objective and hide from enemies’ line of sight immediately afterward with his Hide and Seek ability.

Cons

• Incredibly small health pool, making him ridiculously easy to kill if isolated. Jeff cannot be the only Strategist on the team, or it’s highly likely he will be focused every time he makes his presence known.
• Slower healer than other Strategists. Instead of being reactive when your teammates are critically low, you need to think about when is the right time to heal and when you should hide. His Healing Bubbles require more consideration in their placement than simply placing them down and retreating to the backline.

D tier

Rocket

By no means is this list stating Rocket is a weak support. Put in the right hands, Rocket can easily heal more than 10,000 HP points of his team, and his small frame and tiny hitbox make him just as hard to kill as a Jeff roaming around in Hide and Seek mode. Rocket provides armor and health to teammates and can revive them in a safe spot, removing the time it takes for a respawned player to get back to the objective.

Rocket isn’t as strong as others because he needs another healer to help protect him. His kit is more balanced than others, meaning it can’t be as effective as other Strategists when it comes to healing his team. This automatically brings down his strength as a healer.

Pros

• Small hitbox and excellent movement, making him a difficult Strategist to kill.
• Can place a revive beacon anywhere, safely bringing fallen teammates into the fight in a secure and safe spot that won’t immediately result in their demise.

Cons

• Inconsistent healing due to the ricocheting effect his Repair Mode bullets have.
• While he offers armor to teammates, his healing is less impactful than other Strategists.
• Isn’t strong enough to heal an entire team on his own.