Marvel Rivals Guide: The Ultimate Beginner's Resource

This comprehensive Marvel Rivals guide is designed to help beginners learn, understand, and master the all-new online multiplayer game from NetEase. We shall guide you through the very basics of the experience, explaining how matches work, the characters you can pick between, and much more. By the end of this guide, you'll have a good understanding of how to play the game, what sort of characters you should be picking to help your team, and how to get even better at it. Let us help take you from beginner to pro in Marvel Rivals!

Marvel Rivals Guide: The Basics Explained

Marvel Rivals is a 6v6 online multiplayer game that plays similarly to Overwatch. A team of 6 players comes together to accomplish a single main objective, which changes depending on the mode you play.

In Domination, you'll compete against the other team to keep control of a point on the map. In Convoy, your team must help escort a vehicle along a path while defending it from the enemy team. In Convergence, you'll perform much of the same tasks as Convoy, but you first need to capture a point on the map before escorting the payload. Here's a more in-depth breakdown of each mode:

All Modes Explained

Domination

Both teams will fight to control a single point on the map, eliminating each other until a single team is standing inside the zone. At this point, that team earns points, and the first team to reach 100% wins. If the enemy team enters the zone while you are earning points, the area will become contested, and you must eliminate the enemies again until none are left standing inside the point. You will then start to get points again. It's this push and pull that creates the contest of Domination, as who controls the zone can easily change.

Convoy

One team is the attackers, and the other is the defenders. The attackers must stand beside a vehicle and escort it along a pre-set path to an endpoint within a time limit, with 2 checkpoints along the way granting them extra time to complete the objective. It's the defenders' job to stop the attackers from reaching the point by eliminating them. If the defenders eliminate all the attackers near to the vehicle, it'll stop and no progress will be made. If the vehicle reaches the endpoint, the attackers win. If time runs out, the defenders win.

Convergence

This mode is very similar to Convoy, with the same objectives of escorting and defending a payload for the attackers while the defenders try to stop them. The only real difference is that in Convergence, the attackers must first take control of a zone on the map before activating the vehicle to be escorted.

The 3 modes of Domination, Convoy, and Convergence form the core playlist in Marvel Rivals, and are what you'll spend the vast majority of your time playing in the game across Quick Match and the Competitive mode. Separate from them is Conquest, which is a team deathmatch mode where 2 teams fight for the most eliminations in a match.

What will dictate your success in these modes is the character you play and how they then work together with the other heroes your team picks. There are 33 characters in Marvel Rivals at launch, and each one specialises in a certain role. If you want to stand the best chance of winning, then you and the 5 other players on your team must cover a good variety of roles with your character picks. There's the Vanguard, the Duelist, and the Strategist. Here's a breakdown of them all:

All Character Roles Explained

Vanguard

This role is what you'd commonly refer to as a Tank. These characters sit on the frontline of the battle and soak up damage with their large health pools, helping to push their team forward. It's essential to have at least 1 on your team, as they become a focal point for the enemy team to target, letting other players break enemy lines in a less obvious fashion.

Duelist

A role for those who love to be in the thick of the action, this role is generally referred to as DPS. While the Vanguard role supports, you'll need to eliminate the enemy team as often as possible and be quite aggressive with your actions, as your fellow players will be relying on you to lead on objectives.

Strategist

This role is usually referred to as Support, as you'll be helping your fellow teammates accomplish their tasks rather than actively completing them yourself. This can be done through healing, or providing your teammates with buffs. While you absolutely can pick up a few eliminations or objective captures yourself, the role is more about supporting those around you than being the star of the show. What you do is still equally just as important and makes a huge contribution to the success of the team, though.

Unlike other games of the genre, Marvel Rivals won't force you to play a specific role if other members of the team have already picked what you're after. This means you could actually start a match with a team full of Vanguards, Duelists, or Strategists. Doing so would heavily impact your chances of winning because you need a good composition of different roles in order for each teammate to benefit one another. However, it is possible to do so and lets you play as a particular character if you really want to.

No matter which character you choose, every one of them will come with a standard attack option, a set of abilities, an Ultimate Ability, and a Team-Up Ability. It's vital you learn what these attacks and abilities do, as they will be able to help your team win the match and save your life in tricky situations. Each character has a unique set, so there's a lot to learn with 33 heroes in the game, but here's how they all work in a basic sense:

All Character Abilities Explained

Standard Attack

This is your most basic method of dealing damage to the enemy. How viable it is to actually eliminate an opponent depends on what character you pick, but landing shots will power up your abilities, so it's always worth chipping away at enemy HP bars. Some characters have a secondary attack also.

Abilities

Every character comes with a set of abilities that are tuned to help it accomplish its role. For example, a Vanguard might be able to protect their teammates with shields while a Vanguard could call upon increased speed and special projectile attacks. Abilities work on a cooldown, so they're not infinitely usable.

Ultimate Ability

As a match progresses, you'll slowly charge up an Ultimate Ability that can be used during the match. With devasting power and effects, they're designed to turn the tides of battle if you're losing or properly cement a win. You'll most likely only be able to activate your Ultimate Ability once per match, so use it sparingly. The meter slowly charges up to 100%, at which point you can use it, but it fills quicker by eliminating enemies.

Team-Up Ability

If you and your teammates select the correct composition of characters, you'll be able to activate a Team-Up Ability. This relies on you choosing the right superheroes, and during a match, you will get exclusive bonuses. Most of these upgrades are passive, so you don't need to do anything to activate them; they're always working. Some will have certain conditions you need to fulfil, and then you press a button to activate the Team-Up Ability. The lineup of characters that can perform them is detailed in the main menu.

Now that you have the basic knowledge and understanding behind Marvel Rivals, you can begin playing the game with a good level of confidence. In the next section, we shall guide you through your first few matches and suggest characters to play as based on your team makeup. You can find a list of All Launch Characters through the link.

Marvel Rivals Guide: How to Get Started

Once you are all up to date on the modes, character roles, and abilities in Marvel Rivals, our first suggestion for getting started in the game properly is to simply jump in and begin playing. Given the use of the Marvel license, there are likely already a few superheroes you're fond of in the roster; play as them to begin with. Controlling your favourite superhero is a fantasy for many, so before bothering yourself with any complexities, put the learnings above into practice and get to grips with how they play.

Once you have proper context for the basics, you can begin to explore the more complex mechanics and styles of play that'll better your chances of winning a match. Since this is an online multiplayer game played against other real-life players, there's no definitive strategy we could offer that guarantees victory — there's a counter to everything. However, there are certain tactics you can employ to give you the best chance of winning. Have a read of our tips, tricks, and all-round advice for improving your game

Form an Effective Lineup of Character Roles for Your Team

One of the most important factors for winning a match is decided before it even starts: your team composition. Across the 3 different character roles, you and the 5 other players on your side must come together to form an effective lineup of characters that complement one another. While the game does let you select 6 characters all from the same role, the chances of you actually winning a match with such a lineup is extremely low against a team that knows what it's doing.

As such, you should feel free to have your favourite characters, but when you're on the character selection screen, make sure to pay close attention to who your teammates have picked. If there are already enough Duelists selected, consider choosing a Vanguard or Strategist to help them out. In the same vein, you don't need a team dominated by Vanguards, so opt for a Duelist if nobody's chosen one yet. Strategists are just as important, though, so don't start a match without one.

You don't need an equal split between 2 Vanguards, 2 Duelists, and 2 Strategists, but you should really have at least one character from each role to better your chances of winning. If your favourite role is already covered, you might well have to bite the bullet and pick something else — it's team before self.

Wait for Teammates and Work Together

Once you have the right team composition, it's equally important to stick together rather than rushing off on your own to score the first kill. Team synergy is vital if you want to push the enemy team back and work towards completing your objective, so let each character work to their role's strengths.

If you're a Vanguard, make sure you're on the frontline with your teammates behind you in order to soak up damage. If you're a Strategist, stick close by to players likely to take damage next — like the Vanguards — so you can quickly heal them and get them back into the action. Duelists need to toe the line between the other two, pushing when appropriate and retreating when they're left on their own.

No matter what role you play, you've always got a better chance of survival with a teammate or two by your side. If you are on your own, consider retreating and waiting for your teammates to respawn rather than easily getting picked off by the enemy.

The Kill Feed Is Your Friend

Linking in closely to our previous point of working together as a team, it's useful to know in the moment who's alive and who's not. The kill feed in the top-right corner of your screen will communicate this, revealing all the eliminations as they happen. This can give you a good idea of how many teammates and enemies are alive at any one time, suggesting that you should either push the objective or retreat and wait for backup. Without actually seeing the battle in person, the kill feed can give you a good idea of what's going on and whether you should be sprinting to join in or not.

Experiment with Team-Up Abilities

Once you feel you've mastered a particular character, you should look into the other characters you need on your team to activate their Team-Up Ability. Naturally, this is going to be a lot easier to arrange if you're playing with friends you are communicating with, but if you notice the characters you need to activate a Team-Up Ability have already been selected, you'd do well to finish off the effort and pick the last character needed. You can learn more about Team-Up Abilities and the characters required for each one on the main menu.

Focus on the Enemy Healers

When you're in active battle with the enemy team, you need to direct your fire at its healers. They will be healing all their teammates and potentially even reviving them, so cutting the enemy off from that constant HP source leaves them at a big disadvantage temporarily. If you eliminate the healer, then the rest of the team is operating on a limited health pool, making it easier for you to knock them out.

Of course, the healer will eventually rejoin the battle after respawning, so you need to use that window of opportunity to your advantage and push for more eliminations as much as possible. This will make completing the objective easier, no matter whether it's escorting a payload or capturing a point.

Marvel Rivals Guide: Levelling Up and Progression

In Marvel Rivals, everyone has their own overall account level, but it's not tied to character unlocks or new weapons or gear; it's simply more of a representation of how much you've invested into the game. The higher your account level, the more you hae accomplished. You can find your level in the top-right corner of the main menu, and from there, you could check out your stats, match highlights, achievements, and more.

The main form of progression is simply getting better at playing your favourite characters, discovering new ones to get better at, and unlocking cosmetic items, all of which are detailed below. Of course, there'll be a competitive scene where you can test your Marvel Rivals skills against the best of the best.

Marvel Rivals Guide: Skins and Customisation

The competitive battles of Marvel Rivals are the main focus of the title, but you want to fight in style, right? Customising your favourite characters with skins is the best way you can score eliminations with a bit of flair, and all the superheroes have a whole roster to choose from. Most of them are earned through the Battle Passes and the in-game Store, and we detail them in the next section. They have no effect on gameplay and are purely for cosmetic flair.

Other elements of the game you can customise are a character's MVP move, emotes, sprays, and nameplates. To get 300 Units for free to spend on cosmetic items, refer to our Assemble Codes Explained and How to Get Them guide.

Marvel Rivals Guide: Battle Passes and the Store

Besides your overall account level, the other main progression path in Marvel Rivals will be the Battle Passes. Just like other live-service games, you can buy these and then work through them to unlock cosmetic items, from new skins to the blue currency Units to emotes. There's a free path that lets everyone unlock a certain number of items, and then the paid path will reward you with everything at every level as you reach it. You level up a Battle Pass by completing in-game challenges and events to earn Chrono Tokens, which can then be spent to redeem the items in the Battle Pass. The dev has said Marvel Rivals will never be pay-to-win, so the Battle Passes won't offer any items that actually affect gameplay.

There's also a premium currency called Lattice, which is sold for real money at the conversion of $0.99 = 100 Lattice. In the initial Season 0 available now, the Battle Pass costs 490 Lattices (~$4.90). Due to the shorter length of Season 0, it only offers half the rewards of a normal Battle Pass, and as such costs half the usual price. A Battle Pass never expires in Marvel Rivals, so you do not need to worry about missing out on any items towards the end of the rewards track as a Season ends.

NetEase has promised that future events will reward you with free skins and cosmetic items, as well as Units to spend on bundles from the Store. Again, find Codes for December 2024 through the link for any free skins available right now.

That brings our Marvel Rivals beginner's guide to its end. We hope our advice has proven helpful to you, but if you have any tips or tricks of your own to share, feel free to post them in the comments below.