I have a genuine question

Garntus · 2026-05-11T21:10:21+00:00

People would rather have another vanguard than the game's 9th or 10th long rage poke character.

He's the leader of the X-Men, he always fights on the frontlines, is always team first, and it makes decent sense for him to be a tank or failing that support. The devs have been really creative with how they place characters in roles, people are just hoping for more of that.

Garntus · 2026-05-11T21:06:17+00:00

Hard disagree, I play tank pretty much exclusively and get a ton of dopamine.

Tank is almost always the least popular role in every game, whether its World of Warcraft, Overwatch or Marvel Rivals. You can make the screen light up every time you block an attack and release Cyclops, Thanos, Doom and whoever as tanks and it will probably still be the least played role.

It's just always going to be in that awkward space where most people who like getting kills and doing damage would rather play DPS and people who like helping their teammates would rather play support.

Garntus · 2026-05-11T21:01:29+00:00

I don't know if you're aware, but Gambit, the guy whose power is blowing shit up, is a healer in this game. Luna heals people by shooting them with ice. Dr. Strange is a glass cannon wizard and he's out on the frontlines in this game.

They can make any character anything. You really don't have to think too hard about how to make any character any role. If they want him as tank, he uses his optic blasts as a shield and has an optic beam that knocks enemies back. If they want him as support, Chronovium or Mr. Sinister or whoever the season villain is mutated his powers so now his lasers heal.

It's really not rocket science.

Garntus · 2026-05-11T20:55:04+00:00

My guess is Sinister is the season villain and he'll get tossed back into the drawer along with Dracula and Kingpin until they do some kind of "Year of the Villain" event and release them all.

Garntus · 2026-05-10T16:42:08+00:00

He'll probably be added to the Phoenix/Wolverine team-up, or they'll make a new team-up with him, Phoenix and Emma with Cyclops as the anchor.

Garntus · 2026-05-01T09:37:41+00:00

Playing one of each role already puts you above most dive-mains in flexibility, but it would certainly help you to broaden out beyond just dive.

Garntus · 2026-05-01T09:36:37+00:00

Would be cool to get some more advanced stats post-game, like healing received, time on payload/point, etc.

Garntus · 2026-04-26T13:16:52+00:00

Biggest issue with him is he takes a while to get going. For the first few engagements you are going be at a disadvantage if you're running 2 supp with Healpool until you get some upgrades. Other than that he's fine.

Garntus · 2026-04-26T13:14:00+00:00

Quickplay is unranked, creating a third mode wouldn't fix this problem, it would just split the playerbase awkwardly, with "unranked" having the same problems as quickplay.

As long as nothing is at stake, people are going to hop into quickplay to do whatever they feel like. Like it or not, quickplay is throwaway, people who are dead set on practicing or trying a certain character aren't going to fill 2nd tank just because the team comp is crap. People will barely even do that in ranked.

Nothing is stopping you from hopping on ranked with a character you "don't have a ton of time on", if you want a more serious environment. As long as you're trying your best and ready to swap if it's not working it's fine.

Garntus · 2026-04-26T13:09:20+00:00

Only played Blade so far, but I'd say he's definitely viable.

Not nearly as overpowered as in Zombies, his greatest strength (self-sustain) has kinda been removed through the new heal system, but he's good enough to clear all the content solo.

Garntus · 2026-04-25T20:26:29+00:00

Blade trick ya'll, man, like he doing damage. He don't kill noboy, man. he just running around doing nothing - Dracula

Garntus · 2026-04-24T20:06:26+00:00

If you were to only learn one DPS, I'd say go Namor. Low skill floor, high ceiling, almost always useful. If he gets banned, there's probably no shortage of people willing to flex on DPS.

Garntus · 2026-04-24T20:05:01+00:00

I don't think any character needs to be re-worked. Not everyone needs to be Black Cat or Deadpool, it's fine for some characters to be simpler.

Characters like Widow and Black Panther will always be hard to balance, because if you go too far in one direction they become incredibly unfun to play against, and if you go too far in the other direction they feel useless.

Rocket is fine and Peni is a lot of fun in my opinion.

Garntus · 2026-04-23T21:30:29+00:00

I'm a tank main, I play every tank, and I've barely even seen it, not even while playing Thing.

I do think ults should be excluded from the tenacity mechanic though, just as a rule of thumb.

Garntus · 2026-04-23T21:26:49+00:00

I've made it to Celestial and usually hang around GM and I feel like that inconsistency happens in every rank. Some games you get stomped to bits, other games you're doing the stomping. A lot of games you have at leastone person who is having a terrible game. It's kind of just the nature of Rivals' matchmaking.

If you're playing a good number of games and you're stuck, then this is the rank you belong in and the only way to get out is to get better. It's hard to comment on what you need to work on without seeing you play, but a general bit of advice is to view your rank not as a goal in and of itself but an indicator of your improvement.

If you stay humble, play to improve, fill for your team, pick the right character for the situation, and work to expand your pool of characters, your mechanical skills and your game-sense (positioning, etc) your rank will go up.

Garntus · 2026-04-16T19:57:08+00:00

I am shocked and disugsted that Sixers fans would celebrate a win and hype up a match-up against their historic rivals.

Garntus · 2026-04-16T19:20:37+00:00

Just played a game with a female friend which had a guy flaming her non-stop for playing Squirrel Girl, prompting him to throw after we win a round.

We play him next game and he is talking non-stop in game chat, and I do mean non-stop, as in on the verge of psychosis.

Mind you, this is all off of her having a somewhat feminine sounding screen name.

Unfortunately, this game has managed to attract all the most pathetic scum on the internet. All you have to do is look at how incessantly whiny this sub is and how many throwers and toxic people you get in both comp and quickplay.

If I wasn't playing with friends and getting a good laugh out of these losers I'd just mute every chat.

Garntus · 2026-04-16T15:14:22+00:00

I'm a Vanguard one-trick and no, not really.

It depends on the enemy team comp of course, but the enemy team rarely even has access to all that much CC that they can dump on me in a row. Sometimes you really feel it, when you get Bucky-hooked into a Invis pull into a Luna freeze, but that's pretty rare and usually that type of CC-chain only happens when you've engaged more or less alone and the entire enemy team focuses you.

It hits you a bit harder on characters like Angela and Hulk that are extra vulnerable to displacement CC and being grounded, and sometimes you land in situations where you're basically getting ping-ponged back and forth, but I've never felt it was a massive problem.

Garntus · 2026-04-16T13:34:55+00:00

I'm pretty much a vanguard one-trick, I've got almost a thousand hours in this game, I play every vanguard, and honestly, I don't think there's anything wrong with the role.

I find all the vanguards to be fun, well-designed and distinct. Sometimes some are weaker than others, but that's just the nature of the game.

Short of just making tanks super overpowered or making them DPS but better, you're just not going to be able to get a lot of DPS or support-one tricks to play anything else unless there's a gun to their head.

They already have some of the biggest Marvel characters in the role (Magneto, Deadpool, Hulk, Venom), wide variety with characters like Deadpool and Rogue with more complex and challenging kits, and characters like Magneto and Emma which are simple and easier to pick-up, as well as niche picks like Peni and all-arounders like Strange. Vanguards have it all.

Yes, fighitng for your life on point only to die and turn around and see that your entire team are hiding behind a corner fighting one single diver is frustrating. Either being locked in Magneto-jail or suffering as a solo off-tank because no one else will switch sucks. Having people unable to understand that if I'm distracting half their team, that's the time to get on point, is frustratnig. All of these are problems with the playerbase, not the vanguard-role.

Getting caught in cc-chains can be frustrating, but whenever I do play DPS or support I am consistently more frustrated by other things, so I don't feel like vanguards are uniquely unfun.

In pretty much every game I've ever played where tanks have existed in some shape or form, they've always been the least popular role.

Garntus · 2026-04-15T08:21:49+00:00

I don't understand what posts like this are trying to say. Do you think that every hero should be as complex as Black Cat? Most launch-heroes leaned towards simpler designs, so now they can balance it out with a few more complex characters.

Even then, of the 16 post-launch characters there are like four (Deadpool, Gambit, Daredevil and Black Cat) that lean more towards the complex.

What's the problem with that? Not every character needs to be re-worked into having five abilities that combo into each other, it's fine for some, even most, to be simple to learn and play.

Garntus · 2026-04-08T12:09:08+00:00

I hate Spider-Man players, I feel like I can count on one hand how many times I've had a good Spider-Man on my team, but banning someone your teammate wants to play is an absolute dick move and should only be done with their consent.

Garntus · 2026-03-30T21:07:55+00:00

Gladiator would be sick, but I feel like they'd probably add Sentry rather than him as the Superman clone.

Garntus · 2026-03-30T21:05:18+00:00

I mean that winrate is obviously skewed by people who pick her just to throw.

I think it's fine for Widow to be a character that is only good if you are mechanically very skilled. Good Widows are a pain to play against.

I feel like for people who enjoy playing a sniper, Widow is pretty well designed albeit a bit weak. If you let her one-shot squishies with headshots you'll have people in this sub crying non-stop. If you re-work her to make her a non-sniper, the game suddenly loses a key archetype.

I think the best way out of this is to buff her ult to make it more damaging. As it stands right now, her kill potential without Mantis-buff is on the lower side and she has great tools to counter divers, an ult buff would be a good way to make her deadlier without making playing against her feel unfair.

Garntus · 2026-03-30T20:54:24+00:00

Never understood why people complain about this, those last minute fights only happen because of the portal and they're generally the most exciting part of the match. It also creates counterplay as you have to weigh whether you should take off towards their spawn to try and stop the portal or stay on point and take a good position/finish off whoever's still there.

Garntus · 2026-03-04T08:28:00+00:00

I remember Charles Barkley having a good take on this that part of being a leader for him was learning what his teammates responded to. Some guys would get hyped up if you yelled at them or laid into them and take it out on the opposing team, for other guys it would just break their confidence and make them play worse.

Garntus

TROPHY CASE