Wondering who reigns supreme in Marvel Rivals? This hero and villain shooter from Marvel and NetEase features an incredible roster of characters, each bringing their own unique flair. But let’s be honest, some are simply more powerful than others in the current meta.
Our definitive Marvel Rivals tier list for Season 4 meticulously ranks all 42 characters, assessing their raw power and overall impact. Whether you’re aiming to dominate the competitive ladder or just looking for the strongest pick, this guide will help you choose wisely.
| Rank | Character |
| S | Emma Frost, Cloak & Dagger, Luna Snow, Rocket Raccoon, The Punisher, Doctor Strange, Magneto, Hela, Loki, Magik |
| A | Angela, Phoenix, Wolverine, Invisible Woman, Ultron, Storm, Iron Man, Psylocke, Hawkeye, Hulk, Winter Soldier, Star-Lord, Adam Warlock, Mantis, Peni Parker |
| B | Human Torch, Iron Fist, Spider-Man, Mister Fantastic, Namor, Captain America, Thor, Jeff the Land Shark, Groot, Squirrel Girl, The Thing |
| C | Blade, Scarlet Witch, Black Panther, Venom |
| D | Black Widow, Moon Knight |
S-Tier
Emma Frost
Emma Frost, a powerful strategist, stands out with her incredibly versatile and potent abilities. In her diamond form, she boasts significant damage reduction, crowd control, and devastating offensive power, capable of eliminating even tanks with her core combo.
However, mastering Emma requires careful management of her diamond form’s long cooldown. Outside of it, she’s more of a short-ranged bruiser, making her vulnerable if played as a solo frontline. Her Telepathic Pulse also demands constant engagement to maintain optimal DPS, as it loses effectiveness without charge.
Despite these tactical considerations, Emma Frost easily secures her S-Tier position. A skilled player, supported by a synergistic team, can make her weaknesses incredibly difficult to exploit, allowing her to dominate the battlefield.
Cloak & Dagger
This dynamic duo offers powerful utility that can decisively alter the course of any battle. Dagger excels at keeping allies healthy, while switching to Cloak grants access to vision-manipulating abilities that can disorient enemies.
While neither Cloak nor Dagger might shine as a standalone healer or damage dealer, their unparalleled versatility as a Strategist pairing makes them more than worthy of a top spot on our Marvel Rivals tier list. Recent balance changes have refined their ultimate ability, ensuring all healing zones activate simultaneously for greater impact.
Rocket Raccoon
Rocket Raccoon is a remarkably handy and adaptable support character. His Battle Rebirth Beacon can bring a fallen ally back into the fight while also dispensing crucial armor packs. Though his Repair Mode secondary fire provides healing, it’s not as potent for critical saves as other healers like Luna Snow or Adam Warlock.
Despite recent rebalances that shifted his focus more towards team survivability (including a nerf to his ultimate’s damage amplification and Jetpack Dash cooldown), Rocket remains a valuable pick due to his unique utility.
Luna Snow
Luna Snow epitomizes the ideal support hero, capable of both inflicting damage and swiftly restoring allies’ health. Her primary attack provides on-demand healing for teammates and solid damage against foes with precision hits. Her Ice Arts stage further enhances this, turning her basic attack into a powerful icicle while healing herself.
Share the Stage allows Luna to heal two allies simultaneously, making team sustain easier. Absolute Zero freezes enemies and offers self-healing, great for dealing with flankers. Her ultimate, Fate of Both Worlds, is arguably one of the game’s best, offering both a healing mode and a damage boost, adapting to any situation.
The Punisher
The Punisher is a straightforward yet incredibly effective character, akin to classic shooter archetypes. Armed with an assault rifle for mid-range engagements and a shotgun for close-quarters combat, he can handle almost any threat. Aerial opponents like Iron Man or pesky flankers like Spider-Man can both be dealt with.
His deployable turret and mech ultimate are fantastic for rapidly boosting your damage output, whether you’re pushing objectives or defending crucial positions.
Doctor Strange
Doctor Strange is an aggressive tank, excelling in coordinated teams due to his team-wide teleport. His substantial shield is invaluable for pushing objectives or holding ground against heavy assaults.
Though he feels like he’s constantly reloading, his basic attack can be lethal in the right hands. Dealing damage charges Dark Magic; releasing it with Maelstrom of Madness unleashes massive AoE damage. However, failing to release it before it overcharges results in an anti-heal state, which can be a death sentence for a tank.
Magneto
Magneto, despite being slow and challenging to master, possesses everything a top-tier tank needs: formidable defensive capabilities, potent crowd control, and impressive damage. His primary attack fires slow but impactful projectiles that can quickly eliminate DPS and support characters.
His Bulwark abilities provide shields to himself or allies, protecting them and generating rings that enhance Mag-Cannon’s damage, further boosting his burst potential. While he feels somewhat incomplete without the Metallic Fusion team-up ability from Scarlet Witch, his core kit makes him an S-tier threat.
Hela
As the Goddess of Death, Hela is a terrifying damage dealer, though her precision-focused playstyle can be tricky in close quarters. Her primary attack, combined with Piercing Night, can decimate enemy health bars, especially with headshots. This reliance on precision makes her vulnerable to close-range threats like Spider-Man or Iron Fist if Astral Flock isn’t available for repositioning.
Her ultimate ability, while initially disorienting, is excellent for clearing objectives and escaping dangerous situations. Despite some recent nerfs to her health and damage falloff, Hela remains a dominant force.
Loki
True to his title as the God of Trickery, Loki is a nimble support who excels at healing allies while constantly moving. His decoys, while not foolproof, are perfect for creating temporary distractions, making him ideal in aggressive metas where self-peel is crucial for a Strategist.
As he isn’t a dedicated burst healer, Loki performs best when paired with a strong healer like Adam Warlock or Luna Snow, who can ensure allies survive while he manipulates the battlefield.
Magik
Magik is a formidable melee DPS who, despite being challenging to master, becomes incredibly potent in skilled hands, especially when teamed with damage-absorbing allies like Venom or Magneto. She can teleport into fights and unleash various melee attacks, all of which grant her bonus health, providing a level of survivability that other melee DPS heroes often lack without sacrificing damage.
A-Tier
Angela
Angela, a recent addition in Season 4, made a strong debut. As a flying Vanguard, she can dish out consistent damage, lock down enemy teams with her ultimate, and forcefully reposition opponents with her spear charge. While she arrived in a balanced state rather than being immediately broken, her current strong presence in the meta ensures she remains a top-tier contender.
Phoenix
Season 3’s Phoenix burst onto the scene, quickly establishing herself as one of the game’s premier Duelists. Her kit is packed with everything a damage dealer desires: self-sustain, powerful splash damage, and multiple ways to escape dangerous situations. Her ultimate is a game-changing teamfight tool, perfect for initiating engagements, countering summon-reliant teams, or providing shields and bonus health to allies.
Wolverine
Wolverine is an absolute beast in one-on-one combat, rarely losing a fight unless expertly kited. His core gameplay revolves around getting close and staying close until his target is eliminated. Logan gains rage with every hit dealt or received, progressively empowering him and boosting the bonus health from his Regenerative Healing Factor—the key to his effectiveness as a bruiser and tankbuster.
Recent adjustments have increased his base health, though with a slight reduction in damage resistance, making him even more consistent at eliminating enemy tanks. He’s a formidable opponent in ranked play.
Invisible Woman
Sue Storm has certainly made a significant impact since her introduction, living up to the hype. While she may not match Luna Snow’s raw healing output, her piercing main attack effectively keeps teammates alive while dealing respectable damage. Invisible Woman’s greatest asset is arguably her survivability, with shields, invisibility, and displacement abilities that make her incredibly difficult to pin down.
Ultron
Ultron, introduced in Season 2.5, seamlessly integrated into the meta as a formidable flying threat. He excels at simultaneously dealing damage and healing allies, making him a nightmare for opponents. While he might not be a primary burst healer, Ultron is a quintessential ‘harmacist’ who consistently outputs surprising damage.
Storm
Storm functions as a unique support-damage hybrid, filling a specialized role. Her basic attacks, Bolt Rush, and Goddess Boost inflict good damage and allow her to strategically take the offensive, especially given her flight capabilities. Her primary strength lies in Weather Control, which enables her to switch between powerful buffs like increased movement speed or enhanced damage, making her exceptionally effective in well-coordinated teams.
Iron Man
Iron Man, while perhaps not as agile as one might expect, stands as a superb ranged, aerial, and AoE DPS character. His ability to hover above the battlefield keeps him safe from most of the roster, though The Punisher poses a significant threat. When not countered, Iron Man consistently delivers strong damage, effectively softening up groups of enemies. However, his lack of burst damage outside of his impressive ultimate prevents him from reaching the absolute top tier.
Psylocke
Invisibility is a notoriously frustrating mechanic to counter, and Psylocke’s Psychic Stealth makes this already mobile character incredibly difficult to pin down. This is further enhanced by the invulnerability granted during her ultimate, Dance of the Butterfly, all while she dishes out a tremendous amount of damage. As a five-star difficulty Duelist, maximizing Psylocke’s potential requires considerable skill, but with practice, she could easily ascend to the S-Tier.
Hawkeye
Hawkeye, the master archer, brings a wealth of damage and utility, including slows, knockbacks, and launches. His ultimate, Hunter’s Sight, is one of the best in the game, generating afterimages that make his damage almost impossible to evade. Unlike Black Widow, Hawkeye can one-shot squishy targets, though this is balanced by his ‘focus’ mechanic: he needs to charge his arrows by maintaining focus on a target, which depletes if they leave his sight. Only the most skilled players will consistently hit high-HP targets, but his damage is formidable regardless.
Bruce Banner/Hulk
Despite having three forms with distinct abilities, Hulk’s gameplay is simpler than it initially appears. Most of your time will be spent as Hero Hulk, who, unfortunately, lacks significant impact on his own. With heavy punches, gamma-ray blasts, and an immobilizing effect, Hulk’s kit focuses on damage, but his abilities often feel underwhelming. Moreover, his large size makes him an easy target with limited defensive options.
Hulk is best played as a disruptor, similar to Winston from Overwatch, diving in and out of fights to create chaos. Eliminating enemies is secondary, so he’s best picked with a strong primary tank or dedicated damage dealers.
Winter Soldier
The Winter Soldier is a jack-of-all-trades and master of many, boasting impressive damage, crowd control, and single-target lockdown. His Roterstern, though a three-round mag, reloads while his bionic arm is in use, creating solid combo potential. His versatility allows him to fit into almost any team composition, and his Ammo Overload team-up ability with Rocket Raccoon makes them a formidable duo.
Star-Lord
While Star-Lord might feel like he’s missing an ability or two, his agile playstyle and high damage make him a strong DPS in capable hands. He’s most effective when played aggressively, dashing in and out to dodge damage while bursting down weaker enemies, especially healers. His Blaster Barrage is great for softening up groups, but remember to have teammates nearby, as he can be an easy target.
Adam Warlock
Adam Warlock, much like Luna Snow, is a highly versatile support hero. Soul Bond and Avatar Life Stream effectively keep allies healthy, while his basic attack and Cosmic Cluster deliver surprisingly strong damage. However, his greatest strengths lie in his ultimate and passive abilities. Karmic Revival can revive your entire team, a true game-changer. His passive grants him a second life, and his team-up with Mantis and Star-Lord extends this benefit to them as well. What’s not to love about that?
Mantis
Mantis is a support character with a primary focus on healing, predominantly through healing over time rather than burst heals. This means she pairs best with a strong burst healer like Adam Warlock or Luna Snow. Her consistent healing makes her a nuisance for enemies, and she also benefits from self-healing.
Due to her emphasis on sustained healing and lower damage output, Mantis is less versatile on her own but makes for a perfect secondary support. Her stun ability and damage boost effect further compensate for her limitations.
Peni Parker
Peni Parker, the cheerful super-scientist spider-woman, is a favorite among mech enthusiasts and players who enjoy trapping and tormenting their foes. While she has a reputation as a low-ELO stomper, Peni is effectively played at all competitive levels. As one of the best anti-dive Vanguards, she provides traps and utility to protect her backline, often baiting Duelists into overextending with her web nest. She performs best when paired with a dedicated tank; avoid playing her solo in the tank role.
B-Tier
Human Torch
Human Torch is a versatile Duelist offering strong mid-range firepower and potent utility. His permanent flight makes him somewhat elusive, though his lack of a dedicated mobility tool means he can be easier to target than agile characters like Star-Lord. Johnny’s strength lies in his Pyro-Prison, which damages enemies within, setting them up for his Flaming Meteor dive and the fiery tornadoes from his Supernova ultimate.
Iron Fist
Combining impressive mobility with devastating combat prowess, Iron Fist is an ideal component for dive compositions. Beyond his rapid and fierce combos, he also has access to self-healing, enhancing his versatility in teams lacking robust healers. To top it off, his team-up ability, Dragon’s Chill, with Luna Snow adds crowd control and even more healing to his arsenal.
Spider-Man
Spider-Man isn’t just a fan-favorite hero; he also brings incredible mobility and pain to the battlefield. As a combo-driven character reliant on web-slinging to survive, he’s challenging to master. However, once you do, he can swiftly eliminate healers and other DPS characters. Mark enemies with a Spider-Tracer via his webs, use Get Over Here! to close the gap, then unleash the Amazing Combo uppercut. This combo is often enough for standard health enemies, allowing you to escape and re-engage.
Mister Fantastic
Reed Richards made a somewhat underwhelming debut in Marvel Rivals. Functioning more as an off-tank than a pure Duelist, Mister Fantastic’s relatively low damage output is compensated by his fantastic utility. Recent buffs to his base health, Stretch Punch damage, and other abilities have significantly improved his standing, elevating him from lower tiers.
Namor
Once struggling in the D-tier, Namor’s standing has significantly improved. This half-human, half-Atlantean hero not only deals respectable damage with his trident but can also deploy turrets that melt anything in their sights. Optimizations to his Monstro and Frozen Spawn abilities have made them easier to deploy accurately, enhancing his overall effectiveness.
Captain America
Always leading by example, Captain America is an incredibly mobile off-tank who excels at disrupting enemy formations while inspiring and shielding his teammates. While not the best at diving or absorbing damage, Cap’s balanced kit allows him to do a bit of both, making him a versatile and slippery menace when piloted expertly. Recent buffs to his cooldowns, resources, and ultimate energy cost have greatly enhanced his survivability and impact.
Thor
Thor is an intriguing Vanguard who primarily contributes raw damage to his team. Despite his three-star difficulty, maximizing his value requires careful management of Thorforce stacks. His abilities also incur a two-second global cooldown, adding another layer of strategic play. However, mastering Thor allows you to utterly dominate the battlefield, delivering thunderous blows to your opponents. Recent buffs, including increased base health and CC immunity during his ultimate, have significantly improved his standing.
Jeff the Land Shark
Jeff the Land Shark, though one of the simpler Strategists, possesses powerful abilities that make him a fantastic teammate. He offers solid healing for both himself and his team, provides bonus mobility with Hide and Seek, and has one of the most impactful site-clearing ultimates in the game, “It’s Jeff!”. This means you can get a lot out of him with minimal investment. Additionally, Jeff has two team-up abilities, Frozen Spitball and New Friends, offering even more utility in various team compositions. Despite these perks, he currently struggles to compete with higher-tier picks.
Groot
Groot, a man of few words, is a steadfast tank who shines in specific team compositions and game modes. His playstyle revolves around blockading enemies and buffing himself by staying near his barriers. This close-quarters requirement, combined with his large hitbox, makes him an easy target. However, with an aggressive, in-your-face team (like Venom, Star-Lord, and Magik), Groot is crucial for overwhelming opponents.
Squirrel Girl
Squirrel Girl, a surprisingly powerful character, combines significant damage from her slingshot with a fantastic site-clearing ultimate, Unbeatable Squirrel Tsunami. While she struggles against aerial threats, she’s typically paired with allies who can cover this weakness. She also possesses a surprising amount of crowd control, from the imprisonment of Squirrel Blockade to the powerful immobilization of Webbed Acorn, her team-up ability with Spider-Man. Despite her utility, her ultimate’s health was recently slashed, making it less robust.
The Thing
The Thing, a rock-solid Vanguard, quickly established himself as a top pick early in the meta. He provides substantial damage, impressive tankiness, and the ability to completely neutralize mobility skills with his Yancy Street Charge. Ben also greatly benefits from his team-up with Invisible Woman, which grants bonus health for a short duration, ensuring more ‘clobberin’ time’ on the battlefield.
C-Tier
Blade
Despite his recent addition, Blade hasn’t quite managed to compete with the stronger heroes, remaining in the C-Tier even after buffs to his Daywalker Dash. However, he finds strong synergy with Cloak and Dagger. Their Team Up ability turns Blade invisible for a brief period, healing him and allowing for stealthy attacks, making him a valuable partner in specific team compositions.
Scarlet Witch
While Scarlet Witch can make impactful plays, her kit feels somewhat limited, and her effectiveness has waned as players have adapted. Her basic attack, though annoying with its low, constant damage, can be mitigated by healers. It primarily serves to generate Chaos Energy for Chthonian Blast, a more dangerous attack. Her greatest strength lies in her crowd control abilities; Dark Seal can repeatedly stun enemies caught in its blast, effectively shutting down teams when placed in choke points or against tanks.
Black Panther
Black Panther features a close-range, combo-based kit similar to Magik and Spider-Man. He needs to land his attacks in a precise sequence to achieve optimal damage, and missing any attack leaves him vulnerable. As player proficiency has rapidly increased, so too has the Wakandan king’s potential. However, a substantial nerf to his survivability in a previous season reduced his overall ranking.
Venom
With a robust 800 base health, Venom is incredibly durable. His Symbiotic Resilience further enhances this, providing a second wind in tight situations, while his ultimate, Feast of the Abyss, generates bonus health (though it can be easy to avoid). Paired with Venom Swing for quick entry and exit from fights, he’s remarkably difficult to kill.
Venom also deals heavy damage with his tentacles, making him lethal up close. Combined with Cellular Corrosion to slow enemies and Frenzied Arrival to close gaps, he’s a true menace. Pairing him with a strong close-range DPS hero like Magik can dominate matches.
D-Tier
Black Widow
While often compared to Overwatch’s Widowmaker, Black Widow offers more than just a powerful rifle and high ground access. Though primarily a single-target combatant, her Electro-Plasma Explosion provides a monstrous AoE slow, creating openings for her team. Her Red Room Rifle is incredibly potent for picking off enemies, leaving squishy targets with minimal health even after headshots. Combined with the self-peel from Edge Dancer, Black Widow is challenging to lock down. Despite recent buffs to her range, stamina recovery, and ultimate, she currently remains in the D-Tier.
Moon Knight
Moon Knight, despite lacking the complex combos of some other characters, is incredibly satisfying to play. He can deal significant damage to multiple targets rapidly with his Crescent Dart and Moon Blade, especially when an Ancient Ankh is thrown into the mix, providing a stationary target for basic attack bounces. While his ultimate, Hand of Khonshu, isn’t a site-wide nuke, one well-placed Ankh pull can lead to wiping the entire enemy team. Moon Knight also boasts good mobility thanks to his Night Glider and Moonlight Hook. Recent buffs to his basic attack, survivability, mobility, and ultimate are promising, but he remains in D-Tier for now.
And there you have it – our complete Marvel Rivals tier list for Season 4. Now that you’re equipped to dominate the opposition, ensure your game settings are optimized for peak performance. We also maintain a regularly updated list of Marvel Rivals codes for free in-game rewards.