Solo tank team compositions are one of the most common in Marvel Rivals – for better or for worse. Here’s everything you need to know about if it ever makes sense to solo tank, as well as strategies to stay alive and more best practices when solo tanking.
If you’ve ever played Marvel Rivals, then you’ve probably come across those games where no one wants to tank, and maybe, maybe, one player begrudgingly swaps to Magneto before the team proceeds to get rolled. Sound familiar? Solo tanking is a common occurrence in Rivals. Though everyone can agree on the importance of having Vanguards to claim and hold space as well as soak damage for the team, it remains the least popular role in the game statistically.
According to rivalstracker.com, solo tank team compositions are by far the most frequent after the standard 2-2-2, and this shouldn’t surprise anyone who has ever interacted with the community. Certainly, we’re all familiar with DPS insta-lockers who refuse to budge, and the tank role across most (if not all) hero shooters tends to be perceived as one of the least glamorous. Shocker! Nobody’s signing up for the job of standing there and getting shot at!
Tanks are, yes, the meat-shields of the team, which is precisely why it matters to have two. The game is designed around a state of balance: Two tanks, to offset the damage output of two opposing DPS. If there were ever a character designed to carry as a solo tank, they would almost certainly be too overpowering. So, asking a teammate to solo tank means asking them to take more damage than any one tank is meant to, and let’s be clear, that has significant ripple effects for the players who bypass second tank to play third DPS or support too.
Are there any situations at all where solo tanking is the right move strategically? And, since any tank player will find themselves solo tanking sooner or later anyway, let’s talk about the tips and tricks to keep in mind, and which characters are best suited for the task.
Let me put it this way: You can win with a solo tank composition, and there’s a variety of ways to do so. Triple DPS comps that synergize well can apply lots of raw pressure to test the other team – think multiple dive characters, or a high-damage comp including characters like Squirrel Girl and Moon Knight. A triple-support comp might have enough sustain to offset a solo tank, especially with a damage-oriented support such as Ultron or (if we really want to get toxic) the ability to spam ‘invincibility’ ults like Luna Snow or Cloak & Dagger in perpetuity.
Perhaps that sounds straightforward – and I’m sure every DPS player relishes the chance to diff the other team outright, comp be damned – but it’s rarely quite so easy. The advantages of adding a third character from any role rarely outweigh the importance of losing two Vanguards’ survivability, two Duelists’ damage or (God forbid) two Strategists’ healing. And no, Mister Fantastic is not a true second tank, not when it really counts.
The margin for error will be raised that much higher. As the sole center of attention on the frontline, a solo tank effectively takes the damage of two tanks – they’ll have to more conscious of their positioning and use of cover, but even beyond that, it’s going to affect the rest of the team. Your healers will have to divert more of their attention to keep your tank from getting shredded, and in a triple-DPS comp, there may not be enough healing to keep everyone alive. (Trying to heal a solo tank as well as a flyer DPS is probably one of the most horrid experiences in the game and I wish it on no one.) A triple-support comp, meanwhile, might struggle to generate enough pressure to move forward.
The situations where solo tanking is the true optimal strategy are probably far and few between, and definitely rarer than the number of times that you’ll actually see solo tank comps. Unfortunately, that just comes with the nature of the role. Maybe that changes if new and exciting Vanguards are introduced to the game or if there are ever major buffs across the class, but tanking has never been the sexiest set of responsibilities in hero shooters.
Whether or not it makes the most sense to do so, you’re probably going to have to solo tank at some point anyway, so let’s get into some best practices.
As a solo tank, this is the most important thing to understand: The teamfight is probably lost if you go down, without anyone else to take heat off your squishies. The traditional role of a tank is to take space, but a solo tank will have to be far more conservative about doing so. For some tank mains, that might mean having to unlearn certain instincts and allowing themselves to retreat for heals more often than they’d like.
You’ll want to stay close to your healers, and there’s a greater onus on your DPS to create space for you to take. If your team includes dive characters, then a solo tank may also have to peel for healers, which means an easily manipulable frontline for the enemy team. Any bit of extra damage mitigation will go a long way, whether that’s natural cover, secondary lanes or passive healing abilities such as Luna Snow’s snowflake and Ultron’s drone.
The idea is, with three healers, you can outlast the other team through sheer sustain, or with three DPS, they can wreak havoc with the bonus damage output. As a solo tank, it might feel like you lose some of that same opportunity to make a difference when you have to be so focused on just staying alive, and I’m sure that most tank players, like players at any other role, want to make those big momentum-shifting plays that contribute to winning.
It’s certainly more passive, but I would argue that a solo tank shifts the momentum just by staying alive. Your team doesn’t win with a third DPS or a third support if your solo tank isn’t standing strong through the pressure.
Character selection, of course, counts for a lot – some tanks are better suited for the tall task of having the entire enemy team shoot at them. It should come as little surprise that the best characters for solo tanking are Magneto and Doctor Strange, both shield tanks who have been among the game’s most enduring presences for their reliability. Of these, I would give Magneto a slight edge due to his effective range poking from 10-20 meters, whereas Strange probably prefers to lean towards brawl territory with his shotgun-style projectile and AoE (area-of-effect) burst. Emma Frost, as always, is a strong choice too – her kit includes a shield as well as damage reduction in her Diamond Form, and she remains one of the most dominant and versatile tanks in the game despite recent nerfs to scale her back.
After that, things gets dicey fast. The rest of the Vanguard roster ranges from gimmick potential to outright inadvisable as far as solo tanking goes. For example, trying to solo with a dive tank such as Captain America, Venom or Angela is going to leave your team without a frontline whatsoever. I’ve seen this work, especially when teams go all in on a dive/flank comp that cranks the backline chaos and pressure to 11, but it’s a true risk-reward gambit that takes individual skill, team coordination and support players that can manage the (rather considerable) strain of fending for themselves alone.
Peni Parker and Groot are interesting: They don’t have much capacity to sponge damage, but the uniqueness of their kits lends itself to some possibility. A Peni that plays smartly around her mines could stand a chance at solo tanking, especially on defense or against melee/dive characters – just don’t expect a solo Peni to take space effectively at all. Groot’s walls allow for some creative play-making potential in the hands of a skilled player, but he’ll also have to play things safe when trying to move forward.
Of all tanks, I would never advise trying to solo tank with melee brawlers such as The Thing or Hulk; Thor is not much better, even though he has some damage potential at range. These tanks’ survivability and mobility tools (Thing’s charge, Hulk’s gamma shield and leap, Thor’s hammer dash) aren’t enough when they’re getting hard-focused by the entire enemy team, especially since they have to play up close to be at their best.
I’m sure every one of us that has had to solo tank at some point has also groaned about it. Even healers often hate having to devote so much attention to just one player, because they know they’re probably going to hear it from the DPS when there aren’t enough heals to go around.
For what it’s worth: It can be done! As a Magneto and Strange player myself, I’ve won enough games as a solo tank to feel capable as one, to the point that I might even offer to solo tank against certain comps or if my second tank is struggling and wants to swap. Understanding how tactics change, and how important you become as a solo tank while simultaneously ceding play-making potential to other roles, can go a long way towards solo tanking effectively.
It won’t always work, and again, solo tanking is probably ill-advised far more than it ever is. (It also comes as a severe bummer for tank players who would like to play characters other than Magneto or Strange once in a while.) But I’ll say this, too: Going 20-0 as a solo tank and standing on business is one of the most underrated feelings in the game, like that meme of Jon Snow fighting the Battle of the Bastards by himself.
I wish you the best of luck in your solo-tanking endeavors, and for the third DPS insta-locker who may be reading this, then I implore you to have some sympathy for the poor Hulk main on your team who has to play Mag for the fourth time in a row because he’s solo tanking... again.
