In Marvel Rivals, the best support characters in the game can offer massive amounts of healing. Here’s everything you need to know about how each Strategist’s healing potential compares to the rest.
Among hero shooters, Marvel Rivals has been known for its particularly strong class of Strategist characters, who can dish out such massive sums of healing that the game really does revolve around how players play (and play against) the best supports in the game. Of course, some stand out stronger than others, and in fact, the most prolific healers in the game can offer so much more healing than their peers that the numbers may just surprise you.
Using data from rivalstracker.com, this list organizes every Strategist in the game into four distinct tiers based on their per-minute healing. The goal is to be able to measure every support’s raw healing output, so that players can see and compare the healing potential of every character in the class against each other.
We should note that this ranking strictly measures these characters’ healing, and not their overall viability. Healing is obviously the most important quality for a healer, but there are different types of healing such as burst (the ability to heal off large amounts of damage at once) versus sustain (the ability to offer steady continuous healing), and different supports will offer different situational strengths such as the ability to heal at greater ranges or the ability to heal multiple teammates at once. As always, the numbers are only just a starting point.
This data comes from top 500 play on the date of November 20 – exactly one week into Season 5. Of course, that means the numbers are gathered from a sample size that pre-assumes a high level of player skill, albeit while playing against similarly high-skill opponents. It won’t always be the case that other players can just pick up these healers and replicate the same numbers, but hopefully, this illustrates the healing potential of every Strategist against one another and inform your hero selection choices.
Same as it ever was – these three Strategists have been top-tier supports from the moment they were introduced. According to the data, each of these characters heal at a rate of over 2,500 per minute, which is a clear cut over the rest of the class. Put simply, they are the most desirable healers to have on your team, and I would argue that every Marvel Rivals player should know how to play at least one and probably two of these characters just for the sake of being able to fill.
Invisible Woman, notably, received fairly substantial buffs in Season 5, which comes as a bit of a surprise since she was already one of the better Strategists in the game. With a boost to her damage as well as a new ability to summon her healing shield directly in front of herself, you could make the case that she’s now the absolute best Strategist out there. Of note, she’s at her best when she can position herself to pierce her primary fire through a line of allies and/or enemies at once, but consistently good regardless.
At the moment of gathering the data, Invisible Woman’s 2,532 healing per minute is highest in the game, although Luna Snow (2,531) is practically equivalent. Luna is, however, a little more reliant on player aim and skill to get the most out of her healing, though her floor remains so high that it’s hard to go wrong regardless. With her ‘clap’ activated, her primary fire pumps out incredible amounts of burst healing with a pierce effect that can keep an entire team up through a fight on point.
Cloak & Dagger (2,496) is not far off from the two above and is known for combining ease of use with powerful healing thanks to auto-aim on their primary fire and two separate cooldown abilities for burst healing. At lower levels of play, you may see players mismanage the timing of when to stay in Dagger form for healing versus playing aggro with Cloak, but C&D is overall the most forgiving Strategist to play.
Finally, to note for each of these characters, they all possess ‘invincibility field’ ultimates that are borderline must-haves in the current Rivals meta. If we were ranking the most powerful ultimates of the Strategist class, these three would probably all be in the S tier for that ranking, too. Classic case of the rich getting richer. Certainly, if you’re new to playing support, I would start here.
This next category of support characters falls short of the Invis-Luna-C&D tier of raw healing, but can more than hold their own with or without them. You could get by with any two of these Strategists just fine, and some even possess additional qualities that can make them just as compelling as the healers above.
We should start with Gambit, since he’s the shiny new toy in the Strategist category. It’s obviously still a bit soon to be drawing any definitive conclusions, but he’s already made a strong early impression. From the data, he actually surpasses every support character from this tier onwards in terms of his healing (2,305 per minute), which comes as a bit of a surprise since his kit is so well-rounded with anti-dive and even damage-dealing tools.
Understanding how to manage his cards (hearts for healing; spades for damage) is key to maximizing his potential, but I’m sure that his stock will only continue to rise as the general player-base grows more and more familiar with his kit. As things stand, Gambit already looks like he may be one of the best Strategists in the game.
Rocket, likewise, falls into this second tier in terms of his healing per minute output (2,168), but I would argue that his sheer survivability elevates him into the upper echelon of Strategists. Between his smaller hitbox and his mobility, Rocket is the most elusive support in the game. That means he can maintain his uptime and continue to heal his team in situations where other supports may get wiped, which is of incredible value, and he can heal from concealed and/or distant positions. However, it is important to note that Rocket is more of a sustain healer, and teams in need of more immediate burst healing should probably look elsewhere.
Loki is notable because he was previously a top-tier support in Rivals, until nerfs in Season 4 and 4.5 reduced him to one of the lowest pick rates and win rates in the game. A buff to his primary fire in Season 5 seems to have restored his healing to a more reasonable output (2,113), and his Regeneration Domain invincibility field – probably the single best non-ultimate support ability in the game, though with a long cooldown – doesn’t get measured as ‘healing,’ so you can consider that a bonus here. I doubt many of your teammates would be particularly enthused to see a Loki on their team these days, but he isn’t a terrible state right now and he does have useful survivability tools against dive. He does, however, struggle greatly to heal flyers, and you’ll have to be smart about clone placement to get the most out of his healing.
As for Jeff, I suspect he gets a bad rap from the fact that his ultimate pales against the pseudo-invincibility provided by the best support ults in the game. His raw healing is fine (2,071), and arguably even quite good in matches where he can take advantage of his water stream’s piercing effect to heal or damage multiple characters at once – he’s most useful with a cluster of allies and/or enemies on point. In that sense, however, his healing is a little more dependent on the team comp and map. Similar to Rocket, he has great survivability, but is also more of a sustain healer than burst.
While Rocket and Gambit seem safely regarded as top-tier Strategists in the game, Loki and Jeff feel somewhat more maligned by the community at this point in time. Personally, I would feel fine to see any of these supports on my team in a two-support comp, but there certainly are some substantial differences between them despite their similar healing numbers on paper.
The Niche Options, or Third-Support Characters
In terms of their healing, Mantis, Adam Warlock and Ultron bring up the rear by a pretty clear margin. This has been the case for a while now, but it doesn’t mean that these characters don’t have their own specific niches or use-cases. In triple-support team comps, these characters actually add a lot of surplus value over just slapping on another high-healing support. I would, however, advise against playing any of these characters together in a two-support comp.
Mantis (1,484 healing per minute), though rarely used, has always boasted a high win rate and been popular among players wanting to flex their skill expression. Her kit holds significant playmaking potential due to how much it rewards players for consistently hitting headshots, and you’ll often see a good Mantis play right on the frontline like a DPS character. A good Mantis can be a genuinely imposing presence, especially within an aggro comp, but with that said, she’s a sustain healer who, even at her best, struggles to sustain a team without help from a stronger healer, which is why she generally falls into the off-healer category.
Adam Warlock and Ultron, meanwhile, are the only two Strategists in the game who can’t heal with their primary fire. Warlock (1,361) is reliant on his cooldowns, which actually can offer some pretty powerful burst healing and damage mitigation in a team comp that plays within range of each other – this makes him especially useful as an anti-dive support. However, the total absence of sustain healing from his kit makes him a dicier proposition in some matchups, and a low-end (though still viable!) healer overall.
Finally, Ultron sits in a tier of his own, with healing numbers (1,131) a distinct step below even Mantis and Adam Warlock. His drone offers only low-end sustain healing, and it’s safe to say that he’s the closest thing there is to a DPS character in the Strategist category. Even with the Iron Man team-up that grants him an added healing ability, he’s probably the only support who is untenable as anything more than a third support in most, if not all, situations. As the only flying healer, however, he does occupy a niche against certain dive characters, and he can help with healing the oft-neglected flying DPS characters.
Numbers Don’t Lie... But Context Reigns Supreme
If you’re ever wondering how to maximize your own healing as a Strategist player in Marvel Rivals, hopefully this can be a useful starting point in identifying which characters are most capable of racking up the raw numbers. As you can see, there are some pretty significant gaps between each of these tiers in terms of their healing per minute data, and as many experienced players can tell you, the top tier of healers here – Invisible Woman, Luna Snow and Cloak & Dagger – are so strongly tuned in general that you’re going to want to have the ability to play them in your bag.
However, a word of warning: Strategists shouldn’t be reduced to these numbers, either! There’s more that goes into what makes a good support character than just simple healing, including survivability, team compatibility, and yes, damage output as well. A Luna Snow that keeps dying to dive may not out-heal an Adam Warlock that can self-sustain to stay alive, and a team of brawl characters fighting on point will get more out of a healer such as Jeff than teams with fliers or dive.
Like with anything else in Marvel Rivals, it’s important to learn different characters and how to respond to different situations and team needs. I hope that this can be a useful jumping-off point in your endeavors mastering the Strategist class.
