Triple Support is one of the most common alternative team compositions in Marvel Rivals, thanks to the strength and sheer healing capacity of the game’s Strategist characters. Here’s everything you need to know about this team comp in Season 4.
In Marvel Rivals, the Strategist role stands out as perhaps the game’s most defining class from match to match, thanks in part to the staggering healing numbers and overall team uptime that the best support characters are able to offer. Characters like Luna Snow and Cloak & Dagger have been mainstays in the meta for their ability to keep their teammates alive, and the healing potential of Rivals’ supports have been remarked upon as strong even in comparison to similar characters in other hero shooters.
No surprise, then, that many players turn to Triple Support as an alternative team comp strategy. After the classic 2-2-2 comp or the oft-maligned 1-3-2 – we see you, DPS insta-lockers! – Triple Support is the most-played team comp in the game. With such high healing output at hand, it makes sense that teams that can maximize the potential of the Strategist role can find consistent success.
First, we should note that Triple Support still has a negative win rate in Rivals, as does every other team composition other than the standard 2-2-2. That’s for good reason – the game, like most other hero shooters, was designed to reward the balanced strengths and weaknesses of a 2-2-2 comp, and any state of game design that tilts too strongly in favor of other alternatives is probably a sign that one role is overtuned in comparison to the rest.
Situationally, however, Triple Support can be the counter or adjustment that wins a game, and the key is to know when. For example, when the other team is running multiple dive characters targeting the backline or DPS characters that can easily pump out high damage totals across the team (say, Squirrel Girl or Moon Knight), Triple Support can be key to outlasting certain opponent comps, especially on defense where there’s an added incentive to stall.
Certain buffs and new team-ups have further diversified the viability of various triple-support comps in the game right now, particularly to those traditionally considered “off-healers” such as Mantis and Adam Warlock. Since so many of these characters rarely got to see the light in two-support compositions before, this is probably the most exciting development in the Strategist class of late – so let’s start there.
For most of Marvel Rivals’ lifespan to this point, the best healers in the game have been able to provide so much healing that running even one of the off-meta options often meant putting your team at a disadvantage. Think Luna Snow, Cloak & Dagger, Rocket Raccoon, Invisible Woman and (before his Season 4 nerfs) Loki – if your opponent is running two of these ‘primary’ supports, your team will almost certainly need two as well, just to match their healing.
That has left much of the remaining support roster as niche selections, much less seen in comparison. It’s unfortunate, because there’s so much more to the Strategist class than just mindless healing! Triple Support re-enables these off-healers as viable options, where their strengths can be properly maximized without suffering from a lack of healing in the overall team context.
With such a wide range of support characters, let’s talk about the different ways that various heroes can prove useful in triple support comps.
Mantis: An Aggressive Third Support
Most Mantis players I’ve come across have really enjoyed using her, due to the skill expression of her kit and how a skilled Mantis player is rewarded for being able to consistently hit headshots. However, her lower healing output has often made her a disadvantageous pick, even in the hands of those skilled players.
In a triple-support context, Mantis’ lack of reliable burst healing can be mitigated by the other supports and she can lean into her strengths as an offense-oriented support/DPS hybrid – I’ve seen good Mantis players make plays happen right up on the frontline, and this is easier with two other supports who can continue to keep the rest of the team up in the event that Mantis goes down.
Mantis’ new team-up with Loki in Season 3.5 further increases the healing range of Loki’s Regeneration Domain ability as well as adding a damage boost to his healing field. Anecdotally, I’ve found the Mantis/Loki pairing still too inconsistent in their healing as a two-support comp and even more-so after Loki’s Season 4 nerfs, but they’re a great example of a Triple Support core that encourages and rewards an aggressive playstyle.
Like with Mantis, Adam Warlock players are rewarded for hitting headshots, and he has some of the highest damage potential of any support in the game with hitscan capability. His healing abilities are too inconsistent to keep a team up on his own, but if your team is struggling against dive, he makes perfect sense as a third support who can use his burst healing to mitigate pressure in the backline – his new team-up with Luna Snow also adds an anti-dive ability to her kit, as well.
Unlike Mantis, Adam doesn’t have access to a true ‘invincibility field’ ult, but his ult was buffed to add bonus health upon respawning teammates, which should ease those old fears of getting clip-farmed by an opposing Winter Soldier ult. What was once one of the worst, and sometimes even a net-negative, Support ults in the game now offers sneaky play-making potential for a quick-thinking Adam Warlock user. It isn’t an invincibility ult in the traditional sense, but you can think of it a reset button for the team if they’re ill-positioned against, say, a Punisher or Star-Lord ult – or even instant-death ults like Iron Man’s or Scarlet Witch’s.
Ultron is a low-healing sustain healer whose primary value comes from being able to heal from the air – taking him out of range against many dive and melee characters – as well as the fact that he has the most damage output of any support in the game, and more than even some DPS characters. I would never advocate for Ultron in a two-support comp, but he’s probably the best consistent damage-dealer of any support and makes a lot of sense if your team is running a flying DPS who benefits from heals in the air, or if the opposing team is overly heavy on melee/dive with few ranged attackers to punish Ultron.
As for Jeff, he may have found new life in Season 4! A buff to his ultimate adds a healing field at the point of activation, which could alleviate previous concerns about his ult being more of an all-or-nothing gambit that pales against invincibility ults. This seems like a positive change that brings him more in line with the rest of the class – it’s still early, but let’s see if this can revitalize the Jeff player base.
Triple Support Can Be a Game-Winning Adjustment!
Like with most else, there’s a time and a place for Triple Support. I wouldn’t advise you to think of it as just a desperation swap – despite the massive totals of raw healing that three Strategists can put out, it isn’t a blanket solve for breakdowns in team positioning or at another role. If your team is taking so much damage that you need a Luna, a Dagger and a Rocket to heal it all off, it’s probably a sign of cracks elsewhere. You can’t just expect to heal your way out of a skill diff.
But in the chess match of hero selection and team composition, the right tweak to your strategy can be the swing factor that turns the momentum around. When played well with the right character choices, triple support can be an effective counter to a number of DPS compositions and an effective tool for stall, without necessarily neutering your team’s aggression or damage output – and, yes, sometimes, “the right tweak” really is as simple as being able to spam three invincibility ults one after the other.
The best advice is probably this: Be proactive in thinking about when the situation calls for Triple Support, and it’ll become more of an intuition over time. No one has ever been hurt by having another tool in the bag. From there, it comes down to making the right reads. You might be surprised at just how often you can win a game in the character selection screen.
