This guide is 100% unbiased to any roles at all, and THATS A PROMISE! (;. Vanguards are NOT glazed incessantly here because that's what I main, not at all. You can trust me on this.

Well, here we are, we are all freaking out, we don't know who to play, but don't worry, mon ami, we are going to figure it out with this guide, together. Are you new to hero shooters and have no idea what the heck is going on? Great! I can help you here! Are you a vet that wants to make an ult and smurf while trying to learn a new role? GREAT! I'm here to help!

Lets go over the 3 primary roles in this game, and go over what they do.

First you have "Vanguards" Or as what everybody else calls them, tanks. Tanks are the skeleton of your team, they hold up the frontline, they take space to allow everybody else to make plays, and without them, you DPS and Support players would have nowhere to occupy. Choose vanguard as your primary role if you are a gigachad who loves supporting their team with huge health pools. This role requires relatively low mechanical skill, but does require a lot of game-sense and awareness. If your backline is being dove, you are the shield that defends them. Is the enemy backline getting too comfortable, bully then. You get it.


Are you a virgin with no girlfriend and a huge ego who can't take accountability? DPS sounds like the role for you! All jokes aside, this role is varied, with some characters requiring great mechanical skill to pull off, while others require less mechanical skill but more gamesense. They are the playmakers, the enablers, the guys who put the most pressure on the enemy team.

Lastly, are you a constant whiner who just wants to healbot? Maybe you're a girl who sits in her room and listens to nightcore all day. Maybe you are really cool and just want to be helpful! Either way, support has something to offer you! The mechanical skill requires varies, with some characters requiring you to aim your shots when healing, while others just require you to use the left mouse button. Either way, these are the guys who sustain your team for better or for worse, so, do be thankful when they are good.

DPS can be split into different subroles, which are Poke, Dive, Sustain, Brawl, and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEtEAVXUrWw also known as Black Widow and Spiderman season 3. Keep in mind there is some nuance to this, like Namor can be both Poke and Sustain.

Lets go over each DPS role one by one, lets start with Poke. Poke, surprisingly, is all about hitting the enemy from long range. Some heroes in this category include Hela, Pheonix, Namor, and Hawkeye. These heroes specialize in marksmen ship, targeting enemy healers and DPS in the distance with precise shots. They do high damage from a distance, and require very great mechanical skill to pull off due to their need to aim. These heroes are generally going to be susceptible to our next class of characters, Dive. Poke is one of those classes where it is great in certain situations, but may require a swap off if the enemy is countering you directly.

Dive/flank heroes are the bane of any support players existence. This includes characters like Black Panther, Magik(who can also be a brawl), and formally Spiderman until he was put in the CBT catagory. Dive specializes in very high burst damage from short range, black panther getting off his combo, Psylocke flanking around and melting supports before getting away with her invis. Dive is all about precise, high damage, surgical strikes. Dive has the highest skill floor in the game, the barrier for entry for a character like Black Panther, or Magik is high, requiring usually 10-15 hours of playtime to be viable to play in a comp match. (However, that being said, if you want to learn them, and you are already high in the ranks, just make an ult and play in bronze). Dive is very hard to learn, and can also be easy to counter with characters like Thing and his earthbound ability, or Namor and his turrets. This makes dive another one of those DPS classes that require you to swap off if the enemy has the braincells to counter you. However, it is the biggest skillcheck for enemy supports. If the supports are boosted up to Diamond+ their going to be responsible for their team being wiped.

Sustain heros are similar to poke heros, specializing in combat at a range, the difference between sustain and poke however, is that poke has high BURST damage, which is damage that is over a short period of time. Sustain heros are much better at keeping the pressure constant, and pair very well with dive heros. Sustain heros also don't require QUITE as much aim as poke characters, but they still require small to moderate mechanical skill to be able to pull off. Sustain heros include character like Squirrel Girl, Punisher, Moonknight, and Ironman. Essentially, if you are sub par mechanically but still want to stay away from the fighting, you choose one of these guys. Can be countered a by good poke players if you are going ironman, moonknight can be really bad on maps, and can be focused and rushed down by dive.

Brawl DPS heroes are the last catagory of DPS, and subscribe to a close range melee doctrine. Brawl heroes specialize in frontline pressure, and can include characters like Mr. Fantastic, Magik(Again, she's probably 50/50 Brawl/dive), wolverine(who is a tank buster), and even Bucky to an extent, who specializes in doing damage at closer ranges(though not a melee), and has the ability to pull enemies in like Roadhog, with an uppercut combo. Brawl heros I would say are the hardest heroes to counter, and vary in skill level. I would say bucky and fantastic are easier to play than Magik or Wolv. Brawl can be countered by a really good poke or sustain comp. However, matchups in this game are more nuanced than people on youtube lead you to believe.

Oh, and lastly the CBT characters, which are Black widow and Spiderman. These characters are great if you hate yourself and want to be stuck in bronze for the next 50 years. I have a friend who can play widow, and he's really good at her, but other than him, I've only met 1 other widow player that was good. My question is though, why play widow when you can play Hela or Hawkeye? Because you hate yourself, and want to be constantly flamed by your teammates, that's why.

As of right now, I am a vanguard main in this game. Are you a gigachad who actually wants to help your team instead of complaining in chat about not getting any heals while 1v6ing the enemy team? Vanguard is the role for you. Vanguards come in a few different subroles, you have the shields, the brawls, the dives/mobile tanks, and the bunkers. Lets go over each role individually. Keep in mind a vanguard can be a mix of all these roles.

The Shield tanks are the bread and butter of the vanguard class. They are the tanks you need to learn first, and 3 tanks fall into this category. Magneto, Doctor strange, and Emma frost. These tanks are great at pushing the objective, and taking the space your frontline needs to expand. Your job is to brawl other tanks, then when you see an opening, go for the enemy backline. If you are forced to solo tank, these are the tanks you want to go for. Shield tanks will generally require moderate mechanical skill to pull off, needing good aim and movement to get the most bang for your buck, however, they are also the easiest vanguard to play. Unless you're an 8 year old with parkinsons you should be able to pull these guys off the first time you touch them.

Lets move on to the brawlers next, which there are 2 maybe 3 that comes to mind. You have Thing, who is the king of brawling, Thor, who sucks right now so I won't even go over him, and soooorrrt of Hulk, who is really different from every other vanguard. These characters specialize in front line pressure. Thing can put lots of pressure on tanks, and now he can even jump to flyers and knock them down. When faced with other threats like Divers, thing is also the guy who peels for his backline. Is there any enemy magik that's shutting down your team? Switch things and she will try to run, but you will just earthbound her then punch her over and over again. Brawl can also significantly disrupt the enemy backline, rather it be hulk jumping into the backline, or Thing running around earthbounding everyone and then punching them. Brawl is all about constant smothering pressure. Brawl also doesn't really require much aim, you just need gamesense, and a left and right mouse button.

Lets go to the divers/mobile tanks next. There are really 2 tanks in this catagory, Venom, and Hulk(who I am going to make a whole thing about, so we will just talk about Venom here.) Despite venom having a 1 star rating, I would probably say it's more accurate to give him like a 3 star rating since dive is a lot more demanding on a players knowledge than the other characters. Venom does ease this a bit by basically having an ability that gives him a second health bar, and chaining that with his ult he basically has 3 lives, but still. You need to know when to peel, and you can't be hungry for kills, you need to be hungry for disruption. If you love to cause trouble and mischief, Dive is who you want to play.

Finally, we have the bunkers, which includes characters like Groot and Penni Parker. These guys are defensive specialists, and even have their uses on offense if the player is good. They don't require much mechanical skill, and use gadgets/deployables to take space rather than just shields and pushing forward. While Groot and Penni require some aim, they really rely on great cooldown management and gamesense. Where do you need to put your penni nests? Which chokepoints should you put mines in? Where do my walls need to go? Can I block that Thing or Mag from heals with the walls? These are all things you need to be thinking about when playing a bunker tank.


Lastly I'll talk about hulk, who I made a whole guide on. He is the most mobile tank in the game, and is really really good at doing many roles. He can brawl frontline, he can dive the enemies backline, he can peel for his own backline, he can be anywhere on the battlefield at any time, however, I would consider him not even just a 4 star hero, but a 5 star hero. He requires lots of gamesense, cooldown management, and awareness to play. However, if played correctly, he can generate CONSIDERABLE value.


Okay, so, in summary, Vanguards are not about just raw damage output, it's more strategic than that. It's about taking space for your supports and DPS to play around. Do you have low mechanical skill but high gamesense and strategy? Maybe you play a lot of RTS games. Vanguards are the most impactful pieces on the chessboard, and if played properly can carry your team to victory.

Now supports are the area I have the least experience in, so take what I say with a slight grain of salt. I split the supports up into 3 different sub categories. You have the lifelines, the little bastards, the Larpers, and Adam Warlock. Another disclaimer, keep in mind that a support can fall into multiple different roles at varying degrees.

Lets go into lifelines first, these include characters like Invisible woman, Luna snow, Cloak and Dagger, and even Loki. Now, these characters are defined by very high healing ability, constantly pumping out heals to your team and are also known for their boring and stupid defensive support ults. (Except for Loki, Loki can copy anyones ult, but most of the time they will copy a defensive ult so, yeah). These ults I think are the most broken ults in the game, because they basically stop all gameplay. Essentially, it's the enemy team saying "Please stand by while our team becomes effectively invincible for the next 10-12 seconds, your regularly scheduled gaming shall resume shortly." The only way to counter these ults is with other high damage burst ults like Ironman, or Magneto. These characters are some of the best characters in the game, but boosted players that healbot are very susceptible to dive heros because they don't know how to freeze people, or run away, or push someone with Invis, or use their bubble with CnD. However, if you can actually play these guys, you can make a divers nightmare a living hell.


Okay, the little bastards are next up on the list, and they are known for.. well.. being little bastards. These are characters like Jeff and Rocket. Both of which are very highly mobile, and very resistant to being dove and targeted due to their high mobility. They also have some pretty respectable damage and with Jeff, CC despite their high healing output. Rockets ult is a deployable defensive support ult that gives your team a damage boost, but can be broken, and now, with pheonix in the game, can just outright be shut down. Jeff can sometimes hide on an offangle and just heal teammates and damage enemies since his water pierces. Both of them can be good in lower elo lobbies, but as you climb the ranks, they become less viable due to people having higher skill levels.


Next up are the larpers, are you a stupid DPS player who wants to pretend like their flexing support but actually doesn't care and just wants to throw the game? Well, this category is for you! These characters do almost no healing, but do have good damage output. These characters are Ultron, Mantis, and to an extent Adam warlock, who I will talk about in a second. These characters can be VERY good in a triple support comp, but, lets just be honest, most of the time these characters are used are because someone doesn't want to play support, and instead of.. I dunno, communicating with their team that they suck at support, they play one of these guys. Like seriously, if you're a DPS one trick, just say it, be a man about it, and wait and see which character brings the least value and then argue about who should swap. (To be honest though, if everybody is gonna instalock DPS, that game is over, it's wraps 80% of the time)


Now Adam does fall within the catagory above a lot of the time, but a really good adam warlock player is a godsend. They can manage their cooldowns so well it's like having a burst healer, they soul bond at just the right time, and when they ult, everyone on their team simultaneously soils their pants and clutches the game in overtime. For all of you adam warlock players out there that can play him, we salute you here. Keep being cool.

So, now that we've gone over what each role does, lets do a final recap, and I'll also give some additional advice.

One tricking a role is a really bad idea. Ideally you should have 1 hero from each main class you can flex just in case. However, more likely you are going to have just 2 roles you can flex from, which is totally fine. For me, I can flex Tank and DPS. For you it might be DPS and Support. Maybe you are the biggest chad in the game and can play Vanguard and Support. Either way, your hero could get banned after you reach gold, or someone might have taken all the DPS spots you need, either way, make sure you can flex and adapt. However, you also don't want to play 20 different characters at once if you're new, because you won't master anybody, and then you won't climb. I would say 3-4 characters is a healthy amount. Maybe start off with 2-3.

Another piece of advice, don't listen to all these youtube tier lists. Any character is viable in the right hands, even Black Widow. That being said, some characters are easier to learn than others, and some characters provide much more value than others. Some characters like Hulk provide immense value, but take 10 hours to be able to play at a comp level. Other characters like Thor, Widow, and Spidey are just... uhh... bad? Low value? Anyways, any character can be great in the right hands. The only time you REALLY need to worry about changing things up is if you need to swap in a ranked game, or you are playing professionally. Honestly though, this is just a game, so, just have fun, and try to work together with your team to win. This game is about getting into interesting fights, not just winning.


So, final recap, vanguards take space and apply pressure, DPS provide pressure and try to find openings to get picks, supports sustain the team so they don't die. Got it? Right, bye bye.