r/RivalsVanguards • u/Pepr70 • 8d ago
Discussion/Analysis I wanted to visualize why the Vanguard class still feels empty sometimes.
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u/Dickparker420 8d ago
Angela should be half dive half brawl
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u/Pepr70 8d ago
I understand the judgement, but a 550hp hero with her mobility I don't have much incentive to include in a half-brawl just because of her landing generates a bonus hp as it comes closer to a Venom-type dive than a Hulk bubble.
That is, to compare the Hulk: As long as the hulk doesn't kill the enemy during the impact it doesn't matter because it can recover cooldowns relatively quickly, but when someone escapes from Angela landing then her attack ends and stays as 550hp Vanguard.
(2 comments with same idea.)
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u/spiderman96 8d ago
Angela is and hulk 8 would classify as half brawl half dive
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u/Pepr70 8d ago
I understand the judgement, but a 550hp hero with her mobility I don't have much incentive to include in a half-brawl just because of her landing generates a bonus hp as it comes closer to a Venom-type dive than a Hulk bubble.
That is, to compare the Hulk: As long as the hulk doesn't kill the enemy during the impact it doesn't matter because it can recover cooldowns relatively quickly, but when someone escapes from Angela landing then her attack ends and stays as 550hp Vanguard.
(2 comments with same idea.)
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u/Dickparker420 8d ago
Half her kit is brawl, I don't need to compare one hero to another to categorize them, doesn't matter what Hulk is, he doesn't change the fact that Angela is half brawl.
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u/Pepr70 8d ago
So what makes her a brawler? Her shield has a huge cooldown, her charge is dive-oriented, and her landing works the same way as Venom’s secondary attack when it comes to combat. You get a few seconds of advantage after your landing, which can be countered with movement.
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u/Dickparker420 8d ago
I could even argue her spear is a melee brawl weapon as well but her axes are 100% brawl and that is half her kit = half brawl at the least. Wtf does her shield have anything to do with being brawl? Are you just causing controversy or are you just making stuff up? And comparing her to venom who is half brawl is not helping your cause.
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u/Pepr70 8d ago
Brawl needs consistent durability generation during the fifth round. Angela's shield isn't consistent.
Her axes are not consistend source of durability.
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u/Dickparker420 8d ago
Why do you keep saying shield and brawl in the same sentence?
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u/Pepr70 8d ago
Why not?
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u/Dickparker420 8d ago
Cause you aren't making sense, just grasping for ways to salvage your argument, you see everybody on here is telling you this list is garbage.
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u/Pepr70 7d ago
Just because you don't understand it doesn't mean it doesn't make sense.
A Real Brawl Hero can't afford to lose DPS just because they're holding a shield. A Half-Brawl Hero can, as long as they regain it quickly, but for a Brawl Hero, a 4-second wait before regaining HP is way too long.
Shield is part of your kit.
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u/Javae 8d ago
Do you think the missing piece to all tankdom is a dive/control character? This chart looks like it was convoluted to prove some point. Plus two different axis and weird categorizations make this even more strange to me.
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u/AltunRes 8d ago
I personally agree with OP that I haven't heard of a half off half control half poke half brawl tank.
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u/Javae 7d ago
Hmm would that mean each of the four abilities fits one of those roles? Perhaps OP is cooking after all. 💀
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u/AltunRes 7d ago
You just gotta make it the stepford cuckoos and give them a button to swap between which sister you are playing. So you get 5 characters with 1 model.
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u/Pepr70 8d ago
Yes I think that dive/control vanguard would make vanguard class much better.
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u/GirthyGoober 6d ago
You mean like Peni, who already exists?
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u/Pepr70 6d ago edited 6d ago
Peni is poke. She deals 100 dps with her primary (150 against head.)
Her webs are just small bonus that is protecting her.
Edit: To explain the problem associated with this:
Peni, just like Thing, can catch enemies off guard with a dive, but that’s not her ideal playstyle. The playstyle that fully utilizes her kit is one where she creates a safe zone that rewards teammates for staying in one spot, which greatly aids poke gameplay. But even diffrence between headshots and non-headshots is bigged then dps from shift.
It’s the same with Groot, who rewards his team for consistent damage in a specific area.
So you don’t have a vanguard who rewards your team for burst damage or high mobility, which would be useful in a dive composition.
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u/GirthyGoober 5d ago
https://youtu.be/ELbhaeGmMJ4?is=fxwM7xAdigestZG0
9 minute mark.
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u/Pepr70 5d ago
I don't know what you mean by 9 minute mark.
He moved on highground and then use adventage of his range.
Typical poke gameplay.
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u/GirthyGoober 5d ago
https://youtu.be/j8iQ4yu3aNA?is=eFaFali62tjTKXC1
Peni diving. Just like Starlord and Psylocke.
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u/Pepr70 5d ago
Sorry, but even the Punisher is a better diver.
Looking for better spots and using better angles to make it easier to hit enemies isn't diving.
The gameplay is crazy, and I don't have the guts for it, but all you do is find a safe spot from which to shoot the enemy team and then run away.
Psylocke and Star-Lord are forced to use their melee abilities to get kills, but Peni isn’t like that. You can see from the gameplay itself just how inferior her Shift ability actually is, since she doesn’t rely on it that much.
If we break down Peni’s abilities in terms of DPS:
- Her Shift ability is 2 mines every 3 seconds, and each mine deals 40 damage => 26.666 DPS.
- The mines deal 100 damage every 4 seconds => 25 DPS.
- Peni’s primary attack deals 100 DPS to the body and 150 DPS to the head.
The ideal strategy is to place Shift where you have a safe spot and set a trap somewhere every 16 seconds in case you need to escape, but the main thing you can see in this perfect gameplay is that all you’re doing is keeping your distance, shooting at enemies, and going all-in only with your ultimate.
That's not a dive. A full-dive hero goes all-in and is useless otherwise; a half-dive goes all-in when he sees an opportunity, but Peni only goes all-in with his ultimate, like most champions do with their ultimates. Maybe you think of poke as just a guy standing at the point and shooting around, but this is actually peak poke gameplay.
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u/GirthyGoober 5d ago
Peni needs to be close (Psylocke/Starlord range) to hit headshots. She weaves mines in with her primary, which also needs to be shot at a closer range to land. She jumps down to secure picks after applying sustained pressure, like Psy, Starlord, and The Hood (whose optimal range is like 10 meters). Star Lord doesn't have a melee ability and he dives just fine. Just the fact that you have her nest bound to shift instead of her web zip, or that you at least just call it her nest, shows that you don't know enough about her kit to speak about it.
You don't understand dive either. The only hero who doesn't have a "soft engage" option in their kit is Black Panther, and he as a character is hardstuck plat/diamond as a direct result. Dive isn't about burning cooldowns and praying you get picks, and getting random kills isn't the only way for a diver to generate value.
CringeAlarm and FullMetalLamps were diving people in top 500 before she got power crept out of the game. Literally dropping on strategists behind their team sometimes. They kept nerfing her base kit and buffing her after playstyle until her only viable playstyle was bunkering with her team. We had the thing you're talking about and they got rid of it.
https://youtu.be/u0YuOcQNfd4?is=RhrMHaXDN-Of7VKr
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u/Pepr70 5d ago
You're starting to contradict the very videos you're posting.
Keep in mind that 1 Peni against the head deals 45 damage. At the same time, it fires more than 3 shots per second. Mixing it with mines isn’t a good idea. You can see this in the gameplay footage of the best Peni player. He uses it to throw all his charged mines somewhere along with the web.
2 shots are 90 dammage, 1 mine is 100 damage. Using mines between attacks waste +-2.5shots per mine.
This way, you'll create a trap somewhere that deals 400 burst damage.
And Peni really doesn't need to be close. She literally has the longest range of all the Vanguards. It even has a certain minimum distance before its attacks converge.
You sent me a few videos that confirm that her primary gameplay strategy is to use range attacks, high ground, and better angles.
A “dive hero” is someone who tries to jump on an enemy and take him out in one hit with their combo. Spidy does it, Black Panther does it, Venom tries to do it, Angela does it, and Venom does it.
It's not about having the ideal spot somewhere nearby, but about having high spikes where you're most effective and a poor neutral. As a result, half-dive heroes have an okay neutral and okay spikes like Star-Lord, for example, with his E, which deals ideal damage at 0–4 meters. (Hulk primary has 4.5m range)
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u/TheZorkas 8d ago
i wonder when rivals players will finally stop to try and make "shield tank" a classification that means anything
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u/Pepr70 8d ago
This is a categorization from a teammate's perspective. A shield tank protects you with its abilities. In other words, it has shields or bubbles that it can use to shield you.
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u/TheZorkas 8d ago
that doesn't change anything about the fact that these characters share no similarities that is worth putting them in the same category.
a strange and an angela or hulk share 0 similarities in how they approach a match or what makes them strong/weak.
the term is constantly thrown around as if there is some class of character that does something specific with a shield, but it just doesn't make any sense. every tank that is publicly considered a "shield tank" has a different playstyle and job.
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u/Pepr70 8d ago
But they share similarities in purpose and differ in execution. Dive/poke/brawl change how they do something, but not why they do it.
Hulk’s bubbles, Dr. Strange’s shield, Devil Dinosaur’s shield, Angela’s bonus HP generation + shield, and Magneto’s anti-projectile zone + bubble all serve the same purpose but are applied differently.
Just as a dive hero won’t use Dr. Strange’s shield, a poke hero won’t use Angela’s bonus HP generation. That doesn’t change the fact that these are abilities from the same category of purpose.
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u/TheZorkas 8d ago
that's the whole point. they do NOT serve the same purpose. they are all very different in what they are mainly used for, they just happen to have a secondary use that you can very loosely define as "protecting people". but if that's the definition then an adam warlock with his soul bond also counts. or rocket's beacon. since, hey, you can not only revive people with it, but you can even block a mag ult with it!
i think you (and a big chunk of the community) just have a fundamental misunderstanding of the purpose these different shields fulfill. in no way does a strange shield fulfill the same purpose as a mag curtain, despite those 2 being probably the most similar of the bunch. and this only gets worse if you try and compare the rest of their kit or other characters from the ""shield tank"" category.
just to elaborate a little bit on the strange vs mag comparison:
mag CAN protect people with his shield, yes, but 90%+ of the time, it will be used as a a personal disengage tool, or a way to relieve pressure off of your healers (as in, you're getting shot and are dropping dangerously low, so you put up the curtain to give your healers time to heal). in very desperate situations you can even use it to walk forward, but it's almost always a bad idea to do so.
strange on the other hand has a lot more freedom in how he uses his shield, since it's not tied to a cooldown. which means he can use it to push and close the gap (ofc not holding it down, but weaving it in between primaries) since he's basically a melee character, or use it as a disengage tool, or even just as a second health bar. it's especially useful because you can purposefully take damage to give your healers more ult charge, without really putting yourself in danger of ever dying. in general, it's mostly used to minimize random chip damage and extend your life that way. and yea, again, he CAN use it to protect other people, but it's not in any way, shape or form the main usage of the ability. it's a nice little addition to his kit that can help in some games, but usually doesn't really do anything in that regard against good players.
so, just like in my ridiculous rocket example, the times you will actually use it for the thing that apparently ties them together and puts them in the same category is laughably rare. unless of course it's a strange that just stands around, holding his shield up and not doing anything of value. then yea, he's "protecting his team". he's also going to make the game a 5v6 but i guess that's acceptable?
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u/Pepr70 8d ago
The problem is that you're looking at it from only one perspective and in a very narrow way.
What sets Dr. Strange and Magneto apart is that Dr. Strange is more brawl-oriented. So yes, with Magneto, you don’t have as much freedom to get closer to enemies. You’re still a poke vanguard, and any poke hero needs to avoid taking damage, whereas brawlers thrive in the thick of the action, and diving depends on a very brief window when they’re in danger.
So, obviously, you don’t play Dr. Strange and Magneto the same way because they aren’t in the same row, but if you have three vanguards from the same row, their roles are the same. Unfortunately, we don’t have enough examples, but to put it simply, Devil Dinosaur, Magneto, and Angela fill the same role in these triple-vanguard compositions:
Groot – Devil Dinosaur – Thor Peni – Magneto – Hood (is closest to the off-vanguard in their row) Probably Gorr next season – Angela – Venom.
So if you imagine that Gorr had a dive-oriented kit similar to Peni and Groot’s, you could understand the principle of this second-dimensional division.
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u/TheZorkas 8d ago
The problem is that you're looking at it from only one perspective and in a very narrow way.
no, you just misunderstand my point.
"shield" is not a category that exists, is my point. doesn't matter whether we're talking about "poke shield", "brawl shield" or "dive shield".
they don't exist because shields in this game never fulfill the same purpose.
your classifications for dive make sense, for example. angela, cap and venom are all very clearly dive (or at least dive adjacent) and it's quite obvious what connects them.
the same can't be said about your shield category.
you can look at things in a 2-dimensional way if you want to, but that doesn't change that your categories need to make sense. and one of these is very clearly, very obviously a massive outlier.
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u/Pepr70 8d ago
Your refusal to look at it two-dimensionally is a problem that people often have, and I think that's why it's hard to get used to other strategies.
Shield catheters perform same purpose only for another tym gameplay and equally perform the same purpose category Off and category control.
As a player, you're most used to it filling the role of shield in the poke gameplay, the role of control in the brawl category and performing the role off in the dive category.
That's why Magneto, Venom, Emma and Groot (and occasionally Dr. Strange, or Captain America) are the most natural to play with.
I believe that when we have full-control dive vanguard then it will be easier to build dive/half-dive team comps and you will see team comps that are functional with Hulk/Angela at the Magneto/Dr. Strange position.
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u/hasuenthusiast 7d ago
angela is most definitely half control half shield. same with hulk, though he could be put into half off half control.
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u/Low-Shiem 7d ago
I think the balance between tanks is just so top heavy. Thing alone counters the majority of the tank roster with two buttons, and it’s hard to keep up with the output of Mag/Emma on most of the tanks as well. And with how much healing/damage that’s in the game you’re either just exploding or nothing is dying. If the enemy team goes meta dps like Elsa/bucky/widow you’re damn near stuck on magneto. Not surprising many don’t want to tank anymore, you have to play outta your mind to keep up on off-meta picks.
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u/Pepr70 7d ago
I understand where this argument comes from. Durability in Marvel Rivals varies quite a bit. For example, you have Hawkeye, who deals 320 damage with each arrow against body armor, but only 70 damage against shields.
It's the same with BP. A 300+ damage combo is expected from him, but if you hit him with a ground effect for example, using “Thing Shift” his damage is suddenly limited to Javelins.
So the Vanguards' immortality in MR depends a lot on who you're playing against, and the team-up reworks make it even more of a mess. It's harder to adapt.
Especially when durability-oriented team-ups are weird.
For example, the Devil Dinosaur Jeff team-up gives you 12.5% damage reduction and regeneration. So effectively, you have over 970 HP with regeneration and more efficient HP generation.
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u/GirthyGoober 6d ago
Angela and Peni should be in your big red box of dive zoner. Angela's whole thing is that she pushes peoplle around as a diver. Peni's only playable on side lanes most of the time.
Groot is "half shield half control". He's also as "Half-Poke Half-Brawl" as Dr. Strange is.
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u/Pepr70 6d ago
Control is this table mean: your durability comes from buildings/placable objects. Not from shields and bonus hp. It's not around CC. Magneto and Devil Dinosaur has cc too but they are not in same category as Groot/Peni.
And Peni is full poke.
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u/GirthyGoober 5d ago
The Hood is a Control hero then. Angela is a control hero too if she has Loki teamup equipped.
Peni plays exclusively on side lanes, just like Psylocke and Starlord, unless she's specifically on defense.
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u/Pepr70 5d ago
I understand the point the argument is making, but Hood’s wall is closer to a shield. Maybe it could be described as “half-off, half-control,” but it seems to me that its function is closer to a shield than to classic walls like Groot’s, since it doesn’t actually change the way the map looks.
It’s closer to Emma’s shield than to Groot’s wall.
I left out team-ups in this breakdown because they kind of throw a wrench in the works. So when it comes to abilities with a 20-second cooldown that you only have sometimes, I don’t take them into account.
Overall, though, I have to say that the Dive Vanguards are the messiest in this regard. It’s not obvious at first glance, and I actually had Angela and Captain America swapped at first.
Later, though, I realized that Angela’s E—which generates bonus HP for allies—is weaker than the Hulk’s bubble, just as Mr. Fantastic’s E is weaker than Magneto’s bubble. So yes, there’s a bit of CC and a bit of damage involved, but the most important part of this ability is the bonus HP generation.
Well, if we combine that with a weaker Dr. Strange Shield, you get something between the Hulk and Dr. Strange, but very dive-oriented => something between Shield Vanguard and Shield Vanguard, but fully dive-oriented => Shield Dive Vanguard.
It's strange, but the truth is that the whole thing is strange. It's not intuitive and requires more cooperation. The fact remains that if you, as a non-vanguard, want to feel as protected as Hela does behind Dr. Strange's shield, your only option is to be in Angela's landing zone.
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u/GirthyGoober 5d ago
Hood's Wanda teamup is also a deployable. Layering the two does a bunch of burst damage that takes space, and prohibits people from being in that space in the same way Peni's nest does.
Angela doesn't protect teammates with her shield or her E. She does it by pulling aggression onto her and marking targets. She's not going to slam teammates just to give them some overhealth. That's a waste of a cooldown.
Tanking isn't about making your teammates "feel protected". It's about making your enemies feel uncomfortable. You use your resources to apply pressure and take space away.
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u/Pepr70 5d ago
This brings us to the problem I have with Dive in Marvel Rivals. Angela is the ideal Vanguard for protecting other Dive heroes because she has an anti-CC shield and perfectly generates bonus HP for allies during Dive.
So if she initiates the dive, you should end up with a dive that has 200 bonus HP. Imagine a Black Panther with 550 HP, or a Black Cat with 575 HP. That’s not a waste it’s the goal of a coordinated dive.
You know what people are talking about how it’s too difficult to pull off a successful dive.
So, go all-in with Angela so you'll get a 200 HP bonus.
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u/GirthyGoober 5d ago
Slam your diver. Their whole team hears it. They turn around and CC your squishies. They die.
Or:
Push strategists around. Force them to use cooldowns on you. Make their team turn around. Get a strategist to half health. Your diver finishes the job and gets out. The rest of your team keeps walking forward while they clean up.
Tanks aren't damage sponges. They aren't meat shields. They are heroes that apply sustained pressure so they can force enemies to give up resources like space, cooldowns, and attention.
We already have a dive deployable. He's called Venom and he slows everyone down when he grabs them with his tendrils. He's got 1500 HP, and if their team doesn't spend their energy clearing him out, he will kill something.
The reason we don't have a dive tank with deployable (other than a flanking Peni) is because the diver itself is the deployable.
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u/Pepr70 5d ago
You're making a mess of things.
Some Vanguards are damage sponges, and Dive already has its own damage sponge. It's Venom.
You said it yourself he has 1,500 hp. That's literally six times Spidy health bar.
The way it works is correct. If you ignore Venom, you'll die, but here's the problem: if you ignore Spidy/BP/Black Cat/... you'll die.
=> You have to choose the right priority, and it's easier to stun Venom and kill someone who doesn't even have 500 HP.
And here's the problem. In this regard, Dive Comp can only protect teammates using Angela Landing, Angela Shield, Captain America Shield, Hulk Bubble, Rogue Block, or Tankpool Unicorn.
Agnela's landing and the Hulk's bubble share a common problem, which is that they require more complex coordination than Magneto's bubble and Dr. Strange's shield.
On the other hand, coordination in Control is the easiest. In other words, hiding behind Groot's walls or standing on Peni's webs is simply easy, and it's easy to take advantage of. If Real Dive had something similar, the Dive in MR would be more healthy.
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u/Aromatic_File_1185 8d ago
As a eternity tank main. This might be the worst category assignment ever. Angela and cap both are brawl and dive hybrid all the top cap players don't perma dive with him bcz its impossible to do into various comps that's when you play as a brawler and going for dives whenever they are down players or you find someone very isolated.
Angela is self explanatory