Essential Defensive Skills: What to Evade and Avoid Attacking

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In Marvel Rivals, some defensive abilities can be a real headache. They might render opponents completely invulnerable, enable a fierce counter-attack, or offer healing so significant that you’ll find yourself using up all your powerful abilities just to keep up. In these situations, it’s often wiser to shift your focus to a different target, take cover, or focus on healing rather than attempting to tackle a formidable damage sponge head-on.

While some defensive skills can make foes immune to direct attacks, there may be rare opportunities to inflict negative status effects, such as slowing them down or causing blindness in Marvel Rivals. Not every encounter will play out the same way, so testing your main character against these skills is key. Sometimes, collaborating with your teammates can help you neutralize a seemingly unbeatable enemy, even if it requires using multiple cooldowns effectively.

Heroes You Should Steer Clear Of

Striking Them Only Makes Things Worse

Some especially potent abilities can shield a character for a limited time. Attacking such characters directly might be more detrimental than simply ignoring them. Fortunately, Marvel Rivals provides clear visual cues for actions and engages players with distinct audio lines when abilities are activated.

The abilities listed below feature various characters that pose a significant challenge when faced. To help streamline your gameplay, the following table outlines the skills used by heroes in Marvel Rivals that you should generally avoid engaging with during matches.

Ability	Character	Effect	Duration	Notes
Indestructible Shield	Hero Hulk	Hulk gains a 200-value shield, while allies within 5m receive a 100-value shield.	2.5 Seconds	100% damage to Hulk fills his Ultimate meter; 10% to allies also fills it. Monster Hulk cannot use this ability.
Dragon’s Defense	Iron Fist	Gains a 30% damage reduction, 150 Max Health, and 1.5 Bonus Health per hit.	1 Second, can be canceled early.	Cannot attack during this stance. Cooldown significantly reduced during Living Chi.
Dark Teleportation	Cloak	Cloak and allies within 10m gain invincibility.	2 Seconds	Ends if a character attacks.
Blessing Of The Deep	Namor	Namor ascends 7m and becomes immune to damage.	3 Seconds	Namor can descend early.
Astral Flock	Hela	Dash up to 18m at a speed of 15 m/s.	Hela can finish the dash early.	Hela is invulnerable during the dash.
Reflexive Rubber	Mr. Fantastic	Gains a 300-value shield. 60% of damage taken is reflected back as projectiles.	3 Seconds	Mr. Fantastic suffers a -35% speed penalty.
Freedom Charge	Captain America	Gains 150 Bonus Health and grants 100 health to all allies in a 4m radius.	10 Seconds	Captain America gains another 100 Bonus Health, while allies gain 60 each second.
Regeneration Domain	Loki	Heals 100 per second and converts 30% of damage taken into healing.	5 Seconds	Doppelgangers will utilize this ability simultaneously, potentially tripling its effect.

Strategies to Counteract Defenses

Overwhelming Force can Prevail

Some defensive skills in Marvel Rivals can be overcome with sheer firepower. This could involve using a decisive ultimate attack or coordinating efforts with teammates to focus down the same enemy. However, taking down such a foe might expose you to counter-attacks from their team.

Ability	Character	Effect	Duration	Notes
Metal Bulwark/Iron Bulwark	Magneto	Provides a 300-value shield to himself or an ally.	2.5 Seconds	Every 100 damage absorbed boosts Magneto’s Mag-Cannon damage.
Berserker Rage	Wolverine	Gains increased damage and 150-300 Bonus Health when he attacks or gets hit.	Varies based on Rage.	3 Seconds after gaining Bonus Health, Wolverine heals and loses his Rage.
Dagger Storm	Dagger	Heals 55 value per second within a 5m radius.	6 Seconds	Dagger can trigger this move or place it at her feet.
Fate of Both Worlds	Luna Snow	Heals for 250 per second or provides a 40% damage boost.	12 Seconds	Both effects cannot be active at the same time. Luna cannot attack while effect is active.
Soul Resurgence	Mantis	Heals 100 per second in a 15m radius; 70% of excess healing converts to Bonus Health.	8 Seconds	All allies in the area gain a 3 m/s movement speed bonus.
Ironwood Wall	Groot	Groot gains 40 Bonus Health when he or his allies attack, up to a total of 250.	Until destroyed	The wall has 700 health and falls when struck by the convoy.
Cyber Web/Bionic Spider-Nest	Peni Parker	Heals 25 per second and gives up to 150 Bonus Health.	Indefinite/destroyed	Peni can have a maximum of three Cyber Webs. Bionic Spider-Nest has 350 health.