Marvel Rivals Mantis Guide – Easy MVP Tips & Tricks

Since launch up until the time of writing this, Mantis has been considered the absolute top tier strategist in the game, and with good reason. Despite not having a ton of burst healing, she makes up for it by having some hilariously impactful damage and utility.

She’s been one of my main strategist picks in ranked matches, and she enables others to carry harder while also dishing out a lot of damage herself. Just look at these stats to get a good idea of what Mantis (with the occasional hero swap if necessary) is capable of:

Mantis’ Playstyle in a Nutshell

Mantis is a healer who can also dish out an insane amount of damage, as long as you can land her projectiles. In a way, she’s like Luna Snow, but with much more DPS potential due to her ability to buff her own (and others’) attacks.

Not only that, she also has ample self-healing, an insanely good sleep, and a passive speed boost whenever she’s out of combat. Her entire kit makes her a particularly annoying strategist to deal with, as she has a lot of tools to keep herself out of harm’s way or fight back against anyone bold enough to dive her.

With good aim and awareness, she becomes a menace to the other team while being an absolute blessing to hers. Play her right, and you’re going to get ridiculous numbers across the board unless they finally do something to tune down her kit. Speaking of her kit, let’s go over her abilities…

Mantis’ Kit & Team-Up

As usual, I’ll be doing this in list form so you can go through tips for each individual skill. Before we get started, just know that most of Mantis‘ abilities use a resource known as “Life Orbs“. I’ll go over this in more detail below:

• Nature’s Favor (Passive) – Whenever Mantis consumes a Life Orb, she will gain healing over time. In addition to that, she gains a movement speed boost after not getting hit for a few seconds.
  • The wording for this skill is a bit misleading. It says that she gains the speed boost “while not injured”, but it seems like she can get it even with very low HP.
  • The speed boost has been nerfed as of the Season 1 patch. It’s noticeably slower than before, but it barely affects her overall effectiveness.
• Life Energy Blast (primary attack) – Her primary attack is a projectile that has a relatively slow travel time. Whenever you land a headshot, you will instantly regain one Life Orb.
  • Similar to heroes like Moon Knight, you need to aim ahead of your targets a bit when engaging at mid-range fights.
  • Headshots deal 100 damage!
  • This has no damage drop-off, which means it’ll hit for the same amount at any range.
• Healing Flower (secondary attack) – Her right click ability is her heal, which has to be targeted at individual allies. Costs one Life Orb.
  • This provides both one-time healing and healing over time.
    • Using it on an ally will instantly heal around 50+ health each time.
    • In addition to that, they will heal around 20hp/sec.
  • The healing over time component lasts for around 8 seconds and does not stack. Using it again merely resets the timer.
• Spore Slumber (Shift) – This ability causes you to throw a purple spore that will put an enemy to sleep if they are caught within the resulting explosion.
  • This has a short range, but you can aim high to throw it farther.
  • It seems to only affect one target at a time based on personal experience and a bit of testing at the range. (Will edit this out if incorrect)
  • Enemies will wake up early if attacked or if their teammates hit the purple Mantis illusion.
  • Typically, you want to use this against diving enemies, but you can also use it to shut down/disrupt key targets, such as healers in the backline.
• Allied Inspiration (E) – When used on an ally, they gain a damage boost that lasts around 8 seconds. Costs one Life Orb.
  • Similar to Healing Flower, the effect does not stack. Using it again just resets the timer.
  • Try to keep this active as much as possible on your duelists, especially when they have an ultimate that benefits greatly from it. Star-Lord, for example, will shred enemies even faster.
    • If you’re struggling with resource management, save it for when they use their ultimate instead.
  • There are situations where using it on vanguards can be great, but make sure you still have Life Orbs to heal people with.
• Natural Anger (F) – Mantis’ bread and butter for dealing damage, this is essentially Allied Inspiration but solely for yourself. Costs one Life Orb.
  • If you find it hard to land her primary attacks, I highly recommend not activating this too much so that the Life Orbs can be put to better use.
  • If you can hit those headshots frequently, keep this active and your attacks are going to hit like a damn truck.
  • Since this costs a Life Orb, you can also use this to trigger self-healing via your passive.
• Soul Resurgence (Ultimate) – Mantis’ ultimate ability creates a large field around her that grants a movement speed buff and massive heals (both instant and over time).
  • Excess healing is converted into bonus health (up to 100 maximum)
  • Mantis can continue attacking and using other abilities while this is active.
  • This is great for countering heavy damage from ultimates such as Punisher‘s or Psylocke‘s. Doesn’t really do much, if anything, against Iron Man’s or Scarlet Witch‘s though.

Her Current Team-Up

Right now, her only team-up is with Adam Warlock. Just like Star-Lord, she will gain the ability to revive herself out in the field. This has a pretty long cooldown, and it can be useful in a pinch if you ever get picked off early in a pivotal fight.

Resource Management is IMPORTANT

Learning how to not run out of Life Orbs is the key to being a decent Mantis player. Unless absolutely necessary, don’t spam Healing Flower. Slap it onto your allies and leave it be unless they’re running dangerously low on health. Remember, you’re usually not the only healer on the team.

Trust me, you can very easily top healing charts without spamming it like crazy. Keep your frontliners and/or diving duelists buffed whenever possible while focusing on scoring headshots. If you’re struggling with the headshots, then you should be a bit more frugal with your orbs.

Constantly use Allied Inspiration on your best DPS, especially if they’re popping off hard, but again, make sure that you still have enough resources for emergency heals. Seriously, if you see that one of your duelists is doing particularly well, try your best to buff them as much as possible.

When In Doubt, Use Your Ultimate

Assuming you’re landing a lot of good hits and healing/buffing your teammates regularly, your ultimate will be charging up so fast that you shouldn’t be scared of using it frequently. Countering enemy ultimates is obviously the best way to use it, but sometimes, you’ll find yourself in a situation where using it to keep one or two people alive during a push will win you the round/game.

This is more of a game sense thing, so you’ll just need to keep playing matches to be able to identify such situations. For example, if your other strategist died and you’re struggling to keep everyone else alive, popping Soul Resurgence might help you secure the point and potentially even the win.

Heck, use it to keep yourself alive if you get jumped and you know that the team likely won’t survive without you around. You can’t heal anybody if you’re dead.

Some General Tips

Stick Close to the Team

Although your attacks have no drop-off, you need to be somewhat close to the team in order to cast Healing Flower. It can be used up to around mid-range distances, and if you’re too far, you just won’t be able to slap on some healing or damage buffs.

Additionally, that will also make it easier to heal the correct people. Healing Flower can be a bit finnicky when your allies are too clumped up, as you might accidentally keep using it on the wrong person.

Obviously, you shouldn’t be quite literally on the frontlines. You’re still a squishy target, and even with your self-healing, Mantis is incredibly easy to burst down due to her lack of mobility. The ideal position is entirely map-dependent, but in general, I’ve found a lot of success staying somewhere between the tanks and the other healer on my team.

Be Aggressive!

Healers in this game are no pushovers, and this is especially true for Mantis. Make sure to keep using Natural Anger if you can spare a Life Orb. The amount of supplementary damage you can provide is really good, and you can even just straight up kill strategists or duelists completely on your own with some well-aimed (buffed) shots.

Most flying enemies are hilariously easy to swat out of the sky too. If you see an Iron Man hovering around or even a Scarlet Witch using her ultimate, don’t be afraid to start taking potshots at their heads. Just in my last session, I’ve killed a couple of Wandas trying to get their ult off.

Vanguards are also a great way to build up your ult charge. This is especially true if your opponents are running non-shield vanguards like Venom or Peni, as they’re hilariously easy to hit in the head for extra Life Orbs.

Flankers Glued To You? Spore ’em!

In some matches, you’re going to find that one or even two duelists will keep diving your backline 24/7. Save your Spore Slumber for whenever they go in, and then follow it up immediately with a Natural Anger-boosted headshot. Even if you don’t manage to get the kill, this is usually enough to get flankers to disengage.

Alternatively, you can just leave them sleeping there and run towards your nearest ally vanguard. Either way, characters like Iron Fist or Black Panther shouldn’t be too big of an issue with how easy Spore Slumber is to land. It’s an AOE stun, so simply firing it at your feet will work in most cases.

And that’s a wrap for this quick guide on one of Marvel Rivals’ best healers at the moment! She got a small nerf in the first season, but she’s still an incredibly solid pick that has carried me through the Plat to Diamond grind!

Wanna learn more? If you prefer a less mechanically-dependent support character or just want an alternative, I’ve got a helpful guide on which strategist is right for you that has a brief rundown of all the other choices!