Jeff has been a menace in casual Marvel Rivals matches, and he’s probably one of the easiest characters to learn due to his extremely straightforward kit and surprisingly good healing. I personally don’t use him much in ranked due to how much more value the other strategists can provide, especially at the level I play in, but he’s been good fun in quick matches!
He’s what I would consider the “beginner” character that anybody can just pick up and do well with, so to help you out a bit more, here’s a quick guide for you!
Jeff’s Playstyle in a Nutshell
Jeff is a backline healer who has a deceptively long range and actually really good sustained healing. The downside to picking him is that healing is pretty much the only thing he does for the most part, and his ultimate is a bit lackluster despite being an annoying meme machine of an ability.
Despite being a “weak” pick, he can absolutely still bring value to his team, as long they don’t spread out too much. He can support virtually everybody on his team as long as they’re within range of his Joyful Splash, and his healing bubbles provide a bit of burst healing whenever needed.
His raw damage is surprisingly decent too. With strictly basic attacks, he can actually kill significantly faster than Invisible Woman, Cloak & Dagger, and especially Loki (without clone assist), as long as you land those projectiles. This lets him somewhat hold his own against flankers, but his lack of mobility and crowd control will still be a huge problem.
With all of that in mind, let’s take a closer look at his abilities…
Jeff’s Abilities & Team-Ups
If you’re new here, this section is done in list format so I can inject some tips for each individual skill. Alright, let’s get to it!
- Joyful Splash (primary attack) – Jeff’s primary attack is his main healing spray. Basically, he spits out a stream of water that heals allies on contact.
- This has a ridiculously long range. Seriously, as long as you have direct line of sight, you can vomit a beam of healing from afar.
- Technically, Joyful Splash works like an actual stream of water in that it will start to arc downwards. You won’t need to worry about this in regular play as it takes extremely long distances to be noticeable.
- Treat it like a straight beam.
- This penetrates every player (including enemies), making it great for group heals.
- It doesn’t do anything against enemies. If your only exposure to Jeff was the winter festival game mode, sorry to say but this spray can’t actually do damage.
- This has a ridiculously long range. Seriously, as long as you have direct line of sight, you can vomit a beam of healing from afar.
- Aqua Burst (secondary attack) – Jeff’s secondary is a damage-dealing projectile that also does slight AOE damage.
- This is not hitscan, so you’ll need to lead shots a bit if your target is at around mid to long-range.
- Aqua Burst has no damage falloff. The explosion on impact does, but the damage to the main target remains unchanged regardless of how far you shoot it.
- It has a pretty fast attack speed, so you can use it to force flankers to disengage if you can land it consistently.
- Ideally, you want to be shooting at them before they dive you, so try to be mindful of their position at all times.
- Fire these whenever teammates are not dangerously low on health. Your single-target damage is not negligible, and the explosions can deal okay chip damage if you’re hitting the ground beside enemies!
- Don’t forget to attack destructible stuff like Moon Knight‘s ankhs or Peni Parker’s spider nests!
- Despite the separate ammo pool, this shares reloads with Joyful Splash.
- This is not hitscan, so you’ll need to lead shots a bit if your target is at around mid to long-range.
- Hide and Seek (Shift) – When you press shift, Jeff will burrow underground and gain bonus movement speed, healing over time, and an “Unstoppable” buff that renders him immune to crowd control (stuns, slows, pulls, etc).
- While in this form, he can also climb up and across walls by holding the jump button.
- Your dorsal fin is exposed, so enemies can still burst you down if they can hit your annoyingly small hitbox!
- If you try to move past a ledge, you will get forced back out of this mode. Using any of your abilities will instantly do this too.
- This is your only “escape” ability, and it isn’t particularly great. Positioning is going to dictate your survivability for the most part, but more on that later.
- Healing Bubble (E) – Spits out a bubble that, when touched by an ally (or yourself), will burst and heal all nearby allies. You can hold up to six charges of these, but you regain one every six seconds.
- If your teammates are getting dangerously low, weave in a couple of these with your regular healing spray to top them up quickly.
- Affected allies will get a movement speed boost and they’ll receive increased healing for a few seconds.
- Using a couple of these at the start of the match can get your team on the objective quickly.
- On that note, using a bubble or two in general out of spawn can get people back into the fight ASAP.
- The burst can also push nearby enemies away, which might be useful in very niche situations, such as when melee divers go after you.
- Save one or two for yourself if you keep getting flanked.
- Bubbles last for several minutes, but you can only have five active at a time. Firing one while there are five in the field will cause the oldest one to burst automatically.
- It’s Jeff! (Ultimate) – Ah, the “dreaded” Jeff ult. When activated, Jeff will become untargetable for a while as he picks a target location to resurface and swallow any targets within range.
- Jeff can spit out allies and enemies separately, so you don’t need to worry about “accidental” team kills.
- Swallowed enemies will take a small amount of damage over time, while allies will be healed by a lot.
- Despite this, it isn’t anywhere close to being as good as a Luna Snow or Mantis ultimate in terms of healing + utility as you and your allies literally cannot do anything else while you have them in your belly.
- You can only hold people for six seconds. You’ll automatically release everyone if the timer runs out.
- A lot of the cast can dash back to safety if you try to spit them off a ledge. There’s a few spots in certain maps that can guarantee kills, but you often have to get out of your way to use them.
- You can also drop yourself off the map while carrying them, like all those silly clips you’ve probably seen online.
- What I prefer doing is spitting enemies out in an awkward/isolated spot where my team can beat them down while I also hit them with Aqua Burst. This can potentially backfire on your team, so be careful if you use it this way.
- You’re forced into Hide and Seek mode after swallowing people. You aren’t invulnerable, and good teams will burst you down quickly if you try to go for cheeky ledge plays!
- Certain abilities can prevent you from swallowing people, such as Hulk and Magneto barriers.
- This can be used defensively, so try to be creative with it! For example, you can save teammates by swallowing them after a Dr. Strange ult, or even something simple like forcing enemies off the objective while they’re contesting it.
- Oblivious Cuteness (Passive) – Don’t think about this too much, it basically just reduces headshot damage. I mean, most of his body is just his head, so… fair.
Jeff has a couple of team-ups as of writing this, and both of them mainly just benefit himself in some way. Here they are:
- New Friends (Groot) – Just like Rocket Raccoon, Jeff can also latch onto Groot if he’s on the team. This grants a bit of damage reduction, but your movement will be tied solely to wherever the hell the Groot player is going.
- Same as Rocket Raccoon, I don’t recommend staying attached to Groot because it makes you an easy target. This also puts you in the frontlines, which is probably the worst position for Jeff to be in.
- While sitting on Groot’s shoulders, your Healing Bubbles will be a bit finnicky as they’ll pop right in your face unless you aim high.
- I would really only recommend using this for mobility as you can attach to Groot from around a close to mid-range distance. This makes it a sort of pseudo dash that can occasionally be useful.
- Frozen Spitball (Luna Snow) – When Luna Snow is in the team, Jeff gets a bonus ability that will temporarily boost the damage of Aqua Burst.
- For ten seconds, your secondary fire will also create ice fields on the ground when they explode. These will slow enemies down.
- There’s nothing much to note here, but do keep in mind that it has a 30 second cooldown that starts as soon as you use it. Technically, this means you can have it up every 20 seconds.
Positioning Is Key!
Jeff works well with high ground because it gives you a better view of everyone, allowing you to do a decent amount of both healing and damage to key targets (such as healers). However, this also depends on the map you’re playing on, as places like Midtown will have too many obstructive objects and tight chokepoints.
Luckily, he’s almost just as good while on the ground, directly behind his team. This does make it a little harder to poke the backline, but you can still provide supplementary damage up front. Since you lack mobility, don’t put yourself too far in the back, as any decent flanker can easily delete you if you don’t have another healer or any teammate in general nearby.
Bubbles on the Objective!
Regardless of the map type, scatter a few Healing Bubbles near the objective if you have an excess of them. These things can come in clutch if your teammates need a quick top up while you’re preoccupied elsewhere. They’re essentially mini health packs, and the speed boost can even help teammates reposition and/or disengage if the other team’s going for a hard push.
On that note, don’t just spam them all if people are getting low. One or two bubbles are often enough burst healing, and your Joyful Splash can get the job done from there with the healing buff you’ve just applied.
Some Closing Words
Jeff the Land Shark has an incredibly simple set of abilities and is really easy to use, but this also comes with the issue of him being very reliant on things he can’t control. Your team has to stick close together to get the best value out of your heals, and this just isn’t going to happen in some matches.
His ultimate, while strong in niche situations and annoying to deal with sometimes, can also work against your team in various ways. For starters, he’s currently the only strategist who literally cannot provide any utility or healing while ulting. Adam Warlock is the only one who comes close in that regard, but he’s an entirely different beast of an off-healer anyway.
He can also accidentally swallow allies right as they’re about to make a play, unintentionally saving enemies and causing a lot of frustration within the team. There’s just a lot that can go wrong with it.
I still think he’s a fantastic choice for beginners who want to get into the strategist role, but consider learning others as well so you can adjust if needed. Rocket Raccoon is my other recommendation for new players who want to play support, as his playstyle is kinda similar to Jeff’s, and he can still work wonders even in high ranked matches should you start climbing in that game mode.
Wanna learn more? I’ve got a guide on which strategist is right for you that covers all of the support characters in the game (Jeff included), complete with links to more in-depth guides for each. Go take a peek if you want to start playing other strategists too!