Marvel Rivals is probably a lot of people’s first exposure to Squirrel Girl, and she’s one of the easiest characters to learn in the game, though also the easiest to not play at her full potential. I’ve been playing her a bit recently, especially because of the seasonal events, and here are a few tips on how you can hopefully get better at her!
Squirrel Girl’s Playstyle in a Nutshell
Squirrel Girl is all about shooting explosive acorns that have a relatively slow travel time, but will bounce on surfaces and explode to deal area of effect damage. Because of her attacks, she can be great at locking down corridors or even just dealing completely random damage to enemies from a safe spot.
She has an extremely simple set of abilities, and all you need to know about it is that she has a leap that’ll let her get to high ground and a bouncing acorn that roots enemies in place. The latter is especially great for securing kills, as the rooting effect makes it really easy for her to land projectiles.
Her Mammal Bond ability can make for some simple yet interesting plays, as it allows you to cast one of her other skills without having it go on cooldown or use it while it’s still unavailable. You can chain roots or leap twice with it, which can potentially be nutty at times.
I think of her ultimate as more of a zoning tool rather than something that confirms kills. Basically, it’s just an angry horde of squirrels that run around and deal an okay amount of damage. With all of that said, let’s take a closer look at these abilities…
Squirrel Girl’s Abilities & Team-Ups
As with all of my other hero guides, I’m gonna go through this in list format so I can insert little tips for every ability:
- Burst Acorn (Primary attack) – She fires an acorn with her slingshot, which will bounce around and explode after a while or if it touches an enemy.
- This will bounce on surfaces two times before it explodes.
- Direct hits deal the most damage, but it will also deal a decent amount to enemies that are extremely close to the explosion.
- You have to lead or bounce your shots unless you’re close enough to aim directly. We’ll go over this in a separate section.
- Squirrel Blockade (Secondary attack) – Squirrel Girl will throw a giant acorn that bounces around roots the first enemy it hits.
- This will bounce on any surface for a few times before it eventually expires (unless it hits somebody, of course).
- It can be charged by holding the button. This will make it go further and faster, allowing for better direct hits if you can aim it right.
- Ideally, you want to hit isolated targets with it so you can quickly follow up with a Burst Acorn. Your teammates can also finish them off!
- Tail Bounce (Shift) – Squirrel Girl launches herself high up using her tail. That’s pretty much it.
- As mentioned earlier, this is mainly used to get yourself on high ground so that you have a better view of the field.
- In some cases, you can use this to escape flankers, though your mileage may vary depending on who is chasing you down.
- Mammal Bond (E) – This reloads your weapon and also lets you use one of her other abilities once for free.
- I personally value it more for the cooldown refresh. How it works is that it lets you use either Squirrel Blockade or Tail Bounce once without making it go on cooldown.
- If an ability is already on cooldown, you can use Mammal Bond to re-use it before it’s available again.
- The ability’s cooldown will pause until you use an ability or the Mammal Bond duration expires.
- For example, if you use it while Squirrel Blockade has 2 seconds left on its cooldown, it’ll still continue at 2 seconds once Mammal Bond is done.
- One thing I like doing is using Mammal Bond immediately after landing a Squirrel Blockade on somebody (or right before it hits). If you’re fast enough, you can root them in place again while continuing to fire acorns in between.
- Unbeatable Squirrel Tsunami (Ultimate) – She’ll summon a horde of squirrels that will charge forward and bounce whenever they hit a surface.
- This can be destroyed, so try to use it when people are already busy fighting so they’ll have trouble focusing it.
- Tight corridors are great for this, but don’t shy away from using it in slightly more open spots as they will try to go after the nearest enemy whenever they bounce. It’ll make most players run away from the objective.
Her only team-up at the moment is with Spider-Man, and it’s called Webbed Acorn. When cast, Squirrel Girl will wind up for a few seconds before throwing a web bomb that will ensnare enemies caught in the explosion.
It’s essentially like Squirrel Blockade, except you can’t charge it manually and it doesn’t bounce. It’s decent, but it isn’t worth getting out of your way to activate. The few times I’ve had it in my matches, I hardly used it anyway.
Learn to Lead Your Shots!
Burst Acorn has a relatively slow travel time, so all of your shots are going to take a while to reach your intended targets if they’re not close to you. As such, practice leading your shots and trying to predict people’s trajectories.
If you’re not too experienced with shooters, I recommend going to the practice range and start trying to land shots at those moving bots while standing a fair distance away. You could also try moving around while doing it to somewhat simulate what it would be like while you’re in an actual match.
Of course, nothing will ever beat practicing against real players due to how unpredictable our movement patterns can be. Make a conscious effort to try and score direct hits rather than just firing randomly at the crowd. Trust me, once you start getting the hang of it, you’ll be doing much more damage overall and scoring more intentional final hits.
Depending on how far your target is, you might need to aim slightly higher too, as her acorns will start dropping rather quickly. Just keep playing more games as her to get a feel for the projectiles and how fast they fall.
Bouncing Your Shots
Bouncing is another thing to consider when enemies are playing behind cover or are hanging back behind some shielding vanguards. Learn how to shoot at angles that’ll cause your acorns to bounce towards the other team’s backline.
More often than not, this mainly involves repositioning yourself and then shooting at a wall just behind or beside them. Just keep applying pressure on the other team by trying to flush the other team’s healers out of the back, but don’t forget to lob some acorns at the front to help soften up the vanguards or at least crack their shields.
Use Squirrel Blockade Often
Squirrel Blockade has a relatively fast cooldown and can get a lot of value without needing exceedingly precise aim. If a fight is going on, pick a target or throw it at a clump of enemies and you’re bound to land it on somebody.
Whenever it hits an enemy, you’ll hear a very distinct sound cue, so pay close attention and look for who got rooted so you can throw some explosives their way. Your teammates will also be able to capitalize on these snares as whoever gets hit will be a sitting duck for a little over a second.
If you’re in a safe spot, don’t be afraid to use Mammal Bond and charge up another one. If the other team has a bunch of flankers, save it for when somebody dives you or your strategists. Landing a Squirrel Blockade, firing an acorn, and then hitting them with a blockade again will be enough to take them out or do enough damage to force a disengage.
Tight Spaces Are Your Best Friends
If teams are fighting in a fairly tight space or chokepoint, you can very easily land your Squirrel Blockades without even trying. If you don’t score a direct hit, there’s a very high chance that it’ll bounce to somebody in no time. These types of spaces are great for your Unbeatable Squirrel Tsunami too!
This tip is especially true if you’re fighting a 1v1. You can completely delete people by just having little space for them to avoid your projectiles, even if you miss. Case in point:
That’s really all I have for Squirrel Girl. Like I said, she’s an extremely simple character to learn. Funnily enough, aside from proper positioning and being creative with her bouncing projectiles, the difficulty that comes with getting better as her is learning to land direct hits.
If you’re looking into playing a more traditional shooter character, I highly recommend trying out somebody like The Punisher or even Winter Soldier. Otherwise, consider checking out my other blog post called “Which duelist should you pick?” to see all of your other choices!
