If you’re looking to play a healer character in Marvel Rivals, then look no further than Cloak & Dagger. They’re one of the best choices right now, even as we approach the halfway point of the first season. They provide a strong balance of healing and supplementary damage, and a good Cloak & Dagger user can be an absolute pain to play against.
In this guide, I’ll share with you some tips that I’ve learned from playing them in competitive matches. For context, I’m currently in Grandmaster 3 as of the latest edit (Feb 16, 2025).
Cloak & Dagger’s Playstyle in a Nutshell
Cloak & Dagger are an amazing pick for both new and experienced players due to the surprising amount of skill expression available with their abilities. As a former master rank support player in Overwatch, I felt at home with this character as they’re like a combo of both Lucio and Moira’s kits.
In a nutshell, Cloak & Dagger acts as a sort of hybrid healer and damage dealer with a lot of tools that can get them or their team out of a sticky situation. Knowing when to shift between the two characters is key to your success, and you’ll be doing a lot of it as you get used to playing as the pair.
As Dagger, your left click is a pretty weak attack that homes in on both allies and enemies you’re aiming at. This makes it incredibly easy to sustain your teammates or even deal damage from a distance without missing a single shot (kinda).
Cloak, on the other hand, gets a channeled beam as his basic attack. This is great for applying sustained pressure against flankers or just your enemies in general if your team doesn’t need healing at the moment. Remember, you’re usually not the only healer in the team!
I’ll quickly cover each of their abilities in the next section, and we’ll go over a few tips on how to swap in and out between the two kits to use them.
Swapping Between the Two
Switching between either hero is purely situational, and you’ll learn how to weave in and out between the two the more you play them. For the most part, you want to be on Dagger so that you can provide consistent heals, but you can always quickly shift to Cloak for a moment to finish off stragglers or throw out your Terror Cape (E ability).
There’s a very brief delay before you can do anything every time you swap, but it’s hardly noticeable and you’ll get used to it with enough practice. If you’re still learning the ropes, I advise you to mostly stay as Dagger and focus solely on healing until you become more comfortable with swapping in the heat of battle.
Their shift ability is called Light’s Embrace or Shadow’s Embrace, depending on who you’re using at the moment. They each have distinct kits, as I’ve mentioned, so let’s take a closer look at them.
Dagger’s Abilities
Let’s quickly go through Tandy’s abilities in list format, just to make it easier to digest:
- Lightforce Dagger (primary fire) – She will throw out daggers that will either damage enemies or heal allies.
- Her primary fire homes in on/locks in to targets close to your crosshair. As long as they have the target indicator on them, the daggers will find their way.
- Although the description says that it “bounces”, what really happens is that it splashes in a small radius, and you can see a very subtle outline on the ground indicating its range.
- This means that you can heal teammates while you’re hitting enemies, as long as they’re close enough. Damage does not splash, only healing!
- This splash also affects yourself, so if you need healing and don’t have another healer close by, stick to whoever is flanking you or a nearby teammate and let the splash damage/healing do some work.
- It does bounce when shot at walls or the floor, and you can still hit people this way, though it can be a bit inconsistent.
- Dagger Storm (secondary fire) – This ability forms a dome of healing on impact, and it’s great for whenever you need to hold a point or urgently top up a low HP ally (or yourself) as it has a rapid healing speed that complements your primary fire.
- Using this on the objective while your frontliners are contesting it is almost always a good idea.
- If you’re getting flanked by someone like Iron Fist or Black Panther, dropping this at your feet and shifting to Cloak to fight back will usually be enough to force them off or even kill them.
- Veil of Lightforce (E) – Shoots out a small wall that flies through allies and heals any teammates that it touches. It says that it adds a “healing boost“, which does buff healing while active though not very noticeable at a glance.
Cloak’s Abilities
Tyrone, on the other hand, has an almost purely damage-centric kit, and he has separate cooldowns (more on that further below). Here are his abilities:
- Darkforce Cloak (primary fire) – When held, Cloak will channel a beam of darkforce that deals constant damage as long as it remains contact.
- This has a fairly short range, but it has unlimited ammo and does not need to be reloaded. To compensate for this, it has very low base damage.
- Dark Teleportation (secondary fire) – Unlike in the comics, instead of actually “teleporting”, Cloak will shroud nearby allies and himself for a brief moment. This also grants affected allies a movement speed boost.
- This shroud renders anyone affected by it “phased“, which makes them untargetable and invisible. It’s important to note that this only happens to those who were within range upon casting.
- A teammate stops being shrouded if they attempt to fire or use abilities, and again, allies do not become “phased” again if they try to re-enter the shroud.
- You can fly throughout the ability’s duration, though keep in mind that you’ll have a really slow speed. I believe you gain invisibility for yourself too.
- Terror Cape (E) – The opposite of Dagger’s E, this one creates a purple wall that will blind enemies and also render them vulnerable for a brief moment.
- It’s worth noting that the “blind” isn’t a total blackout of their screen. Some players might still be able to hit you while affected by this, but it’s a great tool nonetheless.
- The “vulnerable” status effect amplifies damage received by a significant amount, so your damage dealers will greatly benefit from this too.
- Eternal Bond (Ultimate) – Their ultimate is a series of four dashes that will leave a trail of energy that will damage enemies while also healing allies. After it’s done casting, you’re brought back to the character you were using.
- Although the dashes happen automatically, you can target each by pointing your screen during the brief pauses in between. Movement controls are regained after the final dash.
- You can still be damaged throughout the ability, so be careful of characters that can one-shot you. The rapid healing you leave on the floor should be enough to withstand most damage.
- Be careful of Punisher and Rocket Raccoon. With their ultimates combined, Punisher can still delete you in a flash. Trust me, I’ve done it myself.
- If there’s a Magneto in the other team, he’s likely going to save his ultimate to counter you. It’s currently one of the best ways to delete you and your trail of damage/healing.
- You only move horizontally. Pointing your crosshair to the sky will not cause you to dash upwards.
Focus On Supporting!
If you’re familiar with games like Overwatch or Paladins, then you’ve probably experienced stuff like “DPS Moira”. We don’t want to be like that here, so while you’re playing Cloak & Dagger, the majority of your time should ideally be spent healing as Dagger because of how easy your projectiles are to land.
My personal playstyle is to typically only switch to Cloak for escaping or whenever there’s enough leeway to use Terror Cape, which helps disrupt the other team’s frontline and helps whittle down their HP for your allies to finish them off.
I’ll occasionally swap to him to fight flankers or if I’m confident that the other healer (if any) can sufficiently handle the current situation, though that requires pretty good game sense to avoid unnecessary deaths.
The Terror Cape and primary fire combo can really hurt if your tracking is on point, but daggers are much more reliable and just the superior option in most cases (e.g. facing flying enemies or adding supplementary healing as you deal damage).
Clutch Phasing
If you’re solo queuing, Dark Teleportation is a bit of a nightmare to coordinate when you want to use it to save teammates from a devastating ultimate or just to protect them from dying in general. Seriously, random players will often (most likely unintentionally) cancel it immediately.
Because of this, you’ll probably want to save it for more selfish uses, such as running away from a flanker or getting to high ground for better healing coverage. If your teammates understand how it works and if you can call it out with voice chat, then you can potentially get away with some nutty clutch plays.
Personally, I like to save it to dodge potentially fatal ultimates or if I’m getting focused on. It’s a purely situational ability, and you’ll need relatively quick reflexes to avoid certain death with it.
Walls – Cooldowns and Collision
One important thing to keep in mind is that Cloak & Dagger both have separate cooldowns. You can actually see the other character’s cooldown timers above the ultimate icon, right on the lower right corner of the screen.
This is another reason why it’s helpful to learn how to regularly weave in some Terror Capes while you’re at the frontline whenever it’s available. Just make sure that you aim at open spaces to avoid firing duds. Let me explain.
Both Terror Cape and Veil of Lightforce seemingly phase through objects, right? Well, that’s only partially true. There’s a small hitbox at the center of the wall that will cause it to fizzle out early if it hits anything that isn’t a player.
If you’re going to fire it through a tight corridor or a doorway, make sure to keep your crosshair at an open space as much as possible. You also need to learn where the center of the wall will appear, as the crosshair isn’t always the perfect indicator. Here’s an animated example:
Some General Tips
Light Knives > Verticality
Because of how Dagger can lock onto enemies, you can be a bit of a nuisance to flying/leaping characters. Pay attention to your enemy’s composition and help your team out by applying pressure to the likes of Storm, Scarlet Witch, Iron Man, or just anyone who loves going high up in the air.
As long as your teammates aren’t in urgent need of healing, you can annoy the hell out of anyone who tries to take to the skies. You can even straight up kill them if they’re low enough.
Use Eternal Bond For Healing!
Your ultimate ability is best saved for whenever you need to have a lot of healing done in a short span of time. Whether you’re trying to fight over the point, push through a chokepoint, or survive heavy sustained damage (like a Star-Lord ultimate), it can bring huge value to your whole team.
There’s no set rule for using it though, obviously. You can be as reactive or proactive with it all you want, and it can very rarely even be a decent zoning tool if your opponents are struggling with heals for whatever reason. At the end of the day, it’s purely situational.
Cloak & Dagger can build up their ultimate incredibly fast, so don’t be afraid to use it frequently. Seriously, there are times where you’ll already have it up when the vehicle objective has barely moved out of the starting point. Even with the season 1.5 nerfs, it can still charge up pretty quickly.
If using it proactively, lead the charge with Eternal Bond if your team is struggling to push in. At the very least, this might force the other team to trade an ultimate or two. On that note, if an opposing Cloak & Dagger uses their ultimate while you have one too, wait a couple of seconds before popping yours to gain a very slight advantage once theirs dissipates.
And that wraps up this guide. The game’s still in its infancy, so I’d imagine people are going to come up with a lot of tech eventually. For now, though, these tips should be enough to get you started with Cloak & Dagger!
Wanna learn more? There are a whole bunch of other support characters in the game right now, and I’ve got a guide on which strategist is right for you that should help you out if you ever want to branch out from this pair!