How To Become A Pro Duelist In Marvel Rivals

Duelist is one of the most hyped and fun roles in Marvel Rivals, where you can perform flashy moves to take down enemies. However, even though the idea of stacking up kills and making it to the MVP screen sounds fun, Duelist is also a hard role to master.

It takes a while before you can change from a decent Duelist to a really good one where you can dominate in higher ranks. If you’re a Duelist main and looking to take your gameplay to the next level, here’s a set of tips that will help speed up the process.

Get Behind Enemy Lines More Often

There are two ways to play Duelists in Marvel Rivals. One of them is staying behind the allies to consistently trade hits, while the other is to dive behind enemy lines and create chaos. While the first one is fine, you should try focusing on the second one more often.

While it’s important to get kills as a Duelist, you also have the responsibility to create space. Your tank will feel overwhelmed trying to hold the enemy Vanguard while taking hits from the enemy DPS, who are getting healed consistently.

This means, as a Duelist, you’ll have to jump behind the enemy lines to take down the enemy support or DPS and thereby create space for the rest of your team. If you’re simply trading hits, in most cases, you’ll end up losing to an enemy whose Duelist will eventually dive you and your supports and clean you up.

Unless you start leaving the comfort of your team and diving into the enemy backline, you’ll never be able to become a superior Duelist. This is a key fundamental that is true for every other shooter where the Duelist has to create space for the team with their mobility and damage, and it holds the same for Marvel Rivals as well.

Play With Aggression

While you may be getting kills by playing safe, this isn’t something that’ll help you rank up to the higher levels. If you ever watch a professional Duelist, they take risks, which means going for plays that may not work out but will provide massive value if they do. For instance, you may notice two enemies who are at very low health, but you’re afraid to dash in as they are grouped up and it might get you killed.

As a Duelist, you often have access to high-damaging tools in combination with a lot of mobility, something that Vanguards and Strategists do not have. If you’re playing something like Psylocke or Spider-Man, you’ll be able to jump into them, get the swift kills, and back out. This will give your team massive advantages as now you’ll be in a 5v4 or a 5v3 scenario, which will help you take over objectives.

As a Duelist, your job is to create space and open up advantages, and you can’t do that if you let enemies in low health live while you’re trying to play safe. Always remember only a Duelist has the tools to reach targets quickly and get out of it safely, so use it to your advantage.

Focus on Isolated Targets

While a match progresses in Marvel Rivals, there will be several instances where enemies position themselves poorly and stray away from their team too much. In such cases, as a Duelist, you should always look to pounce on those opportunities and swiftly take down those isolated targets.

This is because these are free kills that give an enormous advantage to your team. If the target is a support or a DPS, cutting one of them puts the enemy team at a massive disadvantage. You might feel that it isn’t worth leaving your team behind, but these isolated kills impact the game massively in the long run.

If you put the enemy team at 5v4, they will retreat back, which will help you add extra percentages to the zone capture or help push the payload a little more. As you stack up on these advantages, you start winning more games. However, this isn’t something that your tanks or supports can do as they are tied to playing around the objectives.

It’s only a Duelist who can leave their team, shut down the isolated target, and return to the team, since they have higher mobility and damage compared to other classes.

Make The Most Out Of Your Mobility

As a Duelist, focusing on your aim is important, but that is part of the process. You should also focus on putting your mobility to use more often to become better in your role. Every Duelist in the game has some form of mobility tool tied to their kits, and you can use it to pull the enemy team apart.

For instance, you can flank the enemy team and start hitting one of the targets. As soon as they turn their attention towards you, use your mobility tool and pull them away from their team. In most cases, the enemy will chase you, especially in intermediate ranks where everyone is hungry for kills.

As soon as they chase you, now you have created an isolated 1v1, where you can put your perfect aim to use and shut them down. Once they are dead, use your mobility tool to run back at your team before the rest of the enemy team tries to chase you.

Once you get better at doing this, you’ll not only have more kills to your name, but the enemy team will always be at a disadvantage, thereby increasing the chances for your victory.

Focus On Supports Before Anything Else

Most average Duelists in intermediate ranks focus on tanks as they are always the easier targets to hit. However, if you are looking to become a high-ranking Duelist, you’ll have to learn to select targets, and Strategists or supports should be your primary focus.

This is because, no matter how many headshots you land, it’s no use if, after every hit, the enemy gets healed back up. If you target supports, you’ll make the enemy team uncomfortable and break their structure as either they will be left without a healer, or they will converge into you while creating space for your team.

Most supports lack strong offensive abilities, which means as a DPS, you can swiftly take them down with your high mobility and damaging capabilities. This point ties to the first one as well, where you’ll have to dive into the backline to do this. However, when you do, focus on the supports first and then the DPS before finally moving onto the tanks that are helpless without their team.

Protect Your Healers

While you are diving the enemy backline and creating space for your team, the enemy Duelist will also attempt to do the same. In such cases, your healers will be vulnerable, and it won’t be possible for your tank to keep an eye on them.

As a Duelist, it’s your job to make sure your healers are safe when the enemy Duelist is trying to jump your backline. If your healer dies, you’ll suffer the most since when you return from a dive, you’ll be at low health and become an easy target for the enemy. Additionally, your healer dying will put your tank at risk, which will leave the objectives vulnerable.

Always keep an eye on your healer, stick close to them if you aren’t diving, and protect them whenever necessary. If possible, communicate with your healer and ask them to call for help if they need it. Most average Duelists don’t do this, and they will leave their healers exposed while they greedily hunt around for kills.

However, good Duelists will always keep their healers safe, and it’s key to ranking up to high levels in this role.

Practice Hitting Consistent Headshots

Once you start ranking up as a Duelist, you’ll have to prioritize hitting headshots over bodyshots. Most average Duelists go for bodyshots, and it’s fine for a while, since your high damage lets you kill enemies very fast. However, as you rank up, you’ll face opponents who are very good at the game.

You’ll end up facing a Black Widow or Hawkeye who will oneshot you every time with their headshots. The only way to counter that is by hitting headshots, too, in return, or you’ll end up feeding too much and your team will get angry at you. You can practice hitting headshots either in the practice range or by trying out some kind of third-party software like Aimlabs.

This holds true for even those who dive the backline as hitting in the head will let you shut down supports quickly before they can heal up. Spend some time practicing hitting 100 headshots every day over a dummy target with Black Widow and Psylocke before jumping into an actual game. This will speed up the process of becoming a much better Duelist than what you’re currently.

Learn Counter Strafing

This is a pretty advanced technique that is mostly used by Duelists who are at a very high rank. The idea is to always move to the opposite side of where you are looking. For instance, if you look to the left, you will be moving right and vice versa.

This makes you a harder target to hit and also improves your accuracy. Since Marvel Rivals is a game with very high mobility, every character will move around a lot, and they will always move in a direction opposite to where you are shooting. If you try to track them, you’ll never hit your target.

However, if you Counter Strafe and move in the opposite direction of how your opponent is moving, your aim will remain fixed to your enemy and help you shoot them down quickly. Additionally, if they are standing in one place, you should Counter Strafe where they’ll completely miss all their bullets while you hit yours.

This is a powerful skill for every Duelist since they are the ones who will engage in direct duels more often than the rest of your team. You can learn this skill either through third party software like AimLabs or in-game itself by playing a lot. However, the quicker you learn it, the faster you will level up from a decent Duelist to a pretty good one.