When it comes to Vanguards in Marvel Rivals, you have a bunch of sub-archetypes that define their playstyle — anchor, frontliner, and dive. As a complete brute, Venom falls in the latter category, swinging around the map and waiting for the right moment to divebomb into the enemy’s backlines. Although a niche pick, he can absorb a bucketload of damage and ensure the team has at least one hero standing firmly above the objective.
Alongside his monstrous defense, Venom is also an offensive powerhouse. His primary fire, the tendrils, can land devastating blows if aimed properly, and when combined with his movement-afflicting grab, it becomes much harder to escape. Fortunately, he’s not immortal, and a few strategies can certainly put him in his place.
How To Counter Venom
Venom’s kit encourages him to be ferocious and inflict as much collateral damage as possible with his AoE attacks. His divebombing Frenzied Arrival ability is a nightmare for Strategists since it’s immediately followed up by his grab and primary attacks, resulting in a quick kill.
Venom’s Ultimate Ability is another thing to watch out for — on top of exceptional range, it deals damage equal to 50 percent of the target’s health with an additional 50 points of impact.
Since Venom’s ult scales with the enemy’s maximum HP, he can use it against Vanguards and full-health heroes for a tremendous affliction.
However, the best part about Venom’s kit is undoubtedly his last-resort bonus health ability, Symbiote Resistance. His base HP of 800 is already a beefy number, but this ability lets him gain 100 bonus health and an additional 120 percent conversion of lost health into bonus health. As such, the lower his HP, the more health bonus he’ll get, which will likely exceed his colossal base HP.
With Venom being a close-quarters behemoth, your best chance against him is to attack from a far range and try to separate him from his support. His defense is, by far, the biggest crux of the issue, and he’s nearly unkillable if his teammates regularly heal him. As such, the quicker you sever Venom’s ties with his healers, the more you force him to either retreat or pop his bonus health early.
Venom also relies heavily on chip damage, which you can easily outheal if you have an ally Strategist nearby. The most he does is stall for time by absorbing your damage while giving his teammates an opening to go for a swift knockout. If you can collectively maintain pressure on him as a team, he’ll have no choice but to swing away and try again, which is quite a lengthy cycle.
Stun-locks and immobilizing abilities work extremely well against Venom because they prevent him from escaping at a crucial moment.
How To Counter Venom As A Vanguard
Looking at Venom’s stats, only a handful of Vanguards can consistently take him down in a one-on-one scenario. Since he’s a diving character, Peni Parker has a better chance than anyone against him, deploying her Spider-Nest and placing traps around herself. When Venom tries to lunge in, Peni can instantly snare him and trigger the nearby drones and mines, unbinding gargantuan damage.
Groot is another strong counter against Venom, specifically because of his weakness towards the Thornslash Walls. Venom’s sluggish nature makes it harder for him to escape traps, so if he decides to engage the sentient tree from up close, Groot can simply encircle him with the walls and let the vines melt away his health. The fact his base HP rivals that of Venom also lets him outlast the tendril attacks.
Other melee and ranged Vanguards, although not as potent, can still try and stall for time. Hulk and Magneto, for instance, have strong durability and defense, like when they’re using Indestructible Guard and Metal Bulwark, to brawl with Venom, with the latter hero even having ranged abilities he can use while spacing the symbiote out.
How To Counter Venom As A Strategist
Strategists are a primary target for the overgrown black monster, but while they don’t have the health to outlast his attacks, they can use their mobility and abilities to run away. This would include things like Luna Snow’s Absolute Zero, Mantis’ Slumbering Spore, Rocket Raccoon’s Jetpack Dash, and more.
Out of all the Strategists, Mantis is definitely your best bet to classify as Venom’s counterpick. Her Slumbering Spore, on top of being an escape tool, is perfect for denying a breakaway opportunity. Her attacks are also the most DPS-oriented in her class, so when you couple them with her rapid movement, you have a solid loop of creating a gap and attacking from afar.
Ideally, though, you’ll want to stay close to your team as much as possible and aid your ally Vanguards and Duelists from a safe distance. Venom is an AoE-focused character, but he can’t normally deal significant damage to more than one opponent simultaneously, so use that fact in your strategy.
How To Counter Venom As A Duelist
Venom’s slothful agility and giant hurtbox make him fairly vulnerable to several Duelist archetypes in Marvel Rivals. Wolverine, as always, remains the top counterpick, living up to his reputation as the ultimate tank shredder. Once he isolates Venom with his Feral Leap, he can unleash a flurry of slashes and destroy Venom’s defenses.
Other melee duelists, like Iron Fist, Black Panther, and Magik, can use their movement speed to weave around Venom’s attacks. Still, Wolverine’s percentage-based damage output gives him the upper hand, and you can make it even better by attacking after the symbiote exhausts his swing, ensuring he doesn’t have a split-second escape route.
With range being his weakness, you can also use characters with high single-shot damage, like Hela, Hawkeye, and Namor, to snipe Venom from a safe zone. However, if you want damage and safety, Iron Man and Storm are great choices since they can strike from the one place neither Venom nor his projectile-based attacks can reach — the skies.
As Storm, you should aid friendly melee Duelists by empowering them with a movement speed boost. Dodging Venom’s attacks is arguably more important for them than inflicting more damage than him.
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