The Thing, also known as Benjamin Grimm, is a Vanguard unit from the Fantastic 4 universe who was added to Marvel Rivals alongside season update 1.5. Vanguard units can often be hard to play, mainly because you require experience with regard to positioning and learning when to engage or step back from a fight.
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Fortunately, The Thing is a very easy hero to learn. If you’re a player who wants to enjoy a bit of clobberin’ time, here’s a detailed guide that will help you out.
The Thing Overview
The Thing is a low-difficulty Vanguard unit that primarily functions as a disruptor rather than as a frontline shielder. Most of The Thing’s abilities are meant to stop the enemy in their tracks and disrupt them from approaching your team. He is very simple to play, but this disruptive playstyle can be instrumental as you can single-handedly carry games.
The Thing is quite good at initiating fights with his abilities, which means reading the game and hunting for opportunities will be crucial with this hero.
However, apart from that, he can also stand his ground since his passive prevents The Thing from getting launched or knocked-back. This will allow him to stay at the frontline and keep pushing the enemy team away.
Despite all the positives, he lacks any easy means to protect himself from incoming damage when compared to other Vanguards like Magneto or Doctor Strange, who have powerful shields. As such, The Thing will offer more value if played alongside a more traditional Vanguard instead of being the solo tank in a match.
The Thing’s Skills
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Normal Attack |
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Rocky Jab |
Launch a barrage of rapid punches at the enemy. |
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Abilities |
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Clobberin’ Time |
Smash the ground forward and release a shockwave that will launch all enemies in the air. |
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Yancy Street Charge |
Charge forward and launch all enemies in your path. End the charge by creating a zone where the enemy can’t use movement abilities. |
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Embattled Leap |
The Thing can jump onto an ally and provide massive damage reduction to both himself and the target ally. |
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Stone Haymaker |
Charge your fist and launch a powerful punch towards enemies. |
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Unyielding Will |
The Thing cannot be knocked back, or launched by an enemy. |
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Team-Up Abilities |
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Cooperative Comrades |
Invisible Woman can provide damage reduction and bonus health to The Thing which improves his sustainability. |
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Cosmic Fastball |
The Thing can pick up Wolverine and launch him in any direction. |
Whenever you play The Thing, it’s better to ask your team to pick Invisible Woman since the extra damage reduction and bonus HP can allow you to play as a solo tank without the need for a traditional shielder. If you don’t have Invisible Woman in your team, it’s important to coordinate with your tank to pick up someone who can shield the team, since you will have to play as a playmaker and fight initiator in most cases.
Tips And Tricks To Play The Thing
The most important ability you need to play around when playing The Thing is Yancy Street Charge. Your job is to charge at the enemy, knock them back, disrupt them, and stop them from running away.
This ability can be used to not only break the enemy’s lines but also cut them off from abilities such as Luna Snow‘s ultimate or Loki’s crystals. The Yancy Street Charge ability will also stop heroes like Black Panther, Psylocke, and Spider-Man in their tracks and make them vulnerable since their movement abilities will be ineffective.
Additionally, Embattled Leap is also quite crucial as it provides damage reduction for your allies as well as yourself. Whenever you see somebody in the team is off-position and might die, you can jump onto them by activating this ability, thereby protecting them from death. It can especially come in handy when paired with dive heroes such as Psylocke as the damage reduction can make it easy to clear the backline.
Since your Yancy Street Charge ability provides bonus health, you can also use it to run away from sticky situations. If you are about to die while fighting, use that ability to run to your healer and then get back into the fight once again. Additionally, you can also use the Embattled Leap ability when your health gets low, as the damage reduction you receive will save you.
You must also remember that your passive ability, Unyielding Will, prevents you from getting launched or knocked back by an enemy. This means even though you don’t have a traditional shield, you can stand in front of the team and block any form of disruptive attack from an enemy.
If you have an Invisible Woman in your team, it becomes even easier to tank the attacks since you receive further damage reduction and bonus health.
Stone Haymaker is a powerful ability that deals quite a bit of damage. You can use it on enemies when they are at very low HP and can finish them off for an easy kill. Don’t open with that move, as it has a small charge time and you are left vulnerable when that happens. If you try to use it when the enemy’s health is full, they will counter back at you with heavy damage which will put you in an awkward situation.
However, when the enemy’s HP is very low, they will try to run instead of fighting you, thereby removing the risk of receiving damage in return. The Stone Haymaker charge cannot be stopped earlier as the ability will complete the full charge regardless of when you leave the button before it releases and lands the damage on the enemy.
Finally, when you are close to your enemies, use The Thing’s Normal Attack, Rocky Jab. It may not seem fancy, but the damage is quite high, and you can shut down squishy enemies quite easily. It is especially good to shut down healers and can be used as a follow-up to your Ultimate or Yancy Street Charge abilities, provided enemies are very close to you.
How To Use The Thing’s Ultimate
The Thing’s Ultimate is very simple as you slam the ground and knock enemies in front of you. However, it’s extremely useful as it can disrupt the enemy’s plans and leave them vulnerable. The best way to use your Ultimate is in situations when there are multiple enemies lined up.
Never use it on a single enemy, as the more enemies you hit, the more damage your team can do, thereby making it easier to win games. You can also follow up your Ultimate with the Yancy Street Charge so that enemies get knocked up again, and their movement abilities become ineffective for a few seconds.
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