Rogue has joined Marvel Rivals as part of Season 5.5, adding to the growing list of Vanguard heroes. She joins as a melee tank focused primarily on brawling and diving, while also being the first 5-Star difficulty tank according to NetEase’s in-game difficulty rankings. Rogue comes ahead of Season 6, which will see the addition of Deadpool and Elsa Bloodstonein yet unannounced roles.
Rogue overview
Rogue is a damage-heavy tank, focused on disrupting the enemy team through a number of dashes and dives. Her primary attack, Power Surge Punch, follows a three-hit combo dealing 35 damage on the first two hits and 45 on the third. She can use her defensive stance to temporarily reduce incoming damage while powering up her next punch. In that stance, she can also use one of her dashes, Southern Brawl, to close the distance and deal damage.
Her Chrono Kick Combo knocks enemies up into the air, while Rogue temporarily flies. Using the ability again does a downward dive kick, dealing AoE damage and bringing Rogue back to the ground. Fatal Attraction has Rogue dash forward, before releasing a ring of damage around her that pulls enemies closer. Lastly, her ultimate ability Heartbreaker depletes enemies’ ultimate charge in a large AoE circle, while also absorbing key stats and dealing a small amount of damage.
Rogue abilities and team-ups
Power Surge Punch (primary): Punch forward with both fists.
Defensive Stance: Absorb nearby projectiles and reduce incoming damage; absorbed damage powers up your next Southern Brawl.
Southern Brawl: While in Defensive Stance, dash forward and slam enemies in front, dealing area damage.
Chrono Kick Combo: Dash forward and launch the enemy, entering flight; activate again to Knock Down nearby enemies. Your next two Power Surge Punch attacks become ranged, piercing enemies and granting Bonus Health.
Fatal Attraction: Dash forward. Press again to unleash a burst of Chronovium Power, dealing continuous damage to nearby foes; after a delay, the energy retracts, pulling all enemies towards Rogue.
Ability Absorption: Dash forward to knock down your target and absorb their energy; after absorbing, replace Ability Absorption with one of their abilities or refresh Fatal Attraction. Also absorb Health and stats based on their role.
Heartbreaker (ultimate): Continuously absorb Ultimate Ability Energy from nearby enemies and steal stats based on their role.
Hearts as One (Gambit team-up): Gambit shares kinetic energy with Magneto and Rogue. When Magneto activates this ability, Iron Volley is replaced with Ace Greatsword, which detonates upon striking enemies. The explosion leaves residual kinetic energy within the target, inflicting secondary damage after a brief delay. When Rogue activates the ability, each of her attacks causes a kinetic explosion that damages nearby enemies and heals nearby allies.
Get in, get out
Rogue straddles a thin line between being a brawler and a dive tank. She certainly has the strength to be a dive tank, but her low self-sustain makes surviving without support from a Strategist quite difficult. This is solved by her team-up with Gambit, providing some healing and extra damage, but you won’t always have that.
Instead, you need to balance out diving into combat and using one of Rogue’s three movement abilities to get out of danger, too. With high cooldowns, this can be tough to manage, and it never feels good to use an ability to leave a fight instead of finishing an enemy off, but remember, as a tank, your role is to disrupt the enemy team. You can’t do that effectively if you overextend, especially if it results in you getting killed. If you don’t feel like the abilities you can absorb from your enemies are impactful, consider holding Ability Absorption for a Strategist or Vanguard to give yourself a quick health boost.
Hard to ignore
Rogue is at her best when you are constantly in the thick of battle with your team. While you might rack up some impressive damage numbers, your focus shouldn’t be on finishing enemies off, but instead making it difficult for your opponents to effectively play the game. Rogue’s Chrono Kick Combo is a great example, where you can knock opponents up and disrupt their movement a second time on the downward kick.
Her Fatal Attraction ability pulls enemies close to you as well, making it easy to force enemies to spend energy on you, instead of taking out your Strategists or Duelists. If an enemy Daredevil or Black Panther wants to dive your supports, you can make their lives hell by disrupting their combos and game plan, purely by just getting in the way. Even if you can’t take them out in the process, keeping your supports alive is worth the effort and an effective way to play Rogue.
Heartbreaker
Rogue’s ultimate ability, Heartbreaker, leans into her lore to create a unique ability. She unleashes a large AoE circle around herself, that depletes enemies’ ultimate charge. While it does a ton of other stuff, this primary power of depleting enemy ult charge makes it the kind of ultimate ability that you should be using as soon as it’s up, regardless of the situation. Using it whenever you have it lowers the number of ultimates your opponents can use, which is a huge advantage in Marvel Rivals. You’ll still need to pick your spots to ensure you get a couple of enemies in it, but holding it for the right moment is the wrong move.
In terms of actually using it, you also gain attack power from Duelists, self-healing from Strategists, and maximum health from Vanguards. Basically, if you can keep a couple of enemies in range, you’ll deal a ton of damage and be tough to take down. Most people will scatter as soon as you activate it, so make sure all of your movement abilities are off cooldown, so you can keep them in range if they try to run from you.
