First of all, just to introduce myself, I am currently a Lord Hulk, peaking at Diamond 1 at the time of this guide. I have about 50 hours on Hulk, so I sorta know what I'm doing. Hulk has many roles he can fill, people classify him as a dive tank, but really he is a great jack of all trades if played correctly. He requires a lot of movement and game sense, as well as perfect timing and awareness. First we will carefully examine his abilities to see what they do, then we will apply them in game, as well as go over the three separate modes of hulk you can go. Dive hulk, brawl hulk, and support hulk.

So, first you have Heavy blow, a punch ability that takes about 7 hits to kill a character with 250 HP, which is most supports DPS barring few. The punch is your basic attack, and it has a very large radius to hit. If you can't aim very well, don't worry, Hulk has you covered. Great for keeping constant pressure on your target. Also, this attack deals 40 damage in case you wanted to know the specifics.

The next ability is the Indestructible Guard, also known as the Gamma shield. This ability is one of your most important abilities, and misuse will lose a ton of value, and get you killed very quickly. The Gamma shield will shield you for 2 seconds, for 200 HP, any allies you shield get 100 Hp for the same duration. Another important thing to note is that when your gamma shield takes damage, you get Gamma charge, or ult charge.(100% to of the damage you take goes to ult, 10% of allies goes to ult) This ability is very useful and can block ultimate's like Jeff, Thing, Ironman, etc etc. If it is a high burst damage ult, it can block it. However if it's sustained like Punisher, Storm, Human torch, etc, not as good.


The next ability is the radioactive lockdown, this stuns/exiles your enemy for a couple of seconds, and also deals 5 damage like that matters. This ability is very good at getting you out of sticky situations. Lets say invisible woman pulls you back while you are jumping out of their backline to heal, I've saved myself many times by stunning the people that were chasing me trying to finish me off so I can get to my healers. It's also good if you see any enemy vanguard(like another hulk) or diver going after your healers. Stun them, and your healers can get away (or stay still and keep healing like nothing is going on because they are braindead). This ability is a double edged sword, misuse can really screw up your team, since if you stun someone, it makes them immune to all damage for the duration they are locked down. You however can damage them, but once you do damage them the exile stops. You can also stop certain ults with this, like Wanda, and if you time it right, ironman, and some others. (It's always hilarious when you continuously stun wanda)

Moving on to Gamma Burst, this is a ranged ability that has an 8 second cooldown dealing 70 damage. Hulk will clap his hands together and release a semi-fast moving projectile that can pierce through multiple people(but not shields like mag, strange, or cap). This move is very good to combo with the radioactive lockdown, as you can lock down a low health support that's trying to escape, then clap your hands together and get the kill. It's also very good to put some pressure on the enemy backline through their frontline tanks. I would avoid going for flyers unless they are low health, save this for finishes and applying pressure.

Last but not least, the bread and butter of Hulks kit, this is the ability that makes hulk truly special and unique, and makes him the most mobile tank in the game if used correctly, the Incredible Leap. First of all, there is a tech you need to use with this ability. Starting out, you are required to hold the spacebar while charging up the ability, but if you go into the settings for Hulk, you can actually change it to where you just need to tap spacebar and it charges up. Now, this is a bit weird at first, but in order to play Hulk properly you need to be able to escape from situations fast. You might get some situations where you overextend your jumps, but you can play around it, and after some time you get use to it. So essentially, you can have your jump charged up at any time ready to be used with this tech. Which again, is super important because Hulk requires very precise timing, and he needs the ability to escape from the enemies backline quickly.

Also, this is just a mention about the Bruce Banner form, it sucks, get out of it asap. Some crazy people will wait to transform into hulk after throwing some gamma grenades into enemies, but, banner is the lowest health thing in the game. If you get knocked into bruce banner form, throw a gamma grenade at your feet and try and GTFO. The way to get back into hulk quicker is with your gun and grenade. If you hit enemies you gain gamma charge, headshots give you more. If you hit yourself with the gamma grenade you get 8% ult charge, and if you hit enemies you also get ult charge.



The ultimate, HULK SMASH!

Hulks ultimate is another very important part of his kit, you are slower and clumsier, but you also gain 1500 health, and you do way more damage. You can still jump around, you lose the gamma shield, but your Heavy Blow now knocks people back, your clap has only a 1 second cooldown, and your raidoactive lockdown has a 5 second cooldown. You also get another ultimate in this form, which is called the World Breaker. Hulks ultimate is useful for 2 main things, first of all is creating a lot of space. If your team is stuck in a chokepoint and you pop your ult, the enemies have no choice but to back up because you're doing so much knockback. You can also spam the claps at enemies supports, it takes 3 hits to kill them. You can also use this ability to stall point, but it might not last too long because the enemies will focus you down, only stall point if the game is about to end. Otherwise, reset with your team and pop your ult the next teamfight. Worldbreaker isn't as good as it seems, you do take reduced damage, but the enemies can still heal their guy, and the animation takes like 5 seconds, so you are wasting 5 seconds of your ult. The best time to use worldbreaker is at the very tail end of your ult. When you use it you won't transform, so you get an extra 5 seconds in your ult. The only time I ever use this before it reaches under 2 seconds is when I see an enemy about to ult. (Which is is absolutely hilarious)

Now that you have a rundown of all his abilities, lets get into how to use them, and how to ACTUALLY play Hulk.

So... Hulk really has an infinite numbers of combos. I mean seriously, I feel like I'm making a new one up every day. As you play Hulk, you will also start to get a feel for throwing combinations. However there are a few basic ones I use.

First is the one I use for flyers, you get the airstun, punch them out of the air, punch them until they hit the ground, and then right click to clap. That'll usually finish them off unless they are being pocketed.

Another useful combo is when an enemy gets on low health and tries to escape, you stun them with Radioactive Lockdown, which is your E ability, get in close, and even go around them to bodyblock them from their team, then clap. The clap does 70 damage, so if that doesn't finish them, either your team or your punches will.

We talk about exiling supports in another section, but, that's another big one to learn.

So yeah, those are just some super basic combos. You will figure out a lot more on your own down the line. Seriously, you can combo Hulks punch, stun, and clap in so many different ways it's insane.

Now, I already know you guys see how long this guide is, and you hear how complex he is. You also hear people say things such as "He doesn't do any damage. The hulk should do more damage than he already does, he needs to be tankier." These people are wrong. Hulk is in a really... really good spot in the meta. He is the most mobile tank in the game. Some people might say Cap is, but, he's not. Try and jump up onto the high bridge on the Dracula map with Cap. Try and contest a squirrel girl or a moonknight on a rooftop with any other tank. That is what makes Hulk so viable, unique, and special. If you are playing him to put out insane damage, you are missing the point. The point is selective pressure in hard to reach places. Just look at this video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_nvEQnvp1s This guy has a whole compilation basically showing how Hulk can demolish an enemy team. You just need to put in the time. I see a lot of people posting videos saying things like "INCREASE YOUR CARRY POTENTIAL!" or "FLEX ON THE OPS WITH THESE EASY TIPS!", if you are a tank player who wants to really carry, start off playing Hulk as an offtank. (Though again, as I mention later in this guide, he can be used to solo tank and frontline, just not as easily as Mag or Strange.) Hulk can smash, he really can. The fantasy of beating the bad guys up, and hopping building to building can be achieved, you just need to practice and refine your skills.

Hulk is super versatile, with proper tuning he can basically maintain a frontline as long as his healers aren't lobotomized. He can counter dive with his gamma shield. He also has a very strong teamup with Namor (season 3-2.5) which is the best counter to dive in the entire game. If your Namor can't counter dive with the gamma squid then he probably needs to uninstall if he's all the way up in diamond.

Now, selective pressure, we need to get into target priority here. Most people may think to target healers, supports are the highest priority. This can be sometimes the case, but most of the time, you actually want to be targeting DPS on off-angles. You see a Squirrel sitting on a rooftop just slinging her nuts around, easy fix, jump up there. Now, she will probably stun you, but that's alright, if she's isolated you can just jump away after the stun is over. This provides you a ton of value because you are actively denying the enemies DPS space, and it's very hard for other tanks to challenge you on high ground like that. As Hulk, you dominant the high, hard to reach places other tanks can't go. If played right, Hulk forces the enemies DPS to stop going on offangles and play closer to their tanks, which allows your dps to focus down more targets quicker.

Before we get to healers, I want to talk about enemy tanks, because people have a bit of a misconception that Hulk is just a dive tank, all he's good for is diving. This is not true, Hulk can throw hands with anyone. Mag and Strange think they're safe behind their shields, but their shields don't block these hands. Hulk is one of those characters that is not only super fun to play, but also hilarious, because it's super funny when you see a Magneto panic waste his shield just for you to punch the ♥♥♥♥ out of him. Even if his supports are healing him, you are still denying him space. Now, you do need to be careful when brawling, my general rule is if my health gets to under 300, it's time to gamma shield and jump out. However, that pressure on the tanks can really change the game. If you are solo tanking, you are obviously going to have to compete with enemy tanks for space on the ground(which if you're a new hulk, don't solo tank, even me as an experienced one had a rough time with it). If you are with a mag or a strange, you are also helping them out a lot by pressuring their frontline, and your dps and healers can now occupy the space you acquired. Now, after brawling frontline, you have the tanks nice and distracted. Lets get on to supports.


Supports are very valuable to the enemy, once the heals stop, the enemy tanks crumble. Without tanks, they aren't taking any space. Supports are literally the thing that holds up a team. And another thing is that you don't even need to kill supports to stop heals from coming in. Lets just say that you are facing up against Mag and Thor who are currently brawling up near point. If your dps are doing their jobs, they are keeping these tanks nice and busy, distracting them, chipping their health. This gives you a great opportunity to use your incredible leap and jump into their supports who are a bit farther back. At this point, the healers are now not going to be focused on their tanks, they are going to be focused on healing each other. Now, what I normally do is I will exile one of the supports. Now, who to exile is a very important question here. Lets look at some common combinations of healers. I classify healers into 2 categories, mobile and less mobile. Lets say you are going up against and cloak and dagger, and a rocket. If you exile cloak and dagger and go for rocket, rocket can get away a lot easier and Cloak. So, you don't exile cloak, you exile rocket. Then, you go for cloak. Now, cloak does have the ability where they can go into the shadow realm or whatever, but there are particle effects all around them so you can track them easily. Now, rocket is currently exiled, meaning he can't heal his cloak. You can possibly get the kill and cloak, and lets say you don't. You are still in the backline, you are a significant threat to supports. Cloak already used their cooldown to escape you, they may have tried to blind you. The tanks have two options at this point. They can continue to brawl frontline, and risk their supports dying because I'm throwing hands at them, or they can peel. If they are solo tanking, the only smart thing they really can do is maintain frontline and hope DPS can handle it, but if they do decide to peel, they are giving up a lot of space. If their DPS is braindead, which most of the time people that instalock DPS are, they aren't going to care. This means it's all up the supports to escape, and while they are focused on escaping they aren't healing. Now, if the enemy has two tanks and just one of them peels, that still provides a good amount of value, because you are getting a tank off frontline. Hulk isn't just about getting picks.


Now that we have target priority set, we need to look at what to do when.

Now, what really makes Hulk the hardest vanguard in the game to play, is the amount of responsibilities he has. A mobile tank is a blessing, especially one as mobile as Hulk. You can peel backline within just a couple of seconds, you can also jump right back into the enemies backline, but all of these actions per second can really take a lot to get use to. On top of that, if your team is braindead, Hulk won't appear to get a lot of value. Lets just say that your supports suck and keep dying because they don't know how to switch to Jeff and Rocket when being dove by BP. You can jump backline all you want, but unless one of your DPS switches to namor, or your healers aren't proactive about keeping themselves safe, there is nothing you can do. If your DPS are stupid, then you won't get very many openings to punish mistakes, and you won't get many openings to apply pressure. Hulk is an indicator species, if your team can capitalize on your work, you get a ton of value, but if your team just wants to sit in the same chokepoint and get blasted by ironman or moonknight, there isn't much you can do to save the team.


Moving on from my mini-rant session, Hulk has 3 different styles of play, going over them again, it's Dive Hulk, Brawl hulk, and Support Hulk. Lets start out with Dive hulk.

Dive hulk is the what people know hulk for the most, it's hyper aggressive and is very good to pull out when the enemy supports or DPS are making a lot of mistakes, such as supports isolating themselves, or DPS holding off angles that are too aggressive. This is a great way to play when your team is on the up and up, when the enemy team starts to crumble and scatter. Another thing the consider is that Hulk's body blocks heals, so if you can a DPS or support into a corner you can bodyblock them and stop them from getting heals.

Moving on to brawl hulk, this is what I normally do when there is a neutral situation going on. There is a bit of a stalemate on point, the enemies healers are being smart and staying just the right distance from their tanks. If you brawl their tanks, this is when you are looking for mistakes. And trust me, the enemies will make some. Sometimes the healers can't keep up with the damage you and your teammates are doing to a tank, and the tank is either forced to give space or he's going to die.


Support Hulk, is the final way of playing Hulk, and is useful in a variety of situations. The first one being when your team is on the back foot. Your supports are being targeted, you jump to them and give them a shield, you see your Bucky or Namor getting low on health, jump and shield. Your mag is being beat up, shield him and try to ward off the threat. On that note, Hulk is actually a pretty good counter to wolv. Wolv is intimidating, and he can do a lot of damage to you, and even kidnap you into the enemies backline. Wolvarine though is much more of a skill matchup if you are playing Hulk. If you see Mag getting kidnapped, jump in and help him with a bubble and apply pressure to wolv and his buddies. If wolv kidnapps you, well, alright, you have a leap that is designed to get you out of enemy backline quickly, and your gamma shield will block his damage. You can also just exile him. Support hulk can also be good when your solo tanking and your DPS are completely folding the enemy team. When solo tanking as hulk, it is very important you stay alive. Without your presence, your team will fall apart fast. Just you existing and occupying an area provides immense value. If you risk going into the enemy backline, your supports can be targeted and rolled, your dps can also suffer a great deal. So, in this case, just occupy space, brawl, and shield.

Now that we know how to play Hulk at certain times, lets get into counters.

So, Hulk directly counters any DPS or support that wants to just sit up on a rooftop or off angle all by themselves and sling projectiles/healers. If you see a rocket up on a cliff somewhere, just you jumping up there will cause him to panic and run. Same thing with Hela or Moonknight, even squirrel girl. If you are running a dive comp, you might not get many picks, but you are baiting cooldowns and even sometimes full blown support ults. (Lets be honest, most cloak and dagger players are boosted and as soon as they detect the slightest bit of danger they are ulting). So who does hulk counter? Anybody that thinks they can just sit in a hard to reach spot and go on a point and click adventure for the whole game.


Now, who counters you? I will split this up into Soft counters and hard counters.

Staring off with soft counters, you have Thing, a squirrel girl with a brain(which is every squirrel girl, but the ones on your team usually suck), which on the topic of that, you might be confused why I am saying squirrel girl when I also said above you can counter her. It's the stupid stun ability she has. It holds you in place for like 2 whole seconds, which to newbies might not seem like a lot of time, but, trust me, you can explode in less time than that. You only counter squirrel girl when she decides to not stick close to her team. If she decides she wants to position herself correctly, she can be a pain to deal with.


Hard counters, you have Emma Frost, and a good Invisible woman. Emma frost is one of the best vanguards in the game, and she is perfect for countering our beloved hulk. If you are playing ranked, if someone isn't playing Emma, she's a pick or ban. Her ability to grab you and then kick you into her backline is super deadly to even characters like magik or BP. Even tanks like mag or strange can struggle against a really good Emma. So yeah, if you are in mid-high elo, pick or ban. Gold might be able to get away with it. Another good counter is an invisible woman who can use her abilities. Her CC is incredible. She will slow you down with her bubble thing, pull you back when you try to jump away, push you off cliffs. Invisible woman has one of the highest skill ceilings in the game. Most people who are filthy casuals just healbot with her, but the true Lords, the ones girls who sit there and listen to nightcore all day and watch anime, they are menaces. If you are taking heat from either of these characters, it's time to swap. And obviously in season 2.5 Penni counters everyone except flyers.

I am putting Punisher in his own box. I freaking HATE you Frank. There are two kinds of Punishers in marvel rivals, you have the filthy casuals who are call of duty immigrants who just want a character that plays similarly to FPS shooters, because why play a hero shooter with unique characters, abilities, and playstyles when you can just be the most cookie cutter player on the planet. These punisher players aren't a problem. When they see a big green man jump at them, they run crying to Mag or their supports. But then, you have the Punisher lords. This is the COD players final form, they set up their turrets in the most diabolical places, and even worse, even when you pop ult they can gun you down faster than you can say "I wasted this." Lets say that they aren't in their turret anymore, and you contest them on an off-angle. They will either press that smoke button faster than you can even press the W key, or they will pull out their shotgun and gun you down. A good Punisher player is by far the biggest counter to any tank without a gigantic shield in this game.

There are a lot of mistakes you can make with Hulk. If you don't play your cards just right, you are going to end up feeding, or even if you don't feed you will be providing your team little to no value.

The most common mistake I see people make is impatience, which is something even I screw up on sometimes. If you don't think it's the time to dive, then don't dive. If your DPS aren't doing their jobs, diving will cost you your life. If you end up dying, you are down one of the most important pieces on the board here. Tanks are arguably the most important role in the game. These DPS out here think they are the main character, but little do they know, that without us tanks, they would have no space to set up and make plays, they would struggle to get picks, etc etc. This does go both ways to an extent though, because without DPS, you aren't getting openings to make plays yourself. The DPS are also not keeping the enemy DPS in check, and if the enemy DPS aren't kept in check and you jump backline, you are going to get hosed down by ironman, or starlord and the supports are going to gun you down, etc etc. Anyway, getting back on topic, be patient, because if you aren't, you will cost your team the fight.


Another common mistake is the opposite, I see a lot of players get too scared. This is actually a lot easier to fix than impatience. I can't remember who it was, but a guy on youtube basically told me to just go into quickplay, and don't even play really, just see how much you can take. Don't attack, just jump into backline and see how long you live. If you put yourself through this torture test, you will be cured, because you will have confidence in knowing that you can take a bit of punishment. As of writing this, just yesterday I had 72K damaged blocked. (And we still lost because our DPS were going 4-10) This kind of passive playstyle won't pay off well for Hulk, you won't be getting the most bang for your buck. Remember what I said earlier about keeping supports distracted? You don't even need to get the pick. Sometimes if I see my teammates are held up in a corner, I'll jump into their backline, hit their supports a little, and then immediately jump back when I start taking some heat, just to get their tanks to peel. (Because lets be honest, it's pretty scary when you see a giant green guy jump over your head and start beating women) You may not get many picks in every game, but as I said before, Hulks value isn't just about getting picks(though again it is nice if you can get them.) It's about pressure, baiting cooldowns, etc. Especially in a dive comp where you have a BP or Magik(screw spiderman btw, this teamup in season 2.5 won't even matter because Jean Grey will be banned). In a dive comp where you have a Magik or Bp, baiting support cooldowns is huge, because they won't have anything left to counter the BP that's cycling in with you or after you.) So yeah, don't play passively, be proactive, not reactive. The enemy should be playing on YOUR terms.


Another big mistake, is not using the map to your advantage. Hulk can stick to walls, he can jump to high-ground, he can really be anywhere he wants to be. So tell me, why on the Dracula map are you on the floor? Why are you not on the bridge beating up those supports? On the Fantastic Four map, why are you not using the houses to flank? Hulk is all about movement, he's mobile. What is the point of being a mobile tank when you just walk? Hulk is a very slow moving character when he walks. A majority of the traversing you do needs to be with your leap. There is even a handy little arrow that shows you where you will land. As I mentioned earlier in abilities, you can even change the direction a bit while mid air.


Another mistake I see is being a stat slave. Anyone in this game who says "You're negative dude, you're garbage." when you're on vanguard is an idiot who probably can't take any accountability. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not perfect, I recognize my mistakes. However, if your healers aren't healing you effectively while you're in LOS, that's on them. If your healers are constantly being dove by BP and aren't switching anything up, that's their fault. If you can peel for backline, great, but if you aren't able to, then that's that. Support players need to learn how to swap to Rocket and Jeff when being dove. And even then, when you're playing Hulk, 99.9999 percent of the time DPS players are frothing at the mouth when they see a Lord Hulk so they can play Namor, so it's double not your problem most of the time. Every character in the game needs good teammates to function, but that's double in Hulks case. If your teammates don't want to push with you, if they keep dying for doing stupid stuff (like playing Squirrel Girl against a flying comp), then there isn't much you can do. I mean you can try and ask them to switch, if they do, great, if they don't, then take the L and move on. So just to reiterate, stats don't equate to value. If you want to use any kind of measure of success, then look at your deaths and damaged blocked. If you haven't died a lot, and you have 40k damage blocked, you probably did pretty good. Even then though that can be a faulty metric, because you can always take damage that you didn't need to take.



Moving on to the next mistake I see Hulk players make, which is not using their resources effectively. This goes for everything, cooldowns, health, their heals. Hulk isn't the kind of character you can panic on. Now, don't get me wrong, if you're taking a lot of damage in a backline, pop your shield and GTFO. However, if you are just popping shields whenever, stunning guys that don't need to be stunned, wasting the clap ability, you are losing a ton of value. The Gamma shield can block entire ults. I've saved my team countless times from being wiped out by a Jeff ult. The only ults you really can't do anything against are the ones that do high sustained damage. (Storm and her teamups, Human torch, you get it.) But when it comes to Magneto, Ironman, Wanda, really anyone that has a 1 time huge damage ult, it can be blocked wtih good timing. So if you are using your gamma shield when you don't need it, you could be costing your team a whole fight. The same thing goes with health, remember when I said that damage blocked can be a faulty metric for success? Why are you just peaking a corner over and over again? Why are do you keep trying to bait peels from the tanks when they aren't taking it? Why do you keep jumping into their backline when Emma is nearby? Don't be passive, but also don't be haphazard. Playing hulk is like walking on a tightrope.


Speaking of that, lets talk about his ult for a second. I do this sometimes myself when I lack situational awareness, if I ult and my team gets wiped, then I just wasted it. It means nothing. Hulk can certainly cause a lot of damage and kill a lot of people with his ult, but if the entire team is focusing you down, that 1500 health can vanish in seconds. Also, if you don't have your team backing you up, getting picks on low health enemies, occupying space that you took, the ult has no value. If you ult correctly, sometimes you might not even get a kill, sometimes the enemies just scatter and run because they know if they get juggled by you they will be focused down, stunned, maybe even grabbed by your World Breaker. Hulks ult isn't just effective on a game play scale, it's psychological. His ult is terrifying to go up against especially when their team is good. I've seen entire teams literally scatter and C9 off point just by me popping it. So, if you pop your ult when your team is dead, that's stupid. The only time you should ever do that is if you are about to lose and you need to stall for as much time as you can. Which, in that case, wait until you are almost dead and then pop it, because if you do that, you effectively have over 2000 health to play around with. (Sidenote, this is getting really long, part 2)

Wow, this is really long, and it just goes to show how hard Hulk is to play. I have ADHD meds though so we are pushing on.


Another big mistake I see is Hulk players not peeling when they need to. Now, earlier I was saying how peeling isn't your problem. Yeah, in certain situations it isn't. If there is a black panther or spidey, then tough, what are you realistically going to do to a BP mid combo? You might hit your stun afterward? You can maybe shield your teammates but he'll just run through it quick. I'm talking about when you see an enemy dive tank like Thor, Cap, or a DPS like Magik actively targeting supports. This is something you can actually help with. You already know enemy tanks absolutely foam at the mouth to get to your supports. Your job is to stop them, if you're in the backline, or holding an off angle, and you see a magik or some other brawl/dive hero going in, it's time to get to work. Actually, if you see magik is getting too many picks on your supports, swap thing. Thing, unlike Hulk, isn't braindead to play, but he's pretty close. All you need to do to counter a hero like Magik is just use the ram over and over again to earthbound her. However, if they are running dive tanks like Thor or Cap, you can probably keep Hulking. Now, as much as I sometimes hate support players for being braindead, they are very important. Without supports, you get no heals. Dps can get away with going for those health packs, but even if you get to a healthpack, they heal like what, 200 health or something? That isn't going to cut it. I'm not saying don't go for healthpacks, they can be live savers, but you can't RELY on them. So, protect your supports from enemy dive tanks. Again, the only time that peeling isn't your problem is with one of the BS dive characters like BP or Spidey.


Another very big issue with Hulk players is not keeping track of enemy abilities, especially ultimate's. This is especially the case for defensive support ults like Invis, Rocket, CnD, Loki, Etc. Now, if the enemy doesn't have any defensive ults, good for you. If they just have one, even better. What you can do as Hulk is bait it out. You can punch the crap out of them, and most CnD players can't handle it so they immediately pop their ult. Now, at this time you have a couple of options. If you think your team is on the up and up, and are avoiding taking damage, you can pop your ult AFTER the cloak ult ends. If you think your team is struggling, but you want to maybe save a support ult, pop yours, and start to knock the enemy around. Even though the enemy is getting healed, in your ult you are constantly throwing them around, and this allows for your healers to pop their support ult later to counter, or to even hold it entirely for a more pivotal moment. I've even had a few times where both supports popped their ults back to back instead of resetting. However, if you pop your ult hap-hazardly, you will be getting much less value. Your team may not be set up properly, or an enemy like invisible woman can pop her ult which is a lot worse than a CnD. Rocket is also a great counter to your ult, so keep track of him. Another ult you need to keep track of is punisher, because if they catch you lackin, and they pop ult after you do, you are getting shredded. Punisher probably has the highest sustained damage ult in the game.

Another REALLLLLLY critical mistake that I probably should move to the front but I'm not, is lack of planning. This is going to seem like a lot, but you have to be able to think fast when playing Hulk. You need to be able to plan escapes before you even dive in. Lets look at that annoying Hydra base map where the map constantly rotates, Charteris I think? It's a very enclosed space. However, the map has a decent amount of verticality. Lets find where our supports are located? Are they both below healbotting us? Is there a loki or Rocket perched up above? These are important. If your healers are healbotting down below, you probably need to just jump straight back where you came from, however, if things are really hot, and you have supports upstairs, jump upstairs. Good Hulk players are few and far between, so, most players aren't really use to a tank being that mobile.

So, I feel like I need to add this section in after the mistakes section to boost some confidence, because there are a lot of things that seem like mistakes that aren't. Going back to stats, if your stats seem lower than the rest of your teams, that's okay. Are you contesting and occupying DPS spots? Are you distracting supports? These add a lot of value. Don't let some idiot hardstuck in gold tell you how to play the game. I'm not saying to not take ranked seriously in lower elo, but don't sit there and swap off a character you want to learn. Counterswapping is really only a thing once you reach Plat. Once you reach plat, that's when you counterswap when you need to.

Another thing that is good that feels bad, is not diving when you shouldn't be. If you don't see any

Hulk is a very challenging, but very rewarding character to play in Marvel rivals. While not as mechanically demanding as Spiderman or Black Panther, it still demands a lot of movement, fast reaction time, as well as demanding the player to have game sense, timing, and control. However, with practice makes perfect. It took me 35ish hours to reach Lord on Hulk, and now that I am approaching almost 50, I still am learning something new every single game I play him. My advice if you've made it this far, hop in QP, play around with him. Get use to his abilities, and if you play him in ranked, don't play him on defense. Defense is much less forgiving than offense, with offense you can reset more times, where as defense, especially on maps where you capture a point first, it can be a lot less forgiving. If you want some help with him, drop me a friend request on Marvel rivals or steam, my marvel rivals is just skbee so, I'm not hard to find. Thanks for taking the time to read this.

Now that season 3 is out, I wanted to add this quick addendum. Hulk freaking bodies Pheonix if you can use him correctly. You want a counter to this annoying hitscan DPS? Any time you see that broad taking highground or a flank, jump to her and smash her out.


Now, the whole community has been in a panic because wolv has received a pretty large buff with the Pheonix teamup. Tank players are whining and complaining, which is justified because the teamup is complete BS. You however, are The Incredible Hulk, and wolv isn't a hard counter to you. Rather, it is a very hard skill based matchup. With a Wolv on the enemy team, the best counter is to go Hulk, Thing, or if you're a gooner Emma frost. Now, Thing and Emma counter wolv directly, because Thing can't be moved, and Emma can just go into her diamond form and slam Wolv down. If you are in a matchup with Thing or Emma, you can also hold your own against Wolv.


Wolvs primary objective is to kidnap you into his backline to have his teammates focus you, but, with proper cooldown management you can overcome this. You see, Hulk is the most mobile tank in the game, his entire kit is focused on escaping your enemies backline. So, when Wolv kidnaps you, just treat it like you are in some hot doodoo in your enemies backline. It's really business as usual, gamma shield, jump away, peel for healers. Now, if he kidnaps you and your abilities are on cooldown, your jump has no cooldown so you can still try to jump away. Another thing you can do to counter wolv is be aware. If you see wolv hunting you, and he's coming for your frontline while you're brawling, if your health is high jump for their backline. Even better, if you see Wolv chasing you, you have an ability that stuns people, just press E and lock his dumbaxe down. Now, if the Wolv is better than you, he just keeps killing you, you just can't keep up with his pace, it's probably time to swap. What I usually do, if we are running dual tanks. I switch off Hulk and play a flyer. Wolv isn't really good against flyers if the flyer is playing right so, Wolv has counters, you just need to think critically.

End of the addendum.