u/harryfonda

Greetings, sisters!

I've come across a lot of questions lately about Angela's role and her preferred playstyle and I've decided to compile a basic guide on this aspect. I won't spend time of her mechanical techs like cancels and sledge flying, there is a wonderful channel with such tips. I want to focus more on answering the questions such as "what should I do as Angela?", "what is my role?", "how can I not be a useless passenger?".

Some context about me: I'm a low GM player, and I dropped comp this season as soon as I hit GM3. I mostly play QP, but this season I decided to get the GM medal, thus I did it. I could probably climb higher, but like to GM2, I don't have any illusions about my level. I have almost 100 hours on Angela (59.2% WR, 7.39 KDA), including 33 hours in competitive (61.1% WR, 6.67 KDA). My platform is console. Yeah, so if you are a Eternity monster and see some hot takes from me, feel free to correct me, but don't be harsh. I also have 1.5k hrs in OW1 and Angela is by far my favorite hero shooter character. I liked Wrecking Ball, Peni, Orisa, Emma a lot before, but nothing beats being a flying tank, she's so much fun. Honestly, if not her, I would have probably dropped Marvel Rivals by now, she reignited my passion towards this game.

So, what is Angela's role? It depends on many factors. Roughly, it can be split into three playstyles. They are not distinct, you'll usually play a mix of them.

Angela as a main tank

Preface: no, having a big shield does not equal main tank. I'm a proponent of a theory that main tank is someone who can actively threaten the enemy team, take space from them and demand a fast response. Walking slowly with a shield up and taking uncontested space is not that, the enemies can just ignore you for the most part, but violently charging into enemies (e.g as a Venom/Thing/Hulk) is that. If you don't agree with this terminology, it's fine, just read the headline as "Angela as a Playmaker tank".

Lets imagine a domination map and a mirror setup of Strange-Emma-Hela-Star-Lord-Luna-Rocket. Two shield tanks on both sides, off-angles are closed by the mirroring enemies, team fights drag for eternity, nothing happens, nobody dies. Good old fashioned front-to-back shield gameplay everyone hates since OW1 days. Now lets swap one Emma for Angela. Now you have a tank that can dictate when the fights happen and take space. Your responsibility as Angela is to initiate fights, disrupt the opponents Venom-style (but with a shorter loop), and basically make things happen.

What it does not mean: charging into enemy team face-on, it's not a playmaking, it's a suicide.

What it means: scouting the battlefield, waiting for an opening, attacking the backline and disrupting the healing flow. Hope that your team can capitalize on a disruption and don't be greedy.

Another example is convergence maps on attack. The opposing team has a high defensive line and you just can't push through it. What should you do? Fly directly to the point and start capping it. Now the defenders have no choice but retreat, either as a full team (so your team can catch the stragglers), or to delegate some people to deal with you (so your team now fights with a person advantage). Even if you did not hit anybody on a point, for example just flew with a shield up, you still succeeded, you took space from enemies and created a problem for them they can't just ignore.

And in these examples Angela works even better if you have a diver who can turn your disruptions into kills. I know we all hate Spider-Men, but sisters, playing in sync with a good Spider-Man is such a majestic feeling. Watch him steal your finals and let your KDA grow along with your RS.

TLDR; your role is to make plays during a stalemate, to make opponents react and create openings for the rest of your team.

Angela as an off-tank

If you don't agree with this terminology again, it's fine, just read the headline as "Angela as an Enabler tank".

I'll start from several examples:

• Instead of Strange in the previous domination example you now have Groot. He can wall people off, he's aggressive and big. The enemies can't ignore him. He draws the most attention, and your duelists gravitate towards him, you might want to be his assistant.
• It's a convergence map, but on defend, and with Peni as your tank partner, or really any other "defensive" tank. Your duelists are now Namor and Bucky, they won't or just can't help you in the backline. Your role shifts dramatically. You no longer dictate the terms of engagement, you are a second fiddle now (in case of partner Peni there is no first fiddle at all). You play reactively, not proactively.
• Your second tank is Venom and you wanna dive together. He's bigger than you, he has more HP, he draws more attention. Ideally, you sync your dives together, and he should be the one to initiate one. Sometimes Venom is enough to distract the enemies, and you should focus on frontline or your team's backline.

This is mostly the disruptor playstyle that is heavily associated with Angela.

What should you do?

• Kidnap tanks into your team. Kidnap any enemies into your team really
• Brawl on a frontline if needed
• Finish off low hp targets that try to disengage, be a "final hit" merchant
• Annoy the enemy team, but don't try to make plays happen
• Bait cooldowns, especially the high-value ones like Loki lamp, Emma diamond form
• Isolate and punish enemies that make mistakes
• Close off flanking routes
• Peel when needed using axes and charges
• Use your shield as a baby Dr. Strange, at the end of they day it's also a resource you can spend

And of course my favorite: if you control a choke and your enemies are being methodical and careful, fly behind them, charge and help them get to the objective faster (but more dead). Ideally you should pull the supports in front of their tanks, straight in your friends line of fire.

TLDR; your role is to punish players that made mistakes and disrupt their plays.

Angela as a full-on babysiter

My least favorite playstyle, but you gonna do what you gotta do. Your team goes for a dive-heavy duelist setup, the enemy team decides to do the same. You have two choices: either trade backlines, or babysit yours. You love your White Fox and CnD and you surely do not want something bad to happen to them, so you opt for protection.

So, how does Angela peel? Proactively. By marking. Scout the battlefield, ping the enemy Spider-Man, or black felines or whatever they use for diving, and then hit them with a full charge, attack before they attacked your backline. Sometimes you might even kill them, but don't be too greedy. Spider-Man can usually just swing away, Black Cat is hard to hit and can become invisible, and Magik might even outright kill you if you're not careful (rarely but still). Breaking their cycles is usually enough, you neutralize the divers and hope that yours are more competent.

Your Divine Judgement also provides bonus HP to your teammates as long as you hit enemies, and its damage is actually decent vs e.g. Black Panther. But for the most part it does nothing to a Spider-Man/Black Cat, so versus those enemies it's much better to attack them first.

Why not use The Thing or Thor for peeling? They are good vs Daredevil, Magik, Panther, but Black Cat and Spider-Man are just too mobile for our favorite counters. Or they might even be banned. And be honest, we just love Angela more, why not use her?

TLDR; your role is actively ambush the divers and break their cycles.

What can't Angela do?

Playing into multiple hard counters, but with an asterisk.

This item heavily depends on your rank of course. E.g. when I was in low Diamond, and the opposing tank was tired of me harassing him/his backline and switched to The Thing, I didn't counterswap immediately. Let's see what a person who played 5h on him can do vs a person who has 10x hours on Angela. Sure, if you play into Thor-Thing-Bucky-Invis there is not much you can do, but it really depends if those people actually wanted and know how to play those characters or you've imposed the hero pick on them. And it really depends on whether the other 5 people in your team can capitalize on a new enemy setup.

Proof:

Good luck Rock bro

Cop memes are funny, but c'mon

I often saw those swaps as a desperate measure, the game was already lost and those were the seizures of a dying team.

Of course, if you start the match and your opponent have a lord Thing and lord Thor from the get-go, just fly to a respawn and swap, save yourself from a humiliation.

TLDR; if your hard counter is not proficient with his choice, don't swap. If they are, swap.

Heven's Retribution (AKA The Ultimate Ability)

I'm one of those people who think what Angela's ult is actually good. By vanguard standards of course. Strange has a better one, arguably Magneto, and of course Groot. Peni obviously has the worst one. As for the others, it's a matter of preference, but I prefer Angela's over Thing/Cap/Hulk/Venom/Rogue. No opinion on Tankpool's.

What are the best things about the ultimate? You don't have to be close to the enemies and you can use it for ambushing people. So, how do you use the ult? Just don't be greedy.

If you have a circle-of-death combo partner, like Namor/MK, it's fine to ult on 4 people. But more often than not, you don't have such a partner.

My ideal scenario: two isolated targets, one is a strategist, one is a duelist. You ult, and you will be able to finish both of them off solo with axes. Just kill a strat first.

Three or more targets? They will kill you. Two strats? They might outheal you damage.

Solo ulting is also perfectly fine, especially to eliminate a hard-to-kill strat like Rocket or Jeff. Or to solo ult a Spider-Man that irritates you to break him mentally.

Another good case: overtime ult to prevent enemies from touching a point. You can also use your ult just to draw out enemy strat's ult, do not treat that as a waste of ultimate, you're setting up your Star-Lord/Magik/Daredevil for a clean-up later. And another bonus one: to ambush the remaining stragglers that retreat from a lost teamfight.

TLDR; usually ult two people, not more.

Miscellaneous

Just a collection of general game sense tips for Angela applicable to whatever you do. The tips quality will vary, not all of them are for my seasoned lord sisters, but rather for newcomers. The list won't contain general tips like "play around cover", "reset when in minority" that are applicable to all heroes, only Angela-specific stuff.

• Learn the maps, especially where the healthpacks are. By my estimates, healthpacks provide me with around 35% of healing I usually get. You also steal them for enemy divers, so it's a win-win
• Do not charge into 2+ people at once* (*in general, if you are under Gambit ult, or you are 6v3 it's obviously okay)
• Make sure your attack charge bar is fully yellow before any engagement
• Make sure your health bar is full before any engagement\
• Always ban Invisible Woman (unless you have one)
• If you don't know what to do during a neutral fight, just poke enemy strats/poke heroes with a spear, make them turn their heads up, it's a low value play, but it's better than nothing
• Fly on a "middle" height. Flying too low makes you take unnecessary damage. Flying too high decreases your uptime, as you'll spend additional time closing the gap before you decide to charge
• Yeet people off the map, especially vanguards, especially Magneto. It's also possible to yeet mobile heroes if you hit them with a fully charged spear when they use their mobility tool. And it's possible to yeet some heroes if you time their cooldowns correctly (mostly applies to Th*r after his hammer dash and Venom after a swing)
• Try not to fight in tight spaces, your advantage of being a flying hero is lost there
• Do not land and switch to axes stance after a kidnap immediately. I've seen some people do that always, and it should depend on whether your victim will be healed/where are they
• (Mostly a universal tip) Do not be greedy and value your life. I remember that thread about Angela being a "sacrifice tank", but she's just not. Sometimes it's okay to trade, but for ranks below GM uptime is very very important. If you see that you're losing a fight, just escape. If you see that your target is very low hp, but you're not at least 95% sure you will finish them off and live, just escape
• Always ban Invisible Woman (if you have one, ask her is she's okay with the ban)
• Block Magneto, Hela, Phoenix, Namor, Torch, Iron Man ults with a shield. You can outright kill Magneto during his ult with your spear if he's low HP
• Do not use your ultimate when Magneto's ulting, he can eat your spear
• Do not use your ultimate vs Gambit, he'll cleanse it
• Fly up immediately to save yourself from Jeff, Mister Fantastic, Thor, Bucky and Moon Knight ultimates
• If Jeff ate your teammates and he's not going for a suicide and just wants to spit them out, yeet him off the map afterwards, he's a very easy target
• Stun Wanda out of her ultimate (or just block it with your shield so she won't get a 50% refund)
• Kidnap CnD, Invis away from their ultimates. It is possible to kill them and cancel their ults, but that's easier said than done
• Best time to yeet Peni and especially White Fox off the map is when they are ulting
• Do not try to stun Spider-Man out of his ult, he'll outstun you
• Charge Dr. Strange away from your stunned team after he ults. I'm often stunned by him when he ults even when my shield is up and facing him, I'm still not sure whether this is a bug or a skill issue
• When you're flying and Wolverine ults you, it might bug out and when he crashed the gang into a ground, you usually stay flying in the exact point he launched you
• Always ban Invisible Woman (for the love of God, let slow trigger tenacity)

In general, Angela is a Spider-Man of tanks, you are terrible to play against, and you might be terrible to play with you on the same team, and you make enemy strats nervous by just existing.

TLDR; uptime-uptime-uptime.

Closing thoughts

I think that Angela is a very versatile tank, and unless she's heavily countered she can be useful in many situations kinda like her brother Th*r. I hope you found this guide useful and if you have additional tips or don't agree with my takes, please leave a comment, I'm always happy to have a friendly discussion

And lets just hope that the lowest pickrate tank gets a meaningful buff in season 8.

Every time I see our baby sister in QP, I swap to Thor and try to make her life as miserable as possible. I’m not even a good Thor player (like level 12), but I’m level 47 on Angela, so I have a great sample size of dying to a Thor.

I just had a match where the Angela on the opposing team went 0–9 and rage quit. I’m not proud of it, and I do feel bad for that person.

But the lower Angela’s pick rate is, the higher the chances of her getting buffed. I keep telling myself it’s all for the greater good...

(pic unrelated, I just love this issue)

Thor by Donny Cates, #17

Hello, the respected vanguard community!

I'm a GM vanguard main, my main tanks in order are Angela (I know), Tankpool, Emma and Peni. I'm also somewhat proficient with all the other vanguards with one glaring omission.

Every time I try playing The Thing, I just die, die and die. If I have a game when I die less than 5 times in QP as him, it's a big win for me. And often I encounter your brethren that just seem unkillable to me.

Can you give me some tips how to play him correctly? When should I use basic attack vs. the secondary? What are his best match-ups? What are his worst counters? When should I engage? When should I disengage? What is his ability economy and so on? Also, how do you deal with Black Panther? Just play a bodyguard and slam when you see him?

As for the tank counters, I usually find the biggest success in running Emma/Thor/Peni vs mister Grimm. And I'm obviously hard countered as Angela, and maybe sometimes Strange because The Thing just ignores my shield.

Thanks in advance for your contribution!

https://preview.redd.it/msj04j311rxg1.png?width=1046&format=png&auto=webp&s=8d3f0d4d59687312dfed9c60afc2872afccda650

Finally reached GM yesterday, though the lowest GM possible. I'm already burnt out of competitive this season, so this will be my all-time best for a while.

In this post I want to compile the knowledge I've got during this climb, some observations etc. It won't be useful to people in higher ranks, but I hope some of the advise might help you climb out of gold or platinum!

Some context:

• I mostly one-trick Angela, my top 3 heroes in competitive all-time are Angela, Emma and Tankpool, 75% of my all-time competitive games were as a Vanguard. I don't identify myself as a Vanguard main like those people on main sub, I just like flying and grabbing necks (and I think that main tanks are boring).
• I was cruising till D2 with like 60% winrate. After S7 balance patch gutted Angela and introduced some spear bugs my winrate started to balance out to 50%. GM3 is my true peak at this time, I don't have mechanics and (more importantly) mentality to climb higher at this moment.

Now, my observations/advises, basic obvious tips first:

• Value your life, uptime is the most important "skill" in pre-diamond ranks. Enemies will always find a way to die out of sheer stupidity, and a team having a one- or a two-person advantage should win the majority of team-fights.
• Play around cover, even if you are a tank and you are getting healed by two people. You are one Venom dive away from your supports being busy and you being dead.
• Take highground on almost any role, do not just walk on main hoping for a Magneto to shield you, be smart about your positioning.
• It's okay to trade for an enemy's support.
• It's okay to retreat if you have a numbers disadvantage. Trust me, if you are not cracked, you won't win that 4v6/3v5/2v4. Fall back, regroup, try again.
• It's okay to retreat and wait out enemy healer ults. If an enemy Invis/CnD/Mantis ults and you won't be able to kill them through the ult, just wait it out. Same advise but x2 with a Gambit ult, just run away. It's obviously okay to retreat when an enemy DPS ults (namely Punisher), but y'all probably already know that.
• Never surrender ^(unless you have a leaver, you'll get a smaller points deduction). You won't believe how many times I won the game I was prepared to lose and vice versa. If you are getting stomped, try to identify why, counter-swap and it might work.
• If you are getting stomped by enemy team, you usually have two choices. Either counter-swap, or try enforce your play-style onto enemies. E.g. if they have a flying comp, either go hitscan, or just destroy their "land" contingent and hope for the best. Counterswaping does not work if you're not familiar with the characters though. On paper The Thing counters BP, but a person with 2 hours on Thing will do nothing vs. a lord panther.
• If you are a dive character and your team is a poke/bunker comp and you feel like your team does not support you, it's a you problem. You have to adapt to the needs of 5 other people, either swap or change your playstyle.
• On the other hands, if you are a strategist and your team is pushing, help them, instead of spamming fall back.
• Always swap to a Strange for a portal in the overtime. In 99% of the battles you'll get crushed, but that 1% will get you your rank promotion.
• Do not use high-value ults to stall, retreat and help wipe the enemy team. (It's a personal massage for a Gambit I've played with that used his ult on two people versus six and they died immediately).
• On the other hands, some less valuable ults are okay to use on CD to draw out enemy support ults. E.g. Ultron, Angela. It's a good trade.
• If you are struggling to get out of silver, pick a self-sustaining Strategist and just try not to die. My obvious choice would be CnD, she/they can decently protect herself/themselves and finish a game with almost 100% uptime. Stay far behind, terror cape lonely divers and ult aggressively.
• If you are struggling to get out of gold/plat, pick an unkillable Vanguard and just try not to die. I did this with peak Emma, and later Angela. Now I would probably choose Thor for that, he has escape tools, he has insanely good damage for a vanguard, and he can dive/brawl/peel if needed. Not bad for a D-tier character.
• People in Diamond do not really understand tripple support setup. No, it won't work with Rocket/CnD/Invis. You will lack damage to kill anything. I had rare occasions with Adam or Ultron as a third healer, and those matches were good, but mostly it was a three-girl fiesta (Luna/Cloak/Invis). 2-2-2 is still by far the best comp.
• Triple tank comp (3-1-2) works wonders after triple support. I still can't grasp completely why is it so good, but in general the enemy team won't be able to scratch you. You need high-damage tanks like Thor/Emma/Strange. Angela/Venom/Cap won't probably work here.
• Solo tanking problem is exaggerated. Like, maybe one in 15 games there will be no second tank, but that's it. There were some games where I voluntarily solo Tankpooled, but that was after my explicit confirmations in the chat and second tank swapped to a 3rd DPS like they initially wanted. I even had a 35+ lvl BP once swapping to a vanilla Groot and when I suggested solo tanking, he refused.
• Diamond has a support-main/vanguard-main problem OW had. A lot of people if not the most who have climbed here main those two roles and sometimes you'll have a full team of strats/vanguard mains, and you'll lose those games. Trust me, if a person has 50 hours on Magik/Bucky, they can swap to Luna/CnD and they will bring value. But if a person has 50 hours on CnD/Invis, the best they can usually do is Wanda or Namor. And if two teams have tanks and strats of more or less the same level, the one with the better duelists will win.
• Duelists role is not about damage, it's about actually killing enemies (namely strats and duelists). No, Squirrel Girl, I don't care that you have 30k damage, I see enemy Luna with 0 deaths and I wish you played some other hero instead of farming Magneto shields. Yes, this is an objective-based game, but the first team who kills both enemy supports has like a 99% guarantee to win a teamfight and thus a game.
• Always ban Spider-Man. That's the tip. My worst games were either enemy Spider-Man demolishing our strats or our Spider-Man going 3/8 and refusing to swap.

I hope you find some of the items useful! Some of them are basic, some you might not agree on, I'm open to all feedback.