I think there’s a big miscommunication/misunderstanding with the support debate going on right now…

Quick preface: I’ve hit Grandmaster playing all three roles in Marvel Rivals, but I primarily consider myself a Tank main (Venom and Strange, mostly). Support is my secondary role (I mostly play Mantis and Luna), and I’ve spent a lot of time on both ends of the frontline and backline. I’m very far away from the level of players like Necros, but the point of this post isn’t the “I’m right and you’re wrong” approach a lot of people are taking. Instead, the point of this post is to give a perspective from someone who’s genuinely put time into learning all three roles.

I’ll just jump right into it: support is not the easiest role, no matter the metric. I think “easiest” is obviously subjective, but it feels like tank is the easiest role to play. Poor aim is almost never an issue, healers instinctively keep you healed up most the time, and the only part about the role I’d consider difficult is the macro aspect.

However, that also is not the point of this post. The point is that I think people are mistaking difficulty with stress. Although tank is easier than other roles, it’s very stressful to play. I’d compare playing Tank to being the line in school but without the teacher to follow. Everyone is either blindly following you, or they’re being an immense pain in the ass.

DPS is even more stressful. If you’re a backliner, it feels like a sick cocktail made by Satan himself that’s one part constant knowledge checking in regards to your position, and one part “I’m squishy and a diver can breathe on me to kill me”. Being a diver sounds like more fun, until you’re playing a game where people aren’t dying despite your best efforts and you got your entire team complaining and begging you to swap.

Speaking of being yelled at by the team, I feel like that’s the most stressful part about supporting. I’ve seen a ton of complaints about diving, but every scenario or clip I’ve seen is either preventable or a massive waste of cooldowns from the diver. While I especially hate the “support is brain dead” narrative, I even more so hate the one I’ve seen that supports are helpless and need buffs. If you’re being dove, adapt. Save your defensive cooldown, keep an eye out for the diver and listen for their footsteps/audio cues. However, if your healer is being dove and can’t fight it, don’t type “support gap” in match chat and give up. Swap to anti-dive, or just simply peel and see if a swap is even necessary.

Anyways, that’s my TED talk before work so I’m not gonna be replying to comments for several hours, but prepare for me to be fighting in the comment trenches with toxic players. Support isn’t the easiest role, but it’s also very low-stress and it doesn’t need to be buffed, and your favorite streamer smurfing in a rank lower than theirs doesn’t suddenly prove your point.