Kurt Wagner, popularly known as Nightcrawler, has been teased to join the Marvel Rivals hero roster since Season 0. While his Season 10.5 debut was cancelled due to the Path to Doomsday events, the demonic-looking elf has finally arrived in Season 11. Since his arrival, I’ve been playing as Nightcrawler in competitive lobbies. Here is how to play as Nightcrawler in Marvel Rivals, along with the best tips and tricks for the new Strategist hero.
Marvel Rivals Nightcrawler Kit and Abilities
- Role: Strategist
- Difficulty: 4 stars
- Health: 275 HP
Nightcrawler is the newest Strategist added to the hero roster in Marvel Rivals Season 11. He is a Strategist with a 4-star difficulty, which should tell you everything you need to know about his very high skill ceiling.
He throws exploding grenades that heal allies and damage opponents. In addition, he has his iconic Hopesword and cutlasses that he can use while flanking. More importantly, Nightcrawler has a variety of teleportation abilities that are the heart of his kit in Marvel Rivals. He can teleport himself, take his allies, or even enemies with him.
With these teleportation abilities, Nightcrawler isn’t your regular Strategist and can change the course of every single game. So, here is Nightcrawler’s complete game-changing kit, including all of his abilities in the game:
| Ability Name | Input Button and Ability Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Forged Brimstone | Left Click (Primary Attack) | Toss 3 consecutive grenades forward that explode on impact, damaging enemies while healing allies. |
| Phasing Finale | Q (Ultimate) | Select a target location to grant Damage Boost, Healing Over Time, and Bonus Health to yourself and all nearby allies, before teleporting everyone one by one to that destination. After the teleportation concludes, a Smoke Domain forms at the target location. Cast again to teleport and slash all enemies within the Smoke Domain, pulling them to your location. |
| Swift Intervention | L Shift | Target an ally and teleport to their side, granting them a one-time heal, Healing Boost, and Healing Over Time. |
| Smoke Shift | E | Mark your starting point with brimstone smoke and dash forward in a spinning slash to deal damage. The dash creates a smoke blast that damages and launches enemies while healing allies. Can be recast shortly after; the third activation teleports you back to the initial mark. |
| Tandem Teleport | F | Send an invitation to an ally. Upon confirmation, teleport to their side and pull them back to your original location, granting both instant Healing, Healing Over Time, and a Speed Boost. |
| Three-Sword Style | Right Click (Secondary Attack) | Strike forward with continuous thrusts using two cutlasses and the Hopesword. Can deal critical damage. |
| Crawler Cling | Passive | Hold SPACE to crawl up vertical surfaces. |
| Protective Siblings | C (Team-Up) | Base Effect: Rogue infuses Nightcrawler with Chronovium Power. Upon activation, briefly vanish, and the energy radiates outward from your vanishing point, damaging enemies and healing allies. After a short delay, reappear above your original location, slamming down with three swords to deal secondary damage and apply a Slow to enemies in range. Enhanced Effect: When teaming up with Rogue, the Chronovium Power is recalled after the downward thrust. The recall heals allies, damages enemies, and launches enemies toward you. |
| Demon Disciple | Passive (Team-Up) | Base Effect: Magik empowers Nightcrawler with Limbo’s demonic magic. Each spatial warp (all 3 stages of Smoke Shift, both stages of Tandem Teleport, or the single stage of Swift Intervention) generates a spell field that damages enemies and heals allies. Enhanced Effect: When teaming up with Magik, every warp also coalesces demonic armor, granting Bonus Health. |
How to Play Nightcrawler in Marvel Rivals: Best Strategy Guide
Once you go through Nightcrawler’s kit, you will soon understand that he is a very distinctive Strategist, like White Fox in Marvel Rivals. He is a highly agile playmaking Strategist. In addition to his healing duties, Nightcrawler can turn the tide on the battlefield with his teleportation abilities.
Since there are many things at play here, here are the best strategies you can use as Nightcrawler to teleport your way to victory in Marvel Rivals:
Defensive Strategy: Rescuing Your Endangered Allies
First, let’s talk about his healing duties. You cannot play Nightcrawler like you play Invisible Woman or Cloak and Dagger in Marvel Rivals, which is like sitting at the back and healing your allies who are risking their lives on the frontline. So, here is how to play as Nightcrawler when it comes to healing and playing defense:
- Forged Brimstone is your primary heal, and it provides burst healing. And remember that the secondary attack, Three-Sword Style, doesn’t provide any healing at all
- Use Swift Intervention in tandem with Forget Brimstone to teleport to an ally in need and quickly regenerate his health.
- Keep watching the battlefield, and if any ally is on the brink of death, use Tandem Teleport to bring them to safety and nurse them back to health.
- Do not stick to the backline all the time. Instead, focus on healing the allies in immediate danger and get them back to safety when needed.
- Nightcrawler’s kit incentivizes you to balance healing and playmaking, not just focus on the former.
Offensive Strategy: Diving and Teleporting Back
As mentioned earlier, Nightcrawler can’t keep sitting in the backline, as he needs to make his way to the front to dish out some serious damage like Strategist Deadpool in Marvel Rivals. So, if you are planning to dive and strike down the enemies in the backline, here is how to play Nightcrawler offensively in Marvel Rivals:
- Use Smoke Shift as your bread-and-butter offensive ability to initiate an attack from your end.
- Use the splash attack and dash attack in two consecutive tries, and teleport from the battle to your original position with the third activation.
- Prefer Three-Sword Style over Forged Brimstone when it comes to a close-range duel.
- You can also use the grenades in the mix, but do not use them as your primary attack.
- Prioritize dealing damage and applying pressure over short periods rather than leaving your healing duties and solely focusing on attacking.
Best Strategy: Become a Playmaker
Lastly, here are some of the best tips and tricks you need to unleash the special playmaking side of Nightcrawler in Marvel Rivals:
- Help your teammates unleash the perfect Ultimate Ability in Marvel Rivals by smartly using Tandem Teleport. For example, if Scarlet Witch is going to use her ult, then as a Nightcrawler you can move over to the target area, send an invite to Wanda, and immediately pull her into the crowd to secure the kills.
- Next, pick up the Demon Disciple team-up ability with Magik over the Protective Siblings with Rogue in Marvel Rivals.
- Because the Demon Disciple team-up ability in Marvel Rivals provides bonus health for all the healing Nightcrawler provides with his teleportation abilities.
- Nightcrawler’s Phasing Finale is a tricky ultimate ability, and you need to cleverly use it to make the most of it.
- So, it can be used to retake a site where you can bring all your allies in together while simultaneously providing Damage Boost, Healing Over Time, and Bonus Health to everyone.
- Then the opponents within the Smoke Domain are pulled towards where you are. So, you can smartly go out of an arena and throw everyone off the map in certain regions.
- Or if the enemy team is getting healed with a support ult, like Invisible Woman’s Invisible Boundary, Nightcrawler can pull the whole team out of the healing area.
- Do not treat Nightcrawler’s ult as your typical healer’s ultimate ability, which will do more harm than good to your team.
Best Counters for Nightcrawler in Marvel Rivals
With all the teleportation abilities, it seems like no Marvel Rivals character can catch Nightcrawler on the battlefield. Contrary to popular belief, Kurt Wagner does possess vulnerabilities just like any other hero. So, here is a list of heroes who can act as the perfect counter to Nightcrawler in Marvel Rivals:
- Peni Parker: If Nightcrawler chooses to dive to put some pressure, then Peni Parker’s mines can keep him at bay.
- Emma Frost: The Diamond Queen, even with the nerfs, can overpower Nightcrawler and quickly eliminate him in the Diamond form.
- Namor: The ruler of Atlantis can put an end to Kurt with his spears or with monstrous turrets lending him a hand.
- Winter Soldier: Although Bucky is nerfed now, he still has the power to pull Nightcrawler with his Bionic Hook and put him to sleep.
Best Team Comp to Play as Nightcrawler in Marvel Rivals
If you are wondering what the best team comp for Nightcrawler is, here is a list of team comps that you definitely need to try out:
- Demon Disciple Main Comp: Doctor Strange, Emma Frost, Magik, Phoenix, Nightcrawler, and Invisible Woman.
- Triple-Support Comp: Doctor Strange, Magik, Winter Soldier, Nightcrawler, Rocket Raccoon, and Jubilee in Marvel Rivals.
- Dive Comp: Captain America, Magneto, Magik, Gorr the God Butcher, Nightcrawler, and Luna Snow.
And that’s a wrap on our Marvel Rivals Nightcrawler guide. Let us know if you have any additional tips and tricks to master the blue elf in the comments below.
Ajith Kumar
Ajith Kumar
Ajith Kumar
