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:
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 is a Gaming and Entertainment Writer at Beebom, with over four years of experience delivering the latest news, guides, reviews, etc. He is a video game aficionado who has held a controller for almost his entire life. He loves immersing himself in souls and souls-like games, as well as story-rich RPGs, ARPGs, Survival Horror, and PS exclusives. His hunger to devour other players has led him to spend countless hours on live-service games like Marvel Rivals, CS2, Valorant, Fortnite, and ARC Raiders. After work, you will find him trying to clear his never-ending gaming backlog or juggling between his favorite live-service titles. Apart from gaming, Ajith also enjoys watching movies, TV shows, anime, and Real Madrid.
