Duelist characters specialize in dealing high damage to Marvel Rivalsbut few come close to the wound Hawkeye can inflict with his sharpshooting skills. Armed with his trusty bow, Hawkeye is the pinnacle of precision, using his aim to locate targets and eliminate them quickly. However, Hawkeye comes equipped with more tricks than you'd expect, giving him more tools to defeat enemies.
The Duelist archetype refers to characters with lower health but high DPS. Unlike support Tacticians or tank-like Vanguards, Duelists like Hawkeye are designed to deal damage to the targets that most threaten their team. Similar to other characters like Winter Soldier in Marvel Rivals, Hawkeye's abilities are stronger when his aim is accurateand you hit your enemies consistently.
All of Hawkeye's abilities
Stay focused to do more damage
Hawkeye is rated as a four-star difficulty character, meaning it will take some time to master all of his abilities. Hawkeye's skill limit comes from targeting moving targets with his arrows, which have multiple properties depending on the skills you use. Despite being a simple character to understand, Hawkeye is difficult for beginners to use due to the precision required to exercise your skills correctly.
The table below outlines all of Hawkeye's abilities, as well as how long it takes for some of them to recover:
|
Ability |
Skill type |
Cool |
Description |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Piercing Arrow |
Primary Attack |
N/A |
Shoot a powerful arrow that damages enemies. |
|
Explosive Arrow |
Primary Attack |
3 arrows (recharge) |
Shoot three explosive arrows. |
|
Crescent Cut |
Basic Skill |
N/A |
Unsheath a katana and attack, launching enemies that are hit. |
|
Hypersonic Arrow |
Basic Skill |
12 seconds |
Fire a Hypersonic Arrow, dealing two instances of damage to enemies in its path and slowing them. This ability can knock down flying heroes. |
|
Ronin Slash |
Melee |
N/A |
Swing Hawkeye's wakizashi to attack enemies head-on, deflecting incoming projectiles. |
|
Jump to the sky |
To jump |
N/A |
Perform a double jump in the direction of movement. |
|
Archer's Focus |
Passive |
N/A |
Target an enemy to improve Focus, increasing the damage inflicted by Piercing Arrow. |
|
Hunter's Vision |
End |
N/A |
Capture afterimages of enemies in Hawkeye's vision. Damage dealt to an afterimage is transferred to the corresponding enemy. |
Hawkeye can freely switch between Piercing Arrows and Explosive Arrows with an entrance, giving him multiple types of ammo to use against enemies. Piercing arrows cover a greater distance, dealing greater damage to a single target, especially if you land a headshot. On the other hand, Blast Arrows cause three AoE explosions at medium and close range, creating a shotgun-like effect that can be good for disrupting clustered enemy teams.
The Archer's Focus charge increases as your reticle hovers over an enemy character. When they move away or you lose sight of them, the charge of this Focus is reduced, causing your Piercing Arrow to deal less damage.
Crescent Slash can knock enemies off maps in Marvel Rivalseliminating them if they have no way of returning to the battlefield. Hawkeye's other melee ability, Ronin Slash, functions as both an attack and an ability to reflect projectiles. However, the timing of this reflection is incredibly strict, so you may not want to risk using it to retrieve powerful Ultimates like Iron Man's Max Pulse.
How to use Hawkeye's Ultimate
Never let enemies out of your sight
Hunter's Sight is an Ultimate that only works when you can see enemies within Hawkeye's line of sight. To ensure this Ultimate captures as many afterimages as possible, you need to get to high ground above an enemy team or in a location where you can see many opponents at once. Try using Hawkeye's Skyward Leap double jump to reach locations where you have a better view of the battlefield to achieve this.
Once you activate Hawkeye's Ultimate, you will have a limited time to start shooting. That being said, your full Focus charges almost instantly when you aim at a target or its afterimage during this state. This allows you to deal the most damage possible to a target, who cannot escape from you as their afterimages remain stationary for you to fire quickly.
Repeatedly launch piercing arrows at targets to eliminate as many targets as possible while Hunter's Sight is activated. A good strategy for this Ultimate is to aim for the afterimages of targets with less health, rather than bulkier Vanguards in Marvel Rivals. You Can still land headshots in Afterimagesthen keep aiming for the target's head to maximize the damage dealt by each arrow fired.
Best team composition for Hawkeye
Allow others to see afterimages
Some of the best characters to have on a team with Hawkeye are:
- Black Widow
- praying mantis
- Doctor Strange
- Poison
Black Widow is the only character to have the Team-Up ability in Marvel Rivals with Hawkeye, called “Supersensory Vision”. This ability allows Hawkeye share your Hunter's Sight Ultimate with Black Widow when activatedallowing the sniper to spot and damage enemy afterimages. This is a huge buff for Black Widow, allowing her to quickly eliminate targets with headshots in her afterimages.
Other characters that work well with Hawkeye include Mantis, which can consume Life Orbs to increase Hawkeye's damage in their attacks. This gives Hawkeye the ability to take out targets even faster, taking out some enemies with a single headshot. Doctor Strange can provide a shield for Hawkeye to shoot behind, while Venom can slow down targets with a symbiotic tether that can help Hawkeye hit more mobile enemies.
Best tips and tricks, strategies to win with Hawkeye
Stay mobile and watch enemy movements
As of this writing, Hawkeye is easily one of the strongest duelists in the game, mainly due to how his high damage leads to a lot of eliminations. Hawkeye stands out when you stand behind your team to shoot targets from afar. By using cover to aim steadily, Hawkeye can fire at contested objectives or chokepoints to easily eliminate some enemies.
However, Hawkeye's strength could lead him to be targeted by characters like Spider-Man or Iron Fist in Marvel Rivals. To avoid being defeated by aggressive enemies, remember to use your Blast Arrows or Crescent Slash to knock enemies away of you. This should give you room to double jump back to the safety of your team or towards a health pack to recover from an attack.
As long as your goal is true, you will have no problem succeeding as Hawkeye. Keep your focus high and target characters with low health to score elimination after elimination, quickly reducing your opponent's numbers. With Hawkeye's abilities helping you position yourself to take down enemies, you can become a lethal force that enemy teams will fear. Marvel Rivals.