Marvel Rivals: Emma Frost Guide

Season 2 of Marvel Rivals is coming into full swing, so is the highly anticipated Emma Frost, the newest addition to the roster who’s taken the community by storm with her powerful kit and stunning cosmetics.

As a Vanguard Hero, she thrives in the thick of battle while shifting in and out of her indestructible Diamond Form. In a hero shooter like Marvel Rivals, Emma Frost has quickly become one of the most valuable tanks in the game.

Even just one day after her official release, many have already found ways to play her best, and she is one powerful Vanguard that has surpassed even Hulk or Doctor Strange.

Here’s a guide on how to play Emma Frost, including positioning tips, when to best use her abilities, and how to synergize with her and deal with counters.

Emma Frost Overview

As a Vanguard, Emma Frost is what most would consider a frontliner with poking capabilities, shifting between attacking with a mid-range laser and throwing down in Diamond Form.

While playing as Emma Frost, your job is to soak up damage and to harass your enemies to ensure that they are scared of approaching you.

Because most of your abilities rely on displacing enemies and leaving them vulnerable to your teammates, you’re a massive threat at melee range, and even more so when you are consistently topped up on health by your healers.

With the right player, Emma Frost can become a force to be reckoned with, and playing as her requires a decent understanding of positioning and knowing which enemies to target amidst the heat of battle.

Emma Frost Abilities

Switching in and out of Diamond Form is the bread and butter of Emma Frost’s kit, as she can shift between poking enemies and becoming a deadly brawler.

Keep in mind that, unlike what first impressions might suggest, Diamond Form has a rather long 15-second cooldown and 7-second duration, so you’ll need to be smarter with activating the ability and use it when it matters most.

Emma Frost’s main damage dealers are her basic attack and Psychic Spear, which is reminiscent of Symmetra from Overwatch. Meanwhile, Mind’s Aegis is best used to consistently protect you and your teammates during skirmishes, thanks to its short cooldown and considerably quicker recovery speed.

Emma Frost Offensive Tips

As Emma Frost, your job is to ensure that your presence is a consistent threat to the enemy team.

Combined with your normal basic attacks, Psychic Spear, and Diamond Form attacks, you can be a menace if you understand positioning and which targets to prioritize.

• Be aggressive. Keep in mind that your energy meter depletes really quickly if you don’t consistently deal damage to enemies. During a teamfight, maintain that meter by focusing your basic attack on chunkier enemies and redirecting the stronger beam to squishier enemies.
  • Always stay in the frontlines and poke enemies with the basic attack.
  • Transforming into your Diamond Form also retains your energy meter.
  • Any damage dealt with Telepathic Pulse will keep the energy meter topped off, and that includes shields and deployables like Peni nests or Loki clones.
• While using Psychic Spear, try positioning the sentience crystal between you and your target because your beam over-penetrates the crystal. Not only that, but once the crystal is shattered, you can continue dealing damage to the enemy if the burst damage hasn’t already finished them off.
  • Psychic Spear’s sentience crystal doesn’t disappear when your target leaves your line of sight or if there’s a wall between them and the crystal, as it only disappears if the target is outside the crystal’s radius.
• Psychic Spear can deal a lot of burst damage if you land the initial cast and destroy the sentence crystal. Since it has a 6-second cooldown, make sure to use it as often as you can during team fights, as it can easily help you carry extended fights.
  • When you do land a Psychic Spear, prioritize damaging the sentience crystal to maximize your damage output.
• The shield of Mind’s Aegis blocks any enemy abilities and attacks, including healing effects. You can take advantage of that and cast the deployable shield behind an enemy teammate to cut them off from their healers. Hard to pull off, but it can be detrimental to your enemy if done right.
• Diamond Form can be an intimidating move against squishier enemies, but only when used at the right time. Be in the thick of it with your teammates, and wait for a squishy enemy to slip out of formation so you can grab them and isolate them.
• While in Diamond Form, use Carbon Crush to focus on high-value targets like healers or weakened enemies and kick them into your team with Crystal Kick for easy eliminations.
  • Alternatively, you can also kick them into walls if they’re at low health to finish them off.
  • An ideal combo to use against a squishier target is to grab, attack with the two-hit melee combo, and then kick into a wall. This can usually 100-0 squishier enemies.
• Use Psionic Seduction to target enemy healers to ensure that they won’t try to counter Ult, as it silences and drags them toward you.
• In maps that have large gaps, position yourself so that you have a pit between you and your enemy so that you can use Psionic Seduction to mind-control the enemy team and force them to fall to their deaths.

Emma Frost Defensive Tips

Similar to The Thing, your presence can disrupt the enemy, and most of the time, the enemy will try to target you first.

Make sure that you stay to your team, not just to absorb the aggro but also to stay within your healers’ line of sight.

• Emma Frost’s Mind’s Aegis shield has a hefty 500 health that can block a lot of damage and has a considerably short cooldown. While it’s not as strong as Doctor Strange’s shield, you can deploy it from a distance and angle it to block potentially lethal attacks for your teammates.
  • As a tank with a shield, you can prevent team wipes by casting the shield (regardless of health) in front of any enemy using powerful front-facing Ultimates (or any ability with a slow charge time) like Iron Man’s Maximum Pulse or Hela’s Goddess of Death. All you need to do is just deploy the shield in front of their face, and they’ll have wasted an Ultimate.
• Mind’s Aegis works wonders during a teamfight. It’s best to use her shield for yourself, individual teammates, or a couple of teammates, max. It goes down rather quickly, and you can recall the shield whenever you want.
• With that said, make sure to cast it in the middle of a skirmish so that you and your teammates can dance around it to avoid damage.
• Emma Frost’s positioning matters a lot. Unlike Doctor Strange or Magneto, who can be at the very front and rely on their shields all the time, you’ll need to be smart with cover management and use corners to your advantage whenever your shield is recovering.
• Good healers are the difference between life and death. Protect them with shields and activate Diamond Form to absorb damage so that they can keep you and your team alive.
• Diamond Form is a great tool against divers. When a diver invades your backline to try to take out your healers, you can quickly shut them down by grabbing them and/or kicking them away.
• In the same vein, consider using Carbon Crush to interrupt potentially lethal Ultimates.
• While Diamond Form gives Emma Frost a thick 30% damage reduction, it doesn’t mean she’s invincible. The following are the Heroes whose Ultimates can one-shot her, even in Diamond Form: Punisher, Moon Knight, Hela, Hawkeye, Iron Man, Star Lord, Psylocke, Human Torch, and Iron Fist. Note that most of these will kill her IF they focus on her.

Emma Frost Team-Up Abilities

At launch, Emma Frost has only one Team-Up Ability, which synergizes well with Magneto and Psylocke.

«Mind Link» allows Emma to give Magneto and Psylocke the ability to cast a psychic mirror image of themselves, which attacks and uses the abilities of the caster. These mental projections have a max health of 150.

This Team-Up is worth having Magneto on your team, as these two are excellent tanks to soak up a lot of damage. Psylocke is more of a coin flip, and the value is highly dependent on how good the player is.

Emma Frost Counters And How To Deal With Them

Vanguard

The Thing is immune to any kind of knockback or displacement effect, so Emma Frost can’t kick him away. Thankfully, he lacks any meaningful ranged options and has no shields, so you can keep a good distance from him and pepper him with your basic attacks.

Thor can go toe-to-toe against Emma Frost in a one-on-one fight. Stay with your team, and they can help you take him out.

Duelist

There are plenty of Duelist heroes who will give Emma a run for her money due to her lack of range.

Both Wolverine and Iron Fist are tank busters who can brawl against Emma Frost with relative ease. Since they’re also very agile, you’re going to need to resort to using Diamond Form to stand a chance against them. Iron Fist is (unfortunately) still overpowered. Try not to let them isolate you.

Ranged Heroes like Black Widow or Hawkeye can quickly plink away at Emma Frost’s shield and whittle her down before you can do anything. Cover management is key.

Airborne Heroes like Iron Man and Human Torch can easily avoid Emma’s short-range attacks. Try to bait them into taking risks so that you can either cast Mind’s Aegis to block their powerful attacks or punish them and grab them in Diamond Form.

Strategist

Luna Snow and Cloak & Dagger have Ultimates that can’t be canceled by Emma Frost’s abilities, and they can keep healing even when under Psionic Seduction. Make sure to isolate and take them out before making any big plays.

The same can be said about Loki, who can copy Emma Frost’s Ultimate and turn the tide of battle.

Unless these healers are well-protected, you can easily pick them off with a Carbon Crush and finish them off with a few punches and a well-landed kick.

Best Emma Frost Team Comps

Vanguard

Magneto is the best pairing for Emma, as he can stay near the backline while she can fight much more aggressively. He can also take full advantage of the Team-Up ability and his shields, allowing for more damage absorption.

Alternatively, Peni Parker is also a good tank to accompany Emma, as she can sit back and protect the backline while Emma focuses on the frontlines.

Duelist

Psylocke’s value mainly comes from the Team-Up ability. As a diver, she can bring a lot to the table by isolating and assassinating high-value targets while Emma Frost absorbs aggro.

While an enemy Wolverine can be scary, an ally Wolverine is always welcome as a tank buster. If you’re ever having a hard time fighting tanks, a friendly Wolverine can help carry that burden.

Not only that, but Wolverine can also kidnap targets for Emma and the rest of the team to finish off.

Strategist

Almost every main healer works great with Emma Frost. Invisible Woman and Cloak & Dagger are incredibly solid healer picks. You can never go wrong with having them on your team.

Jeff is also a great pick since Emma Frost canonically adores him and calls him her baby.

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Marvel Rivals

Third-Person Shooter Action Multiplayer Systems

OpenCritic Reviews Top Critic Avg:78/100 Critics Rec:83% Released December 6, 2024 ESRB T For Teen // Violence Developer(s) NetEase Games Publisher(s) NetEase Games Engine Unreal Engine 5 Multiplayer Online Multiplayer, Online Co-Op

Cross-Platform Play Limited — console crossplay, no PC crossplay Cross Save No Franchise Marvel Number of Players 1-6 Steam Deck Compatibility Unknown PC Release Date December 6, 2024 Xbox Series X|S Release Date December 6, 2024 PS5 Release Date December 6, 2024 Platform(s) PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, PC How Long To Beat 7.5 hours X|S Optimized Yes File Size Xbox Series 20 GB OpenCritic Rating Strong Wiki

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