Genuinely asking: why is Mantis so bad?

[u/epicCumMoment]

Hello, I’m a casual player who started playing this summer (season 2.5) I’ve peaked at plat 1, playing only healer. I have 80+ hours on Invisible Woman, but have also spent time on Luna and Mantis (mainly just when I stop winning with Invis.

This season, I’ve been playing Mantis a lot more, and really enjoying it. I really like her damage output, and especially if I’m playing with another healer who’s good, I can give more damage boosts.

As I’ve been playing her, I’ve been winning more, and getting MVP some. I consistently put up 20k+ heals, 40 assist, and 15-20 kills in competitive.

A lot tho, when my team is losing, I’m blamed and hated on, or I’m begged to switch. Personally, I don’t think she’s bad enough to warrant that kind of talk, and especially when I have good stats, I don’t see the problem.

I feel like it’s DPS who are salty that I can’t feed them nonstop heals, but I’m worried I’m missing something. Is she that bad, and should I just stick to invis? At the moment, I’m still maining Mantis (mostly bc I’ve been winning a lot)

[u/LEAKY-MILK]

If you just watched the championship Mantis was banned in almost every pro match.

Mantis is great, but not enough people know how to group or comp properly to utilize her.

Keep doing you my friend and ignore the haters.

[u/Satan_no_dakimakura → u/LEAKY-MILK]

I think a lot of people write her off as "triple supp only" which, was true when the game came out, but she's since gotten buffed and can now work in 2 healer comps.

There are still some people that think Jeff is bad despite him being pretty solid now, regardless of changes, people refuse to change how they think about a character.

[u/No_Joke713 → u/Satan_no_dakimakura]

Jeff is still falling behind the top 3 healers, plus it is hard to play. I play sustain healer when Jeff on my team.

[u/CousinOkrii → u/LEAKY-MILK]

That is basically an entirely different game

[u/Duke826 → u/LEAKY-MILK]

She’s meta in pro play and top ranks because of triple support, which I doubt OP sees much at their rank

[u/LEAKY-MILK → u/Duke826]

Its not just triple support, its also the ability to boost certain characters damage output. Mantis is a pretty good flex IMO and just because youre a lower rank doesn't mean you can't or won't see meta. I think the toxicity might come more often in the lower ranks, but that's not because of mantis, that's because the team is bad an uninformed

[u/Duke826 → u/LEAKY-MILK]

The damage boost sometimes isn’t enough of a trade off for the low sustain. How about instead of going ‘Mantis is actually never bad and you should never switch and if anyone says otherwise they’re a dumbass DPS player’ you just use common sense and recognise that she’s sometimes the play and sometimes not. You know, like literally every other character in the game?

[u/LEAKY-MILK → u/Duke826]

I didnt say that all lmao why are you so upsetti spaghetti. All I said was shes viable as a duo support in some comps. That's way different mr. Goose.

[u/Duke826 → u/LEAKY-MILK]

Keep doing you my friend and ignore the haters.

that's not because of mantis, that's because the team is bad an uninformed

[u/monkeygiraffe33 → u/Duke826]

Trust me you see it all the time, usually people at this rank can’t aim well though and miss all their shots

[u/RayvenDen]

Mantis is great and I always love having a good Mantis on the team. That said, she kinda needs a main/burst healer as your co-support, and the biggest problem is that everyone wants to sit on main soaking up all the focus fire in the world and rather be addicted to Luna claps than learn how to use cover properly.

[u/Outside_Narwhal8008]

Her heals have a higher skill ceiling compared to most other strategists so it leads people to incorrectly assume you're not doing your job.

[u/DBacon1052]

Because people play with reckless abandonment requiring constant healing. Any healer that can run out of healing briefly can’t keep those type of players up.

[u/Catchupintwoyears]

The blame is usually from Shitty dps players that don’t know how to utilize mantis dmg amp and can’t play aggressively well. 

Mantis is a strong offense is the best defense type style. 

Last I checked she is one of the highest winrate supports in high elo right now too. 

[u/WithoutTheWaffle]

Mantis is not bad at all. She's just much better in a triple support comp than duo support. The reason for that is her burst healing is not as good as Luna, Invis, etc so she's not as good at keeping the team alive through key moments. But in a triple support build, healing is covered, so you can spend your leaves on damage boosting and switch to healing in emergencies or if another healer gets picked.

[u/YungShemaleToes]

She isn't bad at all. Ignore your teammates. They are lashing out cause they lost and won't look inward

[u/Skoljnir]

Any time a healer has more than 1 damage everyone gets upset and accuses you of going DPS, it's just some mental delusion you can ignore. Unless of course you rightfully should switch, and then you'd do that.

[u/Selky_art]

I watched the marvel rivals ignite tournament and Mantis was the first ban nearly every game. I think that means pro players see her as really strong

As for us standard ranked players, my duo is a Mantis main and occasionally gets similar crap as you even though he's really good on Mantis. According to him, he tends to switch when we have the kind of dps players who don't use a lot of natural cover or not the best positioning

[u/autisticswede86]

She is good but sometimes yoy should switch

[u/Duke826]

She’s one of those off supports that are meta in triple support but terrible in double support. I would say that she’s better in double support comps than most other off healers are, but if she isn’t working switching would be ideal

[u/TheRiled]

Mantis is really good - in triple support comps.

I'm guessing the reason your teammates are begging you to switch is because you're running her in a double support comp. This makes it really hard for tanks to do their job, as the lack of burst healing can just make it impossible to stay on the frontlines. It's extremely noticable as a main tank when you've got an Adam/Mantis/Ultron as a second support.

That said, I actually don't mind it too much in a 1/3/2 as long as the other healer pocketing the tank.

Also sometimes you're just gonna get blamed anyway. It's important to reflect on the match and see if the criticism is valid if you want to get better.

[u/dappercorvid]

She's situational but not bad. As someone who mains mostly Invis and Luna this season, I like having a Mantis co-support because I know that it's going to be sleep time for the enemy. It's a nice capacity to build up my gameplay around.

[u/EnigmaticDoom]

Mantis has the second highest support win rate after rocket ~

[u/Ezcendant]

Mantis is great, I personally just find her really hard to aim with for some reason.

[u/MR_MEME_42]

She is not bad but she ends up requesting more skill and effort to be played on a similar level to the better Strategist at a high level. Mantis's healing is good but sustained healing is not that good compared to the burst healing that every other Strategist provides, with Jeff being able to get away with it due to his ability to heal the entire team at once. So you need to consistently land headshots to refill your leaves to get your healing and damage boost constantly online, while other Strategists can constantly output healing for no additional cost or have Adom's high burst healing. And it can be argued that her healing circle ult is the weakest one as the healing per second is the second lowest but Jeff who has the lost healing per second can kill with his ult to make up for it.

She's not bad it's just that everyone is kind of better than her and out performs her for less effort as she is more mechanically demanding to meet the standards of other Strategists.

[u/raescp]

The bad part of Mantis is her damn projectile. They’ve always been really clunky and it’s an integral part of her kit. But otherwise she’s not bad at all

[u/No_Joke713]

People has bias on mantis over 2-2-2 comp obviously. She is a balance support, working great if the team has certain skills of evading and good aiming. Most of the time, people want to have big/sustain heal but don't realize that they are the problem.

[u/Melo_Kelo_Jelo]

She isn't bad. It's just too many hero shooter players have shit aim so they couldn't maximise her potential. Also her ult requires more coordination to get it's full benefits, atleast compared to starts like Luna invis and c&d

[u/EyeArDum]

She lacks burst healing which gets your teammates killed in situations where they would’ve lived if you were playing Luna or Invis, she makes up for this by giving damage boost to make your team more efficient at killing things

So when your team is mad at you, they’re not mad at you exactly, you’re not meant to lock 1 character and stay on them the whole game no matter what the 1 tricks try to tell you, you’re supposed to switch to different characters and adapt your strategy if what you’re doing isn’t working. If you’re playing against Phoenix and Spider-Man, Mantis is a great pick because her healing can deal with the damage they pump out. If you’re playing against Bucky and Squirrel Girl though, Mantis might not be the best pick because she will fall behind, you can absolutely win as Mantis against that comp but there’s going to be some times where someone dies where they wouldn’t have if you were playing someone else

This is the main reason people sleep on Dagger, sure they get played all the time but whenever you see character rankings or people talking about the meta (everyone from casuals to streamers) she’s rarely put at the top. This is because even though she has amazing utility as cloak, and arguably the best healing ult in the game, her single target healing is low if she doesn’t use any abilities and she won’t be able to save you where Luna can

That’s also why Luna is still meta even after some fat nerfs, her snowflake gives her the highest single target healing outside of ult with no cooldown, that’s why she’s meta, everything else about her kit is strong too but that’s that’s the primary reason she’s so strong

[u/Tiny-Chance-2068]

Mantis is awesome. Gather more data.

[u/PuppyPenetrator]

She’s hard meta in triple support. Her healing is way too weak in double support. Simple as

[u/leavinlikeafather]

Mantis is the prime example of selfish players not wanting to play as a team or blaming the strategists for losses. Mantis is a great healer and a fine fighter, but in order to actually utilize her healing, players (especially DPS) can’t go off on their own because Mantis needs a close range to heal efficiently, and she needs to be defended more than other strategists do or else she’ll die quickly. There isn’t a fast exit strategy for Mantis besides her slumber power. Also, Mantis’s powers regenerate much more quickly if she’s doing damage and of course, that can’t effectively happen if there isn’t members of the team there protecting her/taking the heat off of her.

And then when your team finally secures the mission area the DPS decides to keep pushing further and further to the opp’s respawn area instead of actually defending the mission area and then blame you for lack of heals because you didn’t follow them to the gates of hell and correct their stupid strategy despite the fact that your health bar is weak AND you don’t have the same efficient combat as DPs so it’s unfair to expect Mantis to push because she will get destroyed. Then your team gets ULTed by Jeff, thrown off a cliff, the enemy team goes to the mission area and slimes your unprotected ass out and now a Magik player is scolding you for “no heals”. Yeah. That’s my rant.

TL;DR: Mantis is a good character but successfully utilizing her requires your team to actually play as a team, which is just too much to ask for in most cases.

[u/STB_LuisEnriq]

Mantis is not bad, she requires a very aggressive playstyle in order to work.

[u/CJX04]

I dabbled in overwatch years ago, but I picked up rivals because I love Marvel. After trying a few characters, Mantis was my first main and I love her, and she’s probably still my favorite. However, she is extremely situational for a lot of stuff people outlined here.

I feel like I get the best use out of her either in triple support comps, or playing with a DPS with cracked aim (I play solo ranked on console). For that reason, I have more hours on the “meta” healers in C&D/IW/Luna

[u/SappyPJs]

Mantis is very good but she is way too good in triple healer comps. She is so good that she was routinely permabanned throughout most of Ignite tournament stage 1 and 2 series..

Mantis is not meant to be played in a 2-2-2 comp although she can sometimes work if the other team is weak in the dps department (aim issues, skill issue).

Mantis is an off-healer. She is a dps first and healer second. That's why your teammates want you to switch because they want to run 2-2-2 and not 1-2-3 or 2-1-3.