Marvel Rivals: The Thing Guide

Stomping into the Marvel Rivals roster is the Fantastic Four’s unstoppable Ben Grimm, aka The Thing. He is a Vanguard hero whose main objective is to apply pressure on his enemies and become an indestructible brick wall for his teammates.

The Thing is part of the remaining two Heroes to finish out the Fantastic Four roster during Season 1.

Marvel Rivals: How to Play Mister Fantastic

Our Marvel Rivals guide for Mister Fantastic will help you dominate with one of the game’s newest heroes.

Our Marvel Rivals guide for The Thing will briefly overview his abilities and offer tips and tricks for becoming both an unstoppable force and an immovable object.

The Thing Abilities

As a one-star difficulty Hero, The Thing is easy to pick up but difficult to master. Playing as him requires an understanding of your positioning as a tank and a keen awareness of your teammates.

His kit allows him to charge into the battlefield and disrupt enemies, but he severely lacks range or shielding to protect him; his face is the shield, so you’re more reliant on healers than most other tanks to stay alive.

His passive makes him a unique challenge for anybody trying to move him from the fight. Particularly for Jeffs, trying to spit out The Thing would only just drop him in front of Jeff instead of flying into the abyss.

Ability	Description
Rocky Jab	Primary attack. Punch forward repeatedly, alternating between fists and striking any enemy caught in a cone in front of him. 40 damage per hit. 4m range.
Stone Haymaker	Secondary attack. Wind up and deliver a devastating punch. Deals 90 damage in an 8m range. Activation gives 50 bonus health.
Yancy Street Charge	Charge forward at double speed for five seconds, launching up enemies for 30 damage and smashing the ground for 20 damage, leaving behind an AOE zone with an 8m radius. The zone prevents enemies from using mobility abilities. Gain 200 bonus health during activation. This ability can be ended manually.
Embattled Leap	Jump toward an ally and apply 30% damage reduction to both of you. 20m max distance. There is a 3-second cooldown for each charge, but it takes 10 seconds to recharge.
Clobberin’ Time	Ultimate ability. Launch up all enemies in front of The Thing into the air within 15m. Knocks up, stuns for 2.5 seconds, and deals 100 damage.
Unyielding Will	Passive. The Thing is immune to any displacement effects, including launch-up and knockback.

The Thing Offensive Strategies

The Thing is a charging tank whose presence disrupts his enemies with his clobberin’ and ability to take away his enemies’ mobility. As such, Yancy Street Charge is the bread and butter of The Thing’s offense.

Because he can’t be displaced by enemy abilities, The Thing is an immovable boulder who can’t be taken out of the fight as easily. Make the most out of his tankiness to put pressure on your foes by getting in their face while your teammates get in and clean up.

Always initiate a fight with Yancy Street Charge and make sure you end the charge on enemies who might try to escape. Ideally, you should try to charge into the backline and put your enemies in a pincer attack.
The name of the game is pressure, and The Thing revels in being in the thick of it. Whenever possible, be always in your enemies’ faces by giving them the ol’ one-two.
Stone Haymaker deals damage in an 8m cone and overpenetrates targets. If you line up your hits on low-health enemies, you could potentially score a multi-kill.
When you see a teammate dive into the enemy backline, back them up with an Embattled Leap so that you can support them with the damage reduction.
Not only is Embattled Leap a great tool to close the distance with your enemies and give them damage reduction, but you can also give your teammates an extra pair of hands during a fight. This can quickly turn a 1v1 into a 2v1 in your favor.
You don’t have to get full value from Clobberin’ Time. Its purpose is to stun and disable everybody caught in its path, so solo-ulting a high-value target like a healer or a DPS that’s causing too much trouble for your team is more than enough.

The Thing Defensive Strategies

While The Thing has perhaps the largest natural base health out of all characters, his face is his only shield, so the only things keeping him alive are the 30% damage reductions and bonus health from ability activations.

As The Thing, stay in the thick of the battle or your team will hit rock bottom. Be mindful of where your teammates are, especially your healers.

Before initiating a fight with Yancy Street Charge by charging head-first into the enemy team, make sure to stay within your healers’ line of sight, or else you’ll be ground to dust.
When Street Yancy Charge does not have a tight turning radius, so practice turning when you can, and avoid tight corners.
While you may be tempted to use Yancy Street Charge to charge from spawn to get a headstart, try to resist that urge, as this ability has a 10-second cooldown.
Don’t take Embattled Leap for granted: since it has two charges, always save one charge for emergencies, as you can briefly disengage from battle by targeting an ally within range, so make sure a teammate is always within line of sight so that you don’t get caught with your pants down.
You might get off to a rocky start during a fight, and the only way to regain any momentum might be to use your ult. When the enemy is putting too much pressure on you, you can always use your ult to stop their momentum and give you and your team some breathing room.
Always be aware of where your teammates are so that you know when to use Embattled Leap. While you should mostly try to prioritize healers, you should use it for any teammate who needs it the most.

The Thing Team-Up Abilities

Team-Up Ability	Heroes Needed	Description
Cosmic Fastball	The Thing, Wolverine	Wolverine and The Thing can interact with each other. Once both parties confirm, The Thing can lift Wolverine and hurl him forward for 20m.
Cooperative Comrades	The Thing, Invisible Woman, Mister Fantastic, Human Torch	The Invisible Woman taps into her powers, channeling Psionic Might to fortify the entire Fantastic Four team, granting damage resistance. Once activated, they can continually generate Bonus Health for 5 seconds, making up for lost health. Generates 100 max bonus health. 20-second cooldown.

The Thing is a core member of the Fantastic Four, and putting him with his family is always a rock-solid choice. Invisible Woman’s Psionic Might ability can give everybody a better chance at survival through bonus health generation and damage reduction.

Much like the Hulk, the Thing can also team up with a Wolverine and throw him into the fight. It’s more of a gimmick ability, but it can really come in clutch if you can communicate effectively with your Wolverine.

The Thing Counters And How To Deal With Them

The Thing struggles the most against anybody who can take advantage of the fact that he has no ranged abilities and can’t escape on his own with any upward mobility.

Wolverine

Wolverine’s entire kit makes him an effective tank killer, as his damage is based on the target’s max health, making him an incredibly deadly enemy against characters with high health pools like The Thing.

Never engage a Wolverine in a 1v1, as not only can his Adamantium claws turn you into pebbles, but his Regenerative Healing Factor passive can most likely outpace yours.

Iron Man

Any airborne character, including Iron Man, Storm, and Human Torch, is effective against The Thing, as they can always just remain far away from his reach while whittling down his health.

The Thing has no tool to help him fight airborne characters, so your best bet is to ping them for any teammate who might be better suited to deal with them, like Hawkeye, Iron Fist, or Punisher.

Groot

A good Groot player can easily isolate The Thing from his teammates, making him vulnerable to being ganged up as Groot’s walls can prevent him from using Embattled Leap towards his teammates.

When faced with a Groot, make sure you stay close to your teammates so you don’t get isolated, and don’t engage him when his teammates are nearby.

Invisible Woman

Invisible Woman is one of Marvel Rivals’ best healers, as her primary fire can consistently heal multiple teammates at once if lined up properly. She also has a great escape tool of jumping away and becoming invisible.

Make sure to ping her for your teammates so you can focus on her, taking out one of your enemy’s strongest healers.

Peni Parker

Peni Parker’s entire kit is meant to be a counter against any dive characters, and while The Thing can’t be moved, Peni can stop him with her web snares. Her spider nests can also easily whittle him down in a fight, and because he doesn’t have any ranged abilities, The Thing has to risk his life to even try to destroy the nest.

The only thing to fight against Peni as The Thing is to stop her from setting up her nests in the first place, as staying inside a web gives her bonus health and additional movement speed.

The Thing Team Composition

Because The Thing is a dive character, you’ll need to make sure you have another tank to back you up, along with other brawler heroes to stay in the fight with you. Of course, you’ll also need at least a reliable healer to keep you alive.

There’s a reason why The Thing has a Team-Up Ability with the rest of the Fantastic Four: His playstyle synergizes well with his family, as he can engage the enemy head-on with pseudo-tank Mister Fantastic while the Human Torch denies enemy territory. Invisible Woman is also a fantastic healer even without her Team-Up ability.

Not only that, but Doctor Strange can fill that tank roll and make up for The Thing’s lack of mobility and range by dealing with any airborne enemies with his cloak of levitation and basic attacks.

You can also round out the team with healers like Luna Snow, Mantis, or Rocket, as they can still heal him without always having him in their line of sight.