[Game Guide] Groot: How to dominate matches with +70k damage blocking and 40+ eliminations. (I love this tree)

Note - originally I made a video version of this guide (it's on my profile with others), and the text here is me adapting the talking points manually. Hope it helps, cheers!

Kick Off

Groot in Marvel Rivals is a vanguard tank capable of completely dominating matches if you know what to do with him. Seriously, if you play Groot right you can end up blocking 50-60k of damage while getting as many eliminations as a full on duelist DPS character. And you do this while having one thousand HP, it’s crazy.

In this guide I’m going to tell you how to play Groot effectively, but I’m also going to tell you how to beat him. He's amazing but nobody is unbeatable in Marvel Rivals after all.

Playstyle

Let’s talk about Groot’s playstyle first, he has a lot of unique elements and there’s a welcoming hectic zen you get from him once you get into your flow.

He’s technically a vanguard tank which means his primary duty is to soak up damage from the enemy team, which enables duelist dps heroes to get easy eliminations and enables strategist support heroes to heal and buff.

Due to his unique wall mechanics, Groot can be played as a hyper aggressive damaging tank that leads the frontline of his team and while playing ahead of the objective and pushing the other team back. The pressure he can exert on the enemy team is staggering by using his walls to act like a vanguard and duelist hybrid. So he takes a lot of damage AND gives a lot of damage.

Groot can also be more defensive, protecting objectives and funneling the opposition into tight spaces with his walls. Both playstyles are completely valid, and you’ll need to switch between them depending on the situation you’re in. He can put up 2 different kinds of walls, and people usually think of them as just a way to block damage, but there’s so much more to them.

Yeah of course you can use Groot’s walls to create chokepoints and such, but it’s only really lower skilled players that will ignore taking down the walls and be totally dominated by them from a physical point of view.

High skill players know that these walls have secrets and will make it a priority to take them down, so you need to get clever and reactive with them.

You see, Groot has both damage dealing and healing walls, they’re not simply your typical tank walls that block projectiles. So when you’re playing as Groot, you want to almost think of his walls as reactive sentry turrets that you’re constantly popping off.

You’ll often find yourself putting down walls behind the enemy that is in front of you, so that you can deal double damage to them with your normal attack and with your wall. And sometimes you’ll use your healing wall to control physical space, but other times you’ll pop it off behind you or to the side so that you’re actively getting your health up while you’re ripping through the opposition that you’re trapping one by one.

You also have an ultimate attack that imprisons enemies and damages them, so you’ll find yourself dropping it in tight team fights or if you need to put a stop to specific enemies you’re already walling.

Groot is an absolute menace but requires a few important traits to be played effectively. You need to develop great spatial awareness and gamesense, you need to understand what is going on in the match and develop an instinct for when it’s time to go backwards. So keep an eye on the elimination feed and make sure you can account for where most of the opposing team is. You also need good aim with Groot to maximize his potential, otherwise you’ll just be a regular tank which isn’t terrible, but isn’t anything special.

And of course, you’ll also need to be able to use your walls in a way that doesn’t destroy the effectiveness of your team. Your walls should help your team, not prevent your team from healing or doing damage. For this, you need to play to your team’s strengths and character types. What good walls are for one team and not so good for another, and sometimes you’ll just run into players that don’t understand the walls at all and why they’re so good, so in those situations you’ll be acting much more like a duelist dps hero.

And of course, like any vanguard tank, Groot needs loads of healing, we’ll cover that point when we talk about how to beat him.

Vine Strike Normal Attack (It’s A Projectile!)

Now let’s talk about Groot’s attacks. He has his vine strike normal attack which looks like it’s melee but is actually considered a projectile and is blocked by anything that would normally block a projectile. There’s a slight delay between attacks and there’s no splash damage so you really need to be reasonably accurate with them. You’ll often be doing them at close ranges though, so aiming is easy.

I actually recommend not holding down the attack button for Groot unless the opposition is stuck or otherwise not moving. The little delays on his attacks combined with the need to be accurate means that if you hold down the attack button while whipping your crosshair around, you’ll end up in situations where you feel like you should have hit someone but actually your timing and aim were off.

This might feel a little annoying at first, but you’ll get used to tapping very quickly.

Spore Bomb Crowd Control Projectile

Groot also has a crowd control projectile called spore bomb that I initially thought was terrible, but was very wrong about that. Basically you throw down a projectile and it turns into a small cluster nade, damaging enemies around it. This is really useful to throw into crowds of opponents during team fights and get that extra damage on them, or after trapping opponents with your walls.

The cooldown for is about 6 seconds, so I like to use it liberally even if I don’t have a real plan in the moment, because as a dominating tank I know that lowering the HP of my immediate opponents makes it more likely for the duelist dps heroes to quickly take them out.

Thornlash And Ironwood Walls (Damage And Healing), And Flora Colossus Passive Ability

Now of course we have to talk about Groot’s walls, but first you need to know about his passive ability that impacts those walls. Groot has something called Flora colossus which awakens walls when he’s somewhat near them. This passive is what unlocks the true potential of your walls, and why Groot is so good when used aggressively or when creating tight chokepoints.

Groot’s most common wall is called Thornlash and will damage opponents around it if it’s awakened. It doesn’t do that on its own though, it’s only if Groot and allies are damaging the opponent near it. So it’s really important that Groot plays relatively close to his walls and that he uses them often. Especially because Thornlash walls only have 250 hp, they’ll go down a lot and you’ll rebuild them constantly.

You can put down several walls at a time and can even reposition their angles to build exactly how you want to. It’s all point and click and very simple, it’s not like those pro kids you see at Fortnite pressing 95 buttons at once to create the 8th wonder of the world.

Anyway, Groot’s 2nd wall is called Ironwood. It’s big and has a lot of hp, but where it shines is that it overheals Groot as long as the wall is awakened. So you can use this wall to control space or to simply put it beside or behind you for safety, and this bad boy can give you up to 250 bonus health over time. Like with the other wall, this extra health comes from you and allies damaging opponents near it.

So just remember, when you’re Groot you want to constantly cast and re cast your walls relatively close to you in order to get their benefits.

How To Get 1000+ HP (Team Up Abilities)

Now Groot is a tank so he already starts with huge HP, but when you stack his healing Ironwood wall and a team up boost from Rocket Raccoon or Jeff, your Groot can enter 1000 HP territory. This makes your Groot almost unstoppable, he can even tank a direct hit from Scarlet Witch’s ultimate with this much health.

Edit: there has been some confusion about this, looks like Groot currently gets the bonus +150 hp regardless of any team ups which is nice.

Strangling Prison Ultimate Ability

Another thing that’s great about Groot is his strangling prison ultimate ability. He throws down a projectile that sucks in enemies near it, damages them, and roots them to the spot.

It lasts for a generous amount of time, and it really shines in tight fights where you can immobilize many opponents at once, enabling your team to blast them into oblivion.

You can also use it to deal with individual targets that have been difficult for your team to handle, and there’s no shame in doing that. Ideally you do more if you can, but if targeting one particularly good player is going to turn the tide of the match, go for it.

Weaknesses And How To Beat Groot

Ok, so if you made it this far you might think I’m making it sound like Groot is an invincible god. But he’s not, he has some dramatic weaknesses that you need to be able to play around. First of all, blud here has absolutely no mobility. He’s as slow as they come and strictly relies on his HP and healers to stay alive. If your team has bad healers that don’t regularly heal tanks, Groot and other tanks aren’t going to be able to do their thing.

Groot also can’t really deal with air targets well, so peppering him from the sky is a great way to take down his hp. If you’re playing groot as the hyper aggressive tank carry that he is, it can sometimes be difficult to know what’s going on with your backline. So if your team isn’t understanding what you’re doing, there can be a big gap between you and the rest of the team, which is easy to exploit by flanking characters.

You want to often look behind your shoulder to get a sense of what’s going on, you want to pay attention to where enemies are, and you want to watch the elimination feed.

When you mix that with putting yourself in 24/7 non stop action, rebuilding walls, moving walls, and trying to do good damage, Groot becomes a character that is execution heavy. You will be pressing many buttons. You will be doing many things. You have to earn that domination yourself, you can’t just be idle.

I think all of these weaknesses are perfectly normal and don’t take anything away from Groot being a great character, but if these sound concerning to you, then he might not be the hero you wanna play as.

2 Bonus Tips

Tip 1:

Groot's walls block healing from the opposition backline but ALSO your own team. Keep this in mind when building walls, don't separate your own lines. And you can always retract walls, so if you separate your opponent's lines but then after you do your damage it's blocking your team, just recall them.

Tip 2:

Groot gets even more health from the team up with Rocket or Jeff. You can be an absolute menace with these guys riding you if your team knows what they're doing even just a little bit. However, the character riding you can be eliminated independently of you. So when you have a guy like Rocket who can melt opposition at close range, you need to play to his strengths and do what you can to keep him safe. Also, Rocket needs to keep firing heals backwards. Similar thinking applies to Jeff, just because he's riding you doesn't mean he should stop healing or dropping bubbles. Riding Groot is very situational though, don't mindlessly do it for the duration of matches. Only do it if you need that extra pushing power or to get out of tight spots, or just keep doing it if you happen to be dominating with it anyway.