Marvel Rivals: The best Cloak and Dagger guide
Cloak and Dagger are among the most unique characters in Marvel Rivals, and this guide will showcase how to heal and harm as a pair.
Marvel Rivals took the gaming world by storm upon its December 2024 release. Dubbed an “Overwatch Killer” by hero shooter fans, the game currently hosts over 10 million players. Paired with the popularity of Marvel, the game can almost certainly double that number by next year. As expected of a comic-based hero shooter, it has a very deep roster.
Cloak and Dagger rank among the best strategists in the game. When it comes to stalling time and harassing opponents, Cloak and Dagger can be one of the stickiest healers on the team. Cloak’s non-basic abilities and Dagger’s AoE heal on Dagger Storm keep them and their team alive through intense team fights. Naturally, shifting between the two forms may be confusing for novices.
This guide will show players how to draw out the full potential of Cloak and Dagger.
Marvel Rivals Cloak and Dagger Abilities
Cloak and Dagger are unique among Marvel Rivals’ characters in that they can freely swap between two forms without cooldown. Dagger is a healing-focused Strategist who specializes in keeping her allies topped up and peppering mobile enemies. Cloak is a disruption-focused strategist who focuses on short-range DPS and sowing chaos with his shadowy abilities. These guides will explain what each of Cloak and Dagger’s unique abilities do.
Dagger Abilities
LMB (Lightforce Daggers)
Dagger fires a series of light daggers that can damage enemies or heal allies. The daggers both ricochet off surfaces once and have a homing radius, seeking out allies and enemies in their path.
This is their bread-and-butter healing and long-range damage. Dagger’s LMB is great for harassing aerial characters like Iron Man, Star-Lord, or Spider-Man. When trying to contribute without visibility, one can fire the daggers at a nearby corner, and ricochet them off the wall into the space where the fight is happening. The daggers will hone in on allies and potentially hit enemies in their path.
RMB (Dagger Storm)
Dagger throws a dagger at a point, creating a healing-over-time orb around on the impact site. The healing area lasts for six seconds post-impact.
This is their best AoE healing tool, but it’s also the only self-healing Cloak and Dagger offer. They’re often going to want to save this cooldown to either heal themself and give them a safe area to fight from inside of, or to turbo-heal a Vanguard teammate nearing their last legs.
Many allies, unaware that the bright white orb around them is healing, will accidentally leave the area due to not paying attention. For these many reasons, it’s best to use Dagger’s RMB somewhere that multiple people will take advantage of it. Otherwise, just plant the orb right behind them so teammates have no choice but to walk through it.
E (Veil of Lightforce)
Dagger fires a wall out, healing allies hit and granting them a Heal Boost, that increases healing from all sources for the duration.
This is how Dagger consistently heals high-health targets. It also allows Dagger to swap to Cloak with minimal effect on overall heals. While this boosts Dagger’s healing, it also boosts all friendly healing. Whether it’s passive regeneration or Loki’s healing circle, the orb makes anyone within very hard to defeat.
The ability is significantly better by having another healer in the equation, such as Loki or Mantis.
Shift (Shadow’s Embrace)
Dagger becomes Cloak, changing their RMB/LMB/E abilities.
There’s not much to note about this stance-swap ability, except that there is a small windup animation and a period during the transformation where they’ll be unable to use any abilities at all. It’s short, but players should be conscious of it, as they’ll be unable to respond to enemies.
Cloak Abilities
LMB (Darkforce Cloak)
Cloak fires a nonstop stream of energy, damaging the enemy near his cursor. This attack has a hard range cap of 20m, with the beam completely stopping at exactly the 20-meter mark.
Cloak’s basic attacks do more damage than Dagger’s but lack the range and flexibility of her healing. Cloak’s LMB is particularly good at punishing mobile DPSes that stray too close to this twin strategist. He can easily follow characters like Iron Man and Spider-Man through the air, ripping through their health with minimal tracking.
The combination of Dagger’s homing attacks and Cloak’s hit-scan attacks makes them excellent at ripping apart low HP targets. Dagger’s projectiles can reach foes from afar while Cloak’s hit-scan makes enemy mobility much less useful.
RMB (Dark Teleportation)
Cloak wraps his cloak around himself and nearby allies, shrouding them in the Dark Force Dimension. Allies within the radius are invisible and Phased (completely untargetable) (unaffectable) for the ability’s duration, or until they attack or use an ability.
This is, arguably, Cloak and Dagger’s most powerful tool. Not only does it allow them vertical mobility, floating in the direction that the camera points. It is an AoE invisibility and immunity aura that can completely thwart some of the most powerful ultimates in the game. It requires coordination and cooperation from teammates, as a single bullet fired will break that person’s invisibility and make them no longer Phased.
While Phased, Cloak and Dagger can guide their allies unscathed through some rough fights. This means Cloak’s RMB is one of the best tools in the game at dealing with telegraphed ultimates with a short “impact” window. Some examples are the ultimate abilities of Scarlet Witch, Jeff the Shark, and Magneto. If they can use this properly, they can completely negate the enemy team’s best abilities with a 12-second cooldown basic ability.
E (Terror Cape)
Cloak throws out a wall in front of him, blinding enemies hit and granting them Vulnerability to all damage. The blind makes affected enemies unable to see past a small radius around them, anything past that point becoming a purple wall of darkness.
This is the skill that makes Cloak team up with DPS characters like Dagger does with healers. Terror Cape’s vulnerability applies to all damage, meaning it’s best capitalized on by characters who have damage on more abilities than Cloak and Dagger’s utility-focused kit. Terror Cape + Cloak’s basic can let players rip through isolated characters with around 250 health.
In larger team fights, allies will make the most use of this. If nothing else, it’s an effective way to disrupt the vision of a stubborn diving enemy while Cloak and Dagger make their getaway.
Shift (Light’s Embrace)
Cloak swaps to Dagger, changing his LMB/RMB/E abilities.
Cloak’s swap to Dagger is effectively identical to the swap from Dagger to Cloak.
Q (Eternal Bond) – Ultimate
Cloak and Dagger’s ultimate is a set of three horizontal dashes in the direction the camera is facing. As they dash, they leave behind a trail of darkness and light that damages enemies and heals allies massively.
After each dash, there is a brief pause to reorient Cloak and Dagger for the next dash, during which time they briefly benefit from the healing trail beneath them. Upon the third dash, they exit their ultimate and each dash’s trail remains for approximately five seconds after the respective dash is completed.
Eternal Bond offers damage, healing, and durability for Cloak and Dagger. The healing provided by Eternal Bond’s trail is over 700 HP/s, enough to let them tank three separate Punisher ultimates while on the trail without dying.
The ultimate is best used when either trying to help the team in a push towards an objective, providing them a safe trail of healing to access the point, or by filling the objective’s area with healing and damage, granting the team a significant durability advantage while brawling.
How to Play Cloak and Dagger
Cloak and Dagger players must seamlessly shift between healing and damage depending on the battle’s flow.
There’s no one surefire strategy that works every time with Cloak and Dagger. Different team compositions and situations mean Cloak and Dagger players need to adapt quickly. For example, if the entire team is in full health and defending safely, switch to Cloak and dissuade enemy teams from engaging with Terror Cloak. If the team is battered, stay in the backline and focus on the tanks. Here’s a quick guide to the core Cloak and Dagger gameplay loop:
Basic Cloak and Dagger Cooldown rotation
- Begin by hitting a Dagger E (Veil of Lightforce) on allies once their HP starts to dwindle. As soon as you start taking damage or need healing, throw a Dagger RMB (Dagger Storm) on the ground below you.
- Swap to Cloak, unless Dagger’s healing is immediately needed for allies. Play in and out of Dagger Storm’s AoE until the 6 seconds are up
- Right before Dagger Storm drops, fire Cloak’s E (Terror Cape) at the nearest enemies, then back off for 1.5 seconds, trying to position behind cover or tanks, as they are blinded.
- Use Eternal Bond (Q/Ultimate) and navigate the trail through an area you’ll be able to fight in once you end Eternal Bond.
- Fight in Eternal Bond’s healing trail, using Dagger to heal allies.
- Activate Cloak’s RMB, turning you invisible and allowing you to fly briefly. By the time Dark Teleportation’s invisibility goes down, you should have fully reset your first survival tools (Dagger Storm/Terror Cape) and you can repeat the combo, skipping Eternal Bond, to keep fighting.
Basic Combo: Dagger RMB + Shift to Cloak + Cloak E + Ultimate/Q + Cloak RMB + Shift to Dagger + Dagger RMB + Shift to Cloak + Cloak E + Cloak RMB.
Cloak and Dagger only have 2.5 seconds of downtime between their various survivability tools. Proper timing means Cloak and Dagger can survive for an absurdly long time even by their lonesome. With their Ultimate, the pair can perform two back-to-back full rotations, one before the ultimate, and one after. Choose which of the three abilities is most important (Cloak RMB, Dagger RMB, Cloak E.), and use that one first. With enough practice, Cloak and Dagger can solo heal an entire group thanks to their survivability and solid damage output.
Nicholas James is a gaming writer with a passion for all things geekdom, as well as live theater. Nicholas is best known for covering League of Legends and other top MOBA titles, but his expertise covers numerous games across multiple genres. When not watching the LCS or playing the latest new release, Nicholas can be found doing some tabletop gaming and painting his favorite miniatures. Nicholas has also published with Hotspawn, TheGamer, Dexerto, Esports.gg and other industry outlets.
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