Groot is an B-Tier, Vanguard class Hero in Marvel Rivals. Read on to learn how to play Groot, as well as a list of abilities, skins, and voice actors!
Table of Contents
Related Article
Hero Tier List (Season 1)Groot Hero Overview
| Tier | |
|---|---|
| Role | Vanguard |
| Difficulty | ★★・・・ |
| Real Name | Groot |
| VA | EN: Adam Harrington |
Good Groot or Bad Groot
Playing Groot means that either you’re the most impressive vanguard in the game or you’re the reason why you’re team is losing. There’s no middleground in playing as a walking tree in Marvel Rivals.
Hero Tier List (Season 1)Groot Pros and Cons
| Pros | - Able to trap or single out enemies |
|---|---|
| Cons | - Ineffective in maps with moving objectives |
Can Protect Against Ultimates
Groot’s Walls can be used to protect against ultimates from Scarlet Witch or obscure Hawkeye’s vision when he uses Hunter’s Sight.
Can Trap Enemies
Groot can use the walls to their advantage by trapping enemies in doorways or choke points to single them out quick eliminations.
Enemies Can Hide in Walls Too
The greatest problem with Groot’s walls is that they can also be used by enemies as cover and oftentimes, can keep your team from capturing an objective.
Best Hero Companions
Black Panther or Squirrel Girl
Groot’s best hero companion isn’t Rocket Raccoon or Jeff the Landshark and while their team-up ability grants them damage reduction, by hopping atop Groot, they’re more exposed, easier to be focus fired and sniped.
The best hero companions for Groot are any heroes that can make use of the angles that he creates when he deploys his walls such Black Panther whose side-to-side movement can give him cover and other attack angles on Groot’s walls or Squirrel Girl whose acorns can bounce on the walls to hit enemies.
How to Play Groot
No Headshot!
As Groot, you’re primary attack, Vine Strike (Left Click) is a projectile that doesn’t have a headshot, meaning that your damage is the same on whichever body part you hit.
Groot’s Basic Combo
Groot’s basic attack combo is simply Spore Bomb (Right Click), Vine Strike (Left Click) and followed up with a melee attack. As Groot, your role isn’t to have the most kills but to make life harder for your enemies to capture an objective. Never use Groot in long-range since his primary is projectile and can be dodged.
Create Ramps
As Groot, you can change the angles of your walls by pressing the ability button again to adjust its angle. By adjusting the angles of the walls, you can create ramps to reach higher places.
Set Up Walls Atop Doorways
Never use walls in doorways unless you’re delaying the enemy team. Instead, a much better use for walls is to set them atop doorways and being near it so that it awakens and damages an enemy when they pass through the doorway.
Groot’s Ultimate Combo
Use your ultimate ability alongside duelists that can help you with damaging an enemy. The best combo for Groot’s ultimate is to set up a wall behind multiple enemies and activate Strangling Prison. This will hold down enemies long enough for your teammates to eliminate squishies or greatly damage vanguards.
Groot Hero Lore
Groot
He is Groot, a flora colossus from the branch world of Planet X capable of manipulating plant matter and regrowing his damaged body from a single splinter. The hero at the heart of the Guardians of the Galaxy, Groot may not have many words to say, but his actions always speak for themselves.
Groot accompanied Star-Lord and Rocket on a scouting mission to Klyntar, where they became stranded after their ship was shot down. Klyntar's dark king, Knull, now seeks to corrupt Groot's regenerative powers in an effort to cultivate the ultimate symbiote.
Hero Story
Groot Always Have Friends| When the Milano crashed, Groot stood around for awhile watching Rocket and Quill argue about whose fault it was, but soon after, he got distracted by the voices from the jungle surrounding the ship graveyard. The strange creeping tones broke through alien foliage, flooding past the caps and reaching him, but Groot was far enough away that he couldn’t decipher their language. Eventually, Rocket and Quill got on his nerves enough that he had to get away from them, so he went for a walk. As he walked away, he heard Rocket say, “See? Even Groot can’t take your crap, Quill. I’m gonna go find a way out of here while you sit here and pretend you know how to fix the ship!” He heard Rocket stomping away in another direction, but Groot didn’t try to meet up with him. Rocket needed time by himself sometimes, and so did Groot. Especially on strange planets that stank of death. The ship had come down near one end of the graveyard containing… hundreds of other ships? Maybe more? Groot wasn’t good at counting. He wandered away from the fire that burned in the Milano’s crash path, finding himself at the edge of the jungle. The voices of the jungle spoke to him, and Groot stopped and stood still, trying hard to listen now that he was close enough to understand what they were saying. Away get away we’ll hurt you if you get close A chill ran down Groot’s branches, straight into his roots. He had never heard plants talk like this. He stayed still, letting his consciousness drift out and collect impressions like a pollinator floating from flower to flower. Hurt you hunger survival death prison Klyntar Hey, Groot thought to them. You don’t have to be afraid. You don’t belong here “I am Groot,” Groot said. He looked at the edge of the jungle, where it tumbled over the hulks of wrecked ships, grew among them and over them, strove to reclaim them and make it as if they were never there. These were not plants like he had ever encountered. They were part plant and part…something else. Something from Klyntar, made of Klyntar. Beings of some kind, that could only exist when they bonded to something else, creating a new being that was part host and part parasite. Groot was horrified and fascinated. I’m new here, Groot thought. Go away go back where you came from It’s all right, Groot emanated peace and kindness. I am Groot. None of them had names. They conferred among themselves, snapped at each other, screamed and wailed and whispered in pheromonal registers only they and Groot could understand. They were still afraid. Even more, they were confused by how friendly Groot was. He could feel that in their responses. It was like nobody had ever been friendly to them before. This planet must be a hard place to live, Groot communed. That idea confused them too, because it had never occurred to any of them that it was possible to live somewhere else, and they had never considered this place a “planet”. Oh yes, friends, Groot expressed. I’ve been to dozens of other worlds. This one is… He struggled to find a thought that was honest without being hurtful. Tough, he thought. Not too friendly. What is friendly? Wow, Groot thought. So that’s what he was dealing with. He tried to project a feeling of openness. Trust, feeling understood, and knowing you were never alone, surrounded by the people important to you. The jungle plants were still confused…but now they were also curious. Weakness was whispered back to Groot. No, Groot said. Trust takes strength. They considered this. He could feel their conflicting reactions, and Groot could not help but be astonished that none of the jungle plants had ever considered what was trust. It was so fundamental to his relationship with Rocket, and Quill, and the other Guardians… Heat seared his branches as a huge explosion bloomed over the junkyard. Groot flinched away from it, stepping into the jungle, and turned to look from the relative safety of the tangled vines and underbrush. The fire caused by the Milano’s crash had spread, and finally found another ship with a reserve of fuel or ammunition. The mushroom cloud of the explosion still spread over Klyntar’s black sky, and the fire was now racing across the graveyard. Towards the jungle. Panic and fear spread among the plants. Groot felt fear too, partly for them and partly for himself. Fire was any plant’s worst enemy, worse even than drought. At least in a drought, you could hope for rain. Also, Groot could move. These plants…they might be part symbiote, but by and large they were still rooted to their spots. That meant Groot had to help them. He saw the fire approaching, licking along the lines of the crashed ship toward the edges of the graveyard, where the jungle had begun to reclaim the wrecks. Already some plants were forced out of their innate shape – black, slimy liquid dripping between their leaves, but their new symbiote form could not help them confront nor escape their natural enemy. Flowers screamed their pain, but there was no host for them with which to bond, no shelter for them to hide -- so Groot got angry. In his anger he grew. Thousands of feet of roots dug into Klyntar’s soil, spreading along the boundary of the jungle. Groot forced them out, felt them searching for nourishment and finding little, but still he grew them, until he had created an intertwined mat of roots under the soil, overlapping the edge of the jungle and the outermost crashed spaceships. Then, he closed his eyes and lifted them up. The earth heaved under those ships, toppling them over away from the jungle with a gargantuan sound of tearing roots and shifting earth. The pain of tearing the plant life from himself was nothing compared to the satisfaction Groot felt when the wall of roots and wrecked spaceships collapsed on the fire, suffocating it immediately where it had been threatening the jungle. Even those few embers that remained would have had to cross a firebreak fifty yards across to reach the jungle. Groot let the roots die off into the earth. He stood silently for a moment, recovering his strength as the fire sputtered and crackled among the jumbled wreckage. He was happy. Even better, he heard the voices of the jungle, and he could tell that his new plant friends were grateful. Groot save us Groot go save other friend, one of them said. What? Which friend? Groot looked back over the ship graveyard. The area around the Milano was still unburned, so unless Quill had gone wandering, he was fine. That left Rocket. One of the plants --thin leaves clinging to spine-liked stem with a mouth similar to symbiotes on the end of this stem-- volunteered that it had seen a smallish mammal headed in the direction of the old complex of buildings. Groot didn’t know where that was. The plant rustled and tensed some of its leaves. They pointed in a certain direction. When Groot looked that way, he saw two things. One, the fire had spread not just to the edge of the jungle but a complex of buildings he had somehow missed. Rocket is in there? The plant coiled in a shrugging motion. That way. Groot thanked the plant and charged across the ship graveyard, giving the fire a wide berth and arriving at a corner of the building complex just as one side of it was catching fire. He punched through a wall on the other side. “I am Groot!” he roared over the sound of the fire. “Groot, you idiot! What took you so long? You think I’m in here for my health?” Rocket was alive! Groot charged into the building toward the sound of Rocket’s voice. Halfway there, he ran straight into a group of tentacled black monsters. They were trying to get at Rocket, who was stuck inside a room with some kind of energy barrier blocking its doorway with turrets ripped out of the walls, strewn upon the floor. “I AM GROOT!” he roared, tearing the monsters apart. More came from the darkened halls and rooms. Groot tore them to pieces too, but there were still more, and still more. He knew he might not make it to Rocket, but that wasn’t going to stop him from trying. Their fangs and claws stung his bark and tore at his roots. Groot roared and fought back. He heard Rocket calling his name, but he couldn’t spare the focus to answer. All he could do at that moment was stay alive as the black monsters overran him. Then help came from an unexpected source. Fungi-like plants sprouted from the dark. Groot witnessed the fangs on their caps pierced through the monsters, tearing them apart, and the minor plants under their cover gobbled the pieces all up. We help! The plants called to Groot. “I am Groot!” he shouted back, glad to see his new friends -- and feeling proud that on this planet where every plant was suspicious and hostile, he had helped them learn how to be friends. “Who are you talking to? I’m over here!” Rocket shouted. “I am Groot!” “What do you mean, it’s hard to explain?” Groot didn’t try to elaborate. He fought through the remaining symbiotes to reach Rocket, who was hunkered down in a small room with an energy barrier across the door. “I am Groot.” “Yeah, I know.” Rocket turned off the energy barrier. “How did you know I was here?” Groot turned and pointed at the symbiote plant, which was clinging to a corner of the corridor, extending its leaves, pretending to be a casual plant. Not a successful mimicry, obviously, for it was still trying to force the mouth on its stem to smile friendly. “I am Groot.” “Groot, you moron! You trusted a symbiote to tell you how to help me escape from other symbiotes?” Groot looked at Rocket. “I am Groot.” “I know it worked! Still…” Rocket gave up. “Whatever. Anyway, Quill needs help way worse than I do. Come on, we gotta get back to the Milano before the symbiotes remember he’s there.” Rocket powered the energy barrier down and started detaching it from its fixtures in the doorframe. “Here, you gotta carry this. I’m gonna use it to fix the ship.” He chuckled to himself. “Quill’s gonna feel so dumb when I show him this trick. I love it.” Groot picked up the energy barrier projection frame and started back toward the Milano. The voices of Klyntar’s plants were still in his head. He felt proud of himself for what the symbiote plants had done, not because Groot could take credit for it, but because he had helped them see what they could do on their own, just by being friendly. He'd tell Rocket about it one day, but he knew deep down that Rocket already understood the power of friendship. |
| Coming Soon, Stay Tuned! |
| Coming Soon, Stay Tuned! |
