Marvel Rivals Terminology: A Glossary of Slang and Callouts
A plain-English A-to-Z glossary of Marvel Rivals terminology, decoding peel, poke, dive, off-tank, LOS and every callout you keep hearing in voice chat.
You drop into voice chat and someone barks "peel for me!" while a teammate pings "they're diving the backline, watch your LOS." If half of that sounds like a coded language, you're not bad at the game — you just haven't learned the vocabulary yet. This guide is a working glossary of Marvel Rivals terminology: the shooter and hero-shooter slang that flies around in ranked lobbies and coaching videos. Learn these words once and every callout, every guide, and every "what does peel mean" moment suddenly makes sense. No fluff, no memorization drills — just a reference table you can keep open and the handful of concepts worth understanding deeply.
The Marvel Rivals slang glossary, A to Z
Bookmark this table. It's arranged alphabetically so you can scan for whatever word just confused you mid-match. Each entry gives the plain-English meaning plus how you'd actually hear it in a real callout.
| Term | Plain-English meaning | Heard in a callout |
|---|---|---|
| Aggro | The attention or threat you're drawing from enemies. | "I've got their aggro, collapse now." |
| Anti / anti-heal | Reducing or blocking the healing a target can receive. | "He's anti'd, he can't get healed — finish him." |
| Backline | Your squishier heroes positioned behind the front — usually damage and support. | "Protect the backline, they're flanking." |
| Bodyblock | Using your own body to physically block a path or absorb shots. | "Bodyblock the door so she can't escape." |
| Burst | A large chunk of damage dealt in a very short window. | "Burst him before their healer reacts." |
| CC | Crowd control — stuns, roots, slows, knockups that limit a hero's actions. | "Save your CC for their dive." |
| Cleanse | An ability that strips debuffs or CC off an ally. | "I can cleanse the stun, just call it." |
| Collapse | The whole team converging on one target or chokepoint at once. | "Collapse mid, they overextended." |
| Cooldown (CD) | The wait time before you can reuse an ability. | "My escape is on CD, don't dive yet." |
| Cover | Terrain you stand behind to break line of sight and block damage. | "Back to cover, I'm out of heals." |
| Dive | A coordinated push straight into the enemy backline. | "On my count, we dive their support." |
| DPS | Damage per second, and also slang for the damage-dealer role. | "DPS, swap onto the flanker." |
| Flank | Attacking from the side or behind, off the main path. | "Someone's flanking left, watch it." |
| Focus / focus fire | Everyone shooting the same target to kill it fast. | "Focus the healer first." |
| Frontline | The tanks and bruisers holding forward space for the team. | "Hold the frontline, don't give ground." |
| High ground | An elevated position with better sightlines and safer angles. | "Take high ground before we push." |
| LOS | Line of sight — whether you can see a target to shoot or heal it. | "Break their LOS behind the pillar." |
| Off-angle | An unexpected position away from the main sightline. | "I'll hit them from an off-angle up top." |
| Overextend | Pushing too far forward without support to back you up. | "Don't overextend, we're a man down." |
| Peek | Briefly stepping out to shoot, then ducking back into cover. | "Peek and poke, don't commit." |
| Peel | Protecting an ally by killing or knocking off whoever's on them. | "Peel for me, I'm getting dove!" |
| Poke | Chip damage from range to soften enemies before the fight. | "Poke them down before we go in." |
| Rotate | Moving the team to a new angle, lane, or objective. | "Rotate to the second point." |
| Stagger | Dying at different times so you re-enter the fight one by one. | "Regroup, don't stagger in." |
| Sustain | Ongoing healing or self-healing that keeps a hero alive under fire. | "He has too much sustain, ignore him." |
| Tempo | Who currently holds the initiative and is forcing the action. | "We have tempo, keep the pressure on." |
| Trade | Exchanging a kill for a kill, ideally in your favor. | "Even trade, we still have ults." |
| Ult economy | Tracking which ultimates each team has ready. | "They're down two ults, force now." |
| Zoning | Using threat and abilities to deny enemies space. | "Zone them off the health pack." |
Dive tank vs off-tank meaning (and why people mix them up)
The tank vocabulary trips up the most newcomers, partly because the terms overlap. Here's the clean version. A main tank (or anchor) is the one who holds the frontline, eats space, and creates room for the team — think of the big, immovable presence pressing forward. An off-tank is your second tank, who plays more aggressively and flexibly: more damage, more roaming, less about standing on the point. Venom is a great mental model for a dive-oriented off-tank — he leaps onto the backline and creates chaos rather than parking on the objective.
So what's a dive tank? It's a tank whose whole job is initiating — closing distance fast and jumping the enemy's squishy heroes. Captain America and Thor both fit this mold; they'd rather crash into the backline than trade shots across the room. The confusion is that a dive tank is usually played as the off-tank, so people use the words loosely. The distinction that matters: "off-tank" describes the role slot (your second tank), while "dive tank" describes the playstyle (an initiator built to jump). One is about position on the roster, the other is about how you spend your time in a fight.
- Holds the frontline and controls space
- Body is on the objective more often
- Absorbs damage and enables teammates
- Dies last, retreats deliberately
- Plays aggressive, roaming angles
- Jumps the enemy backline to create chaos
- Trades brawn for mobility and burst
- Picks moments, then resets to cover
VerdictNot every tank is one or the other — but knowing the difference tells you whether your job is to hold ground or to make trouble.
Reading a team fight through the jargon
Once you know the words, callouts stop being noise and start being a play-by-play. A typical fight sounds like a sequence of these terms strung together, and each one is a decision point. Here's how a clean engagement reads out loud.
- Poke — soften the enemy from range and bait out cooldowns before anyone commits.
- Ult economy check — someone calls whether both teams have ultimates ready; that decides if you force or wait.
- Dive / collapse — the initiator jumps a target and the team converges to focus fire it down.
- Peel — supports and off-tanks turn to protect whoever the enemy is diving in return.
- Trade or reset — if you win the exchange you push tempo; if it's even, you rotate back to cover and regroup rather than stagger in.
Get the Winning Edge
Real-time overlays, automatic match tracking, and exclusive tools — everything you need to climb, free on your PC.
- In-game overlays
- Automatic match tracking
- Desktop-exclusive tools
Help us maintain accuracy! If you notice incorrect stats, missing data, or any issues, your feedback directly improves the quality of our data for the entire community.
Guide FAQ
What does peel mean in Marvel Rivals?
Peel means protecting a teammate — usually a support or a damage hero — by dealing with whoever is attacking them. If an enemy dives your healer, peeling for them means you stun, body-block, or burst down that attacker so your teammate survives. It's one of the most valuable habits you can build, because keeping your backline alive is often worth more than getting a kill yourself.
What's the difference between a dive tank and an off-tank?
The dive tank vs off-tank meaning comes down to role versus playstyle. "Off-tank" describes your second tank slot — the more aggressive, flexible one, as opposed to the main tank anchoring the frontline. "Dive tank" describes a playstyle: a tank whose job is to initiate by jumping onto the enemy backline. Most dive tanks are played in the off-tank slot, which is why the words get used interchangeably, but they aren't technically the same thing.
What does poke mean, and how is it different from burst?
Poke is chip damage from range meant to soften enemies and bait out their cooldowns before a fight actually starts — you're peeking out, landing a few shots, then ducking back to cover. Burst is the opposite: a big chunk of damage dumped in a very short window to delete a target quickly. Poke sets up a fight; burst finishes one.
Why do teammates keep saying LOS?
LOS stands for line of sight — whether you can actually see a target to shoot or heal it. You can't damage or heal through walls, so "break their LOS" means hide behind terrain, and "I don't have LOS on you" from a support means you've walked out of their view and are getting no heals. If someone calls it, reposition so you can see each other again.
Do I really need to learn all this slang to play well?
You don't need the whole glossary to enjoy casual matches, but learning the core terms makes you a dramatically better teammate the moment you touch ranked or watch a coaching video. Callouts are just fast, shared shorthand — once peel, dive, poke, LOS, and ult economy click, you'll react to comms in real time instead of guessing. Start with the five in the quick answer and pick up the rest from the table as they come up.