Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, or simply ML, is one of the more popular MOBA mobile games in the Philippines and has attracted millions of fans from different provinces and various walks of life. When Moonton first released ML in 2016, it started with only ten stable playable characters, which is no longer the case today.
In the following years since its first introduction, the official pool of champions has reached over 120 heroes, with Moonton designing, creating, and testing over a hundred additional heroes.
Now, with over a hundred heroes to choose from in the game (and with more heroes in the works), you must learn to identify and understand the different hero roles or classes, how each hero role contributes to the team’s battle performance, and whether they can help the team win or lose.
In this article, we will look at the six hero roles in Mobile Legends, how they fill the team’s lanes, and their participation in team fights. Hopefully, this will help you choose your desired role in your group.
Table of Contents
What is a hero role in Mobile Legends?
A role in Mobile Legends is the classification of heroes based on their attributes, abilities, and skill sets that you can choose from. Attributes like damage dealt, durability, speed, magic power, and others dictate a hero’s role.
There are six general hero roles: Marksman, Fighter, Assassin, Mage, Tank, and Support. Each hero’s strengths based on their role will complement other heroes’ lack or weakness. This way, a team comprised of balanced and well-represented positions will have a higher chance of winning a game.
However, we will also later learn that these hero roles are not set in stone, as some have a dual role, which combines two different classes. Heroes can also undergo reworks that can change their roles.
Marksman
A marksman is a hero who uses ranged attacks to deliver strong hits on enemies. Because of their superior long-ranged, basic damage, they can easily attack their foes from behind without getting hit back, allowing them to cause heavy damage to the opposing team’s heroes and turrets.
However, a marksman has a naturally short HP or health bar, making them vulnerable to burst damages from assassins or mages. To counter this, they need to hide behind tougher heroes, like a tank or fighter, so they can survive clashes while still causing enough harm to the enemies.
Marksmen are usually identifiable by their choice of weapon, a bow, or a gun. However, some marksman uses other unusual, ranged armaments or even go without any weapon, like Brody.
Since marksmen rely primarily on their normal attacks to deal serious damage, they can take on the Lord alone once they get enough equipment. Marksmen are usually the easier heroes to start with for beginners since they are long-ranged. ML’s hero number one is also a marksman, Miya.
There are currently 17 pure Marksman in Mobile Legends.
Examples of Pure Marksmen: Miya, Bruno, Clint, Layla, Moskov, Karrie, Irithel, Hanabi, Granger, and Brody.
Fighter
Fighters are usually melee heroes (short-range) that have a balance of attacking prowess and defensive capacities. They have enough durability to act as a semi-tank and take on damage for the team while also having impressive attacking powers to act as a damage-dealer that can even rival those of an assassin.
Fighters are also strong enough to guard or clear lanes on their own while also engaging in team fights to aid their team in both offense and defense. There are currently 25 pure Fighters in the latest game updates.
Examples of Pure Fighters: Balmond, Chou, Sun, Alpha, Lapu-Lapu, Argus, Jawhead, Martis, Yu Zhong, and Aldous
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Assassin
An assassin is commonly the team’s primary damage-dealer, capable of breaking through defenses to fish out the ‘soft’ or low durability heroes that can cause the most damage, particularly the marksmen and mages. The challenge for assassins in infiltrating the enemy lines is how to attack their targets, who usually hide behind tough guards of tanks and fighters.
To be successful in this role, you need to understand that assassins are patient, strategic, and opportunistic about when will be the proper time to jump in the commotion of a team fight. Then, after killing one or two enemies, they use their agile skills to escape the chaos and return safely to their team’s side.
Assassins have low durability but with high burst damage, whose primary goal is to get in, kill, and get out. Hence, they are better suited for more experienced players with the agility to control heroes with higher difficulties. There are currently 13 pure assassins you can choose and master.
Examples of Pure Assassins: Saber, Karina, Hayabusa, Fanny, Natalia, Lancelot, Guision, Ling, Helcurt, and Aamon.
Mage
Mage are power users who use their various skills to inflict high magic damage on their enemies. However, their burst of high-power output requires a lot of mana from expensive equipment before they can cause consistent damage. Mages are great crowd-control heroes because they commonly possess skills that cover a large area that can disrupt the enemy’s positions.
A big disadvantage of using mages is their low durability in battle, and they are an easy target for assassins during team fights, requiring other heroes, like tanks and fighters, to take a bullet for them. Also, since their normal attacks are minuscule compared to their ability spells, they must decrease their cooldown.
Examples of Pure Mage: Nana, Eudora, Gord, Kagura, Cyclops, Vexana, Odette, Valir, Chang’e, and Luo Yi.
Tank
Tanks are called tanks for a reason, and that’s because they are durable with extremely high HP count so that they can withstand constant barrage of attacks from enemies. They are also in charge of leading the frontlines and setting up opportunities to initiate favorable positions for a team fight.
The biggest disadvantage of playing with a tank is its low damage output and limited capabilities to create damage for themselves. This is why tanks, together with marksmen and mages, must cooperate and coordinate properly. The high-damage heroes will supplement a tank’s lack of offensive repertoire. At the same time, a tank acts as a shield to absorb any damage pointed at the less durable heroes.
Examples of Pure Tanks: Tigreal, Akai, Franco, Hylos, Uranus, Belerick, Khufra, Baxia, Atlas, and Gloo
Support
Most heroes take every kill they can get to demonstrate their skills with a sense of pride. However, if you’re a Support, the assist counts matter more because it’s your role to ensure that the party is alive throughout the battle, even if it means sacrificing yourself.
Unlike the heavy-weight tanks that absorb all the damage through their sheer durability, support heroes, on the other hand, aid their teammates by healing or creating shields around them. Supports also rarely go solo because their damage is limited, and their support skills will not be useful unless they pair up with another hero.
The Support heroes have the fewest count in the game, with only five pure support heroes, though other heroes perform a dual role as a support.
Examples of Pure Supports: Rafaela, Estes, Diggie, Angela, Floryn
Hybrid Roles in MLBB
In the early days of Mobile Legends, there were only six distinct roles a player could choose from. However, aside from the six general classifications today, ML also introduced heroes that can function with dual roles. These hybrid roles show a primary and secondary role.
For example, Yi Sun-Shin has the listed role of Assassin/Marksman. The first role written is their primary role, followed by the secondary. In this example, Sun-Shin is a primary Assassin, with a secondary role as a marksman.
Examples of Hybrid Hero Roles:
- Lesley (Marksman/Assassin) – Primary: Marksman, Secondary: Assassin
- Alucard (Fighter/Assassin) – Primary: Fighter, Secondary: Assassin
- Harley (Assassin/Mage) – Primary: Assassin, Secondary: Mage
- Alice (Mage/Tank) – Primary: Mage, Secondary: Tank
- Minotaur (Tank/Support) – Primary: Tank, Secondary: Support
- Kaja (Support/Fighter) – Primary: Support, Secondary: Fighter
Different heroes have different roles to play in a team, so it’s crucial to understand that every role is important in creating a cohesive and winning team. Though you may have some luck playing an all-mage or all-marksman line-up, unfortunately, it is not sustainable, especially in the higher ranks.
Also, remember that there are six roles but only five positions to fill when choosing your lineup, so you must ensure that your group is building a well-balanced team that is not too soft (too many mages and marksmen), not too hard (too many tanks and fighters).
A team should have enough firepower to damage the enemies but be durable enough to avoid getting massacred by the enemy’s assassin. Learn to play your role.
How about you? What role do you play and why? Share your thoughts in the comments.