Marvel Rivals: How to Beat Galactus, Thanos, and Every Major Boss Fight

I've wiped on Galactus probably 40 times before I found a group that actually communicated. The fight isn't hard mechanically. It's hard because six random people have to coordinate six different jobs simultaneously and one person messing up their role wipes the entire team.

Marvel Rivals has three bosses worth talking about right now. Galactus is the big Season 1 raid with half a million HP. Thanos rotates in for special events with a gauntlet of six different mechanics. And Doctor Doom shows up monthly with his army of Doombots. Each one demands a different approach, a different team comp, and different things from each role.

Galactus: The Cosmic Threat

Half a million HP spread across three phases. You need two hitscan DPS, not negotiable. The cosmic rings in phase one are practically unhittable with projectile heroes. Hela and Punisher are the standard picks. If your team locks in Storm and Iron Man for this fight, you're going to have a bad time.

Phase one, Galactus hovers above the map completely invulnerable. Six glowing rings orbit him. Those are the actual targets. Each destroyed ring spawns three flying Herald adds that will murder your supports if ignored. One DPS handles rings, the other handles adds. Tanks and supports stay alive. That's the whole phase.

Phase two changes everything. Galactus lands and now you can damage him directly. Every 15 seconds he does a cosmic stomp that hits everyone within 20 meters for about 200 damage. Tanks can eat it but DPS and supports need to be outside the radius when the tell animation plays. The World Ender Beam locks onto one player and sweeps across the entire arena. You hide behind the cosmic debris pillars that spawn during this phase or you die. Simple as that.

The positioning trick most people miss is having your tanks stand on opposite sides of Galactus. He turns like a cargo ship. While he's facing one tank, the other tank and the DPS are hammering his legs from behind. Destroy one leg and he staggers for five seconds. That's when you drop everything and unload.

Phase three is why you save your ultimates. Every single mechanic from phase one and two fires simultaneously. Rings, stomps, beams, adds, all at once. If your Luna doesn't have ultimate ready, people start dropping. Groot's ultimate traps the adds so DPS can clear them. Every other ultimate goes into Galactus's head. This phase is a pure DPS check. You either kill him fast or the mechanics overwhelm you.

Groot and Magneto on tank duty. Groot walls block the beam. Magneto bubble saves whoever gets caught out. Hela and Punisher for damage. Luna and Rocket for heals. Rocket's revive beacon is not optional. Someone will die to a beam. They need to come back immediately.

Thanos: The Infinity Gauntlet

Thanos has 350,000 HP but the real challenge is six distinct phases, each tied to an Infinity Stone, in a fixed order you have to memorize.

Power Stone he just hits hard. Massive area punches. Spread out. If your team is stacked together one punch hits all six of you and your supports can't outheal that.

Space Stone teleports everyone randomly. You have about three seconds to find your team and group up before the next mechanic targets isolated players. Call out where you landed.

Reality Stone spawns three Thanos illusions alongside the real one. I wasted so much damage on fakes before someone pointed out that only the real Thanos casts a shadow on the ground. Check the floor. Shoot the one with a shadow.

Time Stone slows your entire team to a crawl. Luna Snow's ultimate is the hard counter. It cleanses the slow and keeps everyone alive through the duration. If your Luna ulted too early and doesn't have it, you just have to survive.

Mind Stone mind controls one player who then attacks their own team for 10 seconds. The knee jerk reaction is to kill them. Don't. Mantis sleep or Luna freeze stops them without doing damage. If you kill your controlled teammate, they actually die.

Soul Stone marks one player with an orange glow. Five seconds later, if they're not behind hard cover, they die instantly. No revive. Just gone. That player needs to recognize the glow and sprint to cover. Nobody can save them.

Star-Lord and Spider-Man are the best DPS picks. They can dodge most of these mechanics. Luna is borderline mandatory for the Time Stone. Mantis for the Mind Stone sleep.

Doctor Doom and Farming

Doctor Doom is the easiest of the three and honestly the best use of your time if you're farming. Clear takes about 8 minutes with a competent group. Galactus takes 20 to 30 and the drop rates aren't proportionally better.

Phase one is a three minute survival gauntlet. Doom is invincible while Doombots spawn in waves. More than eight Doombots alive at once means a team wipe. Two DPS dedicated to bot clearing. Tanks just kite and survive. Supports keep everyone breathing.

Phase two you finally fight Doom himself. He cycles a force field that blocks all damage for 8 seconds. Don't waste cooldowns during it. Lightning storm drops circles under every player. Keep moving. At half HP he calls four more Doombots. Clear them or you wipe.

Boss loot is weekly. One clear per boss per week. Legendary skins have about a 2% drop rate. Don't expect one every week. If you only have time for one boss, farm Doom.

What Most Groups Get Wrong

I've joined probably 30 Galactus groups through LFG and about half of them wiped on phase one because they didn't assign roles. Six people all shooting rings, nobody killing adds. The add player gets overwhelmed and dies, then a second person dies, and the whole thing cascades. Honestly it's kind of impressive how quickly it all falls apart.

Spend 30 seconds before the fight assigning roles. Who's killing adds? Who's calling ring focus? Which tank is holding left side versus right side? Three minutes of planning saves 20 minutes of wiping. I know everyone just wants to start the fight but trust me on this.

Thanos groups mess up Soul Stone the most. The marked player freezes or doesn't notice the orange glow. Five seconds is not a lot of time when you're in the middle of a fight. Make sure everyone knows what the orange glow looks like before you start. I've wiped to Soul Stone more than any other mechanic and it's always because someone didn't know what to look for.

Doctor Doom is the easiest of the three but groups still wipe to Doombot overflow. If you hear someone mention there are too many bots alive, drop everything and help clear. Doom can wait. The bots cannot. Honestly Doom is kind of the most fun boss fight too since it doesn't take half an hour.