Groot Guide

My Credentials

I am a Grand Master player who primarily plays Invisible Woman as a main. I also main Peni Parker for a Vanguard and Punisher for a Duelist. I also study top level streamers, tournaments, and data published by first and third party sources to help deliver the most accurate information I can.

Basic Ability Guide (For Beginners)

Groot is an atypical tank in that you don't actually want to throw up barriers in front of your team all the time. Instead, your goal is to primarily draw attention away from your team to yourself, as well as use your walls for trapping.

Groot is a fairly simple character at face value. He only has a basic attack of stretching out his arm to attack at a medium range. His only ranged attack is his throwable Spore Bomb. The bomb has a 6 second cooldown, so you can use it fairly often. Generally, you want to fight with your basic attack and use your bomb as a finisher when you are reloading or the opponent retreats.

There are 2 types of walls you can create. His Thornlash Wall is his basic "green" wall that you will use most often. It has 250 HP, so about as much as the standard DPS character. If an opponent gets near the wall while under fire, the wall will reach out and deal damage to them. You start each match with 2 walls, but you can have 3 on the battlefield at any given point. Adding a 4th wall will make the oldest placed wall self-destruct.

The Ironwood wall is your secondary "red" wall. This has a whopping 750 HP, which is more than Groot has at base health! You can only use one of these at a time, but it has about double the length as the standard wall. This wall not only deals damage, but it can give Groot bonus health as long he is nearby the wall and he (or your team) is dealing damage. Despite only having 1 wall, it only has an 8 second cooldown, compared to the 6 second basic wall cooldown.

The only other noteworthy basics of Groot are his melee and ultimate. His melee can knock opponents airborne on the 3rd hit. His ultimate grabs any opponent within a 8 meter radius and pulls them into the center in a 3.5 second hold. The ultimate does about 140 damage on average. This may seem extremely low, but his ultimate is meant to be a combo tool with your team.

How to Play Groot

I find the best tactic for Groot is to act like the healer police. Healers deal very low damage on their basic attacks, so throwing a wall up can cut off healing for several seconds. What you want to do is single out targets by placing a wall behind them. This will prevent them from leaving, as well as block all basic healing sources, including Luna Snow's ultimate!

Groot has very slow mobility, so you have to be mindful of how far you push forward. It can be difficult to retreat, so try not to chase opponent's down too deep into their back line. Instead of pushing deep, try moving with the objective slowly. Single out your opponent with walls to systematically kill them off one by one.

Be very careful, and I can't stress this enough, not to screw your team over will your walls. You can put a wall up to "protect" your team from damage, but you are just giving both teams a chance to reset with their healers. If your opponent's cant deal damage to you and your team, then your team can't deal damage back (or confirm kills). The same applies to your own healers. If you wall off an ally, they can't get healed anymore and will likely die because you trapped them. Your walls aren't designed to just block incoming damage. Save those walls to trap opponents.

Another way to use Groot's walls is to lock out routes. If you put your Iron Wall on a flanking route that could hurt your team, you can force the opponent to reveal themselves so they can break the wall. If you are capturing an objective, the walls can lock entry points to the room, preventing respawning opponents from rushing back in. Again, just be careful you don't lock away an opponent that your team was about to kill.

Tips and Tricks for Gameplay

A good combat combo to remember is alternating your primary attack with your melee. This obviously only works at close range, but you can reserve ammo while still dealing damage this way. It also gives you an opportunity to utilize Groot's melee ability and knock opponents into the air on the 3rd swing.

If you place a bad wall, don't just leave it there. You can aim at the wall and use the prompt to recall it. This can correct mistakes where you protect an opponent or wall off an ally.

The basic walls can stack onto each other! You can stack 2 together to form a ramp to climb up to spots Groot can't normally reach. You can also angle a second wall to act as a roof, which can prevent characters like Doctor Strange from being able to fly away easily.

Your walls can be repurposed as damage traps and not damage blockers. Simply place them flat against a ceiling where it doesn't block any shots. Any opponent who passes under the walls and gets shot will take extra damage from the wall's attacks! The only way they can remove the walls is exposing themselves and aiming strait up to shoot the ceiling. It makes for a good stall technique, or to punish unaware opponents who stand under them for too long.

Speaking of stalling, you can cacoon yourself in walls if you need to buy some time for your healers to get to you. Your opponent's will likely knock them down quickly, but even a few seconds can make the difference between life and death.

Communicate with your team for your ultimate. It only lasts 3.5 seconds, which isn't enough time for your team to notice and use theirs with you. If you can't talk or type quick, use the quick chat option for "ultimate status". This will ping to your team "Groot's ultimate is ready!", which is a clear sign you want to combo it with someone. Usually, you will see someone like Iron Man ping back that they have theirs, signifying they are ready when you are to ult together.

On convoy maps, be careful placing your walls in front of the objective. It's movement will instantly destroy your walls, and it won't reduce the cooldown from hitting it. It won't slow down the payload, so try to avoid placing walls in front of the convoy altogether.

Pros and Cons

Pros:

• Ideal choice for countering healers
• Walls can trap opponents, making it easy to confirm kills
• incredible combo ultimate
• Can lock down routes and entry points

Cons:

• Can hurt your team if you're not careful
• Struggles against high mobility targets
• Low mobility, easy to target
• The only voice lines you will ever hear is "I am Groot"

Matchups