Jeff the Land Shark Guide: How to Play, Tips and Tricks & Matchups

My Credentials

I am a Celestial player who primarily plays Invisible Woman as a main. I also main Peni Parker for a Vanguard and Squirrel Girl for 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)

Jeff is the most straightforward healer in the game. You fire his primary attack to release a stream of water that heals any teammates in its wake for 130hp her second. It also can damage opponents at the same time, but dealing less damage than healing at 70 damage per second. The range is incredibly far and travels through both allies and opponents at the same time. This makes him perfect for mass healing groups of teammates, or giving constant damage to opponents who are on the other side of your heal target.

He has a secondary fire mode that spits a projectile that only does damage and doesn't heal. It's a low damage output, but it does push hit opponents upwards and backwards a small amount. You would use this mostly for creating space between you and the opponent or pushing them off a nearby ledge.

There are 2 main abilities at Jeff's disposal. First is a healing bubble that can heal 30hp per second, increase healing recieved by 15%, and increases movement speed by 60%, all for a 4 second duration. These bubbles can be shot directly to allies, or be placed on the ground. They will stay avalible for a massive 3 minute timeframe, allowing you to place them strategically around high traffic areas for your team. This should help increase the amount of healing you can offer outside of your main fire mode. The bubbles also can be picked up by Jeff himself, making it a quick healing option in a pinch.

The second ability is his "hide and seek" mode, which allows him to dive underground and gain a few perks. He gets to climb walls, recieved reduced damage, moves 60% faster, and heals himself for 35hp per second. Its mainly a tool to keep yourself alive, but it can also be used to position yourself in unique angles for better healing opportunities.

For his ultimate, Jeff dives underground undetected and chooses a radius to activate his ability. When used, he swallowed up any ally or enemy players who are in the radius. While eaten, enemies take 25 damage per second, while allies heal 225hp per second and recieve up to 150 bonus health if over healed. You can choose to spit allies or enemies separately in the direction you face, or automatically spit out after 6 seconds. Jeff also enters hide and seek mode while carrying swallowed players.

How to Play Jeff

Jeff is an all-in healer who sacrifices flexibility for consistency. You want to stick to the backline like a traditional healer, and occasionally climb up to ledges that offer better angles for healing. You would pick him over other healers in comps that have the team very condensed together, or need a heavy pocket healer for a solo tank.

You want to position yourself at an angle that lets you see as many allies as possible in a strait row. You can be a good ways back from the team thanks to his range, but it does lose some effectiveness if you are too far back. If your team is in a cluster or line from the angle you are at, you can heal multiple allies at once and not have to pick and choose like other healers do.

The healing bubbles have a lot of value and are typically under used. With each having a 3 minute duration, you can continuously place these around the objective for your team. This gives divers plenty of places to recover at, or give your team emergency healing for when you are reloading or are killed. It may not be a massive amount of healing, but that little bit can often be enough to keep allies alive while you reload.

For the most part, pretend your secondary attack doesn't exist. You can often be more threatening to opponents with a constant hp spray than hitting them with the spit shots. Focus on healing instead, and just dive and run away if you enter danger.

One of Jeff's biggest perks is his survivability. He can't be killed in one hit (except for ultimates), even if Hawkeye gets a headshot with a full charge! If you take damage, shoot a quick healing bubble downward and dive underground. You can either quickly escape while healing, or immediately resurface and resume healing if you were simply recovering from a stray shot.

Be very, very cautious with Jeff's ultimate. You can very easily ruin your team's ultimates by eating them mid-use. Swallowing an ulting Iron Man, for example, will completely stop it and cause a miss-use on it (they get 50% charge ult back immediately). So be sure to pay attention to your team and the ults they may use.

On a similar note, your best ultimates will be when you swallow the enemy team (or part of them) and can spit them off a cliff for an easy multi-kill. However, you don't always need to go for a full team-wipe to be effective. Killing 2 players, or even just 1 healer, can be more than enough to let your team finish the job. So don't be too greedy and eat your team in hopes of also getting more opponents.

Tips and Tricks For Gameplay

Despite having a high hp per second recovery, Jeff's ultimate will rarely be useful as a healing ult for your team. Taking them out of the fight is both disorienting and endangering to your un-eaten allies who now will get focus fired. Only try this if your entire team is clustered or they would die without your ultimate (and your main healing wouldn't he enough).

Jeff is surprisingly strong against fliers! His long range and constant damage beam makes it easy to track fliers while they move around. Your team is likely array trying to shoot them, so your extra damage can often be enough to confirm a kill before they fly away.

Similarly, Jeff is also a solid pick against divers who target the back line. Your heal bubble with the hide and seek let you quickly evade the final hit on many diver combos, which let's you escape to fully recover. You might have to run away quite a bit, but evading is more effective than dying and running back constantly.

If you are healing teammates in combat but need to reload, you can very quickly spit out a healing bubble (or multiple bubbles) before you reload. Spitting a quick bubble is faster than reloading, and it gives your target constant heals while you reload. Reloading may not feel like a long time, but this little tech can often make the difference in life and death for your team. Practicing the technique will make you more reactive and effective in those life and death moments.

When leaving the spawn at match starts, fire some healing bubbles into your team as you run to the objective together. This will give a 60% movement boost to everyone nearby the bubble on hit, which can give you a lot more time to setup before the other team arrives.

You can also place some bubbles along a common route from spawn to objective. This gives a speed boost option for recently killed allies who are racing back to point. You should place these bubbles either at the match start, or as you return to objective after being killed (if you have a few seconds to spare away from your team).

If you have a Storm on your team, save your ultimate to combo with hers using your team-up. You can swallow opponents out of healing ults (even their own ults) to prevent them from healing while Storm does massive damage. It's arguably one of the game's best team-ups!

Be cautious when attempting the Storm Team-Up though! Your team may need a healer more than Storm needs the assistance in her ultimate. You joining the ultimate takes away a big healing asset for your team, which could mean their death if they aren't in Storm's path. Sometimes its okay to let Storm ult alone if it means the difference in keeping your team alive.

Pros and Cons

Pros:

• Survivability
• High burst healing
• Heals and damages simultaneously
• High risk/reward ultimate
• He is outrageously cute

Cons:

• Low burst dps
• No flexibile abilities (like Luna's freeze or Cloak's shroud)
• Failed ult = death

Matchups