Lord is the highest proficiency rank you can earn on any hero in Marvel Rivals, and reaching it requires completing a significant number of proficiency missions across categories like time played, KOs, damage dealt, damage blocked, healing, and hero-specific challenges. The grind typically takes somewhere between 17 and 25 hours per hero, depending on the character and how efficiently you choose your game modes.
Quick answer: Play Doom Match for Duelists, Quick Play or Competitive for Vanguards, and Conquest for most Strategists. Match the game mode to the proficiency missions your hero needs, and prioritize minimizing downtime between fights.
How proficiency missions differ by role
Not every hero tracks the same set of proficiency missions, and understanding what your character actually needs is the first step toward farming efficiently. Duelists generally have the widest spread of mission types — time played, KOs, damage dealt, and a hero-specific special condition. Vanguards typically track three categories: time played, KOs, and damage blocked. Strategists usually need only time played and KOs, though many also have ability-specific challenges like sleeping or freezing enemies.
Because the mission categories vary, no single game mode is universally optimal. The key is matching your hero's required stats to the mode that generates those stats fastest, with the least amount of idle time spent in menus, cutscenes, and queue screens.
Best game mode for each role
| Role | Recommended Mode | Why It Works |
|---|---|---|
| Duelist | Doom Match | Fast respawns, constant combat, easy to rack up damage and final hits in a free-for-all setting |
| Vanguard | Quick Play / Competitive | Longer matches provide more time to accumulate damage blocked and KOs in team fights |
| Strategist | Conquest (most heroes) or Quick Play / Competitive (ability-dependent heroes) | Conquest offers quick respawns with refreshed abilities on small maps; QP/Comp is better for heroes needing sustained team interaction |
Doom Match for Duelists
Doom Match is a free-for-all mode where enemies are everywhere, and matches end quickly. For Duelists, this is ideal because you spend almost all of your time in active combat rather than walking back from spawn or waiting for objectives to flip. Damage output is high, final hits come naturally since everyone is fighting independently, and hero-specific conditions — like landing ability hits on multiple targets — are much easier to trigger when opponents are scattered all around you.
The tradeoff is that some heroes feel terrible in Doom Match. Characters that rely heavily on team synergies or have kits designed around protecting teammates won't thrive here. But for the majority of Duelists, the sheer density of combat makes it the fastest path to Lord.
Quick Play and Competitive for Vanguards
Vanguards need damage blocked as one of their core proficiency stats, and that only accumulates meaningfully in team-based modes where enemies are focusing fire on you during objective fights. Quick Play and Competitive matches tend to run longer than other modes, giving you extended windows to soak damage, secure KOs, and build time played — all in a single game.
Competitive has a slight edge in raw efficiency because it cuts down on pre-game and post-game screen time. You spend less time watching unskippable dialogue and cutscenes, which adds up over dozens of matches. However, if you're purely farming proficiency without caring about your rank, be mindful that teammates in Competitive expect you to play to win.
Conquest and Quick Play for Strategists
Strategists are the most variable role when it comes to optimal farming. Conquest works well for heroes like Rocket Raccoon, Loki, and Jeff the Land Shark because the small maps and fast respawns generate a high volume of KOs and assists in a short time. Every time you respawn in Conquest, your abilities are fully refreshed, which is a major advantage if your hero has ability-specific challenges like freezing or sleeping targets.
Invisible Woman is another exception. Her proficiency missions require shielding and healing, which are hard to farm in Doom Match or Conquest since those modes are too chaotic to consistently support allies. Quick Play is the better fit for her, with an expected grind time of roughly 23 to 25 hours.
Approximate time investment
Reaching Lord is not a quick process, regardless of how you optimize. Experienced players who actively target the right game modes report the following approximate totals:
| Hero | Approximate Hours to Lord |
|---|---|
| Hela | ~17 hours |
| Mantis | ~18 hours |
| Doctor Strange | ~18 hours |
| Loki | ~20 hours |
| Invisible Woman | ~23–25 hours |
These numbers assume you're consistently playing and actively working toward proficiency missions rather than just passively accumulating time. Your mileage will vary based on skill level, win rate, and how well your chosen mode aligns with the hero's mission requirements.
Minimizing downtime between matches
One of the biggest factors in farming speed isn't what happens during a match — it's what happens between matches. Queue times, loading screens, post-game scoreboards, and unskippable dialogue all eat into your effective playtime. Competitive tends to have the shortest queue times and the least filler between rounds. Conquest can sometimes have longer queues (around two minutes per game in some regions), which partially offsets its in-match efficiency.
If you notice queue times climbing in a particular mode, switching to Quick Play or Competitive for a few games can keep your overall pace steady. The goal is to maximize the percentage of your session spent in active gameplay.
General tips for faster proficiency gains
- Focus on special conditions first. Time played and KOs accumulate naturally. Hero-specific challenges — like landing a certain number of ability hits — often require deliberate play and are the real bottleneck.
- Don't force a mode that doesn't fit your hero. If a Strategist's kit revolves around team healing, Doom Match will waste your time no matter how fast the matches are.
- Play the hero you're grinding consistently. Switching between heroes resets your momentum and splits your progress across multiple proficiency tracks.
Lord proficiency is a long-term commitment no matter how you approach it, but choosing the right game mode for your hero's role and mission set can shave hours off the grind. Duelists belong in Doom Match, Vanguards belong in team modes, and Strategists should evaluate their specific challenges before queuing up.