Superman — Patch 1.62 Verdict
[Default: B]
Superman — Warrior Guide
Superman is a relentless frontline warrior: he flies at you, pins you in place, and refuses to die long enough for his team to clean up. He plays in the slayer lane but nothing like a typical duelist. His value is less about solo kills and more about being an unkillable catalyst for chaos, a bruiser who creates pressure just by being in a sidelane and turns into a teamfight anchor the moment objectives open. You zoom across the screen with a gap-closer, suppress a priority target, and walk away from a 1v2 that would delete most warriors.
That said, he sits at B tier this patch for a reason. The current Thai-server meta leans heavily on poke mages and mobile assassins who can either kite him forever or burst him before he initiates. His damage ceiling is noticeably lower than dedicated fighters like Allain or Veres, and his teamfight impact depends almost entirely on landing his ultimate on the right target, a skill check that punishes autopilot hard. He rewards players who understand target prioritization and enemy cooldown windows. If you already play a dive warrior at Diamond and want a hero with a higher teamfight ceiling than pure split-pushers, he is worth it. If you want consistent carry pressure, look elsewhere this patch.
Strengths
- +Superman's gap-closing Charge ability gives him reliable engage even against teams that build their composition around kiting melee heroes, as long as the player respects cooldown timing.
- +The suppression on Man of Steel is one of the hardest crowd-control effects to play around in the game, effectively removing a key enemy from a teamfight for its full duration with no Purify counterplay window if properly chained.
- +His passive sustain makes him a stubborn laner who can absorb poke and trade back without burning healing items as quickly as other warriors, keeping his gold efficiency high in the slayer lane.
- +Superman's tanky warrior stat spread lets him function as a secondary initiator in teamfights, meaning he doesn't need his team to have a dedicated tank to be effective, he can absorb the first wave of enemy burst and still follow up.
Weaknesses
- −His damage output is noticeably below the tier-one warriors in the current patch, meaning he cannot reliably solo-kill a healthy opponent without his ultimate, which makes split-pushing windows shorter and less threatening.
- −Man of Steel is a single-target suppression, and against a five-man composition built around clustered teamfighting and AOE, its impact is often less decisive than comparable ultimates from other dive initiators.
- −Superman has essentially no reliable escape tool, Charge is an offensive dash with a directional commit, so if he burns it to engage and the fight goes wrong, he is one of the easiest warriors in the roster to punish with burst rotations.
- −High-mobility assassins and mages who can sidestep or blink out of Charge's trajectory, or maintain range throughout a fight, completely neutralize his engage pattern and force him into passive, low-impact trades.
Skill Order
Priority: R > Q > W| Skill | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1q | 1 | · | 3 | · | 5 | · | 7 | · | 9 | · | · | · | 13 | · | · |
2w | · | 2 | · | 4 | · | · | · | 8 | · | 10 | · | 12 | · | 14 | · |
Rr | · | · | · | · | · | 6 | · | · | · | · | 11 | · | · | · | 15 |
Loadout
Core Combos
Standard All-In
Open with Charge to close distance and immediately auto-attack to proc the approach advantage, activate Super Strength for the empowered hits, then suppress with Man of Steel before the enemy can react, use this when your team is already in position to follow up.
Ult-First Hard Engage
Charge in and immediately burn Man of Steel on the enemy carry before they can react, then layer Super Strength for maximum damage during the suppression window, best used when you have confirmed your team is watching the fight and ready to collapse.
Flicker Extended Engage
Use Charge to bait enemy displacement abilities, then Flicker to close the remaining gap to the backline carry and suppress them, reserved for situations where the enemy team is running a back-safe composition that Charge alone cannot reach.
Gameplan
Superman's first real spike is his first full damage-or-tank hybrid item, when his trades in the slayer lane get threatening enough to force the opposing laner to respect his all-in. His strongest window is levels 4 to 6, when Man of Steel first comes online and he can force a decisive fight before the enemy jungler rotates. Through the mid-game he spikes hard around two items, especially in coordinated skirmishes near Dark Slayer. Late game his power plateaus relative to scaling carries, so force decisive teamfights at the 12-18 minute mark rather than dragging the game to a state where his damage becomes irrelevant.
Early Game
Levels 1–6- →Prioritize trading short-burst patterns in the slayer lane using Charge-into-auto to pressure the opponent off experience, but do not commit Man of Steel on a healthy enemy laner unless you are certain of the kill — burn it on the jungler if they dive at level four.
- →Farm safely between level 1–3 and use your passive sustain to stay in lane longer than your opponent, building a CS lead rather than forcing fights you cannot guarantee.
- →Ward the river bush closest to your lane at the two-minute mark before the first jungle rotation, as Superman has no escape and a blind engage from the opposing jungler during your early Charge cooldown is a free kill.
Mid Game
Post Broken Spear- →Once Man of Steel is online, join every Dragon and Dark Slayer contest as your suppression on their highest-value target is often the deciding factor in objective fights — do not sit in sidelane farming when these windows open.
- →Rotate to assist your jungler in dueling the opposing carry after a successful slayer lane shove; Superman's dive threat forces the enemy team to group, which opens split opportunities for your own team elsewhere.
- →Track the enemy Purify cooldowns before committing your ultimate — if their carry used Purify in the previous fight, that is your green light to engage the next skirmish with full confidence.
Late Game
Teamfight phase- →In late-game teamfights, your job is not to chase the lowest-health enemy — it is to walk into the backline, suppress the primary carry with Man of Steel, and absorb the burst that follows while your damage dealers clean up.
- →Avoid split-pushing alone at this stage; Superman without his team in range is a dive target for coordinated assassins, and throwing a late-game advantage for a single turret trade is the most common way Superman players lose winnable games.
- →If the game is going long and your damage feels irrelevant, shift to a full tank build path and treat yourself as a body that exists solely to suppress and peel — your ultimate's value does not diminish even when your personal DPS does.
Matchups
Never first-pick Superman; his linear engage is trivially counterpicked by any high-mobility assassin or ranged kiter. Wait until the enemy has committed at least two melee fighters or a slow backline before locking him. The matchup to actively dodge is Butterfly and Quillen in the same enemy comp, since both independently dismantle his engage. In bad matchups, play the lane passively, stack CS with passive sustain, and accept that your slayer-lane contribution this game is map pressure rather than kills. When the draft favors you, especially with a Tulen or Violet ready to follow up, his suppression becomes the most oppressive tool in a coordinated teamfight, so force fights at every objective from level 6 onward.
Superman gets countered by
ButterflyButterfly's phase-through passive and high burst mean she can sidestep Superman's Charge or survive the suppression window and delete him before his team arrives, making every solo matchup deeply unfavorable.
QuillenQuillen can blink away from Charge's trajectory, burst Superman during his cooldown gap, and disengage before Man of Steel can be activated, nullifying Superman's entire engage pattern.
LaurielLauriel's AOE damage and ability to kite with her dashes means she can trade from outside Superman's effective engage range and wear down his passive sustain faster than he can recover in lane.
KeeraKeera's aerial mobility lets her disengage from Man of Steel's cast range and punish Superman's cooldown window with overwhelming single-target damage that his tanky-warrior stat spread cannot comfortably absorb.
Superman synergizes with
AnnetteAnnette's knockback and AOE disruption chains perfectly with Superman's suppression, ensuring that after Man of Steel expires the enemy carry is still crowd-controlled and your team has maximum time to follow up.
VioletViolet's enormous single-target damage output means that any carry Superman suppresses with Man of Steel is effectively dead, rewarding both players' snowball tendencies in the mid-game window.
MalochMaloch and Superman form a dual-frontline that is nearly impossible to poke out of teamfights, letting Superman engage aggressively knowing Maloch's taunt and bulk provide a second anchor if the dive overextends.
TulenTulen's chain-lightning burst fires instantly after Superman's suppression locks the target in place, creating a zero-counterplay kill window on any squishy carry that no Purify can address mid-suppression.
Pro Tips
- →Track whether the enemy carry has Purify equipped before you commit Man of Steel, suppression cannot be cleansed but the decision of *when* you use it relative to their other defensive abilities (like a blink or shield) determines whether the ult translates into a kill or a wasted cooldown.
- →Use Charge diagonally through a bush edge rather than in a straight line across open map; this shortens the visible approach distance and removes the reaction time enemy carries need to burn their escape before you land.
- →In the slayer lane, intentionally walk up without activating Super Strength first, most Diamond opponents will hold their burst or displacement ability when they see you walking in, and you can bait those cooldowns with a fake commit before resetting and re-engaging with the full combo.
- →When you are losing a teamfight and Man of Steel is on cooldown, do not chase, walk toward the enemy backline as a body to force target-switching decisions; even a Superman with no ultimateon the field commands respect and buys your team extra seconds to reposition.
Superman is the pick for Diamond-and-above warrior players who want a teamfight pivot in the slayer lane and have teammates willing to coordinate around a suppression ultimate rather than expecting him to carry through stat pressure alone. He frustrates players who expect consistent solo-kill power and rewards those who treat him as an engage platform, not a duelist. The thing to master is Man of Steel targeting discipline: ulting the wrong enemy in a fight is the difference between a decisive B-tier pick and a throw, and no amount of clean laning or build optimization makes up for a suppression wasted on the enemy tank.
Superman — Frequently Asked Questions
Is Superman good in the current ROV patch?+
Superman sits at B tier in the current Thai-server meta, so he is functional and can win games but is outclassed in both damage and teamfight flexibility by the tier above. Exact win and pick rate data is still being aggregated from live ranked, so treat him as a situational pick rather than a blind lock. He rewards players who understand target prioritization and draft context more than raw mechanics.
What is the best build for Superman?+
Superman wants a hybrid path: open with one damage-amplifying item to make his early trades threatening, then move into tanky armor-and-HP items that extend his survivability during Man of Steel engages. Exact item names shift with patch tuning on the Thai server, so verify current recommended builds in-game or on the kritngi and Doyser channels, which update faster than any static guide.
How do you counter Superman in ROV?+
The cleanest counter is a high-mobility assassin or ranged carry who can sidestep Charge or hold enough distance that he never lands Man of Steel on a priority target. Butterfly and Quillen are the strongest counter-picks in the current roster because they dismantle his engage without needing team coordination. At macro, group your squishy carries behind your own frontline and deny his dive angles to neutralize him across a full game.
Is Superman hard to play, and is he good for beginners?+
Medium, which understates how much of his ceiling is locked behind correct ultimate targeting. The execution of Charge and Super Strength is simple, but choosing who to suppress with Man of Steel in a chaotic fight is the decision that separates average from effective Superman. Not recommended as a first warrior for absolute beginners, since his low damage ceiling means bad decisions aren't recoverable through stat checks. Diamond players who already understand dive-initiator positioning climb the curve quickly.