A flank is a timed absence, not a route
The mistake in most flank advice is treating the route as the skill. The route is the easy part. What decides whether a flank works is how long you are gone, and that is arithmetic.
Base movement is 6 metres per second for almost every hero, 7 for Black Panther and Wolverine.
| Route length | Time away at 6 m/s | At 7 m/s |
|---|---|---|
| 20 m | 3.3 s | 2.9 s |
| 30 m | 5.0 s | 4.3 s |
| 40 m | 6.7 s | 5.7 s |
| 50 m | 8.3 s | 7.1 s |
A 30-metre flank is a five-second absence. Five seconds is enough for the enemy to walk through the gap you left, which means the flank has to buy something back immediately — a kill, a forced retreat, or a cooldown burned.
If your team cannot hold the front for the length of your route, the route is wrong, not the timing.
Which ledges are real
Every hero jumps exactly 3 metres. A ledge at 4 or 5 metres is not reachable by jumping — by anyone. The documented ways past that ceiling are short:
| Hero | Ability | Reach |
|---|---|---|
| Luna Snow | Smooth Skate | 6 m |
| Captain America, Black Widow | Fearless Leap | 5 m |
| Squirrel Girl | Tail Bounce | 9 m |
| Angela, Human Torch, Iron Man, Storm, Ultron | indefinite flight | no ceiling |
| Doctor Strange, Star-Lord | temporary flight | no ceiling while active |
So most “flank routes” shown in videos are hero-specific, not map-specific. If the route needs a 5-metre climb, it belongs to nine heroes and nobody else. For the rest of the roster, the flank is a ground route or it does not exist.
The return trip is the actual test
A route has two halves and players only plan one. Before you take it, answer the second question: how do I get out?
The number to check is nine metres. A 250-health Duelist at 200 damage per second has 1.25 seconds, which at 6 metres per second is 9 metres of retreat. If the exit is further than that, the flank does not have an escape, it has a direction.
Two clean shapes work:
- Loop out the way you came, timed so the enemy has not had time to backfill.
- Exit into your own team, which means the route has to end near the front line rather than behind the enemy spawn.
A route with a one-way ending is not a flank. It is a trade with extra steps, and the enemy gets to choose the trade.
Timing, in order
- Wait for the front line to engage. Not to be about to engage — to be in it.
- Move on the route while the fight is loudest, because that is when nobody is checking.
- Hit the target that cannot answer, not the one with the most health.
- Leave on the same instinct that got you in, not after the kill is confirmed.
- If you are spotted before you arrive, turn around. A discovered flank is a wasted five seconds, and the best case is now a fair fight you started from a bad angle.
For heroes where the flank is the whole game plan, the one-trick climb problem covers what happens when the route stops working at higher ranks, and the counter-flankers guide covers the other side of it. If you keep arriving alone, the issue is usually team timing rather than the route — the team composition guide covers how a push is supposed to start.