With the release of Marvel Rivals, I got the rare opportunity to watch a group of people simultaneously start and learn a new game from practically zero knowledge. I say almost zero because some of us had limited time with the game’s open beta (which happened about 4 to 5 months before the game’s release, and the game has significantly changed since then), and I’d rather not get into how accurately everyone was familiar with hero shooters or how good at them they were.
I’m moreso talking about learning the characters, the mechanics that make Marvel Rivals stand out from other Hero Shooters, and painting a new mental image of what the game is, what I’m getting myself into when I’m launching Marvel Rivals.
As it stands, I think Marvel Rivals had a pretty damn good launch, one of the best I’ve seen in a while. A cast of 33 insanely popular characters (that goes without saying, it’s Marvel) from day 1, all free to play, and any additional characters that will be added in future updates. All of them are unique, with different abilities and playstyles that really let you find your niche and run with it, and I really mean it; the balance is shockingly consistent for a freshly launched Hero Shooter— getting into a game and getting to choose between all of these heroes and knowing each of them offered a fun new way to ass blast Spider-Man was like Christmas morning, which says a lot because I don’t celebrate Christmas.
I won’t spend too much time telling you things you’ve probably already heard about it, like how pretty everything is, the gorgeous character designs, and the dynamically destructible maps. It’s just really, really fun.
Honestly, I’m shocked it took this long for a major franchise to attempt a hero shooter of their own since the success of Overwatch in 2016 (god, I feel old), though I guess Warner Bros. is busy on their sinking ship that is Multiversus, poor thing. Maybe game development isn’t as easy as I make it out to be, harr harr.
Now, all of that pretense was to say that Marvel Rivals is currently the game to play in my vast friend group, and I had the opportunity to observe how the experience shifts as I, the people around me, and the community at large become more familiar with the game and its finer details.
My favorite example of this is probably the reception of Scarlet Witch, a character that was deemed utterly broken and overpowered in the game’s launch week but is now considered underwhelming; keep in mind that there has not been a single balance patch since release. People just learned how to shoot the slow-moving Scarlet Witch before she finishes charging her very loud, very telling, and slow Ultimate.
This brings me to the game’s balance. While I did say it was consistent earlier, and I stand by the notion that there are no bad characters in the game, even polarizing characters like Wolverine and Storm, who are considered to be the worst characters on the roster, can pull some pretty impressive numbers and win plenty of games.
However.
I’ll mention now that while I’m no expert, my 80 hour play count and my modest rank of Diamond II (yes, I know. You can pick your jaw from the floor now) offer a valid view to talk about the game’s balance from the middle-to-above-average position of the skill pool.
In my humbly bragging position, I don’t think any character is bad; some characters are just better than the rest. The only genuinely baffling balancing decision I’ve seen in the game is the inclusion of some Team Up Effects that I can confidently say are horseshit.
And the queen of horseshit is none other than the queen of Hel herself,
Hela.
Her main form of damage is hitscan throwing knives that can easily two-shot most other duelists in the game; especially effective against the two perma-flying characters in the game, Iron Man and Storm, who break in half when she just looks at them for two seconds. Her abilities include charging up 5 knives and firing them out one after the other; they then explode and stun enemies caught in the blast.
Now, Hela is what one would describe on the surface as a glass cannon. Dishes out lots of damage pretty consistently but dies even faster if she isn’t careful. The problems with her start because she doesn’t need to be careful. Hela’s second ability is to transform into a crow and fly a short distance in the direction she is looking at. That crow has zero delay, is invulnerable to any damage, has a relatively low cooldown, and is pretty damn disorienting; it’s very easy to lose her in a team fight, and by the time you manage to lay eyes on her again, there’s already a knife in your face.
And then, of course, there’s a second panic button! Her Ultimate has Hela take into the sky in a stationary powered-up state, and for a lengthy duration, she can shoot exploding birds from above that delete enemies pretty damn well.
The catch? There isn’t!
The transformation is fast and uninterruptible, and Hela gains a whooping 2,000 health for the duration of the attack! Oh, and don’t you think that if, by some miracle, your teammates shoot down the big green demon, that means she’s dead. No, you just canceled her ult early; she’s still alive and free to bird away, consequence-free. This is a stark contrast to many duelist ults, like Iron Man, who has to charge up one medium-speed projectile for two seconds. During this time, the enemy can do plenty of things to avoid their imminent deaths, like moving, holding a shield, or shooting the squishy 250-health duelist. Yes, Iron Man’s Pulse Cannon has a faster kill time than Hela’s. It can kill any character if he lands the shot and can even potentially wipe the entire enemy team if the stars align. However, to do that, Iron Man has to risk himself by getting closer to the enemy to reduce their reaction time and wait for the best opportunity to take the shot.
If Iron Man dies before he manages to shoot that cannon, he stays dead. None of that 2000 overhealth for pressing Q, so you’re much more likely to mess up a Pulse Cannon than you are Hela’s pitch for the hit 2010 horror movie Birdemic: Shock and Terror.
And it makes sense! You should be able to fight back against such a powerful move; it would really suck if Iron Man just pressed Q and won the interaction! LIKE A CERTAIN SOMEONE!
And even yet, that’s not all there is to Hela’s living hell.
Suppose Hela is accompanied by her Asgardian brethren, Thor and Loki. In that case, Hela gets the silly, comical passive ability to REVIVE either of them where they died if they still haven’t respawned by getting a kill. If they’re alive when Hela gets a kill, she heals them. You know, because fuck you.
That’s right, gamers, Hela can revive a whole ass 650 health tank and one of the best healers in the game by just two-shotting a poor bitch. No cooldowns, by the way; I won a competitive match as Thor by reviving twice in the same team fight. Pair that with Adam Warlock’s team-up ability to revive Mantis and Starlord ON TOP of his passive revival ability and his reviving ultimate, and you have a team composition that won’t FUCKING DIE.
Nice push you got there; that was a wicked ultimate! You got 4 people, nice!
They’re all back now.
All that effort and value you put into that stunt is now meaningless! And good luck killing them all again because healing in this game is busted as hell, holy shit. If your team has 3 competent healers (keyward competent), then you are not dying. This glaring balancing oversight is balanced by the fact nobody wants to play strategists.
So yes, Wolverine is a pretty decent DPS; he can do a lot, and if you’re really good at him, you can no doubt carry your team, but Wolverine can’t revive half of your fucking team by getting a kill, and he can’t two tap Iron Man from across the map.
Ok, and?
And nothing; I still think the game is pretty damn good; even if Hela is overturned as shit, I still see some consistent success as Iron Man, a hero a lot of people would consider sub-par. But community opinions change very quickly since this game is still in its infancy, and it really depends on who you’re talking to. Rounding this back to my friends from earlier, a lot of them would swear on their lives that Iron Fist is overpowered and the most obnoxious hero in the game.
I never even see Iron Fist in my ranked lobbies; and I don’t have the heart to tell them that they might not be really good at the game to understand how to handle him. Kinda reminds me of Bastion.
Bastion. You know, from Overwatch? Yeah, I didn’t think I would still be talking about Overwatch, either, I can’t blame you.
Anyway, I’m writing this like a couple of days before a major update, and it was leaked that Hela and her second in command in horseshittery, Hawkeye, are getting nerfed— so my whole rant may be outdated, but I wanted to share my pain.
Come back next blue moon when I rank the Ultimates on an arbitrary, opinionated tier list that could be very wrong and prone to be very outdated, much like this post!