Marvel Rivals Season 1 is about to begin, adding the Fantastic Four to the roster of free-shooting heroes so they can defeat Dracula, who has flooded the Earth in eternal night. It launches on January 10 at 1am PT / 4am ET / 9am GMT, and developers NetEase are paving the way in the traditional way by rebalancing the character lineup to simultaneously gain the adoration of certain groups of players and by at the same time bring down others. in apoplectic fury.
Do you like to go on a rampage like Hela, goddess of death? Was that it? you Who shot me last night at Klyntar? Well, how about 25 points off your base health? Yes, that’s what I thought. Screw you too.
Hela is one of the many who have succumbed to the nerf. NetEase’s Thanos-style finger snap has also made the Incredible Hulk less awesome: according to the full patch notes, it reduces the Indestructible Guard gamma shield value for Hero Hulk from 250 to 200. Somewhat contrary to intuition, HawkEye has undergone a rework to make it less effective with a bow: “decreasing medium-long range damage capability, reducing threatening combat radius, and slightly improving the hand-to-hand combat resistance of the avenging archer.”
black pantherSurvivability has also been reduced: the patch reduces “the additional health provided to self after upgrading Vibranium Marks with Spirit Rend from 40 to 30, and the upper limit of additional health provided from 120 to 75.”
For every loser there is at least one winner, of course. Black Widow “really needed an optimization when rating the release experience of her abilities, as well as a slight increase in the threat of her ultimate ability.” Her Edge Dancer, Fleet Foot, and Electro-Plasma Explosion skills have been improved.
In other news, sea king Namor is better at throwing eggs, and Squirrel Girl’s Squirrel Tsunami has undergone a sinister evolution. The squirrels that make up the tsunami will now “run towards the nearest enemy after bouncing instead of bouncing randomly”, although the tsunami’s overall health has been halved. The laws of chance will no longer save you from being attacked by crazed nutcrackers. These are indeed terrible times.
You can read the full patch notes. here. Again, this is all a warm-up for season 1, which introduces stretchy nobleman Mr Fantastic, transparent lady Invisible Woman, prancing fireboy Human Torch, and grumpy rocker The Thing. They will arrive as part of a seasonal story in which Dr. Doom and Dracula have conspired to turn off the sunpresumably Mr. Burns was not available for hire at the time. The leaks further suggest that Robonemesis Ultron is also on its way to the lineup.
Here is a summary of the press release:
Darkness envelops New York as the Timestream Entanglement leaves Doctor Strange trapped in the Tangled Astral Plane, scattering the pages of the Darkhold. Dracula and Doctor Doom alter the orbit of the moon, plunging the city into eternal night and unleashing an army of vampiric creatures. With the world on the brink, the Fantastic Four join forces with Marvel’s iconic heroes, uniting in the epic battle to break the mystical darkness with science. Ignite the battle against Dracula with the Fantastic Four in Marvel Rivals!
Marvel Rivals continues to push Steam, ranking sixth most played at the time of this article’s publication. Our Ed Thorn was ambivalent about your review of the release of season 0summing it up as “like supervisionif Overwatch was too complex and frequented Comic Con.” He found a lot to like about the abilities and presentation, but argued that the spread of somewhat interchangeable hero designs transformed matches into “slightly shapeless blenders.” Are you still playing?
