Marvel Rivals Season One: A Comprehensive Overview of New Content and Balance Changes
The zero season has concluded, making way for the highly anticipated first season of Marvel Rivals. This season brings a wave of fresh content and significant balance adjustments. Let's delve into the key updates.
Table of Contents
- What's New in the First Season?
- New Heroes
- New Maps and Mode
- Battle Pass
- Celestial Rank
- Balance Adjustments for Heroes:
- Vanguard
- Duelist
- Strategist
- Team-Up
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Season Theme: An Undead Invasion!
This season's narrative centers around an undead invasion orchestrated by Dracula. The Fantastic Four answer the call, with Mister Fantastic and Invisible Woman initially available, with other members joining later.
New Heroes
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- Mister Fantastic: A mid-range duelist with abilities for swift movement between allies and enemies, area damage, and temporary damage absorption.
- Invisible Woman: A strategist whose attacks heal allies. She boasts shield creation, enemy manipulation (push/pull), and invisibility.
New Maps and Mode
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- Empire of Eternal Night: Midtown: Two new maps set in a ravaged New York City, featuring locations like Grand Central Terminal.
- Doom Match: A new mode for 8-12 players where the top 50% win after a set number of knockouts.
Battle Pass
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Season One's Battle Pass is double the size of the zero season's, reflecting the three-month season length. Eight of the ten skins are premium, with most boasting appealing designs. The Blue Tarantula skin for Peni Parker, however, offers minimal visual changes. Free pass completion rewards Units and Lattice.
Celestial Rank
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A new "Celestial" rank has been introduced between Grandmaster and Eternity, comprising three divisions. The accessibility of this rank remains to be seen. A season-end rank reset is implemented, with a seven-level drop from the previous season's final rank.
Balance Adjustments for Heroes
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This section details adjustments across various hero classes. Note that these are summarized; consult in-game details for specifics.
Vanguard
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- Captain America: Received significant buffs to health, mobility (Rush cooldown reduction), and Ultimate ability cost reduction.
- Doctor Strange: Moderate adjustments to damage and shield recovery.
- Thor: Health increase and crowd-control immunity during Ultimate.
- Hulk: Slight nerf to Gamma Shield health.
- Venom: Buffs to armor scaling and Ultimate ability damage.
Duelist
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- Black Panther: Nerfed extra health from Spirit Rend and maximum additional health.
- Black Widow: Improvements to Edge Dancer radius, Fleet Foot recovery time, and Ultimate ability power-up time.
- Hawkeye: Slight nerfs to explosive arrow spread, Archer’s Focus activation distance, and passive skill bonus damage.
- Hela: Health reduction. New Twitch Drops available.
- Magik: Increased Umbral Incursion damage in Darkchild form.
- Moon Knight: Increased Ultimate ability talon count and blast radius.
- Namor: Throw accuracy adjustments.
- Psylocke: Bug fix for Ultimate ability interaction with barriers.
- Punisher: Reduced spread for Deliverance and Adjudication.
- Scarlet Witch: Enhanced Chaos Control damage, but reduced damage-over-time percentage. Chthonian Burst damage increase.
- Storm: Significant buffs to normal attack projectile speed and damage, right-click damage, and Ultimate ability bonus health.
- Squirrel Girl: Increased squirrel targeting predictability, reduced squirrel tsunami health.
- Winter Soldier: Buffs to health gained from abilities, main attack damage, and base health.
Strategist
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- Cloak & Dagger: Dagger Storm cooldown reduction and increased Ultimate ability dashes.
- Jeff the Land Shark: Ultimate range and Joyful Splash healing adjustments.
- Luna Snow: Slight nerf to dance mode change break time.
- Mantis: Nerfed Nature's Favor acceleration.
- Rocket Raccoon: Increased healing speed in recovery mode.
Team-Up
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Team-Up bonuses adjusted for several heroes, with nerfs to Hawkeye and Hela, and buffs to Namor, Rocket Raccoon, Magneto, and Storm.
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The balance changes are generally subtle. While some heroes might see increased popularity, the overall meta remains to be determined. The impact of the new heroes will be particularly interesting to observe.
