As a hero-based shooter,Marvel Rivalsboasts a roster of 33 unique characters for players to choose from that best suit their playstyle.
Designed to reflect the power fantasy of the respective character, each Hero’s kit is created with a specific role in mind, andhow well they fulfill that role dictates their place in the meta.
Unfortunately, some Heroes fall behind the rest of their peers and can be underwhelming to play. While they can still be fun in theory, in practice these characters can be easily overpowered by others, or simply do not carry their weight in a team.
Marvel Rivals: Every Character Counter Explained
Know your enemy and know your weaknesses.
8Black Panther
Black Panther is theepitome of high reward, low risk.Charging headfirst into combat requires reliable ways to survive, andBlack Panther’s kit makes it incredibly hard for him to do just that.
T’Challa must rely on landing Vibranium Mark and performing complex combos for him to do anything meaningful for his team, and it’s already hard for him to dive into an enemy team without dying.
Besides his spear toss, the King of Wakanda is strictly melee and has as much range as a pair of paws can reach. His passive also gives him a 20% damage boost when he’s at low health, but it’s not very noticeable.
In my experience, there were very few Black Panther players who managed to kill me while I had teammates with me. He might need a better range or a bigger attack radius to really be a threat to his enemies.
7Rocket Raccoon
A True Trash Panda
Rocket Raccoon isa reliable support- he can barrage his enemies with endless gunfire, bring allies back with the B.R.B. machine, and remain a slippery target for his enemies. Rocket is one ofthe most mobile characters to play.
Unfortunately,his healing is unreliable, making it almost impossible for even good Rocket players to heal consistently.Compared with fellow off-healer Adam, Rocket also deals even less damage to make up for his low healing capabilities.
The armor packs and rocket boosts that the BRB machine spawns also barely do anything, providing a measly 25 bonus health and a seemingly unfinished jump animation.
If the developers are insistent on Rocket’s low healing,then they should at least give his armor packs a slight buff,maybe giving 50 bonus health with a slight damage reduction, or let the bonus health stack with a fixed maximum.
Blocking With His Face
Lucky for Thor’s enemies, Mjölnir has a short range, so he would need to either throw his trusty hammer or get in really close to deal any damage.
Thor’s biggest issues are that he has very little mobility and damage mitigation.While he can gain bonus health through Thorforce, he has very few avenues to block and regenerate health.
He does respectable damage, but can’t really fulfil his role well as a tank, as he has to be dangerously up close to be effective. Giving Thor a better range in his attacks might go a long way.
5Captain America
Avengers Disassembled
As a Super Soldier, Captain America represents the indomitable fighting spirit of mankind and the American Dream of unity and prosperity. Unfortunately,Rogers lacks lethality nor survivability, teetering uncomfortably between a bruiser and a tank.
Cap’smain playstyle is to assemble with his team and act as a mobile defender, but his shield barely protects his team unlike Doctor Strange’s. His abilities, Liberty Rush and Super-Soldier Slam, aren’t threats so much as they are bothersome knockback abilities.
The Star-Spangled super-soldier needs some moreoomphin those two attacks, and a possibly even a slight damage boost. Captain America doesn’t feel as strong as he could be.
Hulk should feel like a genuine threat during team fights, but his lackluster melee attacks feel like slapping enemies with wet noodles, and his charged jump should at least have a small knockback or damaging AOE.
As he is now,Hulk feels more like a nuisance than a beast.In fact, Monster Hulk is a pure damage sponge with 1400 health but has no real way of dishing it back to his enemies.
While Hulk does have apretty decent kit, he doesn’t have any good avenues for damage unlike his fellow Vanguards. Even Monster Hulk’s slamming attack, which looks menacing and powerful, can’t even beat a 250-health enemy.
What Hulk needs is a little more damage on his basic attacks and the World Breaker Ultimate, which could make Monster Hulk a bigger threat to squishier enemies.
3Black Widow
Done Dirty Again
Black Widow is underwhelming to play. She’s supposed to be a sniper and yetshe can barely one-shot Heroes with 250 healtheven with a headshot, and her Ultimate does even less damage in a slowing AOE.
She has a high learning curvebut few incentives to play her other than the fact that she’s a sniper and has very little mobility other than a sprint and enhanced jump. Her batons are also extremely weak and slow.
2Wolverine
Moonlights As A Back Scratcher
Players are robbed of the power fantasy of playing as the undying Wolverine in Marvel Rivals because his regenerative passive doesn’t give Wolverine a chance to survive full-on engagements consistently.
In terms of his kit, it looks and feels like Wolverine,but he doesn’t deal enough damage, even when empowered by his rage meter.Not only that, the hit detection in his Feral Leap ability feels awkward at best, and landing a hit on an enemy takes nothing less than a miracle.
His regen passive cooldown, in my opinion, is way too long. It doesn’t give Wolverine enough survivability throughout the match to dive consistently. It should be reduced from 90 to 60 seconds, allowing Wolverine players to be a bit more bold.
As it stands now, Wolverine is just too weak as a melee-focused DPS character.
Must’ve Been The Wind
Storm is arguably one of the strongest X-Men. Ironically, her kit is immensely underwhelming inMarvel Rivals, making her not just the weakest Duelist, but the weakest Hero in the game.
As the only other flying Hero, Storm has all of Iron Man’s weaknesses but none of his strengths. While in the air, she’s an easy target and the buffs she provides to her teammates and herself are barely noticeable.
Also, while Iron Man can rely on the splash damage of his basic attacks, Storm doesn’t have that luxury. Instead, the piercing properties of her basic wind attacks are practically ineffective while in the air.
Marvel Rivals: 14 Best Tips For Beginners
Marvel Rivals is climbing the player base, and new players are joining the game. Check out our 14 Best Beginner tips curated for new players.
