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Marvel Rivals Just Nerfed a Character In Record Time (But It Might Be For The Best)
Marvel Rivals isn’t known for its reactive balance updates, as NetEase often takes its time and surveys how things play out before making any substantial changes, especially when it comes to new heroes added to the game. That doesn’t mean they won’t make changes quickly in certain cases, and now they’ve just nerfed a character in record time. That said, it might be for the best.
Marvel Rivals just released its newest update in Patch 0219, and the newest Rivals addition, Elsa Bloodstone, is the biggest story, as she’s been considerably nerfed not even two weeks after release. Bloodstone had her ultimate toned down, as Glartrox now surpasses enemies for a shorter time, and Glartrox is now 100 health weaker than before. Then, to complete the update, Elsa’s bar to release Glartrox has been raised.
Marvel Rivals Just Made Changes to 3 More Characters
While much of the attention is understandably on Bloodstone, the update also nerfed three other characters, with tweaks to both Duelists and a Strategist.
The first character affected is Hawkeye, who had a tweak made to how he accumulates additional amage. Hawkeye’s Piercing Arrow base damage has been bumped from 34 to 28, while the base damage of a fully charged arrow has been moved from 85 to 70. When boosted by Archer’s Focus, the damage of a charged arrow has been moved from 175 to 160, so across the board, the archers received a damage downgrade.
The second character affected is Hela, and it revolves around Nightsword Thorn. The damage falloff still begins at 18 meters, but at 30 meters, the maximum falloff drops from 80% of the base to 70%. If a character is beyond 25 meters from Hela, two critical hits will not take out a target who is at 250 HP. Hela is still a lethal threat, but the range of that threat has taken a slight bump down.
The third character affected is Gambit, and right up front, Gambit’s health takes a hit as it moves from 275 to 250. Gambit isn’t exactly the most durable character anyway, so that will hurt, but then there’s one more thing to consider, as Breaking Spades now only gives a 10% damage boost instead of 15.
It was pretty clear that Bloodstone was making a big impact on games within a week of release, and while that’s typical of many new characters, there was a growing frustration that perhaps Bloodstone was a bit overpowered. Granted, all of the characters have received that sort of criticism when they get released, but with Bloodstone it seemed to perhaps be more accurate.
It will be interesting to see how these changes affect the game and players who main these characters, and that will be something to keep an eye on throughout the rest of season 6.5.
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