The latest Marvel Rivals patch notes detail what we can expect ahead of Season 2, bringing buffs and nerfs that are sure to change up the competitive meta in the esports scene.
Marvel Rivals Season 2: Hellfire Gala begins on April 11th, 2025. Alongside new content, devs are balancing the existing roster in an attempt to shake up the dominant metas that defined Season 1 and 1.5.
Marvel Rivals Season 2 Buffs and Nerfs
Key balance changes are being introduced across all three classes, hoping to tame more dominant characters like Magneto, Dr. Strange and Hela whilst giving way to more niche characters.
Vanguards
Characters like Doctor Strange and Magneto have become the go-to tanks for a lot of players, as shown by the recent heroes data. Shields have long ruled the meta in the early season, and Season 2 may be the breakaway for potential brawl and dive metas thanks to Thor and Hulk buffs.
Doctor Strange:
- Decrease Daggers of Denak damage per projectile from 18 to 16.
- Reduce the Maelstrom of Madness conversion ratio of Dark Magic to damage from 1.3 to 1.2.
Hulk:
- Increase base movement speed from 600 to 650.
- Reduce cooldown time for Indestructible Guard from 12 seconds to 10 seconds.
- Decrease minimum charge time for Incredible Leap from 0.7 seconds to 0.5 seconds.
Marvel Rivals patch notes also shared that The Thing and Magneto will be nerfed, and Captain America, Thor and Peni Parker will be buffed.
Duellist
Hela is by far the most banned character in comeptitive and esports play, as seen in tournaments such as Marvel Rivals Fight Night. With her ban, Star-Lord and Winter Soldier became the most popular picks. Their nerfs can give way to more diverse compositions in the next season.
Mister Fantastic:
- Increase base health from 350 to 375.
- Boost the damage of Stretch Punch from 60 to 65 and from 75 to 80 while in Inflated state.
- Flexible Elongation New Effect: Enemies within range now suffer a 35% slow effect; reduce Flexible Elongation cooldown time from 10s to 8s.
- Reduce the Elasticity gained from Elastic Strength (passive ability) from 30 to 20, while the Elasticity provided by Stretch Punch is increased from 5 to 8. After entering the inflated state, the Bonus Health provided to self has been reduced from 450 to 400.
- New Feature: When Mister Fantastic uses Brainiac Bounce (Ultimate Ability), immediately gain Bonus Health equal to that gained when entering inflated state.
Scarlet Witch:
- Remove Chaos Control percentage damage while increasing fixed damage from 60/s to 80/s.
- Increase Chthonian Burst projectile damage from 35 to 40 and spell field damage from 35 to 40.
- Increase the cooldown of Mystic Projection from 8 seconds to 10 seconds, and reduce Phased state time from 2 seconds to 1.5 seconds.
- Rework the slow effect of Reality Erasure to start at 1.5 seconds instead of starting immediately, with a linear increase to a 35% slow over 3.5 seconds.
Marvel Rivals patch notes also detailed buffs to Hawkeye, Iron man, Black Widow, Moon Knight and Human Torch. It also shared long-awaited nerfs to Star-Lord, Winter Soldier, Hela and Wolverine.
Strategist
For a lot of strategists, healing is the most crucial component, which is why Cloak & Dagger and Invisible Woman see an above 20% pick rate across all ranks and are prevalent in the esports scene. So it comes as no surprise that the majority of buffs and nerfs focus on this aspect.
Mantis:
- Reduce base health from 275 to 250.
- Effects of Healing Flower and Allied Inspiration can be stacked, up to a maximum of 16 seconds.
Rocket Raccoon:
- Decrease the healing area of Repair Mode spheres from 70 health/s to 50 health/s, but add a new effect of one-time healing of 55 health to allies hit. Projectile speed reduction increased from 4.5 m/s to 7 m/s.
- Extend cooldown for Jetpack Dash from 6 seconds to 10 seconds; reduce dash distance from 10 meters to 8 meters.
- Reduce C.Y.A. (Ultimate Ability) damage boost from 40% to 25%, but add a new effect: during the ability’s duration, linked allies will receive an additional 100 Bonus Health points per second, capping at 150. After breaking the link, this bonus starts to falloff after 1 second at a rate of 75 per/s. Additionally, increase the energy cost from 3700 to 4000.
Marvel Rivals patch notes also shared nerfs to Loki, Adam Warlock and Invisible Woman’s healing through their abilities.
Marvel Rivals Season 2 Team-Up Changes
The Marvel Rivals Season 2 patch notes also revealed interesting changes to the game’s highlight mechanic, team-ups.
New Team-Ups
We will have three new team-ups with the release of Season 2. Once again, these changes aim to elevate more niche characters, such as Scarlet Witch and Captain America.
Arcane Order (Doctor Strange and Scarlet Witch)
- Doctor Strange (anchor) gains a maximum health increase of 100.
- Scarlet Witch unlocks Mystic Burst to increase primary fire damage.
Stars Aligned (Captain America and Winter Soldier)
- Captain America (anchor) gains maximum health increase of 100 and 5% damage boost.
- Winter Soldier unlocks Stellar Impact, leaping to allies or clashing with Captain America to damage nearby enemies.
Mental Projection (Emma Frost and Psylocke/Magneto)
- Emma Frost (anchor) gains a maximum health increase of 100.
- Magneto receives Magnetic Resonance, creating a clone to mimic damage output.
- Psylocke unlocks Soul Resurgence, creating a clone to mimic damage output
Team-Up Changes
The Marvel Rivals patch notes also revealed changes to the current pool of team-ups to ensure certain characters don’t have an abundance of choices.
Metallic Chaos (Magneto/Scarlet Witch) and Voltaic union (Thor/Captain America/Storm) will be removed. In terms of performance, these team-ups have rarely been used in professional play.
We are also seeing adjustments to current team-ups:
- Ammo Overload (-Winter Soldier)
- Chilling Charisma (-Namor)
- Dimensional Shortcut (-Psylocke)
- Gamma Charge (-Dr Strange, +Namor)
The most notable change is Gamma Charge. This was one of the most commonly used team-ups back in Season 0. As a very strong duellist, Namor’s addition will arguably add more value to the team-up in light of Iron Man and Hulk’s buffs, meaning we could see this trio appear more often in the future.
Map Changes
Although not shared in the balance post, we also know that there will be a change in map pools that will affect both ranked and esports. In Dev Vision vol.5 on YouTube, it was shared that the Royal Palace domination map and the Shin-Shibuya Convergence map will be removed. In their place, the new Hellfire Gala domination map will be added.
Shin-Shibuya in particular will be an impactful change as a key map for a lot of current players. 100 Thieves was known to be particularly strong on this map, as witnessed during the Grand Finals against FlyQuest at the NA Invitational. With this change, some teams will have to figure out strong strategies for different maps.
How Will These Changes Shape Marvel Rivals Season 2?
It’s not uncommon to see such drastic changes across the board for new seasons, as we saw with the balance changes throughout Season 1: Eternal Night Falls. Still, the amount of changes is overwhelming, and it will take some time to see how this could shape competitive and professional play.
It’s interesting to note that Groot, Cloak & Dagger and Luna Snow, considered amongst the best vanguards/strategists, have seen no changes despite their dominance in recent esports tournaments.
The most notable changes come with the nerfs of popular picks, such as Dr Strange and Magneto, while giving significant buffs to more niche characters, such as Hulk and Scarlet Witch.
Triple strategist used to be the main meta, and we recently saw the rise of triple Vanguard compositions. With the most significant changes seen in the duellist class ahead of Season 2, we could potentially see a triple duellist meta take over.
We could also see team-ups become more of a determining factor for a lot of future compositions in light of the recent changes. While in Season 0 team-ups influenced a lot of comps at the professional level, it’s become less of a necessity in Season 1 and 1.5. These changes could result in a shift in mentality come Season 2.
Joey Morris
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