Marvel's Rival Project Lead confesses an overabundance of Damage Per Second (DPS) characters, pledging to progressively address the issue.
In the ever-evolving world of Marvel Rivals, the timeline for balancing Duelist, Vanguard, and Strategist characters has seen significant progress, with key adjustments made during Season 3 and continuing into Season 3.5.
The onset of Season 3, beginning on July 11, 2025, marked the introduction of Phoenix and Blade, alongside extensive gameplay and balance changes aimed at enhancing the strategic diversity of the three roles. This season also ramped up content velocity, with monthly hero releases, and focused on updating all roles for better synergy and balance across the roster of 41 characters.
As we moved into Season 3.5, starting August 8, 2025, the developers implemented specific hero balance tweaks to differentiate the three classes. Duelists experienced mostly minor nerfs and buffs, with Human Torch's backflip being made less far to allow cleaner combos, indicating more precise control for Duelist characters.
Vanguards, on the other hand, received stronger and more impactful changes compared to Duelists. Top Vanguards like Emma Frost managed to escape nerfs, suggesting a focus on maintaining their frontline durability and team fight presence. Strategists, despite some remaining strong despite changes, saw a balance approach that hinted at fine-tuning abilities and team utility instead of broad nerfs to preserve their strategic roles.
Team-up abilities and synergy skills also evolved in Season 3.5, helping roles interconnect better. For example, Mantis (Strategist) started sharing healing and damage boosts with allies, while new domain buffs were introduced for characters like Loki and Groot (Vanguards).
Guangyun Chen, the creative director of Marvel Rivals, has acknowledged the overabundance of Duelists, and the developers are gradually working to address this issue. However, a solution may take some time. The Marvel Rivals team has designs for Seasons 3 and 4 already completed before Season 1 concluded, and the heroes scheduled for release next year are currently being decided upon.
Over time, a new balance between tank, support, and DPS characters in Marvel Rivals is expected to form, with the team looking into addressing the overabundance of Duelists compared to Vanguards and Strategists. It's worth noting that Kevin Feige's son, initially feigning interest in Marvel Rivals, became genuinely interested after playing the game, and he showed particular interest in the character Hela from Marvel Rivals.
The process of confirming a hero roster, production, and final release in Marvel Rivals takes a significant amount of time, ensuring that each character and update is polished to perfection. The Marvel Rivals team has previously spoken about having content available in advance, but no additional information about this was provided.
In summary, Marvel Rivals uses a season-based timeline, with Seasons 3 and 3.5 featuring the primary recent set of balancing changes for Duelist, Vanguard, and Strategist characters, balancing their unique playstyles through a combination of minor ability tweaks, damage adjustments, and team synergy updates to create a more balanced and competitive metagame.
Read also:
- Navigating Strategic Direction in the Age of Artificial Intelligence Automation
- A separate cable linked to an RTX 50-Series GPU melting could potentially not be attributable to Nvidia.
- Significant Error Committed by Investors in Purchasing Amazon Shares
- List of 2025's Billionaire Video Game Moguls Ranked by Fortune
%20characters%2C%20pledging%20to%20progressively%20address%20the%20issue.){kind=link}