Marvel Rivalsis currently facing its biggest crisis in the triple support meta, but it can be fixed surprisingly easily.Rivals’success is largely in part due to its innovations in the hero shooter genre. The game has taken a more arcade-like approach that has kept the gameplay lighter and less tuned. This has come along with a myriad of friendly microtransaction models such as the never-expiring battle passes.
Marvel Rivals’lack of role lock has largely been a blessing. The flexibility it has given to creative team comps and the lack of any defined meta until this point has been great. This is likely to continue as more characters are added to the game that add new kits and synergies that expand all types of gameplay.
What Is Marvel Rivals Three Support Meta & Why It’s Bad
A Cycle Of Immortality
Marvel Rivalsis currently suffering from the triple support meta.This usually revolves around Luna Snow, Cloak & Dagger, and then a flex support tuned to the needs of the team. This naturally offers a lot of healing while avoiding a significant dropoff in terms of damage output. However, this is not the largest issue posed by the meta.
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The issues in the triple support approach largely revolve around howstrong the Strategist’s ultimate abilitiesare and how long they last.Teams that can coordinate Luna Snow, Cloak & Dagger, and Mantis ultimates together can essentially make all players unkillable for 20+ seconds. This is not fun for teams that can’t coordinate as well, and if they can, it forces them into a mirror matchup that limits choice. Lastly, it’s is never fun for players to constantly be attacking an enemy and feel like they can’t die withoutcharacters meant to counter Strategist ultimates.
How To Solve The Three Support Meta
Finding The Perfect Balance
The most common answer players have brought up to counter this idea is once again a role lock system. However, implementing this would ruin the funRivalshas established. Instead,the better course of action would be tuning characters. A great example of this is Luna Snow, whose ultimate could be dialed back to a more modest six to eight seconds with some healing reduction too. This allows her to still be a strong support option, but not to the point where the enemy feels like it is hopeless to kill anyone.
The easiest way forMarvel Rivalsto avoid any future issues is to release support heroes that are already balanced.
A second option isincreasing the time needed to build ultimate charge, as many characters can farm ultimate abilities rapidly when played even semi-correctly. Changes like this could also be brought to options like Cloak & Dagger to bring them more in line. Perfect examples of finely tuned support ultimates include Mantis and Sue Storm. Both of these are capable of countering certain offensive ultimates and burst abilities, but not to the point that consistent damage can be ignored.
How Marvel Rivals Can Avoid Future Support Problems
Perfection On Release
The easiest way forMarvel Rivalsto avoid any future issues is to release support heroes that are already balanced. Sue Storm is again a perfect example of this. This will only be further helped by fewer characters having these large range healing-focused abilities. As selfish as it can sometimes feel, ultimate abilities like Loki, Jeff, or Rocket can be the right tool for the job in conjunction with a healer like Luna Snow, instead of stacking immortality abilities.
You’re Probably Playing Rocket Wrong In Marvel Rivals
Rocket Raccoon in Marvel Rivals is a lot more than the support and healer role that players give him credit for, he’s also great at fighting.
Based on his leaks, Ultron, one ofmany leakedMarvel Rivalscharactersand likely to be the next Strategist to join the game, fits this nicely.His ultimate is described as something similar to Moira’s fromOverwatch, a beam that can heal and damage. Something flexible like this, which is also likely to have a shorter duration, forces the player to balance their output or focus on one. Given the nature of a game such asRivals, it would be near-impossible to make an entire team unkillable from an ability like this.
Overall,Rivalshas largely found a good balance with its Strategists in that they have to be respected from a damage perspective, but the healing is slightly overturned. Without adding a role lock feature, keeping these features in balance is the only option to avoid constricting and boring metas similar to whatOverwatchhad in GOATS. It will be interesting to see how the developers respond to this latest feedback and tune things in the next patch. Until the issue is solved,Marvel Rivalsfans will have to learn how to deal with the triple support meta.
