I’m gonna say it: I’m glad NetEase decided to nerf Phoenix. She’s one of the most broken characters in Marvel Rivals next to Squirrel Girl. While her kit takes incredible mechanical skills to actually work, her devastating damage output has been ruining my games in high-elo.
The upcoming nerf for Season 4.5 will drastically reduce Jean Grey’s burst potential, making her much more manageable to contest during hectic teamfights. For added context, Jean Grey is essentially a pseudo-sniper class hero. She can poke at long ranges and every time her shots hit an enemy, it accumulates Sparks. Once the Spark meter builds up, the enemy explodes, causing damage to nearby enemies; worse, it also grants a stack of Sparks to the other characters affected. For more added salt to the wound, she has an insanely broken melee ability that also applies stacks of Sparks to everyone who gets hit.
Good Jean Grey players maximize the damage output by animation cancelling her primary fire with her melee, which can melt Vanguards like Magneto and Doctor Strange in an instant. You want to dive Jean Grey using Hulk? Good luck, she can dish out heavy burst damage before you can even jump back for heals. Going for a team push where your teammates are close together? Her Spark buildup can blow up your entire team in seconds if your healers aren’t paying attention.
It is an incredibly exhausting status effect to deal with, as no other Marvel Rivals hero can remedy it other than just tanking the damage or praying your healer does a good job at keeping you alive.
The nerf in detail removes the Spark status effect from her regular Melee attack, and her primary weapon ammo will no longer reload when Phoenix uses her evasion ability. Plus her evasion move now has 1 second of cooldown. This is going to make her easy to target, as dive comps like Spider-Man, Black Panther or Venom can just harass her until she’s eliminated.
Some Marvel Rivals players would argue that the nerf is too much, but I think this is a great way to put her on the backburner for now until NetEase finds the sweet spot for her kit. With heroes like Daredevil (who literally can’t see past 30 meters) coming in Season 4.5, this will be a great way for the new Duelist to showcase his abilities.
The sniper meta has been a long-standing problem in Rivals with Hela and Hawkeye being the most egregious of them all. Fortunately, they seem to have found their balance in later patches, so they’re not as problematic anymore. That is, unless you're against pros with godlike aims.
Marvel Rivals Season 4.5 arrives this October 10 with Daredevil as a new Duelist. Let’s hope NetEase actually adds more Vanguards and Strategists next season.
For more like this, stick with us here at Gfinityesports.com, the best website for gaming features and opinions.