Marvel Rivals’ “unnecessary” Bucky buff has players divided
NetEase GamesMarvel Rivals Season 1 has introduced balance adjustments to Bucky and the Winter Solider, but many players have voiced their concerns over the latest tweaks.
Like every new season of a live service game, developer NetEase Games analyzed the trends of characters used in Season 0 before making the tweaks mentioned in their Season 1 patch notes.
While this can be frustrating for those who’ve settled on their main but now have to deal with nerfs (sorry, Psylocke fans), these patches are intended to encourage players to engage with multiple ways to play, making the meta more diverse and fun for everyone.
However, some are unsure whether Bucky may be slightly too powerful now after his changes.
Bucky buff too much?
Throughout Season 0, the Winter Soldier was already a solid all-rounder in Marvel Rivals, being a strong contender for one of the best Duelists. That was because of his mixed range of abilities covering both ranged and medium-ranged combat skills, like his main weapon Roterstern, and his bionic arm abilities, granting him bonus health and damage.
While Bucky has had a nerf on the area damage and reduced damage decay from his Ultimate, Kraken Impact, the Winter Soldier has gotten more base HP (250 to 75), increased HP gain from Bionic Hook & Tainted Voltage (30 to 40), and more damage from Roterstern (70 to 75).
As commenters on the Marvel Rivals subreddit pointed out, Bucky was arguably plenty strong already. But now, the Winter Solider has a near-tank-like survivability at the cost of a slight knock to his Ultimate.
Another player over on Twitter/X, simply asked why Bucky needed a buff as they were “running down their team.”
On the other hand, fellow players have been quick to come to Season 1 Bucky’s defense, pointing out that his buffs were needed to make the game more balanced when facing tanks and long-range high-DPS Duelist characters, like Hawkeye and Hela.
“I think they’re trying to bring the main frontline-dps in line with Hela and Hawkeye,” said one user. “That’s why they received light nerfs and a lot of other DPS gained buffs, with Storm, Bucky, and Namor being the biggest winners.”
A second player explained that because of Bucky’s slower speed, his previous levels of health made it very easy to get KO’d before he could do any real damage against tanks.
However, if he’s not dived, Bucky can really punish tanks from the Vanguard set of characters like Groot, Thor, and Peni Parker. Now, however, the Winter Solider will be given more opportunity to shred through the large health bars of tanks before they can dominate the field, giving him more crowd control capabilities.
NetEase GamesPreviously, it was easy for divers, those who flank or charge through to attack the backline to apply pressure or get quick kills, to take Bucky out. With Season 1 though, the Winter Solider will be even more capable of punishing tanks and flankers.
These boosts still elevate Bucky to the rank of #1 Duelist in Marvel Rivals; others like Storm and Wolverine are still generally better, especially with new buffs of their own.
Nevertheless, when you’re facing the need to apply some strong crowd control to an intense match, the Winter Solider has almost become a jack of all trades. Whether these buffs will make Bucky too overpowered remains to be seen, but now we know Marvel Rivals is quick to jump on the need for any rebalancing that arises.