The livestream for Season 9 of Marvel Rivals was absolutely huge. There’s so many gigantic changes coming to the game, making Season 9 easily the biggest and most bold update we’ve gotten since release. The main highlight is Jubilee of course, the new Strategist that looks crazy-strong from her reveal trailer. But, most people are way more interested in other things NetEase announced instead, like an entirely new team-up system!
If you don’t want to watch the huge livestream for yourself, we’ll quickly go over all the changes coming on July 10 when Season 9 finally launches. And if you want to grab the Summer Festival passes or skins before they expire, or the Season 8 battle pass, get the best deals on Marvel Rivals skins or lattice from LootBar. For now, here’s what the next season has in store for us.
Another X-Man Joins The Battle! – Jubilee is Here!
Getting the obvious news out of the way: as is the case with every other season, we’re getting a brand-new character and map. The character is none other than Jubilee, meaning we’re getting yet another member of the X-Men. Her reveal trailer showcased both high damaged and great healing, making her seem like a Strategist that’ll reward heavily aggressive play like White Fox. She’s the first one coming, with The Hood confirmed to be Season 9.5’s character.
Regenerative Shields: An Entirely New Type of Health
In one of the most surprising announcements during the livestream, the health system in Marvel Rivals is getting a big rework. Almost all characters, especially Divers, are getting major health reductions. For example, characters like Daredevil, Black Panther, Magik, and more are getting their health brought down all the way to 150! But, their nerfed health is going to be replaced with Regenerative Shields instead.
These are a new mechanic that work similarly to base health. They’ll be counted as part of the total health, and any healing abilities will recharge them just like normal HP. However, as the name suggests, these shields regenerate over a short period of time. After 5 seconds of no damage being dealt to your character, they’ll automatically regain their Regenerative Shields little by little.
Divers will really benefit from this especially, not having to run off to their backline or the nearest health pack for heals anytime their hurt. Instead, characters with Regenerative Shields can just focus on flanking and going into hiding, since it’ll recharge automatically once they’re done repositioning themselves. How this plays out and whether or not it’ll make Dive more annoying is yet to be seen when the full season drops this Friday!
Black Widow Will Finally Be Usable! – Full Character Rework
Ever since the game came out, Black Widow has been a low-tier character. Very high-skill, yet low-reward. Unfortunately that’s just how it is with snipers in Hero shooters. But, now that’s a worry of the past, since Black Widow is officially getting a rework. One that entirely changes her role from ranged sniper to poke instead! Her ADS shooting mode is gone entirely, and now she fires her weapon as burst rifle instead.
Her old Ultimate is just a regular ability now, and the new Ultimate will turn her into a sniper that can fire up to 5 bullets, which all pierce through enemies and deal crazy damage from any range. She can also sprint and jump indefinitely without stamina restrictions following her rework. All these changes and more are hopefully going to make one of the most iconic Avengers viable for use instead of being a throw pick.
Team-Ups Are Getting Fully Reworked Too!
If the health system and Black Widow weren’t enough, one of Marvel Rivals most interesting mechanics, the team-up feature, is getting a full rework as well. Team-up anchors are being completely removed, as well as their corresponding bonuses. Every single character in the game will now have at least two team-ups, and you can choose one of the two to equip in the spawn room. It doesn’t even matter if the corresponding hero for the team-up is on your team, you can still use their team-up!
Not only that, but if the corresponding hero is in fact on your team, then you get an even better version of the team-up. In this new system, lots of the most iconic old team-ups are returning, like Iron Man and Hulk’s Gamma Charge, Punisher and Rocket’s infinite ammo, Magneto and Scarlet Witch’s Metallic Chaos.
The fact that having both heroes associated with the team-up makes abilities much stronger is also being used to promote dual Vanguards and Strategists. A lot of tanks and healers have amazing looking upgraded team-ups together. This should make 2-2-2 a lot more common hopefully by giving players incentive to play every role, addressing one of the main issues with the game. All-in-all, it seems like a perfect change so far. Since every single Hero has so two team-ups, we won’t go over them all here, of course.
Buffs (and Nerfs) Across the Board!
NetEase seems to be going back to the Season 0 and 1 mindset, which is to make every character broken so none of them feel broken. Almost all characters are getting buffs, especially Vanguards. The Thing, Thor, Tankpool, and even Heroes in other roles are being upgraded. Cyclops, Star Lord, and other characters that are already considered a bit broken are getting nerfed though, to level the playing field.
One universal nerf across the board is Ultimate gain. The devs aren’t happy with how often players get their Ults, so they’re nerfing how quickly they recharge for all Tanks and Healers. It’ll make Ultimates feel a lot more important instead of having every fight depend on them, which is a positive change by any means. If you want to know specifically what your main will look like in Season 9, check out the official patch notes from NetEase.
Conclusion
Season 9 feels like it’s going to completely transform Marvel Rivals, hopefully for the better. A brand-new strategist, reworked mechanics, and balance changes to nearly every character in the game are going to shake the meta up a lot. But for now, everything seems to be headed in the right direction as NetEase seem to be really taking player opinions seriously, like they’ve shown with Widow’s rework. If you want to get Season 9’s battle pass, or Jubilee’s new skin as soon as she releases, check out LootBar to top up Marvel Rivals lattice at the best prices.
