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Marvel Rivals developers seem to be buffing Strategists in response to the community Support Stike

Collective action works, even in the Marvel universe.

Marvel Rivals Wolverine Screenshot
Image credit: NetEase Games

For the past week or so, the Marvel Rivals community has been in a heated debate surrounding the treatment of Support mains in competitive matches. After streamer Necros called Strategist mains “morons” and “idiots,” players talked about boycotting those classes to show how important they are to the overall balance of the game. While it is still difficult to tell if the community managed to organize the threatened strike, it does appear that the Marvel Rivals devs were listening as the latest patch seems focused on buffing Support classes.

The thing to remember about Marvel Rivals is that the team behind it is surprisingly responsive to the community. So even if the proposed Support Strike in Marvel Rivals didn’t materialize – and it is going to be difficult to prove it has – Netease has clearly heard the feedback and is responding by giving Strategists a buff.

“In the upcoming patch, we will enhance the damage capabilities of certain Strategists to elevate their threat levels, which in turn, will increase team composition possibilities,” a new blog post from the Marvel Rivals team said. While they didn’t name the Support Strike in the post, they did say that the patch was built following “the impact of balance adjustments and the performance ratings of various classes in ranked play.”

Giving Strategists more damage will certainly make them a more attractive class for players and give them more options rather than just healing or buffing, but it isn’t clear if it will actually change the behavior of players who have been disparaging of Support classes in Marvel Rivals. Still, it does show that Netease is listening and will implement feedback if the community is loud enough.


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Trent Cannon

Trent Cannon: Trent is a freelance writer who has been covering anime, video games, and pop culture for a decade. (He/Him)

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