Marvel Rivals revealed reworks to Black Widow and the Team-Up system coming with Season 9, alongside a range of systemic changes that promise to make it feel like a brand-new game.
One of the most requested changes for months has been Black Widow’s rework, and it’s coming to Marvel Rivals on July 10. The updated ability kit revealed in a livestream on July 7 removes ADS from her normal attack and moves it to her Ultimate, keeping her identity as a sniper.
Black Widow’s new normal attack is now much faster and can no longer one-shot, while the Ultimate is a series of piercing shots that you can fire in ADS. The old Ultimate, Electro-Plasma Explosion, isn’t going anywhere, as it’s now a regular ability. The new Ultimate still can’t one-shot targets, but the shots have a wider hitbox to ensure consistent damage.
With the rework, Black Widow has a new ability, allowing her to slam into the ground, dealing AoE damage. This should increase her close-range capabilities when chaining melee combos. The rest remains the same, with the added benefit of stamina-free running and super jumping.
Another major rework, even more impactful than Black Widow’s, is to Team-Up abilities. This overhaul has been in development for a long time and scraps the old anchors and flat stat buffs.
Instead, every hero has two distinct Team-Up abilities that you can swap at any time. A Team-Up ability has two effects: base and enhanced. The base effect is active at all times, even if the partner hero isn’t on your team. If the partner hero is on the team, you get the enhanced effect, significantly empowering Team-Up’s potency and adding new effects. Thanks to new Team-Ups, some Duelists now have healing capabilities, and Strategists that lacked burst healing have improved baseline healing.
Moving forward, NetEase Games will focus on balancing existing Team-Ups instead of shuffling them around or introducing new ones. At the same time, all the new heroes will have thoroughly designed and useful Team-Up loadouts.
That’s not all, though. One more systemic change coming to Marvel Rivals is regenerative shields. Regenerative shields are a portion of the health that regenerates if you don’t take damage for five seconds. Not all heroes are getting regenerative shields, though. This addition targets high-mobility heroes, like Psylocke, and the health pool varies from hero to hero.
A wide range of new Team-Ups that enable new playstyles alongside extensive balance changes make Season 9 feel a lot like Marvel Rivals 1.5. The meta is bound to be unpredictable, so if there’s a hero you love but haven’t played in a while, now is the best time to pick them back up.
Season 9 launches on July 10, and as it’s a new season, there’s still the regular slate of new content. Jubilee joins the roster as a dazzling new Strategist, while Thebes is a new convoy map that will release a little later, on July 23.
