- Marvel Rivals’ creative director has acknowledged the game’s roster imbalance, which is caused by too many duelists compared to other roles.
- However, roster changes will take time due to long development cycles, and new characters have already been planned for this year.
- A new roster balance will form gradually, but these changes will likely kick in next year.
Marvel Rivals’ creative director, Guangyun Chen, has finally admitted what the community has believed for months — the roster has a duelist problem. There’s a glaring imbalance in the distribution of duelists, vanguards, and strategists, which is causing team comps to become far too predictable and repetitive. Thankfully, the devs have taken note of these complaints, and Chen addressed them directly in a recent interview.
Speaking to the Rivals Assembled YouTube channel, he stated, “We’ve seen a lot of feedback about this from the community. Going forward, we will address it.” The creative director confirmed that gradually, “a new balance will form,” but these changes won’t happen overnight. He also clarified why immediate changes aren’t possible: “The whole process from confirming a hero roster to production and final release takes quite a long time. At this point, the heroes we are currently deciding on are for a release slot next.“
That last comment all but confirmed that new characters for the remainder of this year are well in place, meaning we’re unlikely to see a balancing change take effect in 2025. Judging by Marvel Rivals’ update cadence, the final four months of the year should deliver four more heroes, and we can only hope that the lineup shows a little bit of love to support characters and tanks.
To highlight just how big the gap is, the roster currently features 22 duelists as compared to 10 vanguards and 9 strategists. Season 3 alone introduced two new duelists in Phoenix and Blade. This skew towards DPS heroes results in other classes feeling dry and barren by comparison. The issue becomes even more severe due to the absence of role queues, which leads to players insta-locking duelists during matchmaking.
As a result, balanced team comps are becoming increasingly rare, while the general flow of matches is also starting to be repetitive. This is obviously detrimental for the game, and while it’ll take time for changes to be implemented, it’s good to see Rivals’ creative direction take stock of the situation.
With that being said, what are your thoughts on the current hero roster? Be sure to let us know in the comments.
