Like clockwork, Marvel Rivals’ Season 3 comes round and throws a brand new OP hero into the cage combat of superhumans, gods, and (checks notes) man with gun. This time, the brand new arrival is Phoenix, and whereas she will not be as omnipotent as her comedian counterpart, she’ll nonetheless tear by your divers and Strategists.
Each new hero that will get added to Marvel Rivals is robust. The sample tends to see NetEase add somebody first and patch later, so I wasn’t stunned to see Phoenix dominate a lot of the matches I obtained to play throughout early entry.

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Phoenix is a hitscan Duelist with spectacular firepower and reactive mobility, a deadly mixture. If you happen to’re in a position to hit headshots, then Phoenix will have the ability to lower by the obnoxious quantity of therapeutic that Strategists can dish out.
I used to be in a position to deal extra harm than Strategists like Luna Snow, Cloak and Dagger, and Ultron might heal. It was extra work than it ought to’ve been, but it surely was simpler than making an attempt to chop by the backline as Hela or Hawkeye.
One headshot and a physique shot will kill Strategists and Duelists, however you can even whittle Vanguards down together with her flaming passive, constructing fritter away on a goal after which exploding them whenever you land sufficient hits. However Phoenix’s monster energy alone is not what makes this character an unstoppable server admin.

Phoenix is robust as a result of she is the entire package deal. Like Hela, she will be able to deal a ton of harm and has the mobility of a fly that one way or the other manages to swerve each assault you ship its approach.
Her shift is a directional teleport, which I have a tendency to make use of as a fast solution to dodge an incoming deadly assault or simply disorientate enemy gamers; it is a response that has been constructed by years of enjoying Moira in Overwatch 2. Phoenix could not journey very far with this teleport, but it surely tends to be sufficient to get out of hazard, and even leaves behind a bomb.
Then there’s her different capability, which sees her harness the ability of the Phoenix and fly in any route. This covers extra floor than her teleport, and whereas she nonetheless stays seen to enemy gamers so long as you zigzag a bit or take an unconventional route, you may additionally have the ability to escape from a coordinated assault scott-free.
However her motion is not simply helpful for backing out of a combat. A lot of Marvel Rivals’ maps have a ton of verticality, or at the very least a spattering of perches that you would be able to sit on and dish out harm from an surprising off-angle. Phoenix can get to all of those.

In a few of my matches, I ended up flanking, and was in a position to take out a few Strategists (and the odd Duelist) and retreat earlier than the opposite group knew what hit them. It’s going to seemingly be this type of state of affairs that’ll make Phoenix so troublesome, particularly with self-healing at any time when she triggers Spark explosions.
If you wish to keep further secure and bombard the enemy group from behind your ranks, then you are able to do that as nicely. Phoenix appears fairly adaptive, relying on the way you need to play her. Throughout one other match, I merely stayed behind my Vanguards and threw harm at anybody who got here shut; they disintegrated earlier than even reaching the target.
However all of this is not to say Phoenix is infallible. Earlier than lengthy, the enemy group caught onto my ways and proceeded to focus their firepower on me. Now, this is not a nasty factor, particularly in the event you’re in a position to slither out of oncoming assaults and you’ve got a group that may make the most of the change in focus, but it surely did make it lots trickier to maintain constant stress on the enemy.
Phoenix will seemingly trigger some mayhem for half a season, at the very least till a patch rolls by and nerfs her slightly bit. However in a sport filled with damaged and OP heroes, yet one more added to the combination will not seemingly make that a lot of a distinction. Though I am going to actually take pleasure in her firepower till she’s inevitably introduced right down to earth with the remainder of the Duelists.
