Like clockwork, Marvel Rivals’ Season 3 comes around and throws a new OP hero into the cage fight of superhumans, gods, and (checks notes) man with gun. This time, the new arrival is Phoenix, and while she may not be as all-powerful as her comic counterpart, she’ll still tear through your divers and Strategists.
Every new hero that gets added to Marvel Rivals is strong. The pattern tends to see NetEase add someone first and patch later, so I wasn’t surprised to see Phoenix dominate most of the matches I got to play during early access.
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Phoenix is a hitscan Duelist with impressive firepower and reactive mobility, a lethal combination. If you’re able to hit headshots, then Phoenix will be able to cut through the obnoxious amount of healing that Strategists can dish out.
I was able to deal more damage than Strategists like Luna Snow, Cloak and Dagger, and Ultron could heal. It was more work than it should’ve been, but it was easier than trying to cut through the backline as Hela or Hawkeye.
One headshot and a body shot will kill Strategists and Duelists, but you can also whittle Vanguards down with her flaming passive, building burn up on a target and then exploding them when you land enough hits. But Phoenix’s monster strength alone isn’t what makes this character an unstoppable server admin.
Phoenix is strong because she is the complete package. Like Hela, she can deal a ton of damage and has the mobility of a fly that somehow manages to swerve every attack you send its way.
Her shift is a directional teleport, which I tend to use as a quick way to dodge an incoming lethal attack or just disorientate enemy players; it’s a reaction that has been built by years of playing Moira in Overwatch 2. Phoenix may not travel very far with this teleport, but it tends to be enough to get out of danger, and even leaves behind a bomb.
Then there’s her other ability, which sees her harness the power of the Phoenix and fly in any direction. This covers more ground than her teleport, and while she still stays visible to enemy players as long as you zigzag a bit or take an unconventional route, you’ll also be able to escape from a coordinated attack scott-free.
But her movement isn’t just useful for backing out of a fight. Many of Marvel Rivals’ maps have a ton of verticality, or at least a spattering of perches that you can sit on and dish out damage from an unexpected off-angle. Phoenix can get to all of these.
In some of my matches, I ended up flanking, and was able to take out a couple of Strategists (and the odd Duelist) and retreat before the other team knew what hit them. It’ll likely be this kind of scenario that’ll make Phoenix so troublesome, especially with self-healing whenever she triggers Spark explosions.
If you want to stay extra safe and bombard the enemy team from behind your ranks, then you can do that as well. Phoenix seems quite adaptive, depending on how you want to play her. During another match, I simply stayed behind my Vanguards and threw damage at anyone who came close; they disintegrated before even reaching the objective.
But all of this isn’t to say Phoenix is infallible. Before long, the enemy team caught onto my tactics and proceeded to focus their firepower on me. Now, this isn’t a bad thing, especially if you’re able to slither out of oncoming attacks and you have a team that can take advantage of the change in focus, but it did make it a lot trickier to keep consistent pressure on the enemy.
Phoenix will likely cause some mayhem for half a season, at least until a patch rolls through and nerfs her a little bit. But in a game full of broken and OP heroes, one more added to the mix won’t likely make that much of a difference. Although I’ll certainly enjoy her firepower until she’s inevitably brought down to earth with the rest of the Duelists.
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