The Human Torch is joining the Marvel Rivals roster tomorrow, February 21, and before the fire-flinging hero has even joined the scrap, fans are already scared. Part of Marvel Rivals’ appeal is that its heroes are powerful, destructive, and unconcerned with the petty matters of balance and fairness. The Human Torch seems to continue this trend, as some of the early playtests have shown the flying hero to be a devastating menace.
Johnny Storm’s deadly capabilities include the fireballs he throws at enemies, and his dash ability that lets him dive into the enemy backline, but that’s just the start. The Human Torch is most effective in claiming space with area-of-effect attacks, able to connect up to four points on the field to create a firewall that does hefty damage over time to anyone within the perimeter. If you place each point far enough away from the others, you can create an oven that cooks your foes, and it can take several seconds for an enemy to escape the affected area. Some might not even make it out, because it chips away at their health pretty quickly.
I can already envision players placing the firewall on objectives to try to keep the enemy team from contesting. That ability is stationary, though, so if your opponents manage to get out of its area-of-effect they should be fine. But the Human Torch is also able to bring some powerful AOE damage to a match that isn’t locked to one place, via his team-up with Storm. The weather-controlling hero’s ultimate ability allows her to create a tornado on the field that she can move for a short time. When Johnny uses his own ultimate, which allows him to create fiery tornados, Storm is able to pass through them and add a damage-boosting flame to her own ultimate, letting her chase down enemies with burning winds. The damage potential is strong enough to counter support abilities like Luna Snow’s ultimate, which previously has healed fast enough to keep her alive through most incoming damage. It’s busted.
We’ll see if NetEase ends up taking a fire extinguisher to some of these abilities, as the studio does seem to be moving into more heavy-handed balance changes. The next update is targeting the “triple-Strategist” meta. But I hope the Human Torch gets to be a chaotic force in an already chaotic game for at least a little while. God knows the healers need something to be scared of, after dominating the game for two months.