Storm quickly took the throne as the strongest character Marvel Rivals Season 1. A recent round of buffs has catapulted her from one of the weakest damage dealers to a threat at all skill levels in Ranked Hero Shooter mode.
According to the statistics tracker website RivalsMetawhich draws its data from the game's robust API, she has the highest win rate of all 35 heroes at around 57%. Last season, she was only at 51% and was widely considered one of the weakest Duelists compared to popular picks like Hela, Hawkeye, and Psylocke. But a slight improvement in her damage output and survivability during her Hurricane Ultimate tipped the scales.
It's not just the fact that she can dominate the skies without ever having to touch down, it's also the team-wide damage boost she deals that makes her extremely powerful. Storm is a support character disguised as a damage dealer who turns any team she's on into a sharpened knife. And since true support heroes with their own damage boosts like Mantis are already hugely popular, teams with both are unstoppable.
At the highest ranks, Storm's presence has increased the win rates of heroes who benefit from her the most, such as Magik and Wolverine. Both need to get close to enemies to do anything, and the damage boost makes it much easier for them to get in and out unscathed, much to the chagrin of any support players. Even heroes like Black Widow, who previously had a hard time killing characters who could survive their sniper shots, are starting to rise from the bottom of the rankings.
So a few buffs can change the shape of a meta, even if they don't look like much. No one is calling for Storm to be nerfed yet, but I suspect the demand will increase as more players realize the impact of a hard-to-reach flying hero with team-wide benefits. Game director Guangyun Chen recently told metro that the team wants to let players experiment rather than impose rules on them, such as limiting the number of heroes in each role on a team. If this also means there won't be another Balance Pass this season, you might want to start practicing Psionic Goddess right away.
