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Max Streaming Service Review: A Wealth of Content, Everywhere at Once

MILF Manor and Batman now share the same address, and the neighborhood got more expensive. It might be time to move.

8.0

Max

Like

  • Huge library that covers any era and viewers of all ages
  • Striking, eye-catching interface
  • Larger selection of 4K titles
  • Watch HBO shows as they air
  • Kids’ content lineup and parental control features

Don’t like

  • Glitchy user experience
  • Missing episodes from popular TV shows
  • High price, even with ads

Max is here. The refashioned streaming service replaces HBO Max and boasts more than 35,000 hours of content with a library twice as big as its predecessor. Blending Discovery Plus titles with the former HBO Max, the revamped service showcases the depth of the Warner Bros. catalog as befits a company that’s been in the entertainment business for 100 years. 

HBO has long been considered prestige television with shows like The Sopranos, Game of Thrones and Succession. Warner Bros. Discovery chose to drop HBO from Max’s new name in favor of magnifying all of its brands and broadening its appeal to a larger audience — including kids. (It already has a top spot on our list of the best streaming services for kids.) 

Merging all this content under one roof gives the platform a leg up on its biggest rivals: Netflix and Disney Plus. That said, Max is on the pricier side with a starting rate of $10 per month to watch with ads, going up to $20 if you want 4K and more streams. 

If you already get access to Max for free, such as with an HBO cable subscription, you should definitely keep it. At the time of this writing, Max still has to work out some bugs with how the app functions to make streaming more seamless. But the breadth of the platform’s catalog and video quality makes it worth having, especially if you’re comfortable paying more money for a streaming service. You can always split the cost with someone outside your household and share your streams. And if you’re someone who only wants to stream Discovery Plus, it’s still available as a separate app.

Read more: Best Streaming Device for 2023

Streaming services compared

Max Disney Plus Netflix Prime Video Hulu
Monthly price Starts at $10 Starts at $8 Starts at $7 $9 (or included with $140/year Prime membership) Starts at $8
Ads Yes Yes Yes No Yes
Top titles Succession, House of the Dragon, Titans The Simpsons, The Mandalorian, Bluey Stranger Things, Queen Charlotte, Squid Game, Dahmer Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, The Boys, Rings of Power Handmaid’s Tale, The Bachelor, Bob’s Burgers
Mobile downloads available Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
4K HDR available Yes Yes Yes (on Premium plan) Yes Yes
Number of streams 2 (4 for Ultimate) 4 1 (2 for Standard, 4 on Premium) 2 2

How much is Max?

Prices for Max subscriptions are the same as the old HBO Max: With ads, it’s $10 per month ($100 annually) and ad-free is $16 a month ($150 annually). But the new Ultimate ad-free plan is $20 monthly and will be the only subscription to offer 4K content and Dolby Atmos on select movies and shows. For now, features like 4K access and Dolby Vision will be accessible during the first six months of Max’s launch for legacy customers with the $16 ad-free plan.

Max subscription plans

Ad-Lite Ad-Free Ultimate (ad-free)
Monthly price $10 $16 $20
Number of screens you can watch at the same time 2 2 4
Number of offline downloads 0 30 100
HD available Yes Yes Yes
4K Ultra HD available No No Yes

Though most of the major streaming platforms have raised prices, Max remains among the most expensive services. Its pricing is comparable to Netflix for the ad-free experience, but at least you can still share your password without paying extra. We spent time testing all three subscription tiers and noted any differences between Max and the previous version of the app. Each plan offers something different.

Max’s stable of TV shows and movies is its power

Max has a hefty catalog that carries a range of films and TV series across multiple genres, and there is something for every age group in your household. The marriage between the HBO Max library and Discovery Plus serves up a selection of food, drama, comedy, animation, crime, superheroes, nature docs and lifestyle. In addition to HBO titles and Max originals, you’ll find DC, Studio Ghibli, CNN, Sesame Street, Looney Toons, Food Network, Magnolia Network, TLC, TCM, The CW and more — including the massive vault of Warner Bros. film and TV shows that spans a century. Only some things from Discovery Plus are on the platform though — namely the most popular content.

Warner Bros. Discovery says it will roll out «40 new titles and seasons every month» on the service. At launch, the service debuted new Max originals like Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai and SmartLess: On The Road, along with HBO originals such as Reality (starring Sydney Sweeney). The catalog will continue to expand in the coming months, including platform exclusives.

gremlins-secrets-of-the-mogwai gremlins-secrets-of-the-mogwai

Gizmo has an original series on Max that’s perfect for the whole family.

Max

The Justice League lives here with other DC properties, and Discovery’s stash of documentaries and reality TV shows is a click away. HBO favorites like Succession, The White Lotus, The Last of Us and House of the Dragon are available to stream as they air live on the cable network, with new episodes arriving each week. And you can still stream TCM classics such as Dirty Harry and National Lampoon’s Vacation on the platform.

Max’s offerings for kids are a highlight of the service, with plenty to stream from Elmo, Cartoon Network, Scooby Doo, Lego, DC, all versions of Teen Titans and a host of originals. That includes preschool content like Blippi, family movies and teen-friendly TV shows, animation and film franchises.

While exploring the content, I noticed missing episodes for some shows like Regular Show, which is a staple in my household. Steven Universe is seemingly intact, but other series like Amazing World of Gumball, Impractical Jokers and We Bare Bears are not. It’s unclear whether this is a temporary bug, a licensing matter or if Max is in the process of removing more content. 

Read more: Max: The 34 Absolute Best TV Shows to Watch

Huge bonus: More 4K titles

On HBO Max, there were less than 40 movies and TV shows available to stream in 4K HDR. If you have the Ultimate plan and a device that supports 4K, you’ll be able to stream more than 1,000 titles, including Avatar: The Way of Water, House of the Dragon, Dune, The Wizard of Oz, Goodfellas, And Just Like That…, Euphoria and all the Harry Potter films. If you type «4K» in the search bar, 27 shows and movies pop up, but you should look for the format in the title’s description. 

Warner Bros. Discovery said the 4K lineup might change, but you can find a list of what was available at launch by visiting this page. Be aware the company will continue to remove titles from the Max service as part of its cost-cutting strategy. 

Read more: HBO Max Is Now Max: New Movies and TV Shows You Can Watch Right Now

Lo'ak pets the whale-like Payakan while sitting on his fin in Avatar: The Way of Water Lo'ak pets the whale-like Payakan while sitting on his fin in Avatar: The Way of Water

Watch Avatar: The Way of Water in 4K on Max.

20th Century Studios

Early glitches

Before I dive into the experience of using Max, you should know my early testing was filled with glitches. Max arrived on May 23, days before Memorial Day weekend — prime time for streaming. I spent more than a week getting acquainted with Max, learning its strengths and flaws while comparing it to its previous incarnation and its competitors.

There were some hiccups. Just switching from the old purple HBO Max app on my Roku stick and Amazon Fire TV device to the new blue Max app was filled with frustration. And even after my week-long jaunt into Max, its performance was still less than smooth. Some of the glitches were minor e.g. a show host’s picture didn’t match the name in the description. Others, such as the TV app freezing and eventually kicking me out or some particularly wonky navigation, were more of an issue. For example, I found myself in a seemingly endless scroll of titles trying to reach the screen’s bottom, when suddenly the selector box got cut off, the app froze and my TV screen turned into a blue abyss. 

But at least my profiles, watch list and Continue Watching rows all migrated without a hitch. I didn’t lose any playback progress for movies and shows that I stopped, either. And despite the bugs, the video quality on Max is top-notch. The phone app experience was considerably better, too. Max is actively working out any kinks on all platforms based on customer feedback, so the overall experience should get smoother. We’ll update this review with any progress in a month or two.

max app on TV screen showing movie and TV show tiles max app on TV screen showing movie and TV show tiles

I kept losing my place when scrolling up and down rows of content.

Max/Screenshot by CNET

User interface and navigation experience

For the most part, Max appears and operates similarly to HBO Max and other streamers like Hulu and Netflix. As promised, the rebranded service comes with some improvements and big changes to the user experience. The purple is gone (I miss it, and you may too), but even with the color palette switching to blue — like Paramount Plus, Disney Plus and Sling TV — the TV app is still crisp. The phone version seems darker but is still easy to follow. Among the added enhancements are an expanded set of profile avatars with more than 350 options, a default kid’s profile for new accounts and optimized personalization.

Screenshot of Max phone app interface displaying the title card for Gremlins: Secret of the Mogwai. Screenshot of Max phone app interface displaying the title card for Gremlins: Secret of the Mogwai.

Navigation icons on Max’s phone app are at the bottom of a show’s title page.  

Max/Screenshot by CNET

Changes to the home screen, navigation and content organization are noticeable. The top rail has five tabs: Home, TV series, Movies, HBO and «New & Notable.» The prominent placement of the HBO tab is helpful as a direct path to finding all releases — new or old — from the network and a plus for those who only care a little about the Discovery Plus library. 

On TVs, a new side panel has only three icons: Home, Search and My Stuff. The latter quickly took me to my Continue Watching section and watch list. On the phone app, this panel is located at the bottom and has a download icon if your plan includes them. 

The top row on Max is Continue Watching (if you have one), followed by personal recommendations curated by the app and then My List (if you added titles). The home screen will become more personalized over time as the app learns your habits. In fact, all menu sections beyond the home page, such as Series and Movies, will become more personalized the more you use them.

tv screen showing max streaming brand hubs for hbo, tlc tv screen showing max streaming brand hubs for hbo, tlc

The old hub layout on HBO Max (left) versus the new format on Max.

Max/Screenshot by CNET

Scrolling down the home screen reveals Warner Bros. Discovery’s content brand hubs — all 18 of them — including HBO, TLC, HGTV, DC, Max Originals, Kids & Family or Ghibli. One obvious difference is the row of genre tiles is now located all the way at the bottom of the home screen. It’s inconvenient as you need to scroll past all the other rows, including Max’s curated collections, to get to them. You can use the app’s search to find them, but simply putting them higher up on the home page makes more sense to me. 

As far as playback, I only experienced a few problems with Max. For example, while streaming one TV show episode, the video kept playing when I tried to rewind a scene, ignoring my command. 

Recommendations need time to get to know you

Because Max is an upgrade — or enhanced update — of HBO Max, the streaming service starts from scratch when it comes to recommendations. Your history from HBO Max will not import to the new version, and with all the merged content from Discovery Plus, there’s more to sift through to watch — or skip. The algorithm needs time to learn who you are, and what you like, and will eventually catch up with your preferences, rotating in fresh additions. 

tv screen showing Max streaming app show recommendations tv screen showing Max streaming app show recommendations

Brand new rows of recommendations in Max.

Max/Screenshot by CNET

The brand hubs will help you with the transition from HBO Max to Max, making it easier for customers to find content and fine-tune the recommendation machine. During testing, I noticed not all hubs are solely dedicated to their brands, so you’re likely to find some cross-hub suggestions. It goes deeper than that with related collections and links to other movies or TV series featuring a particular actor. For instance, you can select a Harry Potter cast member or other Warner-owned franchises and be whisked away to the land of Superman, Middle-Earth, The Matrix, James Bond and additional collections.

Using parental controls

I gave the default kid’s profile a spin to get a feel for the experience. It’s preconfigured with access to PG- and TV-PG-rated movies and shows. Parents can adjust the content ratings, and you’re prompted to do so the first time you click on the profile. You can only change the settings from a web browser, though. 

Ratings range from little kids — which starts at TV-Y — up to teens, with the most mature options being TV-14 and PG-13. As long as you keep the profile set to Kids Mode, your child will only see age-appropriate content according to the ratings that you choose. If you toggle the kid-proof exit button, a four-digit PIN is required in order to exit the profile. The home screens look different depending on the age and content ratings, so you may want to create separate profiles if you have older kids and little ones in the family. 

When I set my kid’s profile for teens, some of the titles that showed up on the home screen included Talladega Nights, Friends, The Big Bang Theory, 50 First Dates, Teen Titans Go! and the Harry Potter collection. Be aware that there’s a wide variety of content under the teen-rating umbrella if you’re a parent who wants to monitor what your child is watching.

Read more10 Things You Can Do to Save Money on Streaming

Streaming Max with ads vs. ad-free

On the ad-based plan, the ad load is virtually the same as before, with 3 to 4 minutes of commercials playing per hour of content. When I watched one 90-minute episode of 90 Day Fiancé, I encountered five commercial breaks of various lengths that lasted a total of 3 minutes, 15 seconds. By contrast, when I streamed Shazam 2 (which runs for 2 hours, 10 minutes), the total ad time was just under 2 minutes, including a 25-second preroll.

While using the kid’s profile, I watched one 24-minute episode of Full House with no ads, and it was the same for a short episode of Teen Titans Go. There were no commercials during films either in this profile. Competitor Disney Plus does include ads while streaming in a kid’s profile, though Max and Netflix avoid it. Still, if you can afford the extra $6 a month, go ad-free. 

Downloads are only available on ad-free subscriptions, and speeds are fairly quick. It only took me about 35 seconds to download one episode of Barry on my phone, and a little over 3 minutes for The Batman — a movie that runs three hours. You have the option to select video quality for downloads, choosing from «good» for faster speeds, «better» for higher-quality video that uses more data or «best,» which downloads at a slower rate. It’s one of the areas that the Warner Bros. Discovery team worked to improve.

When I tested the app with the premium Ultimate subscription, I noticed the experience was the same as the $16 ad-free version. There’s a short promo reel featuring Max movies and shows that runs before some content, but not all. It played before Shazam!: Fury of the Gods, but not when I streamed an episode of Titans. So, for $4 more, we get two more simultaneous streams, all the 4K content and 100 downloads versus 30.

Technologies

Rideable Horse Robot Viral Video: The Real Story Behind It

Kawasaki’s Corleo robot horse is just a concept right now, but a thrilling hype video makes it look like a blast to ride.

If you’ve ever watched a video featuring a Boston Dynamics Spot robot dog and wanted to saddle it up and ride it, then Kawasaki has a concept robot that’ll make your heart flutter — and it’s part horse, part leopard, part robot and all wild. Too bad you can’t actually buy one.

The Kawasaki Corleo is a four-legged rideable robot, the answer to the question: «What if we put legs on an all-terrain vehicle instead of wheels?» Kawasaki released a video showing what the concept would look like if it were fully realized. 

The trippy video features the Corleo and riders galloping through a forest, running across a field, leaping over rocky terrain and trotting across a snowy landscape. The video appears to be primarily computer generated with Lord of the Rings-worthy scenery.

Kawasaki is known for its motorcycles and ATVs, but the international company has its hands in everything from railcars to industrial equipment and robotics. 

Kawasaki unveiled the forward-thinking Corleo for the Osaka Expo 2025 in Japan. It’s a 2050 concept model for a future mode of transportation. The expo’s theme is «designing future society for our lives.» The event officially opens on April 13.

Corleo incorporates some nifty design ideas, including independent legs, a hydrogen engine and steering through weight shifting. 

«While preserving the joy of riding, the vehicle continually monitors the rider’s movements to achieve a reassuring sense of unity between human and machine,» Kawasaki said. 

Kawasaki didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on its plans for Corleo.

For now, Corleo is just a model capable of limited movement, so your sci-fi dreams of riding across rugged mountains on a kick-butt robo-steed will have to be put on hold. Perhaps 2050 will bring us a world full of leggy, rideable robots. Somehow, that feels more achievable than a bunch of flying cars.

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What’s the Switch 2’s Price With Tariffs? | Obvious Skill Issue

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Marvel Rivals Season 2: The 6 Best Heroes to Start Learning Now

Every balance patch shakes up a hero shooter’s meta compositions. These are the best heroes you can learn to be flexible in your matches.

Everyone’s favorite heroes are attending the Hellfire Gala in Marvel Rivals Season 2. As Ultron attacks Krakoa, the sentient island and sanctuary for all mutants, it’s time to take up arms and leave the dancing for the afterparty.

But not every hero is built the same way. As a competitive live service game, Marvel Rivals’ seasonal patches change how heroes function, shifting stats around health pools, damage output and ability cooldowns. Some heroes lose abilities and other heroes gain more, fundamentally changing their base kits — which could shift the balance through the whole season, empowering some characters and limiting others.

Any character is viable in the right hands and the most important variable for success in a hero shooter is the ability to play around your team. If you make character picks that synergize with your teammates and work together, you can even overcome players with more mechanical skill than you.

If you’re serious about ranking up, it’s important to find a character or two that fits your playstyle in each role so that you can remain flexible enough to fill in your team’s needs. While certain characters have undeniably gained key strengths in the Season 2 patch, you should play who you feel comfortable with.

That said, you have a whole season to adapt to the current power balance and grow your roster of playable picks. If you’re looking to learn a new hero, these characters are some of the best ones you can invest time into this season.

The biggest winners in Marvel Rivals Season 2

The Marvel Rivals Season 2 patch introduced some critical buffs for struggling characters, making them better all-rounders that bring more utility to the table for their team.

Players who have put in the time to master these characters will benefit the most from their increased competitive viability this season. Ranking up requires just as much flexibility as it does mechanical skill in a hero shooter like Marvel Rivals, so you’d do well to add these characters to your roster this season.

Peni Parker

While Peni Parker has always been a very strong pick on defense for certain maps, she has struggled to find success in other situations. Her slow movement and massive hitbox led her to get shredded by characters like Punisher and Hela, who can keep up constant pressure with hitscan firepower.

Recognizing that Peni could lock down an area but wasn’t great at defending herself, the Marvel Rivals devs gave the character a series of buffs increasing her firepower, mobility and survivability in one patch. Peni is now able to shoot her primary fire Cyber-Web Clusters with a 20% movement penalty, rather than the extremely punishing 40% movement penalty that she shipped with. She also gained a 100 health point increase up to 750 to help her stay in fights longer. This is massive for a character that can generate a small amount of passive healing for themselves.

Perhaps most important, Peni is now able to land critical hits with her primary fire, drastically increasing an accurate player’s damage potential — which will be especially helpful if you’re able to web up one of the flying heroes zooming around. If you want to lock down defensive zones and provide utility for your team, Peni Parker has always been a solid pick — and now her poking capabilities are a whole lot stronger, too.

Scarlet Witch

Wanda was always a decent anti-dive duelist pick but she lacked the firepower to play around enemy strategists and her ultimate ability requires a lot of dedicated support from the team to be truly effective. In Season 2, the Scarlet Witch is able to put out some more consistent damage, making her a more effective all-rounder — and she becomes truly dangerous in her new team up with Doctor Strange.

Scarlet Witch’s primary fire now does 80 damage per second (up from 60), which means she can delete squishy targets in just three seconds if they’re not getting any healing. Her small area-of-effect alternate fire, Chthonian Burst, now does 80 damage on direct impact as well, which means she has a strong burst damage option for beginning and ending engagements. These simple number tweaks go a long way in helping Scarlet Witch players challenge opponents in one-versus-one situations, where they’d previously be forced to retreat from battle.

The real lynchpin of Wanda’s kit this season is her team up ability: Sorcery Surge transforms Chthonian Burst into a field of magic missiles capable of shredding even the bulkiest vanguards and it can be used in tandem with primary fire.

As long as a Doctor Strange player is on the team, I expect to see Scarlet Witch rotating her presence throughout the battlefield much more in Season 2, using Sorcery Surge to shred the frontlines before retreating to peel for the strategist backline in a pinch.

Psylocke

While Psylocke didn’t receive any direct changes to her damage output or cooldowns for this patch, she was part of the first team up ability mix ups. While the mutant assassin definitely benefited from Magik’s stepping discs, she already has impressive survivability from the escape tools in her base kit.

Now Psylocke is part of Emma Frost’s team up, which lets players create an AI-controlled copy of the character that can use her primary fire as well as the Psi-blade Dash and Wing Shuriken abilities when the player activates them.

Unlike a Loki clone, Psylocke’s copy stays mobile, diving on any enemies the player does. This effectively doubles Psylocke’s damage output — and the cloned projection will stay and fight enemies even if players activate Psylocke’s ultimate.

The new team up ability makes Psylocke an even deadlier assassin, and if you believe you can time your assaults from the shadows to catch the enemy team off guard, you’ll be able to make crucial picks before anyone is able to react. There are very few characters that can so quickly skew a fight in their team’s favor, making Psylocke an important duelist to learn in Season 2.

Hawkeye

The Avengers’ crackshot bowman was built with intentional weaknesses to balance out his ability to one-shot enemy duelists and strategists. He moves slowly, charges his primary fire up by aiming at enemies and doesn’t have much mobility. The Season 2 patch removes some of these restraints, letting Hawkeye move slightly quicker while drawing his bow and building his ultimate even faster than before.

Hunter’s Sight, Hawkeye’s ultimate ability, now only takes 3,100 ultimate charge to build up instead of 3,700 charge, and it’s gotten a pretty massive buff this season. The sharpshooter now draws his bow 1.5x as quickly while his ultimate is active, letting him fire additional volleys of high-damage arrows into his enemies and their afterimages.

Hawkeye’s Hypersonic Arrow ability also got buffed: Each hit now does 55 damage. This is another indirect buff for Hawkeye’s ultimate, as the arrow can pierce through enemies and their afterimages to reach crucial KO breakpoints for duelists and strategists alike. Skilled Hawkeye players will once again be able to pluck off members of the enemy team before anyone can react, creating a version of this character that is somewhat reminiscent of the Season 0 balance patch.

Rocket Raccoon

This rascally weapons specialist was a controversial pick in Season 1 — his team up and revive offered some of the best utility to a coordinated team but his lack of burst healing and mediocre ultimate ability compared to other strategist heroes made Rocket a tough pick against certain team compositions. In Season 2, Rocket Raccoon’s healing and ultimate have been completely revamped, making him perhaps the biggest winner of the patch.

The wily trash panda now puts out a whopping 55 burst healing when his healing orbs make initial contact with teammates, and they still provide 50 healing per second afterwards as well. Rocket’s ultimate also received big changes — teammates in the Cosmic Yarn Amplifier’s area of effect will now receive a lessened 25% damage boost but they’ll also gain 100 bonus health points per second while they maintain the link. This is a huge buff that brings Rocket’s ultimate ability more in-line with the healing power of other strategists.

In exchange, the raccoon’s escape ability got nerfed: Each dash takes longer to regenerate and doesn’t take Rocket as far away from the action as it previously did. But Rocket is one of the only strategists with the ability to heal himself. A small constriction of his mobility doesn’t damper his immense survivability, which means this character will have some of the most consistent healing and utility this season.

If you want to support your teammates with healing and utility and never get caught without an escape route, Rocket is one of the best characters you can pick up in Season 2.

Mantis

Rocket isn’t the only member of the Guardians of the Galaxy that got a massive buff this season. Mantis lost 25 base health this season, bringing her down to 250, so she’s squishier than ever before — but her sleep is still an effective anti-dive tool that should allow skilled players to offset this survivability nerf.

What makes Mantis a winner in the Season 2 patch are the changes to her Healing Flower and Allied Inspiration buffs. Casting these abilities on allies gives them 20 health points per second and a powerful 12% damage boost, respectively, for eight seconds. That damage boost is a crucial bit of utility that isn’t usually available outside of Rocket Raccoon and Luna Snow ultimates.

Before Season 2, recasting the ability on the same target would refresh the eight second timer but now Mantis can stack these buffs on her teammates until they have 16 seconds of healing and damage boosts.

If you’re a strategist player who often plays with dive DPS teammates, the change to these boosts helps you enable these players to disrupt the enemy backline and return alive much more frequently. You just might not want to force this character into single or double strategist team compositions — she works much better as a third, flexible strategist.

Heroes who took a hit in Marvel Rivals Season 2

While most of the Season 2 patch notes detailed buffs for characters across the Marvel Rivals roster, some heroes received a mixed bag of adjustments or outright nerfs. These characters aren’t unplayable — in fact, some of them will still be able to outperform the rest of the lobby in a skilled player’s hands — but they won’t be operating in top form like they were in Season 1.

Doctor Strange

The Sorcerer Supreme has been hit with another nerf — and while previous adjustments have focused on decreasing the magician’s health pool, the Season 2 stat changes affect the character’s damage output. Each dagger in Strange’s primary fire now does two less damage, which means the good doctor loses 10 damage total from a full volley. This is a devastating blow to the combo-reliant vanguard, preventing him from reaching elimination breakpoints with his fully-charged Maelstrom of Madness, which could leave enemies alive with very low health where they’d previously be reliably taken down.

Doctor Strange was also removed from Hulk’s Gamma Charge team up, which means the Gamma Maelstrom ability no longer exists. Strange’s dark magic is still a real threat but the extra damage that this team up afforded him helped him hit important breakpoints to eliminate key enemy threats, especially when paired with his group stun ultimate ability, the Eye of Agamotto. There’s also no way to negate Doctor Strange’s self-imposed anti-heal now, which means players will need to remain ever mindful of dark magic accumulation.

As one of the only main tanks in the game, Doctor Strange will still be incredibly useful to pick up and learn in Season 2 — in fact, Groot, Magneto and Strange are all pretty evergreen picks in different Marvel Rivals metas. But if you’re used to playing this mystical vanguard, you’ll probably find you have less individual agency when it comes to securing key eliminations this season.

Bucky

Bucky got hit with a one-two punch at the beginning of Season 2, receiving a handful of direct nerfs to his most powerful abilities and losing his infinite ammo team up with Rocket Raccoon. The Winter Soldier is still capable of some very scary burst damage but he won’t be able to take as much space this season.

The Bionic Hook cooldown has been increased to 12 seconds so vanguards won’t have to worry about getting yanked into the middle of Bucky’s team as often. The Winter Soldier’s Kraken Impact ability also does less damage this season, and now players will have to drop enemies to 15% of their health pool to instantly eliminate them after they’ve been hit with the ultimate.

Bucky gained a new team up that allows him to leap toward Captain America to slam his shield to attack nearby enemies, dealing 80 damage to and slowing enemies in a 10 meter radius while temporarily giving Bucky 30 bonus health points. I can’t imagine this will be useful outside of niche situations, as Winter Soldier just doesn’t have the dive capabilities that Cap does, and this ability could get players into a dire situation very quickly

The previous iteration of the infinite ammo team up was much more useful for Winter Soldier players, but the character is by no means terrible in Season 2 — he has just gone from being absurdly strong to being more in line with other duelists.

Namor

There’s no doubt in my mind that Namor will still see play this season. He might even remain one of the best characters in the duelist roster. But the king of the sea still lost one of his most important abilities as his team up anchor moved from Luna Snow to the Hulk, marking him out as one of the losers in this patch.

While Namor’s new Gamma Monstro team up ability is incredibly strong if you can keep an enemy pinned down, it takes five seconds of continuous fire for the damage to ramp up. The 20 meter range on the gamma beam is useful but a good diver will play around the ability before it can really start taking a substantial chunk out of their health pool.

The Ice Monstros that Namor lost this season were the easiest way to shut down divers in Marvel Rivals, functioning as auto-aim turrets that slowed down the escape of some of the most movement-dependent characters in the game.

Namor’s stats and base kit were left untouched, though, so he’s one of the characters that got hurt the least by an unfavorable change to his team up. This character will still be one of the most important picks against a dive team composition — and one of the most important bans for any Spider-Man, Black Panther, Psylocke or Magik mains looking to prey on strategists in the backline.

Adam Warlock

The golden boy is rolling with the punches this season. Adam Warlock got a small buff to his ultimate ability — he’ll now resurrect teammates with 30% of their maximum health pool, which should stop Winter Soldier players from clip farming their ultimate ability on poor strategist mains. But that’s all the good news there is for players in pursuit of embodying the perfect human.

With no real mobility options, Adam Warlock depends on careful cooldown management to be consistently effective during battle. The Season 2 patch introduces a 10 second increase on the cooldown of his health-sharing and heal-over-time ability Soul Bond, raising it up to 40 seconds, interrupting the flow of this character’s resource management. Dive team compositions will have a much easier time jumping on and eliminating Adam Warlock in this balance patch.

Players with impeccable aim and careful positioning will still be able to wring a lot of value out of an Adam Warlock pick, especially if they’re able to consistently land the entire Cosmic Cluster charged volley (his secondary fire). It’s just going to be much harder — and far more resource intensive — to stay alive against certain teams.

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