With balance changes and the introduction of a new character in Marvel Rivals Season 2.5, strong team compositions have begun to take shape, leading to one role struggling more than others. Season 2.5 introduces a new«meta,»or preferred strategy that many players like to , a phenomenon that occurs with every seasonal adjustment period. While leading to unique groups of characters, this Season clearly emphasizes some heroes over others.
Players have been complaining about the current state of game balance for Marvel Rivals ever since the Season 2.5 update was made live at the end of May 2025. Multiple Team-Up abilities were removed, making certain character synergies no longer exist. Simultaneously, many characters were buffed and nerfed, changing the overall balance of the game while adding a new Strategist — Ultron.
Too Many Flying Characters Make Vanguard Mains Suffer
Tanks Have Fewer Ways Of Dealing With Skybound Enemies
The current «meta» evolving from Season 2.5 adjustments is the «flying meta,» or a strategy where a team picks multiple flying characters for their team. These heroes include figures like the newly released Ultron, Iron Man, The Human Torch, and Storm, who all never touch the ground as they move around battlefields. This is a far cry from the «dive» or «triple support» metas that have been popular in past Seasons.
Instead of incredible team self-sustain or over-aggressive team comps, the abundance of flying characters leads to aerial combat gaining an advantage against teams on the ground. As a result, Vanguard characters who have trouble targeting aerial opponents are harder to play this Season. Most Vanguards have no way of combating one flying enemy, let alone the 2-3 seen in current team comps.
The ability of a Vanguard character to fight against aerial opponents depends on their individual abilities. For example, Captain America has very limited melee range to his attacks, making it harder for him to deal damage to flying enemies. To contrast, Magneto’s range in his attacks allows him to target fliers more frequently.
The best Vanguards in team comps still struggle against flying characters, as those type of heroes disrupt what the role is supposed to do. Unless you’re playing someone like Doctor Strange or Magneto who has a shield, it can be hard to defend yourself from aerial attacks. Vanguards with limited mobility and range on their attacks can almost never fight back against fliers without help from their team.
Thankfully, almost every Vanguard in the game has some way of defending themselves through an ability in their kit. For example, Venom’s Symbiotic Resilience can grant him a great amount of Bonus Health to reposition back to his team or simply away from flying opponents. What makes aerial characters difficult to deal with as a Vanguard is that tanks rarely have a way to eliminate flying heroes without using many resources.
Some Season 2.5 buffs in Marvel Rivals were designed to give Vanguards more tools to fight flying characters, especially with Ultron being introduced. With new flying character Team-Ups, the skyward meta has been encouraged more and more, easily outweighing whatever balance the buffs were intended to bring. With the low damage output of Vanguards compared to Duelists who counter fliers, it has made the role far more frustrating to play.
Strong Aerial Team Comps Lessens The Impact Of Vanguards During Matches
Less Engagement With Enemy Teams Makes The Role Feel Uncertain
In my experience as a Vanguard main, playing against flying heroes comes with a variety of drawbacks. Vanguards who go up against flying characters have a harder time engaging with them, especially during team fights to establish pressure. Many of the abilities of different Vanguards are simply not designed to go up against aerial heroes, such as the ground-locked mines of someone like Peni Parker.
Normally, Vanguards play a big part in pushing their teams forward, prioritizing different targets on an enemy team to weaken them. Vanguards are also excellent at falling back to defend their team’s weaker members when an enemy dives into their vulnerable formations. Even during the height of the dive comp in Marvel Rivals, Vanguards were crucial for repelling aggressive characters who attack their team’s backline.
One of the best Vanguards in Season 2 is Emma Frost, whose abilities are designed to punish enemies who get too aggressive. Even with flying characters being strong in Season 2.5, this Vanguard is still among the most versatile to have on a team.
With the degree of separate space between Vanguards and flying characters, it allows enemy teams to simply go over rival tanks instead of facing them head-on. Normally, this would be balanced by one or two flying characters have low health and being hard for their team to heal due to their unorthodox mobility. However, with characters like Ultron being able to easily heal fliers, they can remain in the air without as much risk.
Flying characters with newfound support now dominate in matches where there are no aerial opponents to face them on equal footing. Vanguards just become damage sponges for flying characters to pick apart, with the former having little to no way to retaliate without devoting all their attention upward. This tends to create matches where Vanguards are far less important for turning the tide, with flying heroes now dictating which team has the upper hand.
Season 3 Should Introduce Ways For Vanguards To Counter The Flying Meta
Adjust Abilities Or Add A New Character Who Takes To The Skies
With Season 3 right around the corner, there are a few ways that Marvel Rivals could address the growing strength of flying characters. Some obvious solutions would be to nerf specific characters, but improving the ability of Vanguards to fight aerial opponents should take a higher priority. Here are some ways that Vanguards could be changed in small ways to help them combat flying opponents:
- Increase the range of some Vanguard’s primary attacks.
- Improve the radius of Vanguard AoE abilities to have more vertical range.
- Slightly improve the mobility of some Vanguards.
- Create unique Team-Up abilities in Marvel Rivals with Vanguards that counter fliers.
These are all limited suggestions, but another way Vanguards could start countering the flying meta is if a new character changed the game. Similar to how Ultron brought about the age of flying characters, another Vanguard could be introduced in Season 3 to directly counteract aerial heroes. This theoretical Vanguard could have a range of abilities, from dragging down fliers to the ground to even flying themselves.
No matter what way flying characters are addressed in Season 3’s balance changes, Vanguards should become stronger as aerial team comps get weaker. For now though, Vanguard players will have to find out how to best use their abilities in Marvel Rivals to deal with opponents who stay far away from them.
