Marvel Rivals creative director Guangyun Chen has acknowledged the overabundance of Duelists compared to Vanguards and Strategists, and confirmed that NetEase is looking into addressing it.
If you've played Marvel Rivals you'll no doubt have noticed that there's a ton of DPS characters. It's not entirely surprising when you look at the likes of Overwatch, which also has a ton of DPS, but that at least had the excuse of having both an Attacker and Defender category before they were merged into a generic DPS one. Marvel Rivals started with a lot of DPS characters and since then has added four more, while the other categories are feeling a little short changed in comparison.
Speaking to the Rivals Assembled YouTube channel, Marvel Rivals creative director Guangyun Chen was asked about the overabundance of duelists. Chen acknowledged the issue, saying "we've actually seen a lot of feedback about this from the community. Going forward, we will address it".
‼️Marvel Rivals plans to address the issue of having many more Duelists than Vanguards/StrategistsHowever it might take a while, as the heroes they are deciding on right now are for release next year pic.twitter.com/JZSRtFeiGJAugust 11, 2025
However, the Marvel Rivals team has previously spoken about having content available in advance, with designs for Season 3 and 4 already being complete before Season 1 concluded.
This, in turn, will affect how long addressing the Duelist issue will take. "The whole process from confirming a hero roster to production and final release takes quite a lot of time" Chen explains, giving the example of "the heroes we are currently deciding on are for a release slot next year."
So while he assures that the team is "gradually working to solve it," it still might take a while for tank and support players to get as much love as the DPS gang, "over time, a new balance will form."
