Marvel Rivals Season 5.5 drops December 12 with balance changes for nearly every hero in the game. The mid-season update introduces Rogue as a power-stealing Vanguard while adjusting ultimate costs, health pools, and damage values across Vanguards, Duelists, and Strategists.
Rogue Joins as Melee Vanguard
Rogue debuts as Marvel Rivals' newest Vanguard, built around a melee-focused kit that lets her temporarily steal enemy abilities. Her signature move grants role-specific buffs based on who she targets.
How Rogue's Abilities Work
Rogue's F ability, Power Absorption, makes her dash forward and knock down an enemy. During the knockdown animation, she channels to steal one of their abilities and gains a buff that depends on the target's role. The Dev Vision video showed her swiping Doctor Strange's Shield of the Seraphim and Loki's Regeneration Domain.
Her right-click activates a block that depletes over time. Players can left-click while blocking to trigger Guard Reversal, launching Rogue forward in a damaging dash.
The E ability kicks an enemy into the air alongside Rogue. After landing the hit, players can recast to dive kick the target back down. This move comes straight from Rogue's Marvel vs. Capcom moveset, according to the character reveal trailer.
LSHIFT dashes Rogue forward. Enemies near her after the dash take damage over time and get pulled inward after a short delay.
Rogue's Ultimate drains enemy ult charge in a radius around her. She gains buffs based on how many enemies she catches and what roles they're playing. The ability also reveals all enemy ult charge to Rogue's team.
Fighting Game DNA in Rogue's Design
NetEase leaned hard into Rogue's fighting game history for this design. The character trailer focused heavily on melee combos, showing her launching aerial strings before crashing down with her signature divekick. She even performs various grapples throughout the footage.
Lenore Zann returns to voice Rogue, bringing her longtime portrayal of the character to Marvel Rivals. The trailer highlighted Rogue speaking stolen abilities' voice lines in her southern accent, including her delivery of "sayonara" after stealing Psylocke's powers.
Rogue's launch skin, "Savage South," draws from "The Savage Land" comic series that came out earlier this year.
Vanguard Balance Changes
Four Vanguard heroes received adjustments in Season 5.5, with changes focused on health pools and ability improvements.
Emma Frost Gets Health Redistribution
Emma Frost's base health jumps from 550 to 600. She loses the 100 bonus health from Mental Projection Team-Up since that ability's getting removed. The net effect is a 50 health loss compared to before (600 base vs 550 base + 100 Team-Up).
Peni Parker Health Nerf
Peni Parker drops from 750 health to 700. This suggests the developers think her survivability was running too high.
The Thing Hits Harder and Controls Longer
The Thing's Stone Haymaker now deals 10% bonus damage based on enemies' max health per hit, up from 8%.
His Yancy Street Charge anti-mobility field also lasts 5 seconds instead of 3, making it much harder for mobile heroes to escape once he catches them.
Thor Movement Unlocked
Thor can now freely change direction during Storm Surge instead of being locked into one path. He can dash in any direction he wants, giving players way more control over this mobility tool.
Duelist Changes Hit Damage Numbers
Eight Duelists received updates ranging from damage buffs to ult economy nerfs and quality-of-life fixes.
Blade: More Damage, Weaker Healing Reduction
Blade's damage goes up across the board. Ancestral Sword climbs from 24 to 26 damage per hit, while Whirlwind Slash rises from 15 to 16.
His Bloodline Awakening healing reduction drops from 35% to 25%, though. Enemies under his debuff now heal for 75% of normal instead of 65%, making the anti-heal 10 percentage points weaker.
Daredevil Loses Team-Up Health
Daredevil no longer gets the 25 bonus health from Bestial Hunt Team-Up. The Team-Up itself stays in the game, but the health bonus is gone.
Human Torch Damage and Range Improvements
Human Torch's Fire Cluster gets tighter spread, higher damage per projectile (5 to 5.5), and better damage falloff. The ability now maintains higher damage at medium range, falling off to 60% at 20 meters instead of 30.
Blazing Blast charges faster (2.5 seconds down from 3) and hits harder (45 damage up from 40).
Phoenix Ultimate Durability Up
The Phoenix summon during Endsong Inferno gets 500 health instead of 400, making the ult form tougher to kill.
Psylocke Ultimate Cost Spike
Dance of the Butterfly now costs 3400 energy instead of 2800. Psylocke needs way more charge before she can ult, cutting down how often she can use it.
Scarlet Witch Gets Faster and Stronger
Scarlet Witch builds Chthonian Burst faster now (0.1 charge per Chaos Control hit, up from 0.08).
Dark Seal flies faster (60m/s from 40m/s) and has no Spell Field delay anymore. The speed boost makes it much harder to dodge.
Reality Erasure pulls enemies faster during cast (3m/s from 2.4m/s), making it tougher to escape once caught.
The Punisher Slight Damage Bump
Adjudication damage rises from 19 to 20 per hit. It might change breakpoints against certain health pools.
Wolverine Can Ult to Walls Now
Last Stand can target walls for landing spots. Before, Wolverine needed ground-level targets, but now he can land on elevated surfaces or wall positions that weren't accessible before.
Strategist Updates Focus on Ultimate Economy
Six Strategists received tuning changes, mostly targeting ult costs with some major functionality updates.
Gambit and Invisible Woman Ult Costs Rise
Both heroes see their ult costs jump from 4300 to 4500 energy, slightly delaying how fast they can ult.
Loki's Clones Hit Harder
Loki's Doppelgängers now deal and heal for 90% of his base values instead of 80%. The 10 percentage point jump makes his clones way more threatening and valuable.
Luna Snow Gains Self-Sustain Ability
Luna Snow's Absolute Zero fires faster with reduced startup and faster projectile speed (80m/s from 60m/s).
More importantly, Luna Snow gets a completely new ability. She can now apply Idol Aura to herself separately from Share the Stage. When it's active, 10% of healing she gives allies converts to self-healing. She also gets a 10% healing boost and 10% damage boost while it's running. This gives Luna self-sustain that didn't require teammate support before.
Rocket Raccoon Ultimate Charge Increase
C.Y.A. now costs 4300 energy instead of 4000. Rocket will ult a bit less often in standard matches.
Ultron Drone System Rework
Imperative: Patch can deploy 2 drones at once now, letting Ultron support two allies simultaneously instead of just one.
Imperative: Firewall got mechanical changes. It needs a target with Imperative: Patch active before it works. When used, Ultron gets 65 bonus health, the target and nearby allies get 50 bonus health, and the Patch target specifically gains 20% movement speed and 10% damage.
Rage of Ultron costs 4000 energy now instead of 3700, slowing his ult availability.
Jeff's Winter Splash Festival Returns
The holiday game mode from last year comes back with Season 5.5, bringing a new map called Jeffland. The festival launches December 18, six days after the main update drops. NetEase will share more details about the mode's mechanics and rewards in the coming days.
A new lineup of holiday skins arrives alongside the festivities. The December 18 special update kicks off Jeff's Winter Splash Festival and adds the Winter Celebration skins to the shop.
The patch notes also mention a "mysterious burger from Pym's Test Kitchen" that might surprise players who try it. No details on what it actually does.
What the Season 5.5 Changes Mean
The patch shows clear priorities from NetEase across the board.
Ultimate economy took a hit. Many Strategists (Gambit, Invisible Woman, Rocket Raccoon, Ultron) and Psylocke all need more charge to ult now. The developers clearly think certain ults were charging too fast or proving too impactful for their previous costs.
Team-Ups got a major shake-up with Mental Projection's removal and new members added to existing abilities. NetEase is still tweaking this system's balance and trying to create more diverse Team-Up options across the roster.
Mobility and control effects saw buffs through changes like The Thing's longer anti-mobility field and Thor's improved Storm Surge control. Tanks are getting stronger presence and lockdown capabilities.
Support self-sufficiency improved significantly, especially with Luna Snow's new self-applied Idol Aura. The change addresses how vulnerable supports become when teammates can't protect them.
Rogue represents the most mechanically complex tank yet. NetEase needs to create voice lines and animations for every ability she can steal. As the roster grows, each new hero's abilities need voicing and animation for Rogue's kit, all performed by Lenore Zann in Rogue's southern accent. That's an ongoing development cost.
The December 12 launch gives players the weekend to test Rogue's power-stealing and adapt to the new balance before competitive play heats up again.
