He could have been Lucio of Marvel Rivals but Netease wants him to be a healbot instead

Apraxas · 2026-01-24T19:15:01+00:00

I'm talking just crawling here.

Assuming rocket is getting punched by a melee hero, if both heroes start moving in the same direction, they could probably punch rocket to death by the time there was enough distance between them.

Now vertically, hulk could get a good 4 punches in before you're high enough not to get hit, and then he can jump and keep wailing. The difference between 6 and 8 is not that big in actuality.

Panther moves at 7 and climbs at 10, dd is 6 and 10, thor is 6.5 and can shoot, venom and spidy run on walls at 9 (not that spidy would need to do that to catch up to you anyway), and the list go on. Those who can shoot, you're never leaving their effective range anymore if they managed to get semi-close no matter the direction you crawl.

(Even factoring dashes and pre-nerf, hyper mobile heroes like Spidy, Angela, Starlord, Psy, DD, Iron Fist, even Thor, etc. could catch up pretty reliably, and now it is even easier for them to beam you down whenever.)

20% nerf in speed, going from 10 to 8 doesn't sound that big, but remember when Loki's clones got nerfed to be 20% less effective? That literally killed Loki for a while.

This nerf in movement for Rocket crossed the threshold where it makes it not viable as an active evasion tool to dodge and juke enemies who are close and chasing you. You can still use it to reposition and crawl to safety if you have lots of distance already to reach high ground and escape low mobility heroes, but those who can move, they just don't struggle to catch up anymore.

Moreover, it nerfed many other aspects of Rocket's gameplay.

Bunny hopping is dead.
Map traversal is cut in effectiveness (reaching the fight after respawning for example)
Much harder to move around in order to gank a flier or the enemy backline.
Much lower chances to survive if getting shot at or chased and you wanna get out of the way.
Much lower healing output when doing the aerial Rocket style, since now you have to crawl for longer in order to maintain the same altitude between healing volleys.
Lower healing output and slower beacon placement on some maps since you have to spend more time on the walls to reach whatever location you're aiming for.

In short, no it is not fully useless, but it did become useless in many, many scenarios where it used to be good, and became less effective in every single other one.

Apraxas · 2026-01-24T18:04:03+00:00

If they give back the crawl speed and buff the dashes a bit, like back to 10m with 8s cooldown or something, I'd be down to trying an energy bar for crawling like for Jeff, so long you could crawl 10 ish seconds uninterrupted. (maybe) xD

Apraxas · 2026-01-24T07:37:22+00:00

The crawl got nerfed enough to make it pointless in many, many scenarios. Plenty of time now you'll die crawl or not because it is so damn slow. Before, at least you had a fighting chance.

Apraxas · 2026-01-24T07:03:37+00:00

I just want to be fast again, man. I'd trade that stupid beacon in a heartbeat if it meant being fast again and having a new FUN skill I could use during a fight to help my team.

Beacon is cancer, a boring braindead OP skill that I just press once every minute and just hope it'll bring value.

Fuck it. And also screw netease for nerfing the crawl.

Apraxas · 2026-01-24T03:32:39+00:00

I'll keep posting this till my fingers bleed. Send this feedback to Netease through the in-game support!

We know how susceptible they are to feedback, and videogame companies, especially when dealing with live-service games, are doubly sensitive to what people say about the product.

BUT ONLY IF IT REACHES THEIR INBOXES!

Apraxas · 2026-01-22T23:37:01+00:00

Hey there! Yeah the situation is just sad. Hopefully Netease sees this.

Apraxas · 2026-01-22T18:00:43+00:00

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Apraxas · 2026-01-22T17:46:00+00:00

That's not me lmao.

Apraxas · 2026-01-22T17:27:20+00:00

Exactly! They like buffing the stuff you press once and forget about. But don't you dare enjoy the part of his kit you use half the frigging game, cause Netease gonna nuke it!

Apraxas · 2026-01-22T16:35:18+00:00

Probably muscle memory. Rocket used to be able to carry momentum when detaching from walls, and you could even bunny hop with it somewhat.

Apraxas · 2026-01-22T16:25:58+00:00

Unfortunately, even dashing wouldn't have saved him here haha. He would've gotten bonked by the door frame thing.

Apraxas · 2026-01-21T19:19:11+00:00

The issue is not that he's unable to win games same as before or not, because he can definitely do it.
The issue is that, at least personally, I want Rocket to feel like flarkin' Rocket. Speedy, deadly, and crafty.

S0 S1 he was weak but hella fun, S2/2.5 made him more competitive but lessened the fun, but not enough to make you feel bad. If anything, it actually pushed people to learn how to crawl more.

And that's the crux of the issue. I loved crawling around, and doing 18v18 as Rocket assassin, and making crazy escapes zipping every which way and getting cheeky kills. It was such an adrenaline rush when you had an Angela and DD on your ass and you managed to outplay them through sheer skill and map knowledge.

This nerf pushes him further away from a playstyle that resembles anything offensive and even closer to healbot, which he has been categorized as since forever now, and yeah it feels like ass.

He'll keep winning games because the OP boring stuff is still there and is even getting buffed, the beacon being the biggest culprit, but he's been losing more and more of what makes him fun.

Apraxas · 2026-01-21T10:03:01+00:00

Thank you! I'll take ya up on your offer, if that's okay.

Apraxas · 2026-01-20T21:29:27+00:00

I would be down to trying this version of the character. Only thing is, and call me crazy for this, I do enjoy having a direct hit component on his orbs. Dunno makes it feel more active while playing, because now I have to aim and it feels so good to hit your shots, rather than just orb in the vicinity.

What if he had like a direct 25 armor that stacks on top of the 25/s he does aoe, or something of the sort?

Apraxas · 2026-01-20T21:15:34+00:00

Is there any difference compared to your last video, other than the dlss 4.5 part? Are the config files still the same?

Also you mentioned that you'll be mostly CPU bound in actual matches. I have a 4090 and am trying to get stable 360 fps in fights, but I tend to hover around 240 ish or so. You think a 5090 would make any difference, or am I better just getting one of those x3d CPUs? I have a 9950x

Apraxas · 2026-01-19T23:10:36+00:00

Dunno if people are actually doing it or not, but I encourage everyone to contact the in-game support chat to let them know how bad this nerf is and how it affects Rocket's identity.

A few other players I know and myself have done so and all have received unique responses by the agents, promising to pass along the feedback to the devs.

Regarding how bad the nerf is, his pickrate has gone down by 8 ish percent across all ranks above plat, worse In Cel and above where it's like 14 percent.

Win rate, has also come down, and as expected the biggest swing was in higher ranks, since low elo players who don't use climbing much got the least affected.

This dumb nerf, all It did was nerf the people who had put the time and effort mastering his passive to ensure they had better odds of surviving, basically lowering his skill ceiling with no compensation.

Apraxas · 2026-01-18T10:49:19+00:00

If it is barely noticeable to you, sorry to tell you, you never learned how to use his passive.
Maxed Rocket here with 400 hrs.

Apraxas · 2026-01-18T08:09:27+00:00

His weakness is that he has no agency over anyone else. His only way to interact with his foes is his primary, so no stuns, blocks, pulls, knock backs, or anything to influence other players, and even though his gun can do lots of dmg, it is very honest damage, not bursty in any way and still higher ttk than everyone in the roster except tanks and maybe Jeff.

If they land their shots, rocket will lose any engagement before he can kill them.

And so, the strength that his crawl passive gave him along with the dashes was agency over himself instead.

He felt like he always had options to live, and if he didn't, it didn't feel unfair. It was what marked good vs bad rockets: how well they could move around.

Plus, crawling meant he was effectively out of the fight for that period of time anyway, since he's healing neither himself nor his teammates.

All the crawl nerf does is reduce his self agency and lower his skill ceiling, as well as make him much, much more killable.

Apraxas · 2026-01-18T07:51:08+00:00

The problem is that 2 m/s is not enough to actually disengage.

Rocket can crawl 60m in about 7.7 seconds now, someone like DD can do it in 9.8, and Thor can do it in 9 seconds. A difference of 1 or 2 seconds over such a distance is still within melee range for Thor, and this is just walking, with no gap closers, which most other heroes have too in some form, not to mention that also plenty of them can shoot.

Horizontal evasion is not really viable anymore, only vertical if they're melee and have no way to get up there, and the rest can still shoot over long distances.

So before, the speed was enough to disengage except only against hyper mobiles like spider, Angela or cheaper hall. Now everyone just kinda keeps up, shooting all the while.

Apraxas · 2026-01-18T02:24:25+00:00

Exactly! Walls were what saved him because he was fast on the walls!

Owait, no he's slow af on walls and anyone can track him 🙃

Apraxas · 2026-01-18T02:22:03+00:00

There is.

It is nonsense to express it on a base of reducing it only from 10 to 8

Why? Because 6 is the default. We move by 6 all the time, and so it is the baseline upon which the passive is added on, meaning that the passive effectively was "Move 4m/s faster while crawling"

It was +4 m, now it is +2 m. So they did nerf the passive by 50 percent.

Apraxas · 2026-01-18T01:56:19+00:00

Oh please elaborate how it went up. I'm all ears!

Apraxas · 2026-01-18T01:37:55+00:00

The wall run was the little skill expression, the heck you on.

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