Marvel Rivals Tier List: Best Heroes After the Season 11 Patch

Marvel Rivals' Season 11: Doomsday update landed on November 13, 2026, and it brought one of the widest balance passes the game has seen in months. NetEase's own Version 20261113 balance post touches 29 heroes — 9 Vanguards, 9 Duelists, and 11 Strategists — on top of adding Nightcrawler as the roster's newest Strategist. If you only skimmed the patch notes, the meta has shifted more than the hero count suggests. This is our opinion-based read on where everyone lands right after the dust settles, built strictly from the numbers NetEase actually published.

01What's in the Season 11 Balance Patch

The headline direction from NetEase's official Version 20261113 balance post is a pullback on self-sustain across Vanguards and a chunk of Strategists, paired with modest aggression buffs for a handful of Duelists who had fallen behind. Venom's Symbiotic Resilience now grants 75 base Bonus Health instead of 100, and its missing-health scaling drops from 110% to 100% — a real cut to how tanky he feels in extended fights. Devil Dinosaur loses the 15% Slow on Buddy Barrier entirely and sees its shield value fall from 450 to 400, while Doctor Strange's Shield of the Seraphim drops from 850 to 800 with slower recovery. Angela, by contrast, gets straightforwardly stronger: her first three Axes of Ichors strikes jump from 30 to 35 damage, and her dual-axe Bonus Health per hit rises from 50 to 55.

On Strategists, Luna Snow's Absolute Zero freeze falls from 2.7 seconds to 1.5 — a significant nerf to her lockdown power — and Mantis takes a similar hit, with Spore Slumber's sleep duration cut from 3.5 seconds to 1.5 and her self-heal reduced. White Fox's Spirit Sanctuary shield is halved, from 200 to 100, though her Fox Form Awakening now lasts longer. Rocket Raccoon, Ultron, Gambit, and Invisible Woman all lose some self-sustain or cooldown efficiency as well. Among Duelists, Phoenix and Winter Soldier both see damage or falloff nerfs, Wolverine's execute damage scaling drops, and Squirrel Girl gets a near-total rework that trades raw burst for utility and mobility options.

02How This Tier List Works

Every ranking below comes directly from the hero-by-hero changes in NetEase's official balance post for Version 20261113, cross-checked against the separate Season 11 patch notes for context on new content. We're not inventing win rates or pulling numbers from scoreboards we haven't verified — where NetEase gave a specific figure (a shield value, a cooldown, a damage number), we used it; where a change is more about feel than a stat (Human Torch's Fire Cluster moving from random to fixed spread, for example), we've flagged it as a playstyle shift rather than a clear buff or nerf. Treat every tier placement here as our opinion on what these changes mean in practice, not a verified statistic.

Nightcrawler launches alongside this patch with no balance history of his own, so we're leaving him out of the ranked tiers below and covering him separately at the end — ranking a hero with zero post-launch data would be a guess dressed up as analysis.

03S-Tier Heroes After the Patch

• Angela — Straight buffs across the board. More early-combo damage, more sustained Bonus Health in dual-axe form, and a Divine Judgement that now persists for 6 seconds without her babysitting the domain. If you were on the fence about her before Season 11, this patch tips the scale.
• Rogue — Her first two Power Surge Punch hits go from 35 to 40 damage, and her Gambit team-up got cheaper and more repeatable (Mr. & Mrs. X cooldown nearly halved, from 30s to 15s). That's a meaningful jump in how often she can threaten a pick.
• Black Widow — Electro-Plasma Blast damage rising to 55–75 (and as high as 75 flat with Phoenix) keeps her one of the cleaner burst Duelists in a patch that otherwise nerfed several of her peers.

04A-Tier: Still Strong, Not Broken

• Groot — A wash more than a win: Thornlash Wall damage is up, but Ironwood Wall health drops from 600 to 550. Still a reliable zone-control Vanguard, just slightly less of a brick wall.
• Star-Lord — More Element Guns ammo (40 to 50) and a cheaper Cosmic Soul with Human Torch make him a safer pick for players who lean on sustained fire over all-in dives.
• Jubilee — Loses the free Healing Boost on Sparkle Mark detonation, but Firework Finale healing ticks up and her Blade team-up lifesteal jumps from 30% to 40%. Net positive if you pair her correctly.
• Black Cat — A straightforward numbers buff: Feline Fury's Fortune cap rises from 50 to 75, and her Black Panther synergy scales even further. Good value without being broken.

05B-Tier and Below: Heroes That Lost Ground

This is where the patch's intent — trim self-sustain, especially on Vanguards and Strategists — shows up most clearly. Venom drops out of must-pick territory: a lower Bonus Health ceiling and a later, softer damage falloff on Frenzied Arrival make him noticeably easier to punish in a dive. Devil Dinosaur and Doctor Strange both take real shield cuts, and Strange's Hulk interaction now retains less ultimate energy on top of that. Peni Parker gets a quiet but real nerf, with Cyber-Web Cluster explosion damage down from 15 to 12 and a slower Arachno-Mine detonation.

Among Strategists, Luna Snow and Mantis both lose a huge chunk of their crowd control — a freeze cut nearly in half and a sleep cut by more than half, respectively — which pushes them from "lock down a target and win the fight" to "buy a few seconds." White Fox's shield nerf is steep enough that she'll need to lean harder on her Awakening window to pull weight. Rocket Raccoon, Ultron, and Gambit all lose meaningful self-heal or utility without gaining much back, which is likely to push their pick rates down until players find new team-up lines to compensate.

On the Duelist side, Phoenix (lower Spark and area damage), Winter Soldier (tighter falloff range), and Wolverine (both a longer Feral Leap cooldown and reduced Rage-scaling execute damage) all come out of Season 11 weaker than they went in. Squirrel Girl is the hardest to place: her burst damage is down significantly, but her new Mammal Bond attack-speed window and faster, more controllable projectiles could make her a different kind of threat rather than a strictly worse one. If you're still running the same build you used in Season 10, this is the patch to actually test something new.

How We Built This Tier List

1. 1We pulled every change from NetEase's Version 20261113 balance notes instead of guessing from gameplay feel.5 min
2. 2Vanguards, Duelists, and Strategists were sorted separately so role-specific context (shields vs. damage vs. healing) isn't lost.5 min
3. 3A nerf to an already-weak hero lands differently than the same nerf on a top pick, so each change was checked against that hero's standing before Season 11.10 min
4. 4Heroes were ordered by how much the patch's numbers change their practical impact in a match, not by raw stat totals.10 min
5. 5Changes without a clear verified number, like Human Torch's fixed Fire Cluster spread, were called out as playstyle shifts instead of buffs or nerfs.5 min

06Where Nightcrawler Fits In

Nightcrawler arrives as Marvel Rivals' newest Strategist, built around teleportation and repositioning rather than pure healing output — NetEase's own Dev Vision for this season frames his kit as swinging teamfights through mobility rather than raw numbers, similar in spirit to how Lifeweaver plays in other hero shooters, though the comparison is ours, not an official one. If you're coordinating pushes through the new Incursion-themed content this season, a Strategist who can reposition an ally out of a bad fight is worth testing even before any balance data exists. We'll revisit his placement once NetEase ships the first post-launch adjustment, which is standard practice for any brand-new hero in this game.

07Keep This Tier List Current

Balance patches in Marvel Rivals rarely sit untouched for a full season, and Version 20261113's changes to 29 heroes are broad enough that NetEase has historically followed up with smaller hotfixes within a few weeks. If you're deciding what to learn next, prioritize whatever you already enjoy playing in the S- and A-tiers above — a hero you're uncomfortable with won't perform to spec no matter how generous the patch notes read. For a deeper look at everything else Season 11 is adding, including the new map and anniversary content, NetEase's own Dev Vision covers the full season roadmap in one sitting.

NetEase's Dev Vision Vol. 23 breaks down the Season 11 balance direction and new content (published Nov. 10, 2026).

NetEase also used its official account to frame Season 11 around its Doomsday storyline rather than the balance changes alone, which is worth keeping in mind: the patch notes are the mechanical story, but the season's actual content push (new Strategist, new story beats, anniversary rewards) is arguably the bigger reason to log back in this week.

Season 11: Doomsday Begins! 💥 Two timelines, the present and the future, are on a course for an Incursion! New York and Nueva York are about to collide head-on! Will they find a solution in separation, or will each look out for its own interests? How will the heroes'

— Marvel Rivals (@MarvelRivals) · Nov 10, 2026 on X