Marvel Rivals launched final week, and as followers are flocking to the sport in droves, they’re additionally determining who their favourite and least favourite characters are on the hero shooter’s roster. Proper now, the sport feels prefer it’s within the pre-patch state of simply being an actual chaotic shooter that hasn’t but been sanded down by months of steadiness patches. At the moment, few characters are as chaotic as Jeff the Land Shark, the strategist hero who’s, at a look, only a foolish little man. Nevertheless, as Marvel Rivals gamers have discovered, this blissful dude is definitely one of many greatest menaces within the recreation, and god, I hope NetEase retains him like this endlessly.
Jeff is a “strategist,” the Marvel Rivals equal of a assist hero. More often than not he sprays water from his mouth to patch up teammates and leaves healing-infused bubbles across the battlefield for gamers to stroll by means of and recuperate a few of their HP. Nevertheless, it’s his final that has change into the bane of most gamers’ existence. “It’s Jeff!” creates a large whirlpool on the battlefield, which Jeff circles earlier than devouring any participant inside the world of impact. From right here, he can do one of some issues. He can chew on them as he swims round, doing small harm over time. He can spit them out, displacing them. Or, he can do what most gamers have discovered to do and ship them off the aspect of the map.
At first, my expertise with hungry Jeffs was that gamers would swallow a number of opponents after which spit them off the map and right into a chasm. As a Star-Lord primary, this was often not that massive of a deal, as I may simply fly proper again to security. Nevertheless, as extra gamers have used this technique, Jeff gamers have wised up and realized that they’ll get extra worth diving off the aspect of the map themselves whereas their foes are nonetheless trapped than they’ll by simply spitting them out and risking them returning to security. It has change into such a foolproof technique that seemingly each Jeff participant is using it, and everybody else desires the land shark’s blood.
Whereas that’s the most typical technique now, generally there isn’t a gap close by, and a few gamers are utilizing Jeff’s final as a solution to throw a staff off an goal or to arrange different extra devastating assaults, like grouping collectively a number of foes to toss them into Scarlet Witch’s explosive final. No matter technique Jeff gamers are utilizing, the character’s damaging energy contrasted together with his cute, unassuming demeanor has made him the middle of so many jokes within the recreation’s neighborhood simply days after launch.
We nonetheless don’t understand how NetEase will steadiness Marvel Rivals sooner or later, however there’s a part of me that hopes it stays this messy, unpolished hero shooter and “unfair,” “poisonous” nonsense like Jeff’s final stays within the recreation. In the end, it’ll hinge on what the studio desires for the sport. Does it need Marvel Rivals to change into a giant esports sensation or does it need to preserve interesting to the informal participant who isn’t getting sweaty and simply desires to slam their superhero toys in opposition to one another? The latter is preferable to me at this level, and the chaos of Jeff the Land Shark is likely one of the finest examples of it.
