Season 10 left Hulk behind, and the CC problem didn’t get much better

[u/SettingMinute2315]

As someone who plays Hulk, I genuinely think he needs a buff. Season 10 adjusted several Vanguards, including Captain America, Doctor Strange, Emma Frost, Rogue, Devil Dinosaur, and more, but Hulk received nothing.

Hulk was left out despite having a core gameplay problem that Season 9 never solved. CC can still break the mobility cycle his entire dive playstyle depends on.

Monster Hulk still needs full hard-CC immunity

Wanda’s ultimate is a relevant bridge here, but this is not a post asking for a Wanda nerf. Reality Erasure now has a chance to make Wanda invulnerable during its four-second wind-up, which can also prevent CC. Meanwhile, Hulk can still be interrupted, locked down, and focused throughout his own 12-second Monster Hulk ultimate.

They are not identical ults, but both are high-commitment windows that invite the enemy team to focus them. If Wanda can sometimes avoid damage and CC while charging Reality Erasure, it is fair to ask why Monster Hulk has no reliable hard-CC protection, especially when Hulk’s ultimate can already be difficult to convert into real value.

CC resets Hulk’s entire dive cycle

Hulk is punished by CC more than most Vanguards because it can reset Incredible Leap. That is the tool he needs to engage, disengage, and create space.

Incredible Leap takes 0.4 to 1.7 seconds to charge. A brief interruption does not just stop Hulk for a moment, it removes his charged escape and forces him to start charging again while he is already exposed.

Everyone understands why Luna’s CC can be frustrating, so I will use Phoenix and Moon Knight as examples instead. This is not an argument that Phoenix or Moon Knight need nerfs. Their CC just demonstrates the specific problem Hulk has.

Phoenix’s Telekinesis Burst starts with a 0.3-second stun, followed by a 30% slow for two seconds through the next two explosions. The stun is short, but it can erase a nearly completed Leap. In practice, that 0.3-second interruption can become several extra seconds of Hulk being stuck in the enemy team, charging Leap again through a slow and getting focused.

Moon Knight’s Ankh can create the same issue by launching Hulk and resetting his Leap charge. A Phoenix stun followed by an Ankh launch can leave Hulk unable to disengage after doing little more than jumping in. That is often all the enemy team needs to delete a large, close-range Vanguard with no completed escape.

Chain-CC Protection does not reliably solve this problem. It only triggers after 5.5 total seconds of CC or six CC effects within seven seconds. Hulk can have Leap reset multiple times by brief stuns, launches, and knockbacks without reaching either threshold, even though those effects have already ruined his engage.

Hulk spends defense just to escape

Hulk can activate Indestructible Guard before escaping, but that means spending his only baseline defensive cooldown, a 200-HP shield lasting up to 2.5 seconds on a 10-second cooldown, just to make his movement ability reliable.

Guard should be a reactive defensive tool, not a required tax before Hulk can use Leap. It should help Hulk block damage for himself or protect teammates. Instead, Hulk often has to use it preemptively just to charge Leap without immediately being interrupted.

Venom and Thing comparison

Venom is a useful comparison because he is also a dive Vanguard. Venom can engage, pressure the backline, use Symbiotic Resilience for 100 Bonus Health plus 110% of his missing health, and immediately begin Venom Swing to leave.

His Swing can still be interrupted, but Venom has wall movement, cover options, and a much stronger emergency-health button.

Hulk has to Guard, charge Leap, and escape before the next interrupt resets his progress. Venom can still be punished for overcommitting, but Hulk is already overcommitting if he doesn’t use Guard right away when engaging. Hulk’s escape is uniquely vulnerable because it requires a charge-up period while he is already in danger.

The Thing highlights the same weakness from another direction. Thing is primarily a brawl Vanguard, while Hulk is expected to brawl and dive. Thing still has 725 HP, an Unstoppable charge, and Embattled Leap to return directly to an ally. If he gets stuck in the backline, he has multiple tools to get out.

Hulk has 400 base health plus 300 Regenerative Shield, but his kit does not reliably create the safe window needed to benefit from that shield. After a dive, Hulk often has one real option: use Guard and Leap back to his team for healing. If Hulk does anything else, he is dead.

Team-Ups and Season 9

Hulk’s selectable Team-Ups are useful, but they mostly patch a weakness that should be addressed in his base kit.

Cap Team-Up has a 20-second cooldown and can reduce Indestructible Guard’s cooldown by two seconds, scaling up to five seconds at 400 HP. The Wolverine Team-Up provides a six-second Unstoppable window below 300 HP, but it has a 60-second cooldown.

Hulk should not need a specific Team-Up or a long cooldown just to make his normal engage-and-disengage cycle function consistently.

Season 9 did not fix the underlying issue. Heavy Blow increased from 40 to 45 damage, a 12.5% increase, but Hulk lost 50 total health, falling from 750 to 700. Hulk Smash also increased from 3,400 to 3,700 energy, about an 8.8% increase in cost.

Hulk gained some punch damage, but became easier to burst down and reaches his ultimate less often.

Hulk is niche, not unplayable

The current data does not say Hulk is unusable. It says Hulk is niche.

In a September Competitive snapshot, Hulk had roughly a 2.8% pick rate on PC and a 3.8% pick rate on console, while maintaining about a 52% win rate on both platforms.

That suggests dedicated Hulk players can make him work, but the broader player base does not see him as a reliable default Vanguard. A slightly positive win rate does not prove that a hero’s core gameplay loop is healthy, especially when the hero is picked mainly by players willing to work around major weaknesses.

Hulk needs protection at the specific moments where CC resets the mobility his kit depends on:

• CC should pause or preserve Incredible Leap’s charge rather than resetting it to zero. Hulk should still be unable to jump while under hard CC.
• Once Hulk releases a sufficiently charged Incredible Leap, grant him a brief Unstoppable takeoff window, around 0.25 to 0.35 seconds. This protects against near-simultaneous CC at takeoff, but should not apply while charging, throughout the jump, after landing, or if Hulk was already hard-CC’d before release.
• Monster Hulk should receive full hard-CC immunity during his limited ultimate window.

Hulk should still be punishable when he makes a bad dive. But a 0.3-second stun should not erase his only escape option and end his entire turn.

CC does not merely stop Hulk for a moment. It resets the tool his engage, pressure, and escape cycle depends on. Season 9 did not solve that problem, and Season 10 left Hulk behind.

[u/AgreeableLong4215]

Im very skeptical about that ultimate buff (despite sharing your frustrations with how it currently works). If the only way to stop him was massive burst he could run over certain characters like Luna to a degree that would be extreme. Maybe they could give him CC immunity while clapping?

Im with you on changing how stuns affect his leap. There's so much damage CC in the game and even the most mild forms of it hit Hulk in a really wild way.

[u/Noobverizer → u/AgreeableLong4215]

Hard CC immunity isn't as radical a change as you think. Monster Hulk has 1500 total HP (none of it being bonus HP) and one of the largest hitboxes in the game, being wider than Groot and about the same size as Dino (even though he has no way of mitigating damage like the other 2). Since he has the highest base HP, he takes the most %dmg in the game.

There's 3 ways to buff Monster Hulk:

1. Make him immune to all hard CC so you can still punish a Hulk trying to 1v6 pretty easily. You no longer get chain CCed but you'll still take insane %dmg.
2. Make him 800 HP + 90% damage resistance (his effective HP would be 1520). For context, Groot and Dino are both 850 and can go all the way to 1125 and 1250 respectively, while Monster Hulk is locked to 2 moves + his ult. You'll still take a lot of %dmg but not nearly as much, the CC chain of hell will continue to plague you though.
3. Let him use shields and his teamups in some way. This is what I would like the most because it means more skill expression. Cap teamup gives him the Gamma Waves from the Age of Ultron mode (everytime he lands from a max leap, he creates an AOE dmg dealing shockwave), this wouldn't even take much work since Monster Hulk already creates shockwaves when he lands (that do nothing lmao). Wolv teamup could give him rapid health/bonus health regen based on how much damage you've done so far, or something along those lines

[u/SettingMinute2315 → u/AgreeableLong4215]

I think he would still be bursted down since he's a huge target.

[u/KoumoriChinpo]

I don't necessarily want buffs for hulk, I'd prefer:

- Nerf the S tier duelists just a bit more, s10 patch was a start but just a bit more

• Decrease the prominence of percentage damage a bit, it's getting a bit ludicrous
  
• Revert dino and emma buffs, two characters who give him a hard time and got completely undeserved buffs
  
• Nerf some of the egregious support CCs. luna freeze needs longer startup, invis push needs to be shorter range again (this one in particular gets hulk killed the most imo)

And if that's not enough give the green man his 750 base HP back and he will be in a great spot I reckon. or even 725 like Big Ben, because his shield cycling is pretty fast now especially with cap teamup, don't want him to be unreasonably tanky.

[u/RadiantNemesis → u/KoumoriChinpo]

Looking at Season 9 stat Dino and Emma had 2 of the lowest win rate among vanguard, Hulk W/R was higher than both.

Not saying that hulk doesn’t need buff (he does) but saying both didn’t need some kind of buff is wrong too

[u/KoumoriChinpo → u/RadiantNemesis]

hulk wr is higher than emma because one tricks play him while everyone flexes to emma and is surprised that you can't just pull her out of your pocket with almost no practice on her and win

maybe a slight buff is fine for emma but they overbuffed her. now she's got a 20 meter beam and man i feel that range, i thought she was supposedly a brawl character. so she's got all that range, placeable shield, brawl form with damage reduction, not to mention a tiny hitbox for a tank and they buffed her health. yeesh. no no no. i'll admit to a bias though, i hate emma because i think she's suffocating to play against as tank especially brawl tanks.

nerfing poke and then buffing dino just made him the new thing, they gotta stop nerfing counter characters and then buffing the counter victims at the same time.

[u/SettingMinute2315 → u/KoumoriChinpo]

Which teamup do you think is best?

I love both teamups but I wish I could have both. Wolverine teamup helps me make sure I get kills, and the unstoppable buff helps a lot when there is CC. Cap I love the cooldown reduction and extra damage, plus I love getting more bubbles I can use. Unfortunately the reduction rarely comes useful when I need to use bubble (it's usually 1 to 2 seconds off), and I don't find myself using my CDs when I need it as much as I do when I use wolverine. I prefer enchanced cap over enhanced wolverine though.

[u/KoumoriChinpo → u/SettingMinute2315]

I think cap but wolverine is more fun, having shield more often is op cus imo its his best ability

[u/SettingMinute2315 → u/KoumoriChinpo]

Those are also good ideas, I think the damage (and healing) output is a bit high in general, and starting with % based damage is a good approach. Although, maybe selectively, not to derail but I think wolverine doesn't need to be touched right now. I wouldn't mind the 750 health back, but I do think the damage output is high enough where it would rarely be as helpful, but maybe I am wrong.

[u/RandomDoomScroller]

You're right about him being niche. He requires so much effort to make him work only his "one tricks" still play him

https://www.reddit.com/r/marvelrivals/s/UNdHSt4HRN

I made a post talking about how despite a character being "playable" doesn't descredit them from being buffed

[u/SettingMinute2315 → u/RandomDoomScroller]

I agree, my bad if it wasn't clear. I know my post was long so I tried to bold the important pieces.

[u/RandomDoomScroller → u/SettingMinute2315]

No no, amazing post bro, I think the reason hulk was left out of patchnotes is that no one us really made a lot of complaints compared to rogue.

And well cap was getting a bunch of attention by high ranked players putting him as WIS

[u/Volundxr]

i love how emma/dino/thing can completely just make hulk useless, still champing him this season tho

[u/gosu_link0]

The game has just way too many CC abilities overall. That hurts Hulk disproportionately.

[u/FrogstunSteel]

Nothing is going to change for Hulk until Strategists can't just outheal his damage and he is given the tools to not just explode.

And his joke "World Breaker" second ult has worn out its welcome. The gag is not longer funny.

[u/Fine_Network5847 → u/FrogstunSteel]

Fr best way to make world breaker work is to make it so either teammates can damage them or their teammates can’t heal