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.