Fans of the hero shooter genre are sure to notice some familiar ideas in Marvel Rivals, whether it’s the game modes or certain character abilities. That said, the new superhero title does attempt to spice things up with fun concepts like destructible environments and Team-Up abilities. One of the more unique original ideas the game puts forward is the Season Bonus, although it’s left most of us just confused if anything.
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The biggest problem with Season Bonus is that there isn’t any official explanation for it. Outside some brief mentions in-game, the most information I can find on it was just a bunch of players in the official Discord asking questions and occasionally getting an evaluated guess of an answer from a fellow player. But after some rigorous testing and cross-references with other materials, I’ve put together a handy breakdown of everything you need to know about Season Bonuses.
What is a Season Bonus?
Season Bonuses are class-specific buffs provided to a set of characters:
- Vanguards get extra health
- Duelists get a damage boost
- Strategists get a healing bonus
Each of the characters receiving these bonuses is involved in Team-Up Abilities. More specifically, each one serves as an anchor or initiator for them.
We’re assuming that this isn’t just a massive coincidence and the characters mentioned above were chosen for their Team-Ups role. The yellow symbol for Season Bonus is also used to infer to Team-Up Anchors after all. Adjusting these bonuses could be a way to motivate players to use these characters, or perhaps be a method of balancing on the developer’s part. Something that ties into both of those is the presumption that Season Bonuses will only last throughout the season.
The next season could adjust the values of these bonuses or provide them to entirely different characters. If these are indeed meant to be tied to Team-Ups, we could also see the debut of new ones and potentially the shelving of others. Again, we can only make guesses about Season Bonuses since we don’t have a proper explanation. Fingers crossed we have a detailed breakdown come time for Season One.
How to activate a Season Bonus
Screenshot: Marvel Games / Kotaku
There is a good chance that the first time you saw mention of a Season Bonus was while you were picking a hero to play. It might have even been after you remembered that Kotaku’s Marvel Rivals intro tips recommended reading your hero profiles before heading into a match. Considering the Season Bonus is only for Anchor heroes and is listed underneath their Team-Up information, you likely assumed this bonus will only activate when the Team-Up ability does. However, these two things aren’t related in that way. A character’s Season Bonus is active at all times, no matter who is on their team.
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I cross-referenced this with the official base stats for heroes provided on the game’s website. For example, Groot’s base health is listed as 700 on the website. His health during actual gameplay is 850. It remains at this value no matter if Rocket Raccoon and/or Jeff the Land Shark are on his team. Naturally, checking out his season bonus will show that he is receiving an extra 150 bonus health.
List of Season Bonuses in Season 0
Screenshot: Marvel Games / Kotaku
There are 14 characters with Season Bonuses in “Season 0: Doom’s Rise.” As mentioned above, the buff they receive is dependent on what class they’re in. However, there is a bit of variance in the values of these buffs. Here is the list of current season bonuses:
- Thor – +100 Max Health
- Groot – +150 Max Health
- Hulk – +150 Max Health
- Venom – +150 Max Health
- Rocket Raccoon – +5% Healing Bonus
- Adam Warlock – +15% Healing Bonus
- Cloak & Dagger – +15% Healing Bonus
- Luna Snow – +15% Healing Bonus
- Scarlet Witch – +10 Damage Bonus
- Spider-Man – +10 Damage Bonus
- Iron Fist – +15 Damage Bonus
- Magik – +15 Damage Bonus
- Hawkeye – +20 Damage Bonus
- Hela – +20 Damage Bonus
Season Bonus is a confusing mechanic in Marvel Rivals that a lot of players aren’t fans of given how cryptic it is. On the off chance you don’t want to worry about that and want to reap the proper benefits of Team-Up Abilities, these three starter characters all have some fun interactions in addition to accessible gameplay.
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