Multiversus, the platform fighter developed by Player First Games and published by Warner Bros. Games, is now fully out. This free-to-play fighting game has an incredibly colorful cast of fighters in its roster, ranging from Jason Voorhees from the Friday the 13th IP all the way to a lone Banana Guard from the Adventure Time cartoon series. And, those who played the beta version of the game back when it was out know that Perks are one of the most unique mechanics that Multiversus adds to the platform fighter genre of games.

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However, between the beta and now, the Perk system has been changed quite a bit. There are a lot fewer Perks to choose from, and they seem to have much less of an effect on gameplay overall. However, players can still make custom loadouts of their Key Perk, their Team Perk, their Strong Perk, and their Standard Perk. Today, let's take a deeper look at the 6 different options for Strong Perks offered in the current version of the game and see how they all stack up against each other.

6 Troll Tactics

Pretty Much Pointless

Let's get the most useful 'Strong' Perk out of the way first, Troll Tactics. To put things as simply as possible, this Perk is literally useless. It is, quite literally, trolling to equip this Perk in a 2v2 match. Essentially what it does is that it gives the player who equips it taunts with some extra flair (in the form of some extra sparkles, trumpets, and banner effects), and that's it.

While the description talks about a 'rage buff', it doesn't actually apply anything to their opponent, the rage buff is, rather, implied to be the rage the opponent will feel after seeing that fancy taunt. Yes, there is a visual effect of the opponent's character getting all 'heated' with rage energy, but it doesn't seem to actually have a mechanical impact, but this hasn't been entirely confirmed quite yet. While the Perks in Multiversus are a lot less impactful than they were in the beta version of the game, there are still so many better options than to ever have this one equipped.

5 Speed Force Assist

Barely Noticeable

This is the 'default' Strong Perk that the game starts everybody equipped with, and thankfully it's a pretty helpful effect. While it is only a 5 percent speed buff, more Movement Speed is more Movement Speed. That said, even though Multiversus is a bit of a slower fighter (at least at launch) than people probably expected, a mere 5 percent buff doesn't have too much of an impact, and it's small enough that most players won't even notice the difference. It's better than nothing to have this equipped, and it's better than Troll Tactics, but just about every other Strong Perk offers at least a bit more benefit overall.

4 Airwalker

Very Situational & Character Dependant

Okay, so this next Perk is very deceptive in its description. What the Effect Description makes it seem like Airwalker does is that using Neutral Dodge in the air spawns a temporary platform to stand on, and while that's technically true that's not what this Perk is meant to be used for. As anyone who has tried Airwalker can verify, spawning the platform only lasts as long as the character's Neutral Dodge animation and then it's gone, leaving the player without any extra jumps or aerial reset like a platform would typically provide.

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What this Perk is actually used for is utilizing ground Attacks and Specials while in the air. Essentially, after using Neutral Dodge, immediately press the input of the Attack or Special you'd want to use in the air, and the character should use that attack on the platform before it disappears. In essence, this allows stuff like using Jake's amazing Ground Attacks in the air, charging Jason's Grey Health in the air, placing a Watermelon Steven in the air, and so on and so forth. It's a very niche and technical Perk that requires a bit of getting used to and some real creativity to make the most of it.

3 2 Fast 2 Block

If You Can Get a Dash Attack Off, That Is

Here's the thing about Dash Attacks in Multiversus, as of right now (May 30th, 2024) there's no real visual signifier to let the player know when pressing the Attack input will perform a Dash Attack or Side Attack. Typically, characters in 'Platform Fighters' have a walking animation, a running animation, and a sprinting animation, and the sprinting animation is what tells the player that pressing the Attack input will perform a Dash Attack.

Multiversus is a bit less open with regard to its mobile game-esque UI about when a Dash Attack will come out, but that's not even the main problem, as the real problem with Dash Attacks in this game is that there never really seems to be room to actually get the running start to use them. Between the beta version of the game and the full-release version, the camera has been zoomed in a noticeable amount. This makes stages feel smaller, and it makes things like getting some space to build up a Dash Attack even more difficult. That said, if a player manages to get Dash Attacks off pretty consistently, then this is one of the better Strong Perks to pick.

2 Collateral Damage

Hyper Character Dependant

This next Perk would probably be the best Strong Perk option if it did 2 additional damage instead of 1, but even by doing 1 additional damage this Perk is still pretty amazing on a specific few characters. The most obvious use case for this Perk is Steven Universe, as a lot of his attacks slam the opponent into the ground, and he can create terrain on the map in the form of his shields that activate this Perk as well when enemies are hit into them.

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But he's not the only character that gets a lot of benefit from this, as other characters like Bugs Bunny, Jason Voorhees, or Jake the Dog also have a lot of attacks that send the enemy into the ground. And, in general, players tend to use the aerial down attacks in combat pretty often regardless of character choice, so no matter what the Collateral Damage Perk is going to trigger at least a couple of times each match.

1 Last Stand

By Far The Most Useful Option

There's just really no debating it, Last Stand is obviously the best Perk choice of the bunch, as it literally just makes it easier to KO opponents overall. By default, most characters in Multiversus can easily survive until they reach 100 damage if not 120 at least. The time to kill in this game is just relatively high compared to other competitive online games, outside of combo'ing someone near the edge of the screen, of course. So, because of this, Last Stand will be in effect for at least a little bit for basically every single life the player uses.

Not only that, but this Perk is also a bit of an innate 'catchup' mechanic, as a higher damage character hitting a low damage one and applying Weakened is then going to have an easier time applying more damage to their opponent as well as knocking them back further. Overall, this is just the easiest 'set it and forget it' Perk of the bunch, which is why it's going to take first place.

MultiVersus

Platform(s)

PC , PS5 , PS4 , Xbox One , Xbox Series X , Xbox Series S

Developer(s)

Player First Games

Publisher(s)

Warner Bros. Interactive

Genre(s)

Fighting

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