With the debut of the open beta of MultiVersus, and the Warner Bros' based fighting game continuing its meteoric rise to popularity, fans are scrambling to find their favorite and most effective characters. Luckily, MultiVersus is a rare example of a fighting game that is decently balanced in its early stages. Like any title, there are standout characters that tend to pop up more frequently than others, but, for the most part, nearly every character in MultiVersus is viable in online play.
On the other hand, the characters that have been perceived as being lower down on the MultiVersus beta tier list suffer from a dismal pick-rate, and are in desperate need of changes, even if they are minor tweaks. As the game currently stands, despite the relative balance that MultiVersus has achieved, the online consensus has steered players to a handful of powerful characters and away from the more difficult choices.
The Iron Giant
The Iron Giant is the quintessential tank character in MultiVersus. He's big and bulky, but he's also incredibly slow. The Iron Giant is, of course, absurdly large compared to his competitors, making him the biggest target for damage in the game. Oddly enough, in online team battles, The Iron Giant can be an excellent pick to distract from and absorb damage for a more offensive-minded character like Bugs Bunny or Finn, but on his own, The Iron Giant is one of the most difficult characters to use.
Unfortunately, The Iron Giant also represents one of the trickier fixes in MultiVersus since his drawbacks are primarily linked to the size of his character model. Since MultiVersus is unlikely to scale down The Iron Giant in any meaningful sense, his buffs would need to include tweaks to his kit. In order to combat his easily hittable nature, MultiVersus may have to get creative and offer The Iron Giant even more defensive capabilities or zoning potential, or the developers may just have to wait until after the more powerful characters like Bugs Bunny get nerfed to see where The Iron Giant lands.
Steven Universe
The support class in MultiVersus is fairly shallow, consisting only of Reindog, Velma, and Steven Universe; however, to make matters worse, out of these three characters, only Velma has seen a relatively high pick rate. While players may see Reindog occasionally, and Velma fairly often, Steven Universe is all but nonexistent in online matches due to his underwhelming abilities. His shield ability is weak and takes a while to recharge, his basic attacks have bizarre animations and range, and his special abilities are lackluster compared to other characters on the roster. All this said, Steven Universe can still be somewhat useful in team battles, but it's difficult to argue for him over other characters, especially Velma.
Since every map in MultiVersus so far is fairly small and easily traversable by all characters, Steven Universe's special abilities, which leave walls and platforms behind, currently feel fairly unnecessary. An extra platform, for instance, is almost never needed for an elimination off of the top edge of the map, nor does it offer the ability to stay out of reach of enemies at higher damage levels.
The good news for Steven Universe players is that compared to The Iron Giant, Steven Universe is a more straightforward fix. His shield offers a number of ways it could be improved from either more charges, a quicker recharge time, or even a larger radius and greater durability. Regardless, his shield, which should be the bread-and-butter of his kit, is currently in need of a serious buff to keep him in contention with the other supports.
MultiVersus is available now on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
