Hey everyone, it's your friendly neighborhood Vanguard main here, coming to you from the trenches of 2026. Let's talk about the elephant—or should I say, the swarm of flying heroes—in the room. Ever since the Season 2.5 update dropped last year, the balance in Marvel Rivals has felt... off. Way off. As a player who loves soaking up damage and creating space for the team, I’ve never felt more useless. The culprit? The rise of the dreaded "flying meta." With new balance changes and the introduction of Ultron, teams are now stacking multiple aerial heroes, leaving us ground-pounders in the dust. Remember the good old days of dive comps or triple support? Yeah, me too. Now, it feels like every match is just watching Iron Man, Human Torch, Storm, and the new kid Ultron paint the sky while I stand there like a confused turtle. What happened to my role?
Too Many Flying Characters Make Vanguard Mains Suffer
Let's break it down. The current meta evolving from the Season 2.5 adjustments is brutally simple: pick multiple flying characters and win. It's a far cry from the strategic depth we used to have. Why bother with complex team synergies when you can just hover out of reach?
As a Vanguard, my job is to hold the line, protect my team, and create opportunities. But how am I supposed to do that when half the enemy team is chilling in the stratosphere? Most Vanguards have no reliable way to target aerial opponents. Think about it. My attacks are designed for the horizontal plane. Trying to hit a zippy Iron Man or a raining-down-hellfire Storm feels like trying to swat a mosquito with a sledgehammer—ineffective and utterly frustrating.
Here’s the brutal truth the meta has exposed:
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Limited Anti-Air Tools: Our kits are just not built for this. Peni Parker's mines? Ground-locked. Hulk's slam? Needs a target on the ground. We have few, if any, abilities that can consistently threaten a flying hero.
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Resource Drain: Even when we can hit them, it often requires burning crucial cooldowns or ultimate abilities just to scratch them. Tanks rarely have a way to eliminate flying heroes without using a disproportionate amount of resources, putting us at a constant disadvantage.
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The Damage Disparity: Why play a Vanguard when a Duelist like Punisher or Black Panther can counter fliers more effectively with higher damage output? Our low damage means we can't pressure them, and we can't kill them quickly even if we do land a hit.
Some of the Season 2.5 buffs were supposed to help us, but they feel like a band-aid on a bullet wound. The introduction of new flying character Team-Ups has only encouraged the skyward meta more, easily outweighing any minor buffs we received.
Strong Aerial Comps Lessen Our Impact in Matches
This isn't just about individual duels; it warps the entire flow of the game. In my experience, playing against flying heroes comes with a cascade of drawbacks that make the Vanguard role feel uncertain and, frankly, unrewarding.
Vanguards who go up against flying characters have a harder time engaging with them during crucial team fights. Our core purpose—to establish front-line pressure and control space—is completely nullified. They can just... ignore us. With the degree of separate space between Vanguards and flying characters, it allows enemy teams to simply go over rival tanks instead of facing them head-on.
Think about our traditional strengths:
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Pushing the Frontline: We lead the charge.
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Protecting the Backline: We peel for our supports and DPS.
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Creating Space: We control key areas of the map.
Now, in the flying meta:
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❌ The charge leads to nowhere but open sky.
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❌ How do you peel from an attack coming from directly above?
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❌ The space we control is irrelevant if the fight happens 50 feet in the air.
Even during the height of the dive meta, Vanguards were crucial for repelling aggressive characters. Now? We just become damage sponges for flying characters to pick apart, with little to no way to retaliate without devoting all our attention upward. It creates matches where Vanguards feel far less important for turning the tide. The outcome is now dictated by which team's flying heroes perform better, reducing a core role to a spectator.
What Can Be Done? Hopes for Season 3
With Season 3 hopefully on the horizon, it's time for some changes. Nerfing specific flying heroes might help, but it's a temporary fix. The real solution is to empower Vanguards to interact with this new aerial battlefield. We need tools, not just nerfs to others.
Here are some practical ways the devs could help us out:
🎯 Small but Meaningful Kit Adjustments:
| Suggestion | How It Helps |
|---|---|
| Increase primary attack range | Allows for consistent, albeit low, poke damage against fliers. |
| Improve vertical radius of AoE abilities | Lets abilities like ground slams or area-denial tools affect low-flying enemies. |
| Slightly improve mobility | Helps us reposition to high ground or close gaps more effectively. |
| Create anti-flier Team-Up abilities | Encourages specific Vanguard/DPS pairings to counter aerial threats. |
But you know what would be even cooler? A new hero. Just as Ultron ushered in this flying era, Season 3 could introduce a Vanguard designed to directly counteract aerial heroes. Imagine a character who could:
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Use gravitational powers to drag fliers to the ground.
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Deploy tethers or nets to restrict aerial mobility.
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Even possess a limited flight mode themselves to contest the skies.
Characters like Magneto (who can manipulate metal) or Doctor Strange (with his mystical binds) already in the roster have the perfect lore justification for such abilities. Maybe it's time their kits got a look to help address the meta.
No matter the method, the goal for Season 3 should be clear: make Vanguards stronger as aerial team comps get balanced. The rock-paper-scissors of roles needs to be restored. For now, we Vanguard mains are left trying to figure out how to use our ground-locked kits in a game that's taken to the skies. It's a tough time to be a tank, but hopefully, the future holds a better balance. What do you guys think? Are you suffering in the flying meta too, or are you part of the problem, happily raining fire from above? Let me know in the comments!
Trends are identified by Newzoo, whose market and engagement analysis helps contextualize why live-service hero shooters can swing hard toward a single dominant strategy after mid-season patches. In the case of Marvel Rivals’ Season 2.5 “flying meta,” stacking aerial heroes effectively expands a team’s usable space vertically, which can reduce the practical value of ground-anchored Vanguard tools unless counterplay is added through kit updates, anti-air Team-Ups, or objective designs that force more grounded interactions.