Duelists are the Hero class in Marvel Rivals that have the most variance in how they accomplish their job. Their job, of course, is dealing enough damage to consistently put down the enemy. Duelists themselves fit into a few different sub-categories, which makes sense, considering Duelists are the most prevalent class in the game.
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Winter Soldier is one of the Duelists that primarily deals high damage from medium range. He isn’t a harasser like Spider-Man or Iron Fist, and he isn’t a sniper, like Hawkeye or Black Widow. He functions more similarly to characters like Punisher or Squirrel Girl, working well from just behind a friendly Vanguard.
Winter Soldier Overview
Winter Soldier is capable of dealing a significant amount of damage in a short amount of time, but without proper use of his abilities in combination with his main weapon attack, he’s going to have a lot of downtime while he reloads.
With a little bit more survivability than other Duelists and a weapon and abilities that are best used at close-to-medium range.
Winter Soldier is usually played best around the main unit of your team, where you’re going to take some punishment but are close enough to your Strategists that they can keep you on your feet.
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Roterstern
The Roterstern is Winter Soldier’s primary attack, a ranged blaster that fires explosive rounds. These explosive rounds damage the target, and anybody standing nearby behind the target.
This blaster does excellent damage, especially on a headshot; most Duelists and Strategists go down with two shots to the head. The downside is that it needs to reload every three shots.
Ordinarily, this would give the weapon a lot of downtime and severely hamper your damage-per-second. But Winter Soldier’s passive ability fixes this.
The Roterstern is not a hitscan weapon, meaning the projectile has a travel time. This can make it more difficult to engage enemies from a distance, particularly flying enemies like Iron Man and Storm.
Ceaseless Charge
Ceaseless Charge is Winter Soldier’s passive ability, and it reloads the Roterstern any time Winter Soldier uses his Bionic Arm abilities. Every single one of Winter Soldier’s abilities uses his Bionic Arm, so you’ll have multiple different cooldowns to cycle through in order to reload your weapon without missing out on damage.
Ceaseless Charge also gives Winter Soldier bonus health for using his abilities: a varying amount of bonus health depending on the ability, which we’ll list for each ability as we mentioned them.
This bonus health is going to make a significant impact on his survivability and keep him alive in situations many other Duelists would have fallen.
Many of Winter Soldiers’ abilities would not have much value if not for Ceaseless Charge; they don’t do a ton of damage on their own and generally are less useful than the Roterstern.
However, the bonus health and the ability to reload the Roterstern by using an ability make them worthwhile.
Trooper’s Fist
Trooper’s Fist launches Winter Soldier in the direction that he’s facing, damaging anybody he hits along the way. This ability has a couple of different uses, aside from the bonus of Ceaseless Charge.
Trooper’s Fist gives Winter Soldier 50 bonus health.
When To Use Trooper’s Fist
Trooper’s Fist is Winter Soldier’s only movement ability, without counting his ultimate. While it doesn’t provide a ton of range, it does launch him in whatever direction he’s looking in, making it an easy way to get to cover, close a gap, or gain a little bit of verticality.
It is also a damaging ability. It does not deal significant damage along the path, but landing a blow on an enemy at the end of the ability does deal significant damage. It can be a perfect finisher for an enemy below half health or a way to start a fight that you can end with a couple of shots afterward.
Tainted Voltage
Tainted Voltage is Winter Soldier’s ranged compliment to his Roterstern, firing an electrical blast from his Bionic Arm at enemies. This has a small radius of damage and, upon contact, slows enemies. For enemies in the air, it knocks them to the ground.
Tainted Voltage gives Winter Soldier 30 bonus health.
When To Use Tainted Voltage
Tainted Voltage is a great way to continue a ranged engagement with an enemy after you’ve unloaded the Roterstern. This ability has a seemingly unlimited range, so it can engage in all the same situations as Winter Soldier’s primary weapon.
Considering it reloads the Roterstern, it’s like being able to fire seven shots in a row, as opposed to three.
It’s also the perfect way to keep enemies from being able to change their position, whether that’s to push or to gain cover. This slows them, making it easier for your team to collapse around them without the enemy team being able to react nearly as well.
Bionic Hook
Bionic Hook charges up a hook that launches out of Winter Soldier’s Bionic Arm, latching onto an enemy and pulling them towards him. It’s also capable of hitting enemies that are nearby behind the target, similar to the Roterstern.
No matter how long you charge it, Bionic Hook gives Winter Soldier 30 bonus health.
When To Use Bionic Hook
Bionic Hook is a great positioning tool for Winter Soldier, but instead of it being a tool that gets him into an advantageous position, it pulls an enemy out of their own. Charging the ability has no impact on damage, but the more charged it is, the more range it has.
Positioning is an often underrated aspect in games like Marvel Rivals, and the ability to pull an enemy out of place is invaluable. The damage that Bionic Hook provides is low enough to essentially be of no value, but if you (and possibly a teammate) can capitalize on getting an enemy up close, you can take them down immediately.
Depending on who you pull, this one move alone could change the course of the battle.
Kraken Impact
Kraken Impact is Winter Soldier’s ultimate ability and, when used well, is one of the best damaging ultimates in the game.
Using Kraken Impact launches Winter Soldier into the air, for him to aim where he’d like to slam back down. In a radius around where he slams, he’ll deal significant damage, and mark enemies for Culling.
Enemies marked by Culling have, in essence, a smaller health bar. Getting their health below the marked threshold defeats them, and if that happens quickly, you’ll be able to use Kraken Impact again immediately.
This can, in theory, be chained infinitely. However, you’re going to run out of enemies at a certain point.
Where And When To Use Kraken Impact
Kraken Impact is best utilized in a scenario where a couple of different things are happening: the enemy team has two or more people clustered, and you have at least one other character ready to deal damage to those characters immediately after they’re marked for Culling.
If you can coordinate with at least one other character for this ability, you can use it at least twice in a row and wipe half of the enemy team with little resistance. In a good group, this ultimate can swing the momentum heavily on your side.
Infinite Grit Team-Up Ability
Winter Soldier has a Team-Up ability with Rocket called Infinite Grit. This allows Rocket to throw an Ammo Overload Device that has a certain radius. Inside that radius, Winter Soldier (and Punisher) can fire an unlimited number of times without having to reload. It also increases their fire rate.
This dramatically increases Winter Soldier’s damage potential. But, it does have to be placed extremely well. Out in the open, it’s likely to either get destroyed or get Winter Soldier killed.
If Rocket places the device just around cover, it allows Winter Soldier to duck in and out of enemy fire without exposing the device or keeping Winter Soldier in harm’s way.
