Marvel Rivals’ Moon Knight actually is overpowered, but whether it’s a bug or feature is anyone’s guess

“Moon Knight’s overpowered” is the kind of complaint you might expect to hear from someone who just got shanked by Moon Knight in Marvel Rivals, but it turns out, he actually is. Moon Knight currently suffers from, or enjoys, depending on whether you’re playing as him, a bug that makes his ultimate reach beyond its intended radius and deal more damage than it should - although it could be intentional.

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The skill’s official description says each of Moon Knight’s three talons deals 75 damage in a five-meter radius. Reddit user Sidewaysgts said they’ve been testing Moon Knight’s ultimate to see if that description is accurate and discovered something more complicated. It turns out that Moon Knight’s ultimate has two areas of effect, an initial five-meter radius and an additional one that expands its reach to 10 meters. Claws in the five-meter impact area deal 150 damage.

Sidewaysgts posted a slowed-down video showing Moon Knight’s ultimate on the practice range, in the segment that shows distances. The angle they chose shows the full radius of Moon Knight’s ultimate is, indeed, larger than five meters, and it took just two hits to destroy Galacta Bots in range of that inner five-meter radius. The bots have 225 HP, so it should take three hits. 

Things get a bit more complicated from there. Moon Knight’s ultimate summons talons from the sky that hit three points in the area of effect. Sidewaysgts’ video showed a bot getting the full blast from the talon that deals 150 damage and, immediately after, getting defeated by the second talon whose reach extended 10 meters. If the ultimate only reached five meters as the description says, that second talon wouldn’t have affected the bot, and if it were an actual player, they could have escaped the radius to retreat or heal.

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I tested it myself in the practice range and came to the same conclusions. Whether it’s a bug or a massive oversight on the ability description’s part, it explains why Moon Knight’s ultimate reaches further than you usually think it should and can demolish tanks like Venom with over 300 health in just two or three hits. If it is intentional, the damage numbers aren’t entirely out of keeping with other Duelist characters. Psylocke’s ultimate deals 150 damage per hit in a broad area, for example, with two hits per second over the course of four seconds. It’d just be, y’know, kinda nice to know that’s what NetEase actually intended.

Despite his stronger-than-expected ultimate, Moon Knight still only has a 47 percent win rate and an eight percent pick rate, putting him second among Duelists but far behind other characters. Still, it's better than Storm, everyone's favorite hero to hate so far.