Winter Soldier, or Bucky, as I prefer to call him, is one of the higher rated DPS heroes in Marvel Rivals right now. He’s got some really good damage potential, but he requires a lot of good aim and/or smart ability usage to really get the ball rolling.
He’s one of my favorite DPS heroes at the moment, and if you want to try him out yourself, here are some tips based on my own experiences both with this game and my many years of relatively high level play in other hero shooters!
Winter Solder’s Playstyle in a Nutshell
Bucky is a duelist whose gun can pack a punch at any distance, though he’s the most effective at short to mid range as his projectiles aren’t hitscan. My personal playstyle revolves around playing alongside the team and isolating key targets with his hook.
His main gimmick is that he can instantly reload by using abilities, and Bucky players with good flicking skills can absolutely destroy anyone who isn’t a vanguard before they can even heal or run away. Even without godlike aim, you can melt people without headshots due to the insane damage of his gun and combos.
With all of that in mind, let’s take a closer look at his abilities and how to use them…
Winter Soldier’s Abilities & Team-Up
As with my other guides, I’ll be doing this in list format so you can easily see my tips for each individual skill:
- Roterstern (primary attack) – Bucky’s primary fires explosive rounds that can deal a ton of damage to clumped up enemies.
- This only has three bullets per magazine, so make your shots count!
- Ideally, you want to be hitting headshots as Bucky, but body shots will be fine for the most part if you struggle with landing those crits.
- On impact, it will also deal damage to enemies in a very small cone behind the target.
- Ceaseless Charge (Passive) – Whenever Bucky uses any of his abilities, his gun will instantly reload and gain varying amounts of bonus health.
- During a fight, try to get into the rhythm of using abilities after every three shots to maximize his passive.
- This is purely situational, of course. Don’t just throw stuff randomly solely to reload if it won’t get you any value!
- You don’t need to empty your mag before using an ability. Again, it’s completely situational and you’ll just have to figure out the appropriate number of shots on the go.
- During a fight, try to get into the rhythm of using abilities after every three shots to maximize his passive.
- Bionic Hook (secondary attack) – His secondary is a hook that will reel in enemies caught by it.
- This can be held down to increase distance. Don’t hold on to it for too long, as it will eventually cancel on its own!
- The hook can actually pull multiple enemies, though they have to be extremely close to one another.
- Best used against backline threats, but vanguards are good targets too as you can get them out of position/isolate them.
- Hooking most people can get you a quick two-shot elimination if you land headshots for both. Cloak & Dagger, for example, can be deleted before they can even think about using Dark Teleportation.
- Trooper’s Fist (Shift) – Bucky will dash forward and deliver an uppercut, which knocks up targets caught by it.
- This can be used as a repositioning tool, though be mindful of the relatively long animation that it locks you into.
- The dash will seize an enemy along the way, if any. This brings them along with Bucky and ensures that the uppercut lands at the end.
- Tainted Voltage (E) – Charge up for a brief moment and fire an orb of electricity that will deal damage and slow enemies on hit.
- Airborne enemies are forced to the ground if they are hit by this, making it a hard counter against characters like Storm, Iron Man, Star-Lord, and Spider-Man. (Assuming you hit them)
- It deals a good amount of damage, which makes it a decent way to refresh your magazine mid-fight while keeping up the pressure.
- Kraken Impact (Ultimate) – Bucky will jump high up into the air and charge up his fist. From here, you can select a target location and send yourself crashing down, dealing damage and marking all enemies within the area.
- Enemies that are marked will have a dark red segment in their HP bar. If they hit this threshold, they will instantly die.
- Killing a marked enemy will let you use Kraken Impact again within the next 8 seconds.
- The mark lasts for five seconds.
- In theory, you can keep doing this forever as long as you can keep marking and killing enemies again, and again, and again, and AGAIN!
- As with his other abilities, each cast of Kraken Impact will also reload his gun and give him bonus health (this caps out at 150)!
- Enemies that are marked will have a dark red segment in their HP bar. If they hit this threshold, they will instantly die.
His team-up with Rocket Raccoon was removed in season 2. To replace it, he now has one with Captain America instead, which is more of a bonus offensive ability rather than a buff like he used to get with Rocket. In future seasons, this can easily be replaced with new stuff again.
Combo Your Abilities!
The Winter Soldier, as you can probably tell by now, relies a lot on weaving in abilities in between unloading his mags. There isn’t really a set “combo” to use, since your ability usage will depend on the enemy team’s composition and how they’re moving around.
One thing I can recommend in general, though, is to Bionic Hook a frontliner and immediately try to hit them with a Trooper’s Fist to push them even more out of position. If you can squeeze in a shot or two to soften them up before doing this, even better, but our main goal is to force them into an awkward spot.
You can never go wrong with throwing a Tainted Voltage after either of your two other abilities as well. Just remember to shoot in between skills if possible!
Kraken Impact – AGAIN! AGAIN! AAAAAAGAIN!!!
Kraken Impact can be really tempting to use once it’s up, but don’t just “unga bunga” into the enemy team! You’re still vulnerable while using it, especially if you take too long to slam down.
Unless everybody on the other side has pretty low HP, play it safe and look for isolated targets that you can easily dive into and execute. If you really have to, you can even use the free recast as an escape tool after getting a cheeky dive kill.
Slamming down and then following it up with a few well-aimed shots is usually enough to delete most heroes. If you’re not confident in your aim, use either a Bionic Hook or Trooper’s Fist immediately after your ultimate to get them into a prime position to guarantee your next couple of shots.
Unless your targets are being actively healed or shielded, they should be pretty dang free. On that note, prioritize strategists if possible, and don’t be afraid of potentially only getting one kill with it.
If solo ulting guarantees a dead healer during a fight, then that’s already pretty good value. Depending on your aim, Kraken Impact should be back up in no time anyway. Just be wary of heroes like Mantis, who can immediately stun you before you can do anything else.
Some General Tips
Practice Your Aim!
It might seem silly to simply tell you to try and “aim better” since that should be a given in a hero shooter, but for characters like Winter Soldier, its importance has to be emphasized. Trust me, being able to get headshots as Bucky even somewhat consistently will make a massive difference.
Even if you’re mostly landing body shots, Bucky’s damage is high enough that you can get by without consistent crits. It’s just gonna take slightly longer to take people down.
If you’re still pretty new and you’re looking to get better at using him, head to the practice range for a bit and get a feel for how your entire kit works. More importantly, check out how Bionic Hook works and see how you can follow it up against different heroes. With all the varying hitboxes, shooting people after a hook can be awkward at first if you’re trying to hit them in the head.
Peel For Your Team
This is just my personal playstyle, but I like to stay somewhere between the healers and tanks, especially if there are overly aggressive divers on the other team. Keep an eye out for anyone flanking, as Bucky’s kit is really good for taking the pressure off your strategists in the backline.
With enough practice, hooking characters like Black Panther and Spider-Man whenever they engage shouldn’t be too hard anymore. Thor is another one to watch out for, since he’ll often be trying to dive through the frontline. Once he dashes into your backline, you can shove him even further from his team for an easy kill.
And that’s a wrap! These bits of info and tips should be enough to get you started with the Winter Soldier. He’s a solid pick for any occasion, and I like to think that he’s outclassed only by Hela or even Hawkeye due to their range advantage. Bucky can be an insanely good tank buster and assassin. It’s just a matter of learning how to consistently land his non-hitscan attacks.
Wanna learn more? I’ve got an entire blog post that tries to answer the question “which duelists are right for you?” that should give you a general idea of what the entire damage-dealing roster is capable of!