In this Marvel Rivals Winter Soldier guide, you’ll learn the fundamentals of his abilities, unique play styles, and fundamental tips.
Marvel RivalsMarvel Rivals Winter Soldier Character Guide
Winter Soldier Overview
Empowered by his bionic arm, there isn’t anything Bucky can’t do. The perfect choice for a Duelist main who wants to “one trick” as there aren’t any scenarios where the only answer is to swap off.
The combination of his reload passive and three round pistol make this brainwashed assassin extremely lethal. The Winter Soldier wants to be right in the heat of battle, up front with his Vanguards. While his gun has decent range, you always want to be in range to use Bionic Hook and Trooper’s Fist.
Proper use of Bionic Hook forces the enemy team to adjust their entire game plan to counter this one ability. Bucky has insane carry potential and fits well into any team comp with his high damage, and high pick potential.
Find out where Winter Soldier ranks in our Marvel Rivals tier list.
TLDR
As
- Combo Bucky's Right-click Hook into his Shift uppercut to push targets into your team for an easy pick.
- 8 seconds is a long time to reset your ult! When you get a reset, use that time to carefully select your next target before activating it again.
- Every ability generates shields and reloads your gun. Spread out their uses and try to never be caught with all three on cooldown.
Against
- Shield, heal, and otherwise peel for your allies that are marked by Bucky's ult to deny resets.
- If you notice you suddenly don’t see Bucky, he’s likely charging his hook behind cover. Get behind cover yourself, to avoid being pulled into his team.
- Avoid standing directly behind a target he's shooting at as his Primary fire splashes 5m past them.
Strengths and Weaknesses
Strengths
High Burst and Consistent Damage
Most heroes favor one or the other, but Winter Soldier excels at both consistent damage and burst damage. Depending on what his team and the situation call for, he can focus on constant spam damage or focus on dumping all his cooldowns into confirming one elim.
Team Wiping Ultimate
On his own, he can quickly combo a sub 300hp enemy to death and reset his ult. Even better is to combo Kraken Impact with any other ult that heavily damages but doesn’t eliminate the enemy (Venom ult, Thor Ult, etc). Do this, and you’ll certainly be filling the sound space with, “Again! Again! Again! Again!”
Enemy Displacement
Bionic Hook is simply one the best abilities in all of Marvel Rivals. It can be used to yank a seemingly unkillable Vanguard into a kill circle of your allies. Landing hook on any Duelist or Strategist essentially guarantees an elimination. The threat of Bionic Hook means advancing forward is always a risk to the enemy.
Weaknesses
Poor Mobility
Trooper’s fist being his only mobility tool, and covering a pathetically short distance, means Bucky isn’t really gonna be moving much. Whether you are trying to return from spawn, chase down a target, or escape an attack, he doesn’t have can’t effectively do any of those.
Needs Vanguards to Play Around
Winter Soldier struggles to position and play aggressively without a strong front line to protect him. He wants to be right on top of his Vanguards and help destroy the enemy front line. If his Vanguards aren’t frontlining or are going on long flanks, Bucky gets overwhelmed by enemy attacks and advances.
Always in Danger
The short to medium range of his main abilities has Winter Soldier trying to always stay very close to the enemy team. But because he has only 250hp and no real escape tool, he’s always putting himself in a vulnerable position whenever he’s trying to make a play.
Ability Tips
Primary Fire: Roterstern
DESCRIPTION | Fire explosive rounds with his blaster, Roterstern, damaging the target hit and enemies behind them. |
KEY | Left Click |
CASTING | Straight-line projectile that generates a spell field upon impact |
PROJECTILE SPEED | 180 m/s |
PROJECTILE DAMAGE | 75 |
RANGE | Cone-shaped spell field with a 5m radius and an apex angle of 90° |
SPELL FIELD DAMAGE | 65 |
DAMAGE FALLOFF | Falloff begins at 20m, decreasing to 60% at 40m |
FIRE RATE | 2.5 rounds per second |
AMMO | 3 |
CRITICAL HIT | Projectile: Yes; Spell Field: No |
SPECIAL MECHANIC | Enemies that take damage from the projectile will no longer receive damage from the spell field |
Tips for Roterstern
Don’t Reload Manually
- Given all three of his regular cooldowns reload Roterstern, you should very rarely be reloading Manually. Try to cycle the rest of your cooldowns between the three rounds of your Primary Fire.
Reload Manually for Spam
- When you are not ready to commit your cooldowns and are just blasting spam damage, then it is better to simply hit the reload button.
Remember, you have a very fast projectile, but it does not have hitscan. You’ll have to lead your shots, but not by very much.
Splash Damage
- Targeting enemies who have a teammates close behind them allows you to farm ult faster from Roterstern’s splash damage.
- AoE of splash damage only hits directly behind your hit target.
Secondary Fire: Bionic Hook
DESCRIPTION | Charge up and launch a hook with his bionic arm, reeling in the first target hit and enemies lurking behind |
KEY | Right Click |
CASTING | Straight-line projectile that generates a spell field upon impact |
PROJECTILE SPEED | 80 m/s |
CHARGE TIME | 0.5s - 4s |
RANGE | The projectile can travel up to 10m with a 0.5s charge. As the charge time increases, it can reach a maximum distance of 20m with a 1s charge |
PROJECTILE DAMAGE | 15 |
RANGE | Cone-shaped spell field with a 4.5m radius and an apex angle of 80° |
SPELL FIELD DAMAGE | 20 |
COOLDOWN | 8s |
Tips for Bionic Hook
Learn how to “hook & turn.”
- Immediately after landing the hook and before the target is pulled in, you can rotate your crosshairs left or right by 90°. This will drag the enemy around to your side, instead of in front of you.
- Pull around corners with hook & turn.
- This makes it more difficult for the enemy to escape and can cut off their team's LoS.
Prioritize Duelists and Strategists
- Most Vanguards will be able to survive getting hooked, but to any non-Vanguard, a well-positioned Bionic Hook means certain death.
Jump Shot
- Jumping while the enemy is being pulled in, then aiming down at their head, can help make a follow-up headshot more consistent.
[SHIFT]: Trooper’s Fist
DESCRIPTION | Dash forward, seizing enemies along the path and launching up enemies at the end of the dash |
KEY | SHIFT |
CASTING | Movement-based damage ability |
AVERAGE SPEED | 30 m/s |
MAXIMUM DISTANCE | 9m |
SEIZE DAMAGE | 25 |
RANGE | Length: 4.5m, Width: 4.5m, Height: 2m |
KNOCKBACK DAMAGE | 65 |
COOLDOWN | 12s |
Tips For Trooper’s Fist
Generates 50 bonus health
- Very useful when attacking aggressively to make yourself more tanky.
- Great when used as an escape tool, because you are simultaneously being evasive and instantly gaining health.
Perfect for combos
- The uppercut locks the hit enemies into a fixed CC arc. If you learn the arc pattern, it makes follow up shots much easier.
- Activation cancels, melee and primary fire, so you can instantly Trooper Fist out of them.
Try to punch people into your own team, rather than punching into theirs.
- Easy to set up with Bionic Hook & turn, then Trooper Fist further around a corner or into your team's territory.
- Remember, you only have this one single movement ability and it's very short. If you punch into the enemy team trying to get a kill, you will often pay for it with your own life.
[E]: Tainted Voltage
DESCRIPTION | Charge up and launch a powerful electrical punch with the bionic arm in the target direction, dealing damage to enemies within range and Slowing them. This ability can Knock Down flying heroes |
KEY | E |
CASTING | Projectile that fires in a straight trajectory |
PROJECTILE SPEED | 100 m/s |
DAMAGE | 55 |
SLOW RATE | -35% |
SLOW DURATION | 2s |
SPECIAL MECHANIC | Projectiles pierce through enemies |
COOLDOWN | 6s |
Tips for Tainted Voltage
Aim to hit multiple enemies.
- The projectile pierces through unlimited enemy bodies and its large hitbox makes hitting multiple enemies rather easy if you are aiming for it.
Penetrates shields.
- If you see someone like Doctor Strange holding up a shield and he or his allies have two ticks of health or less, Tainted Voltage is the perfect clean up.
Passive: Ceaseless Charge
DESCRIPTION | Roterstern reloads automatically while the bionic arm is in action, granting Bonus Health to the Winter Soldier |
KEY | Passive |
BONUS HEALTH (SELF) | 40 (Bionic Hook & Tainted Voltage), 50 (Trooper's Fist, Kraken Impact) |
Tips for Ceaseless Charge
- Winter Soldier’s best ability is his passive. Every decision he makes needs to consider how many times he can activate Ceaseless Charge.
- When all three abilities, plus Ultimate are available, Bucky can generate a total of 150 bonus HP. The extra health allows him to play extra aggressive, or go for retreating attacks while healing himself.
[Q] ULTIMATE: Kraken Impact
DESCRIPTION | Leap high, then dash forward and slam down with the bionic arm, dealing damage to enemies in range, marking them for Culling. Marked enemies will perish instantly if their health falls below a certain threshold, recharging the bionic arm for another Kraken Impact within a short period |
KEY | Q |
CASTING | Spherical Spell Field |
RANGE | 5m spherical radius |
SPELL FIELD DAMAGE | 100 |
CULLING DURATION | 5s |
CULLING THRESHOLD | 20% Health |
NEXT KRAKEN IMPACT AFTER A CULLING | 8s |
ENERGY COST | 3100 |
Tips for Kraken Impact
Culling Mechanic
- All enemies hit by Kraken Impact get marked for Culling for 5 seconds (Displayed as dark red on the lower portion of their health bar.)
- If their health drops below 20% of their total health; they instantly get KO’d, and Kraken Impact gets reset, Again!
Wait Until an Enemy is already at low HP
- Targeting a low health enemy makes it easier to secure the KO before Culling mark expires
Have Trooper’s Fist Available
- Finishing off Culling marked target is significantly easier if you have Trooper Fist ready to combo.
All of Bucky’s teammates can see the Culling mark.
- Call for help eliminating a specific marked target to raise your chances of getting a reset.
8 Second Reset
- Whenever Bucky earns an ultimate reset from eliminating an enemy marked for Culling, he has a full 8 seconds before he needs to use the ult AGAIN.
- Don’t just mash [Q], take your time to decide who your next target is before reactivating your ultimate.
Team-up ability: Infinite Grit
DESCRIPTION | Rocket Raccoon throws an Ammo Overload device in the target direction. Upon entering the device's range, the Punisher and Winter Soldier receive the buffs of Infinite Ammo and Faster Firing |
KEY | None |
ROTERSTERN FIRE RATE BOOST | 25% |
TEAM-UP TARGET | Rocket Raccoon |
Tips for Infinite Grit
- When A.O.D. is active, spamming Primary Fire without using any of his cooldowns maximizes damage per second.
- Use Bionic Hook immediately when the power up activates to CC an enemy into your range.
- Long duration of Team-up means you’ll have Bionic Hook back online as soon as the buff ends.
- If possible, coordinate with the Rocket Player on when and where they plan on using the Team-up.
- Best used as a response to enemy aggression, when they push forward.
- Because the range is limited, enemies near cover can easily avoid you. It is best to wait for the enemy to expose itself and use defensively instead of offensively.
Advanced Tips
Bread and Butter Combos: “+” means followed by; “→ “ means cancelled into.
Bionic Hook + (Turn) + Trooper’s Fist
Great for displacing targeted enemies away from their team and into yours.
Bionic Hook + Headshot + Melee → Trooper’s Fist
Deals 275 dmg.
Jumping while the enemy is being pulled in, then aiming down at their head, can help make the headshot more consistent.
Bionic Hook + Primary Fire + melee → Trooper’s Fist + Primary Fire
Deals 275 dmg.
Kraken Impact + hold Primary Fire → Trooper’s Fist
Eliminates 300hp heroes and below.
Holding Primary Fire ensures you fire on the first available frame.
Synergies
Team Comp Synergies
Ideal team comps built around Winter Soldier enable him to play as a glass cannon “Vanguard.” As a low HP duelist, he needs damage mitigation in front of him, and healing from behind. Team’s a lot of damage mitigation or shields help Bucky to be a full on carry pick.
Bucy has mostly neutral matchups against melee flankers, but gets quickly overwhelmed when two or more attack him at once. Because of this, he also benefits from having allies with anti-flanker tools such as stuns or close-ranged burst damage.
Example of Team Comp Built Around Winter Soldier:
- Vanguards: Groot, Magneto
- Duelists: Winter Soldier, Namor
- Strategists: Jeff the Land Shark, Luna Snow
Hero Synergies
Vanguards: Groot
Groot’s walls and unmatched sustain make him the perfect match for our front lining Winter Soldier. Due to forward positioning, Bucky typically is in range of Ironwood Wall’s healing.
Additionally, when Bionic Hooking an enemy Vanguard, Groot can wall them off from their team's resources. Groot can also use walls to section off the enemy team while Bucky goes full aggro with his Ult in order to minimize the number of enemies able to target Bucky when he’s going behind enemy lines.
Duelists: Namor
Namor covers the long distance spam with his turrets and primary fire. More importantly, Namor’s turrets do an excellent job of protecting Winter Soldier from enemy melee flankers. Having a Namor on his team enables Winter Soldier to focus purely on offensive aggression.
Strategists: Jeff the Land Shark
Adorably spitting out incredible amounts of healing minimizes the amount of time Winter Soldier has to spend hiding and waiting to be healed back to full health. Healing Bubble’s speed boost is where the real power of this duo lies.
Winter Soldier is only really held back by his poor mobility, so giving him that 60% movement speed buff allows Bucky to make plays not possible with any other support.
Pro tip: When there isn’t a ledge around, the damage of a full It’s Jeff! Ultimate combo’d with Kraken impact is enough to eliminate any enemies with 300HP or lower health pools.
Simply have Jeff spit the enemies into a wall and give ‘em the Armed and Dangerous for a quick kill and ult reset!.
Table of Contents
Base Stats
Role | Duelist |
Difficulty | 3/5 Stars |
Health | 250 |
Movement Speed | 6 m/s |