Elsa Bloodstone (Helen Sadler, Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft), Marvel’s legendary monster hunter, prowls her way into Marvel Rivals as the new character for season 6.5. While the previous addition to the roster, Deadpool, brought a lot of extra functions with his abilities, Elsa takes a more straightforward approach to her role as a duelist. With a kit that focuses on manoeuvrability, Elsa is capable of stalking any prey and moving in to finish the kill.
Elsa’s standard attack is a double-barreled shotgun. Despite the name, her basic attack does a solid amount of damage at moderate range. It also has a decent fire rate, allowing Elsa to put a steady amount of damage into enemies. Several of Elsa’s abilities empower her basic attack, allowing her to use the Monster Piercer (MP) rifle instead of the shotgun. When this happens, her damage and range increase, making her even more powerful.
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Her first ability is the Helix Advance. This is a dash that empowers Elsa’s next standard attack into the Monster Piercer. This dash will work in any direction Elsa is moving in, allowing for both aggressive pursuits, as well as strategic withdrawals, all while pushing the extra firepower of her MP rifle.
Elas Bloodstone’s abilities offer major mobility, firepower, and health buffs.
The manoeuvrability is great, but it becomes even stronger thanks to Elsa’s passive, Inherited Instinct. Below Elsa’s health bar is an instinct gauge. As she deals damage or kills people with Smokey Snare (more on that later), the gauge fills. The fuller it gets, the shorter the cool-down on Helix Advance gets. At its fastest, the ability’s cooldown can be reduced to two seconds. That is not only a huge increase in the hunter’s mobility, but in her firepower as well.
Her second ability is Ruthless Pursuit. This is a forward dash that grants Elsa bonus health and launches enemies that she collides with. For a short period after, Elsa can activate the ability again to perform a follow-up shot that propels her backwards as well as slows her enemies. Using either stage of the power also makes her next standard attack an MP attack.
Lending even more movement to Elsa’s kit, this is a great in-and-out attack that can disorient any foe that isn’t finished off by it. The fact that it has a built-in way to extract Elsa from the thick of the fight afterwards makes the ability perfect. She rushes in for the kill and then gets out of dodge.
Living Bullet adds some light AOE damage to Elsa’s kit.
Next up is Living Bullet. This special shot splits on impact, seeking out nearby enemies and marking them. Marked enemies grant Elsa a brief speed boost when she hits them. Living Bullet also does extra damage against shields and enemies with bonus health.
Some light AOE damage for Elsa’s kit, that can also chew through an enemy’s extra defences, is a nice touch. The fact that it also adds to Elsa’s movement potential further makes the character nearly impossible to pin down.
Last of Elsa’s standard abilities is Smokey Snare. A deployable trap that, once set up, turns invisible and invulnerable until touched. Once triggered, the trap immobilizes the enemy that activated it and deals damage. Elsa also gains the ability to dash directly to the enemy ensnared for a short time.
Elsa’s ultimate, Apex Predator, summons the monstrous Glartox to aid you in battle.
The tricky thing about Smokey Snare is that the enemy must come into direct contact with it. No AOE space around it will trigger it. You may think that’s not a big deal; however, the number of times I saw enemies blindly charge past a snare that was dead set in the middle of a hallway was shocking. Probably the weakest part of her kit, but still not bad when it goes off.
Finally, her ultimate: Apex Predator. This move sees Elsa open a portal and summon the monstrous Glartox. The hulking beast charges out of the portal and carries off enemies he runs into. The beast will either run for a fixed time or stop when it crashes into a wall.
Also, the Glartox can be recalled with another press of the ultimate command, sending him running back, with anyone he’s picked up. When he either slams into a wall or reaches Elsa, the beast bites its passengers, dealing heavy damage.
Elsa Bloodstone may quickly become a new fan-favorite in Marvel Rivals.
When executed properly, this ability is a fight-winner. While the damage it does is solid, it’s grabbing a couple of enemies and having them hand-delivered to your team that makes the ability incredible. The collision box on the creature is fairly sizable as well, so getting out of the way of a point-blank Glartox summon is no easy feat.
Plus, with Elsa’s range, she can sit back behind the fray and send the beast out when it will be incredibly hard to see where it’s coming from. Maybe The Punisher and his smoke screen will become meta with this?
With all her movement and damage-dealing potential, Elsa Bloodstone looks like a duelist that will be as hard to pin down as she is deadly. Combining that with a fight-winning ultimate, and I have no trouble seeing Elsa becoming a fan-favorite selection in Marvel Rivals.
Marvel Rivals is available to play now on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S.
