With the start of season 9 of Marvel Rivals, Jubilee (Courtney Lin, Fate/Strange Fake) joins the playable cast as the game’s latest strategist. Inspired by her vampiric transformation in the 2010 X-Men comic storyline, Curse of the Mutants, Jubilee has powers that are not only centered on her trademark plasmoids but also stem from her time as one of the children of the night. This gives the iconic mall rat a few unexpected twists to her kit.
Let’s start looking at Jubilation Lee’s kit, beginning with her passive: Sparkle Mark. When an enemy is hit by her special ability, Dazzling Detonation, or her ultimate, Fireworks Finale, they receive a sparkle mark. When Jubilee hits a marked enemy with her primary fire, the mark detonates, granting healing over time and bonus health to nearby allies. Detonating the marks also briefly increases the character’s primary fire rate and lets her take a few shots without expending ammo.
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Jubilee’s design leans into her vampiric side.
In addition to detonating Sparkle Marks, Jubilee’s primary fire provides a strong foundation for her kit. It both heals and damages depending on its target, and sports a high base-level speed and an impressive 48-projectile capacity, allowing the healer to pour on the healing for a sustained period. The attack doesn’t have any form of aim assist, like many other supports, meaning you need to hit your shots if you want to get the most out of her.
The vampiric X-Man’s first special ability is Sparkle Sprint. Tapping into her vampire side, the character gains a boost to her movement speed, attack speed, and jump height. When it expires, the ability unleashes a small burst that damages and knocks back enemies while healing nearby allies.
This ability’s versatility grows as you get accustomed to Jubilee’s kit. With its short cooldown, it can be used to get into and then back out of danger, while amping up your damage/healing as needed. The jump can also make the character even more evasive when shaking off pesky pursuers. The animation leans into the character’s vampiric side as she floats through the air, her hands raised at her sides in an iconically “vampiric” pose. (Or at least a sarcastic approximation of vampiric.)
Blooming Ball heals allies and does major damage in big brawls.
Her second special ability is Blooming Ball. This special has two charges and, upon use, launches an orb away from Jubilee. The orb homes in on nearby characters, healing allies, and hurting enemies. Shooting the orb or a target in close proximity to it causes the orb’s AOE to expand and intensify its healing effects. If it looks like you completely whiffed when you fire the orb, it can be recalled, immediately replenishing the charge. However, it doesn’t reset the cooldown, so a brief wait between activations will still be necessary.
These orbs have a surprisingly long activation period, making them capable of a lot of sustain and damage in big brawls. Both can affect the same targets as well, allowing them to double up their potency. And then there is the last ability.
Dazzling Detonation allows Jubilee to make her Blooming Ball orbs explode. Upon detonation, hit enemies receive Sparkle Marks and have Blinded applied to them. Serious players will want to learn just how long they can let the orbs linger before detonation to achieve the optimal effect of the combined abilities.
Fireworks Finale is Jubilation’s Ultimate. Upon activation, she launches enemies as a ring of orbs forms around her at a significant distance away. Enemies between her and the orbs take damage, while all allies receive healing for the duration of the ult. Enemies are also Sparkle Marked when damaged. With the mark reapplying each time an enemy takes damage from the ability, Jubilee has boosted primary fire and essentially unlimited ammo until either all enemies are dead within her AOE or the ability expires.
Marvel Rivals Season 9 overhauls the team-up system.
With the arrival of season 9, Marvel Rivals has overhauled its team-up system. Now, each character has two team-up abilities to choose from. Each has a basic form that is always available to them, and an enhanced form that is only available online if their team-up partner is on their team.
The first team-up is Vampiric Kin. The basic form allows Jubilee to create an aura around herself lasting a few seconds. Allies within the area gain life steal for the duration of the ability. If one of her teammates is Blade, allies also receive continuous healing while within the AOE.
The second team-up is Hellfire Sparks. In the basic form, whenever Jubilee’s attack speed increases, her attack becomes a hit-scan that self-heals her and can cause critical hits. If The Hood is on her team, he’s arriving in season 9.5; the hitscan form can become permanent.
Sequencing Jubillee’s abilities in the proper order is a must-have skill for mastering her.
If you are only going to have access to the basic forms, Hellfire Sparks is always the best skill to take. While giving several allies life steal sounds great, the amount of healing they gain in a match generally seems minimal. Especially compared to the increase in healing output Jubilee gets with the augmented attack of Hellfire Spark and how frequently she gets it thanks to Sparkle Sprint’s short cooldown.
If you have a Blade on your team and your group composition is looking to stay close together, Vampiric Kin can pull a lot of weight, as you will be giving heals to numerous characters simultaneously. It feels like this balance will likely remain even once The Hood joins the game, but we’ll have to wait and see.
Jubilee brings a strong blend of healing, damage, and mobility to Marvel Rivals. While she can put down a lot of healing, much of it is over time, requiring careful planning and prior setup to maximize. Sequencing her abilities in the proper order, as well as being able to respond to unfolding situations, also feel like must-have skills to properly employ her suite of abilities.
Marvel Rivals is available to play now on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S.
