'The moon haunts you': Moon Knight's ultimate is killing Marvel Rivals players twice as fast as it should
"The moon haunts you!" No other words in Marvel Rivals inspire hopelessness like the heralding cry of Moon Knight's ultimate, Hand of Khonshu. The lunar duelist's signature ult shares a lot of properties with other duelist ults in Rivals, casting an AoE circle that kills enemies inside, but Khanshu's barrage is particularly brutal. No ability like it kills as quickly, and if you're caught in the circle for even a second with 300-250 health (most of the roster), you're almost surely dead.
Moon Knight's ult has contributed to him becoming one of the most feared, reviled, and downright deadly heroes in Quickplay, but now it looks like Hand of Khonshu's unique kill rate can be explained by a bug. As discovered by Reddit user Sidewaysgts (and shared by Polygon), Hand of Khonshu currently deals twice as much damage per hit as its listed value on the official Marvel Rivals website.
"Either the description of Moon Knight's ult is lacking vital information, or it is bugged and it’s doing double the cited damage," they wrote. Essentially, the talons that rain from the sky during the ult are supposed to deal 75 damage per hit, but the true value is 150. That means getting hit by one talon as a standard duelist, which is all but guaranteed if you're caught in the circle for any amount of time, costs nearly two-thirds of your HP.
Moon knight ult is bugged. Does 2x damage from r/marvelrivals
Even worse, it's possible to get hit with the splash damage of multiple talons at once depending on where you're standing. The full damage of one talon and the splash damage of a second is enough to nearly kill most heroes outright, which would explain why the ability feels so impossible to survive once it's begun.
I tested the ult myself and confirmed the same values as Sidewaysgts. Either this is exactly how the ability is supposed to work and NetEase's website is wrong, or there's something funky going on. As they also point out, it looks as if two AoE damage instances are happening with each talon strike, one dealing 75 within five meters and another 75 damage wave in a wider radius (possibly explaining the dramatic splash damage).
I'm heavily leaning toward bug for two reasons: One, it's strange just how oppressive Moon Knight's ult is next to dozens of others, and more to the point, I don't buy that this is just a typo. Rivals' season 1 patch did intentionally buff Hand of Khonshu's duration and damage radius, but both of those changes are reflected on Moon Knight's hero page while the ability's damage is still listed at 75.
This is all to say: NetEase please fix. I'd like to stop running away scared every time an enemy Moon Knight confidently leaps into the sky.
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