Marvel Rivals’ Jeff the Land Shark has a deadly catch skill that makes him any team’s best secret weapon

Marvel Rivals is here, and the biggest surprise facing most players as they jump into NetEase’s multiplayer game is how dangerous Jeff the adorable Land Shark is

NetEase/GLHF

Marvel Rivals is here, and the biggest surprise facing most players as they jump into NetEase’s multiplayer game is how dangerous Jeff the adorable Land Shark is. Jeff’s healing might be middling enough to keep him out of the S-rank of our Marvel Rivals tier list, but his ultimate is literally game changing – and not going over too well with some parts of the Marvel Rivals community.

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Jeff the Land Shark’s ultimate sees him disappear underwater, where he can then position himself under his targets, emerge, consume them, and deal damage. That’s inconvenient, but Jeff can also swim around while carrying his cargo and spit them out. His ultimate’s coverage area is properly massive, so he can scoop up an entire team and, with good aim on maps with ledges, hawk them all to their doom. “Ha, but I main Iron Man/Hela/Scarlet Witch and I can fly,” you might say. Well, Jeff can throw himself into the abyss and take you with him, so. Checkmate.

One thing Marvel Rivals isn’t particularly great at so far is giving ability cues – when Punisher has his turret out (not a euphemism) or when an ultimate is about to go off. Jeff’s ultimate gives you maybe 1.5 seconds to react, and that’s assuming you see the pale red circle under you or hear the brief audio cue. If not, well, it’s back to the spawn point for you.

As you might imagine, not everyone is best pleased with the goodest Marvel Rivals boy’s overpowered skill.

“Do we not agree that this is a grossly imbalanced ability?” Reddit user Areox wrote in response to a video showing Jeff do his thing.

“I have good news for you,” another user responded. “You don't have to worry because 90% of hero shooter players refuse to play support, so you will almost never see this ability in your games!” Which is maybe half true. No Overwatch-style role queue means Marvel Rivals has an abundance of people playing Duelist and comparatively few opting for support, but not in every match.

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“I think that is somehow unbalanced cos u just wait for ur death for more than 5 seconds i think and there is nothing u can do,” was another response.

Some complained about how fast the time between casting the ultimate and the action actually happening is. Others said you just need to play Cloak and Dagger and use Cloak’s invulnerability skill at the right time, which is true, but also not something that’s viable for every match.

The best advice is to keep an eye on the opposing team’s roster and, if you see they have Jeff on board, avoid grouping together if possible. The skill’s large area of effect makes it tough to avoid, but since you know Enemy Jeff is going to target the control point with it, you do, at least, have an idea of where not to group.

Alternatively, you could just play Jeff and do the same thing to the opposing team. A Jeff for a Jeff, as the saying goes.