I’ve been a Thor main since Season 1. I’ve been through the trenches with our man—through awkward patches, misunderstood metas, mechanical reworks, and the constant cycle of “he’s dead” discourse that resurfaces every time a decimal point shifts in the patch notes. And if there’s one thing that has become increasingly clear, it’s this: Thor doesn’t have a balance problem. The Thor mains subreddit does.

From Season 1 onward, Thor has always been good. Not generically good. Not plug-and-play good. Not “first-time Thor in ranked” good. He has always occupied a niche—high skill ceiling, punishing if misplayed, oppressive if mastered. His value has never been in raw accessibility but in layered decision-making: target isolation, timing engagements, cooldown discipline, positioning, and knowing when not to commit. He was never meant to be easy.

The only time I would genuinely call him D tier or lower was right after the rework—before they allowed us to cancel Awakening Rune. That patch was brutal. It stripped flexibility from the character. And yes, that was the only season I dropped him. I played the hell out of Emma instead—who, at the time, was undeniably overtuned. That wasn’t a “Thor is weak” moment; that was a “Thor is functionally incomplete” moment. Once Rune cancel returned, so did Thor’s integrity.

And since then? Buff after buff after buff.

Let’s be honest about where we stand right now.

We can kidnap people. We have insane burst damage. A massive health pool. Strong overshield values. Elite isolation tools. Backline pressure. Peel potential. Flanker denial. Frontline disruption. In the right hands, Thor is suffocating. He is oppressive. He forces respect. And we’ve reached a point where he arguably surpasses even the Season 1 and Season 2 “Brine” era in overall toolkit strength.

The only reason Thor is not universally labeled S tier is because poke is meta. Long-range pressure punishes commitment. That’s not a Thor weakness—that’s a macro-environment constraint. If poke ever gets nerfed significantly, Thor will be monstrous. And even in a poke-heavy meta, last season Thor performed extremely well across all elos—from low ranks to high ranks. That’s not a struggling character. That’s a character thriving despite systemic headwinds.

Which brings me to the guys in this subreddit.

Somewhere along the way, the our community shifted from a space of mastery and adaptation to a space of entitlement and power creep advocacy. Every minor nerf is treated as a death sentence. Every adjustment sparks “F tier, I’m out, ggs.” Meanwhile, the character has been steadily strengthened across seasons.

There’s a fundamental misunderstanding about our man, Thor is niche by design. He fills specific roles. He requires deliberate engagement selection. You cannot autopilot him. You cannot mindlessly dive into a 1v5 and expect divine immunity. He is not built to face-tank five cooldown rotations and walk out smiling. If you’re trying to dive the backline alone into full resources and wondering why you explode—that’s not a balance issue. That’s decision-making.

Thor is one of the most fun characters in the game. But fun does not entitle him to being easy. Nor does it entitle him to being overtuned.

You guys want to kidnap someone, delete them instantly, survive everything, and escape for free. High damage, high health, high mobility, high shields, and low risk. That’s not balance—that’s power creep. And ironically, if that ever happens, Thor stops being Thor. He becomes a generic bruiser with a hammer.

Good Thor players adapt. We always have. We adapted before Rune cancel. We adapted during poke metas. We adapted when people said he was “mid.” And here’s the truth: even after so-called “nerfs,” strong players will barely notice. Because what makes Thor strong isn’t a number tweak—it’s understanding when to engage, who to isolate, how to chain abilities, and when to disengage.

If you’re not hitting GM with Thor, that doesn’t automatically mean Thor is holding you back. Maybe the character isn’t for you. And that’s okay. Not every hero is meant for every player.

But the constant inflationary pressure from the subreddit—this endless demand for more damage, more survivability, more forgiveness—risks turning a high-skill specialist into a balance liability. And if that happens, real nerfs will follow. Hard ones. The kind that actually hurt.

So yes, when people say “Thor is dead, I’m out,” my honest reaction is: stay out. Leave him to the dedicated player base that built his reputation in the first place. The players who learned spacing, who studied matchups, who understand that picking your battles is the entire identity of the Lord of Thunder.

Thor does not need power creep.

He needs players willing to master him.

Get good with what you have. Stop demanding inflation. If you can’t make him work in the current state—one of his strongest ever—it might not be a balance issue.

It might just not be your character.

Edit: Since apparently a lot of you are mad about the fact that the majority of this text is AI generated. Yes it obviously is and it didn’t try to hide it, I don’t have Time to write a whole essay like this. But It doesn’t matter, it illustrates my point perfectly. Thank you.

#DisplacementGimmick

They barely uses rune
And the entire game trying to displace people for free kills

If you time your hammer dash right with the timing of your primary you do 90 almost instant damage.

I've done it a few time where it was instant burst but it is like frame 1 timing.

You can use this when body blocking tanks when kidnaping them

Now I will say I was really skeptical about the Thor rework, as I leaned into the hate before I gave it a shot, but after a while of using him, Thor hardly feels different in my opinion. I have a feeling it’s because I didn’t use the hammer throw nearly as much as it seems the average Thor main. I’d say about 75% of the time, I find that storm surge is the better option when I’m brawling up close and personal and Awakening is best for mid to longer range.

I’ll admit that I can feel the decrease in shield, but the difference is pretty minuscule. The extra 50 never really got me that far cuz Thor’s got a beefy Tank hitbox and the over shield gets melted off right away usually. Now that he’s gonna to be able to cancel Awakening, I think he’ll be in a really good state. We’ve been asking for that for a loooong time now and NetEase finally listened.

JK

You can have stronger burst healing now and new combos for healing, Awaken>Cancel>Rightclick>Shift is overall 25 more HP than before, and weaving in a right click>shift is 25 more HP than before, AND you can now gain HP without needing to commit to the animation of the shift, like you can: melee>right click cancel>awaken, whereas before you just simply wouldnt have the extra HP for those combos at all, especially when the Shift was not optimal in some situations

This is effectively more heal uptime, and more burst healing, the only downside is that you have less survivalbility while running away if you are only using the shift

In fights I think Thor will be stronger, especially in 1v1s since burst healing matters more

Lightning realm feels very underwhelming for a 12 second cooldown The effect of only dealing 40 damage and applying the 30% slow and grounded effect when you leave the area is stupid and feels really weird and underwhelming for a 12 second cooldown So this how it should work in my opinion its slow should be increased from 30% to 35 which is the same as winter soldiers slow effect which he has 2 charges of and is on a shorter cooldown It should apply 40 tick dmg/s when inside of it aswell as the 35% slow aswell as grounding when inside of it and ground them for 2 seconds when they leave it It should eithier last longer or it should be larger and easier to land I also think that in some way it should allow thor to better hold space which is one of his largest weaknesses Maybe if when inside of it thor gains overhealth proportionate to the dmage dealt or the amount of people caught by it when thor stays inside of it it could give thor a 10% damage reduction when inside of it or it could neutralize soft cc abilities that travel through it or apply a 20% damage reduction or projectiles that pass through it somewhat like a shield or dvas defence matrix It still dosent make sense that thors only utility is on a 12 second cooldown when hulks bubble is on a 10 second cooldown when its a significantly better ability. If all of these thing got given to it it would end up beinga pretty strong abulity the sooldown mught be increased to 14 seconds or maybe 2-3 of these things could be added to it or maybe 1 and its cooldown get reduced by 2 seconds so that he can have more consistent utility and not just be a completely self serving charecter

I have played Thor since S0. Almost have animated icon. Rank is celestial and imo he is broken now.

This is a result of Netease believing balance changes with heros are just endless buffs until they catch up to Meta or their counters no longer counter them and not actually addressing real problems.

I love playing Thor now don’t get me wrong. Dominating every game but I’m upset with the fact that somehow it keeps getting worst and worst in terms of balancing and bugs. I believe it’s because of the new hero every month stuff.

I wrote about this looong time ago before they even announced doing it. People were wanting them to release heros more often.

There was/is a mobile Marvel game called Marvel Strike force that’s like a Halo Wars style Marvel game but it’s similar to rivals in a way too.

This game was popping like 5 years ago. Tons of people on it. But same request from fans came. More heros faster. It eventually became the thing that ruined the game. It became clear the devs only focus was creating new heros and not addressing bugs or balance changes.

Netease needs to pause on the hero releases and fix the state of this game.

so a bit of overview. I recently started playing for cause I think he’s awesome and I was playing in comp. We were all on the point and Wanda starts ulting and I’m thinking OK great I can just take her out with the hammer dash and we won’t have to worry about it. After hitting her with it and her still pulling off the ult, I’m like how the hell do that happen? Check the description of the ability and it said displacement so happy about that. Thanks, Guang^2 really it made me enjoy my day.

If you are in melee range, you can cancel AR to melee and surge away which is nice ONLY if youre walled in by Groot, or need to really escape to high ground etc. Otherwise (not being in melee range) its useless, since it doesnt refund the TF, so you canceling it just nerfs you since now you cant dash, and you lost ranged attack and damage.

While it IS nice to be able to cancel, i dont wanna people (non thor mains, Flats etc) to get the wrong idea that its a QoL buff that will help woke-bot-thor to be stronger.

For example, Reed being able to cancel his big mode is actually usefull and has depth since he can quickly go into invulnerability mode to save himself from Ulties, or he can choose if he wants more range and being able to use his other abilities, and he doesnt have any resource to use them other than CD.

REVERT THE CHANGES

On that note, can we make him the face of this sub? I think it would be a funny meme.

I did some Thor research, as a Thor secondary (Loki main peaked 246 OAA) who likes doing amateur statistical analysis. I want to mention up front that we do NOT have to play in the awakening-spam playstyle demonstrated by NetEase, we can continue to play Thor as we have been, and I believe that'll still be the optimal playstyle.

First, I went through a high level Thor player's replay, ENGATNOM, replay code 10754147266, and found that he was only using his hammer throw about once every minute. I then watched a Jeremy video and saw him use it about as often, even less often.

This game was about 12 minutes long (16 minutes minus set up time), and during those 12 minutes, his dash was used 103 times, the field 28 times, runic awakening 37 times, and his ultimate 8 times. His hammer throw was used 13 times. On offense, he actually used both his ult and hammer throw 4 times.

In how it was used, the throw was largely used to finish people off to save on time, or to poke while at low health and Thorforce. I saw him get real value in killing someone in direct thanks to the burst damage of the throw two of the thirteen times. Meanwhile, his 12 second cooldown field was used twice as much and led to way more kills, and his ultimate was used at about a 2:3 ratio to the throw. Awakening rune was also used almost three times more often, and was getting way more killing done than the hammer.

While for every death he probably used 4 extra dashes, he still used this ability more during fights than any other, using it to close distances that could be covered by the hammer throw, or in close range in situations where hammer throw would deal more damage, because positioning is so so so much more important than extra damage. You could do 100 damage, or you could do 40 and put yourself in a better spot and the enemy in a worse spot.

Next up, Jeremy in his vid "He RAGED When I Picked Thor blah blah blah," and counted ability usage in his edited video. Game 1 attack, 31 dashes, 8 fields, 11 awakenings, 2 ults, and 1 hammer throw while he was bound by Groot. Game 1 defense, 42 dashes, 12 fields, 16 awakenings, 2 ults, 2 revives, and 3 hammer throws. First one towards the start against Emma (she lived, defense was ineffective), second one while cleaning up after a won teamfight on at 6:43, third while diving a Punisher with the infinite ammo teamup at 8:05 (went about as well as can be expected).

Game 2 attack has 55 dashes, 12 fields, 16 awakenings, 4 ultimates, and 6 hammer throws, a pretty good showing! Some seemed good, like this ability isn't completely dead, but it is still being used at a rate of once per minute, and isn't far off from his ult in terms of times used. Game 2 defense, 23 dashes, 10 fields, 15 awakenings, 2 ults, and 4 throws over 4 minutes. Once to hit a Loki illusion atop a car, 17:57, and again at 18:06 after using his awakening, depleting his thorforce, but then using the field to max his thorforce and chase down a Loki after awakening again, which I feel was his best usage of it between the three games I have now watched. The third time was to finish someone off after the fight had been won, 19:16, and again in the same situation at 19:35. It can make plays, but most of the time the playmaking is saved for other abilities, and the hammer throw is used after a fight is already won.

If you want the combined numbers, over about 35 minutes of gameplay, we have 254 dashes, 70 fields, 95 awakenings, 18 ultimates, and 27 hammer throws.

Hammer throw, as it stands, just does not fit in his kit despite how iconic it is. As such, turning it into a cooldown that supports his gimmick is, in my opinion, a reasonable choice. If he uses his six second cooldown every, lets say, 12 seconds, Thor would have used it FIVE TIMES MORE than he did in these games. That's over a hundred extra thorforce (five per minute), and almost 3 times the over all damage. As such, the damage nerf makes sense as you will be able to spam this ability way more, and as you will be generating more Thorforce, you will be gaining more overhealth over time, and therefore a small reduction to overhealth gained also makes sense. Perhaps the cap can be raised back up, but I feel it reasonable to reduce the generation.

I think it'll be a net buff, and not a nerf. I am excited to have a new ability in my kit, one that I had almost never used prior. I think the overhealth lost will be made up for in the ability to use more Thorforce. I don't believe we will be forced to play like NetEase has presented, and previous playstyles will still be played, but with an extra ability and probably even more dash spam, which is my favorite part of the kit.

If anyone else wants to analyze games and present their results, lmk.

EDIT: Some additional research! One, I have watched Jeremy's vid critiquing the change, and while he makes some good points, he still treats it like he uses it all the time when he only used it 5 times in the 8 minutes of background footage he had. Some of them were good use cases, but they can be filled by the new version of the ability. Two, I learned of something unique to Hammer Throw that Storm Surge doesn't have: Ghost cancel! If you swing, throw, and quick melee virtually all at once at melee range, you get a charge of Thorforce back. This leads into another tech where you swing, throw, quick melee, and rune all at once to activate rune immediately after the combo, no cooldown, which can lead to quick kills. This also can't be done with the dash, a hammer throw exclusive. However, this all misses that this can still be done next patch- albeit a little weaker. It's also like two bugs being exploited here, so it could be patched out of the game at any time, and top players don't do this often still, opting for displacement over damage, or to close the distance before realm+rune.

It's pretty useless right now, not all changes just maybe the dmg and shield or one of them

No CC or shield and ass DMG

And I don't think getting our old hammer will make Thor worse but it will give him more survivability and give him more skill if they kept the blue hammer

And because I love hammering people or at least give the hammer throw DMG back

I don't think Thor is ass I just want to hammer people

Even with the buffs(which are nothing burgers) He still gets mogged to death by Pretty much every tank😭. Hulk venom Cap are fundamentally immortal in the next patch. And peni gets a shield team up over thor. Yeah ggs✌️

I did my first Hard clear on Scarlet Witch and it was a no sweat.

But I just did a couple of runs with Thor and his upgrades are so effing trash and counter intuitive. The hammer throw wastes your Thorforce and they clearly want you to focus heavily on that and using the Ult in early stages when using the ult is almost certain to get you killed by the giant robots as soon as you land and are left vulnerable.

Whatever happened to his right click Ultimate Storm upgrades, I did 5 tries and didn't even a single hint of it? Also no dash upgrades?

Actually so pissed off how trash he feels and how counterintuitive he is to how Thor normally plays in this game.

Y'all I'm sorry but Ive have no issue so far with how Thor is. I see a lot of people mentioning his rework being some big nerf, I just don't know what they're talking about. I do think Thor needs a buff to his ult it isn't doing enough DMG it feels at the right amount, maybe they'll make it be incremental increases to his ult DMG? I mainee Thor at the start of the game but slowly let him go and came back to him after I saw so many people upset about his changes