Harley Quinn is a Fighter from the DCUniverse in MultiVersus. She was revealed alongside the game itself on November 18th, 2021, and is part of the game's initial release roster, having been playable since the first Tech Test.
Harley Quinn is a character from the DC universe, usually portrayed as either a supervillain or an antihero, who made her debut in 1992's Batman: The Animated Series, making her one of the few major DC characters to not have debuted in a comic book. Her initial origin story features her as a former psychiatrist at Gotham City's Arkham Asylum known under the name of Dr. Harleen Quinzel who fell in love with The Joker, her patient, eventually becoming his accomplice and lover, although, in some recent incarnations, she would eventually abandon him and walk her own path.
During the run of Batman: The Animated Series, screenwriter Paul Dini had been writing the episode Joker's Favor with the intent of making Harley Quinn, a character who hadn't existed in DC Comics up until that point, a bit part and exclusive to that episode. As Dini was putting the story together, he wanted a foil to the Joker, being a character who contrasted with the Joker's twisted philosophy. Influenced by molls present in the 1960s live-action Batman series, Dini made Harley Quinn a henchwoman to the Joker. Quinn was played by the late-Arleen Sorkin, who Dini had known in college and was influenced by her role as a jester in an episode of Days of Our Lives. After seeing a rough cut of the episode, the producers of the show were impressed by the character and made her a recurring character within the DC Animated Universe, before leaking into the mainline DC continuity.
Official Biography
She’s tried being a good guy, but being bad is just too much fun.
Website
Harleen Quinzel was a psychiatrist at Arkham Asylum until the fateful day she met the psychotic villain The Joker… and everything changed forever. After years of being The Joker's sidekick and main squeeze as Harley Quinn, she finally found the courage to leave and forge her own destiny. Her rise to power hasn’t escaped Batman’s notice, and he’s noted that she has the potential to become one of Gotham City's, or even the world’s, greatest villains.[1]
In-Game
Fast-moving mistress of chaos with an arsenal of punishing combos. She's come to the Multiverse armed with explosive goodies that are as deadly and unpredictable as she is.
Default Variant
Harley Quinn's default look seems to be a hybrid between her design in the Suicide Squad and the Suicide Squad: Rebirth comic book series.
Official artwork from Suicide Squad Vol 6.
Official artwork from Suicide Squad: Rebirth #2.
Lore
According to Eric Stirpē, the main lead writer for MultiVersus, all Fighters from the DC universe in the game are original interpretations that take inspiration from various incarnations without adhering to any adaptation in particular.[2]
If the events depicted in the "You're with Me!" Cinematic Trailer are to be taken as canon, than Harley seems to have been one of the Fighters teleported to Trophy's E.D.G.E. in the "Heroes Convergence" phenomenon. She is shown engaging in a fight againt Garnet and Jake the Dog with Taz as her ally. Their fight is later accidently interrupted by Bugs Bunny's ACME rocket, which also carried Batman, Shaggy, and Arya Stark, starting a fight cloud between all of them.
Gameplay
Harley Quinn is an Assassin-type character who specializes in hit-and-run tactics with plenty of mix-ups and fast combos that can effectively juggle opponents. The core of Harley's gameplay revolves around her confetti debuff, which can be applied by many of her attacks and specials; once it reaches max stacks, enemies will be ignited for a few seconds. Harley also has a thin frame, which results in smaller hurtboxes, meaning that she can be very elusive and avoid damage at ease.
Her entire kit is built around her exceptional juggling potential. Her Side Attack as it is very fast, with its last hit launching the enemy upwards, while her Up Attack can not only set-up juggles but also packs KO power. Up Air Attack is very fast, with a large disjointed hitbox that not only keeps enemies in the air safely, but also adds stacks of confetti. Harley's Up Special, Batter Up!, is arguably her most powerful juggling tool, being both great at keeping enemies above her, as well scoring early ring outs.
Harley's air mobility is also among one of the best in the game, with plenty of quick attacks. Her Side Air Attack, for instance, is a fantastic combo starter and spacing tool, especially with short hop cancels, and its low knockback scaling allows Harley to easily chain her other moves. Neutral Air Attack covers a large radius around Harley, and has a late hitbox behind Harley that is a powerful sweetspot. Lastly, Down Air Attack is a powerful ranged spike (which becomes even more oppressive with the Glove ControlSignature Perk).
In terms of Specials, Harley's kit is loaded. Her Neutral Special, Stuffie Bat, can be detonated manually, which adds to her mix-up potential. Her Down Special has plenty of versatility, being useful for stage control, setting up traps, as well recovery. Her Side Special adds a lot of elusiveness to Harley's mix-ups, and can be great for stalling in the air since it slows downs Harley's falling speed briefly.
Harley's abilities are offset by her low weight, being one of the lightest in the game, as well poor range for some moves. Her vertical recovery is also limited if her Down Special is on cooldown.
For 2v2 fights, Harley is at her best when paired with faster character who can put pressure, allowing to build stacks of her confetti more efficiently; Batman, Arya and Finn are exceptional partners for this. Alternatively, she pairs great with strong projectile users, such as Morty, LeBron and Tom & Jerry, especially if they're equipped with Perks such as That's Flammable, Doc!, allowing for constant ignitions on top of Harley's confetti explosions.
Skills
ATTACKS
GROUND
AIR
SIDE HOLD 🡆 + J
TOPSY-TURVY Harley runs forward with multiple handstand spin-kicks.
NEUTRAL J
WHACK! CHARGE a mallet swing.
AERIAL PUMMELER Harley CHARGES and swings her mallet beneath her. The hit has a SWEETSPOT in the latter half of the swing.
SIDE 🡆 + J
CLOWN COMBO A COMBO of kicks and bat swings that ends with an upward swing.
FLYING KICKS A COMBO of kicks that ends with Harley bouncing back from her enemy.
UP 🡅 + J
HEADS UP! CHARGE an overhead swing. A full charge will hit with a twirl before the swing.
CONFETTI GRENADE! Harley fires her grenade launcher overhead, applying CONFETTI to enemies.
DOWN 🡇 + J
SLIDER CHARGE a slide attack. CHARGING extends the distance of the slide. Press input again to COMBO into a forward kick.
BOXING RINGER CHARGE and fire a boxing glove PROJECTILE down.
SPECIALS
GROUND
AIR
NEUTRAL K
STUFFIE BAT Equip a bat plush bomb. Press special and a direction to throw the bomb and attach it to fighters. Press input again to detonate the bomb, damaging and applying CONFETTI to enemies and REFRESHING allies' air moves. All fighters are KNOCKED BACK. Harley can throw multiple bombs until she runs out of AMMO.
BATTER UP! Harley dashes upward and delivers a powerful baseball bat swing.
BATTER UP! Same as ground.
DOWN 🡇 + K
WHACK-IN-A-BOX Harley places a jack-in-the-box PROJECTILE that detonates when an enemy touches it, knocking them upward and applying CONFETTI. Allies can activate it by jumping while next to the box, REFRESHING their air options. COOLDOWN applies.
WHACK-IN-A-BOX Same as ground.
PASSIVE ABILITIESCONFETTI TIME! After applying CONFETTI to enemies, Harley and her allies must KNOCKBACK the victim multiple times to apply IGNITED to them.
Harley’s slide and up attack were granting her very easy combos for very little risk. These changes should keep her combo game intact, while making slide and up attack feel less like “do everything” buttons.
Ground Up Attack
+ Base knockback increased to 1800 from 1663
– On-hit branch window delayed 10 frames
Ground Down Attack
– Start-up window before charge increased 4 frames. Start-up window after charge increased 2 frames.
~ Slide combos into follow-ups faster. Hitstun reduced significantly to compensate.
– Maximum movement from charge reduced 15%
~ Now ignores player collisions during movement
– Leg hurtbox size increased slightly
ValentiNeon Hotfix
Harley's Whack-in-a-Box no longer hits way above its explode radius
Harley’s bat and hammer based attacks now have new hitboxes that more closely align with these items.
~ Air/Ground Neutral Special
Bat plush bomb is no longer ice-proof and can now be frozen.
- Air Neutral Attack
Removed hitboxes from Harley’s body.
Active hitbox window now starts 2 frames later.
+ Air Side Attack
Kick 3’s active window now starts 1 frame earlier.
- Ground Neutral Attack
Removed hitboxes from Harley’s body.
Active hitbox window starts 2 frames later.
+ Ground Up Attack
Added a minor vacuum to the first 3 hits of fully charged Ground Up Attack.
Developer’s Note: Harley’s fully charged Ground Up Attack had a tendency to whiff at times and/or have opponents fall out of the attack as they were being juggled, especially if they were hit higher or closer to the edge of the spin. This change helps to improve Ground Up Attack’s consistency.
+ Ground Side Attack
Jab 3 can now cancel into Jab 4 1 frame earlier.
Developer’s Note: Harley’s jab series had a tendency to whiff through opponents at times with attention to comboing them from angled versions of Air Down Attack when Glove Control was equipped. These changes help Harley’s Jab series land/combo more consistently in relation to her opponent when they are slightly airborne from her combo starters. Overall, these changes reduce scenarios where Harley’s Jab series would have otherwise whiffed through opponents where they should not.
+ Ground Down Attack
Slide can now cancel into other moves slightly earlier.
Increased Attack 2’s (kick’s) base knockback and damage.
Developer’s Note: We know that Harley’s camping and zoning behind her Jack-in-the-box is not fun to play against. We wanted to address this by reducing the availability of her Jack-in-the-box. In order to balance out these changes, we’re allowing Harley to explore new offensive combo routes through the ability to cancel out of her slide as a means to encourage Harley to be more offensive and add a layer of additional skill expression to the character.
- Air/Ground Side Special
Added 8 frames of whiff lag to Prank Shot
! Air / Ground Down Special
Fixed an issue where Whack-In-A-Box could not be blocked by projectile-blocking effects
- Air / Ground Down Special
Increased Whack-In-A-Box’s cooldown to 18s, up from 9s
Reduced Whack-In-A-Box’s life span to 12s, down from 16s
- Air Down Attack
Added 21 frames of whiff lag to Boxing Ringer
~ Ground Up Attack
Adjusted the hitboxes on Heads Up so that it doesn’t hit behind Harley as much anymore
! Ground Neutral Attack
Fixed Whack’s hammer-cancel infinite
+ Ground Down Attack
On hit, Slider will now combo into other attacks 6 frames earlier
Visual explosion size decreased, but hitbox now better matches explosion visuals.
Explosion will now connect with all nearby enemies, regardless of which team triggered the explosion.
More properly clanks/interacts with other projectiles.
Fixed an issue where enemies hit by the explosion would not receive a confetti debuff.
Fixed an issue where Harley or her ally could trigger the jump reset, but the knockback would be suffered by the other teammate.
+ Ground Up Attack
Whiff recovery reduced by 4 frames
We missed a patch note last patch where whiff recovery was increased 12 frames. This change was a bit too much and the reduced whiff recovery now nets out at 8 instead of 12.
- Ground Neutral Attack
On Hit cancel delayed by 2 frames to prevent an infinite combo route.
Fixed an issue where Jab 4 did not suffer from Attack Decay
~ Ground Side Attack
Shoulder hitbox removed on Jab 1
- Ground Up Special
Land cancel window delayed by 6 frames (Air version unaffected).
+ Air Neutral Attack
Hit cancel window moved back by 2 frames
Allowing Harley to cancel her Air Neutral Attack into other moves for additional combo follow-ups should help with combo expression and provide a reward for Harley players when landing a hit.
- Air Neutral Attack
Increased whiff recovery by 8 frames
Note: The goal with this change is to make use of Harley’s Air Neutral Attack more calculated. The goal is make it punishable for those who throw it out too often, and generally balance out overall risk/reward
Bat bomb hitbox now better accounts for z-axis and hits more reliably.
~Grounded Side Attack
Jump and dodge cancel window for jab 1 and jab 2 now comes later.
~Grounded Side Attack
Knockback angle on jab 2 pushed up more to prevent a looping infinite combo
~ Grounded Side Attack
Can cancel to other attacks 1 frame earlier on hit.
We’re testing these changes to remove an infinite combo. We understand this removes some combo routes from Harley, but we felt it was unhealthy for the game and opponents facing it. We’ll continue to evaluate Harley’s power level after this change and welcome any-and-all feedback on these changes.
We’re evaluating if this passive should be removed entirely. We want to take a step towards that while trying to not to go too far too fast. We don’t want to create an assassin dominated meta.
Movelist Description of this change will not be updated until the next patch
Harley Quinn, Morty, and Rick are, currently, the only Fighters in the game who can swear if the player has toggled the "Mature Language" option on in the Settings menu.
Batman and The Man in Black also say the "badass" and "ass" swears respectively, but the game doesn't count them as being mature language.
