*** Cyclops (Uncanny X-Men) ***

simonsez

The poll tells you how to use BP?

Unknown

simonsez wrote:

The poll tells you how to use BP?

Can't figure out BP, can't figure out what a tier list is....

Cute downvote, you dind't make it to 3 strikes, I'm impressed

Unknown

I feel like this could just be because next to lcap blade and grocket are my best characters but I have this feeling that cyclops works really well with both. Mutant revolutionary feeds the thirst and cyclops red, I have a full rainbow I believe with powers and so much strike tile spam. I would need to sacrifice full blast or night walker but I think it'd be worth it. Night walker works weird anyway and full blast does so much damage. My conclusion for cyclops is 5/3/5 either way.

teknofyl

So far, I'm looking at 535 as the build, unless I see something to make me think otherwise between now and then. It kind of AI-proofs him a little in PvP, and makes him a stand-alone engine like Thor or GSBW or Mystique, which is a play style that I enjoy that has the added effect of being modular. That is very useful in PvE, which is where I see Cyke shining. PvP is obviously dominated at the high-end by XF+TGT and during the climb it's whatever you like or have available that you don't need for other tasks (like PvE).

Unknown

atomzed wrote:

Phantron wrote:

Battleplan makes short work of any one particularly high HP character that isn't Hulk. Hulk is a strangely tough matchup for BP but it's not like you can actually lose to Hulk. If we're limited to just 3*s, only Thor has both high HP and is a significant threat at doing damage. Groot might be close with maxed blue but his covers are harder to get and the blue takes 1 more match and has a delay before it can be deployed, while Battleplan is immediate.

So how do you (or rasinbman who down voted me) play BP? I genuinely want to know because I have difficulty using him even though I have him max.

I try to go for black when I use him, but after I get his 12 black, I find that I can't kill off anyone, so I withhold the move. I then wait for 9 yellow, which gives the opponent more chance to get cascades.

Do you spread your match dmg across the characters? To soften them up for the ROTP? Or you pair him up with a low ap character to soften the character?

I really never been able to maximise my use of him. It's a shame.

BTT, after using the loaner Cyclops, I begin to like 553 more.It's straight forward to play, and the AI will not misplay it on defence. I probably go with 553, like 8 months later when I can respec....

Unless the enemy team is weak enough to be killed by a single ROTP, you should go for Battleplan first. It generates 575 total strength strike tile if I recall, which is pretty much stronger than just about anything you can realistically deploy in a game (Escape Plan and some cases for The Thirst could be better) and all you need to do is make sure no existing yellow matches are up. After Battleplan is on the field then you should start looking for AP for ROTP, though all you really have to do is make chains and a lot of the time you don't even care what AP you're getting because Battleplan just does a ton of damage.

john1620b

I was thinking of going with a 5/5/3 build, to try and increase red generation for other good red powers (like 4* Thor) but after having played with him in Enemy of the State, I agree that 5/3/5 is probably the best build. Getting 7 yellow AP comes rather quickly, and if you use the power twice within a few turns, there are often not enough TU tiles for it to make a big difference being 3 or 5 covers.

That, combined with the huge increase in damage on black, makes it a better build overall. The gain in yellow just isn't enough to justify the drop in black.

GrumpySmurf1002

Yeah, it didn't take long for me to say "wow, this yellow stinks." It's not a red generator, it's a red creator, whose sole purpose is making sure black does max damage.

Unknown

I'm thinking Cyke's primary purpose is to pair with TGT while boosted, making his red less valuable. His secondary purpose, however, is to kill PvE nodes where you have to fight Thor. Like Gauntlet and Simulator. For those, the 5th cover in Red boosting damage by about 70% is valuable.

Even as a TGT accelerator, going from 6 tiles to 8 tiles doesn't seem like a huge boon. If it was 6 to 7 to all then maybe. As it stands you are using it multiple times anyway, plus TGT always has high amounts of extra yellow. In practice I think a 5/3/5 build is the way to go, to cover all of his best use cases.

Phaserhawk

simonsez wrote:

I feel like the only person who didn't like Cage's yellow, so no surprise I'm looking like the only one who doesn't like Cyclops' black. It's just too expensive for a single-target ability. There are plenty of other characters who deal damage more efficiently. The one thing he offers that's unique is the ability to generate red. So yellow is where I'd want to put 5. Cascades and crits are what I'm looking for, not to meet the black minimum. And as long as I'm getting all this red AP, his red is as good a place as any to use it. His black isn't even strong enough to one-shot anyone I'd be afraid of... how many times am I going to get 13 black in one match?

I will give you the expensive part, but his black at maximum is up there with the most cost efficient damage skills in the game, I think only Daredevil's Ambush has a better AP to DMG ratio. And even if not full on dmg, it's still tops in AP efficiency without full red. And how is 8171 dmg not going to one-shot anyone? You do realize you have match dmg in between skills. If you were able to get 5 black matches all in a row, you just did another 915 dmg, but chances are you probably will easily do 1-2k worth of match damage inbetween the skill going off, which means anyone in 10960 health and below are probably going to be dead. Now my only question, is this....Is this damage actually overkill? Because due to the high cost, am I going to have guys wittled down enough that smacking them for 8K worth of dmg just way too much. If you go only level 3 you essentially are doing C.Mags Blue dmg but for an extra 3 AP, and just like Cyclops, C.Mags has some board requirements that aren't always met.

Now during his PvP event we know these things.
1.)The AI will be spamming yellow anytime it gets it thus it will put quite a bit of red on the board leading to very damaging red optic blasts or smites.
2.)Surgical Strike is probably only going to be stealing red with both 4hor and Cyclops. Optic Blasts will hit for around 6300 (assuming maxed character)
3.)Full Blast will be hitting for around 12K (assuming maxed character)


I'll tell you why I think 5/3/5 is the only way to go.

Reason 1) I had C.Mags 5/5/3 after his rebalance, and those shields were awesome, they were able to overwrite, they stopped lots of damage and allowed you to survive longer. However, there were so many games I would have won but lost because my blue just wasn't able to do enough dmg, but had I been 3/5/5 I would have finished the game right there. I feel Cyclops is going to be the exact same way. There are going to be times where yellow bails you out into a red that you wouldn't normally have gotten off, but there are going to be times where you will go, ****, if only black did more dmg, I could one-shot this sniper goon and not lose a guy due to his tile going off.

Reason 2) Look at Captain Marvel. There are those that argue 4/5/4 to get max dmg red and those that say 3/5/5 to max out her passive. This is actually a very similar arguement, becaue a maxed yellow speeds the use of black, even though you can spam more with red. Let's assume Marvel gets hit every turn and her passive triggers, and that all you are matching is red every turn because Cyclops is on the other team spamming yellow and creating red

4/5/4--you have 8 red end of turn 3/5/5--you have 8 red and 3 black
4/5/4--1494 dmg, 9 red end of turn 3/5/5--893 dmg, 9 red and 6 black end of turn
4/5/4--2908 dmg, 10 red end of turn 3/5/5--1786 dmg, 10 red and 9 black end of turn
4/5/4--4482 dmg, 11 red end of turn 3/5/5--5183 dmg, 11 red and 3 black end of turn
4/5/4--5976 dmg, 12 red end of turn 3/5/5--6076 dmg, 12 red and 6 black end of turn
4/5/4--7470 dmg, 13 red end of turn 3/5/5--6969 dmg, 13 red and 9 black end of turn
4/5/4--8964 dmg, 14 red end of turn 3/5/5--10366 dmg, 14 red and 3 blackd end of turn
4/5/4--11952 dmg, 5 red end of turn 3/5/5--12152 dmg, 5 red and 6 black end of turn

This pattern will go on and on as the 3/5/5 further pulls away in dmg the more this pattern goes on. The only time the higher red dmg build is ahead is the first 2 turns before black can go off. Cyclops is going to play very similar. Sure a 5/5/3 is going to help red go off sooner or a second time sooner before a 5/3/5 build, but you have to get that 2 to 1 ratio in order to justify the build over 5/3/5.


3.)And here's the final question for everyone. For those who have Deadpool 5/5/3 or for those that have Patch 3/5/5 and use TBTI....How often can you get Whales or TBTI to go off? Whether you choose to boost or not, how realiable are those skills to you? That's where Full Blast sits. It's a very expensive but more than likely game ending skill and will be going off roughly the same amount of time it's going to take to get Whales or TBTI off.

That's it, I'm done with Cyclops. As of now, he's a great PvE assest no matter what the build, he will help transitioners with a high dmg output, but he can't compete with 4hor and X-Force right now so the key then for every player is to optimize him that best fits your top PvE lineup and fit him in there.

Unknown

For skills like that where damage is in excess of 8,000 I almost always put match damage on one character, and then use the skill on another to get the maximum damage.

Also, there is no such thing as Overkilling Hood, OBW, XF, or certain other characters who are just annoying. First chance you get to kill them, weather its 6 green or 13 black, you take it.

NorthernPolarity

Phaserhawk wrote:

simonsez wrote:

I feel like the only person who didn't like Cage's yellow, so no surprise I'm looking like the only one who doesn't like Cyclops' black. It's just too expensive for a single-target ability. There are plenty of other characters who deal damage more efficiently. The one thing he offers that's unique is the ability to generate red. So yellow is where I'd want to put 5. Cascades and crits are what I'm looking for, not to meet the black minimum. And as long as I'm getting all this red AP, his red is as good a place as any to use it. His black isn't even strong enough to one-shot anyone I'd be afraid of... how many times am I going to get 13 black in one match?

I will give you the expensive part, but his black at maximum is up there with the most cost efficient damage skills in the game, I think only Daredevil's Ambush has a better AP to DMG ratio. And even if not full on dmg, it's still tops in AP efficiency without full red. And how is 8171 dmg not going to one-shot anyone? You do realize you have match dmg in between skills. If you were able to get 5 black matches all in a row, you just did another 915 dmg, but chances are you probably will easily do 1-2k worth of match damage inbetween the skill going off, which means anyone in 10960 health and below are probably going to be dead. Now my only question, is this....Is this damage actually overkill? Because due to the high cost, am I going to have guys wittled down enough that smacking them for 8K worth of dmg just way too much. If you go only level 3 you essentially are doing C.Mags Blue dmg but for an extra 3 AP, and just like Cyclops, C.Mags has some board requirements that aren't always met.

Now during his PvP event we know these things.
1.)The AI will be spamming yellow anytime it gets it thus it will put quite a bit of red on the board leading to very damaging red optic blasts or smites.
2.)Surgical Strike is probably only going to be stealing red with both 4hor and Cyclops. Optic Blasts will hit for around 6300 (assuming maxed character)
3.)Full Blast will be hitting for around 12K (assuming maxed character)


I'll tell you why I think 5/3/5 is the only way to go.

Reason 1) I had C.Mags 5/5/3 after his rebalance, and those shields were awesome, they were able to overwrite, they stopped lots of damage and allowed you to survive longer. However, there were so many games I would have won but lost because my blue just wasn't able to do enough dmg, but had I been 3/5/5 I would have finished the game right there. I feel Cyclops is going to be the exact same way. There are going to be times where yellow bails you out into a red that you wouldn't normally have gotten off, but there are going to be times where you will go, ****, if only black did more dmg, I could one-shot this sniper goon and not lose a guy due to his tile going off.

Reason 2) Look at Captain Marvel. There are those that argue 4/5/4 to get max dmg red and those that say 3/5/5 to max out her passive. This is actually a very similar arguement, becaue a maxed yellow speeds the use of black, even though you can spam more with red. Let's assume Marvel gets hit every turn and her passive triggers, and that all you are matching is red every turn because Cyclops is on the other team spamming yellow and creating red

4/5/4--you have 8 red end of turn 3/5/5--you have 8 red and 3 black
4/5/4--1494 dmg, 9 red end of turn 3/5/5--893 dmg, 9 red and 6 black end of turn
4/5/4--2908 dmg, 10 red end of turn 3/5/5--1786 dmg, 10 red and 9 black end of turn
4/5/4--4482 dmg, 11 red end of turn 3/5/5--5183 dmg, 11 red and 3 black end of turn
4/5/4--5976 dmg, 12 red end of turn 3/5/5--6076 dmg, 12 red and 6 black end of turn
4/5/4--7470 dmg, 13 red end of turn 3/5/5--6969 dmg, 13 red and 9 black end of turn
4/5/4--8964 dmg, 14 red end of turn 3/5/5--10366 dmg, 14 red and 3 blackd end of turn
4/5/4--11952 dmg, 5 red end of turn 3/5/5--12152 dmg, 5 red and 6 black end of turn

This pattern will go on and on as the 3/5/5 further pulls away in dmg the more this pattern goes on. The only time the higher red dmg build is ahead is the first 2 turns before black can go off. Cyclops is going to play very similar. Sure a 5/5/3 is going to help red go off sooner or a second time sooner before a 5/3/5 build, but you have to get that 2 to 1 ratio in order to justify the build over 5/3/5.


3.)And here's the final question for everyone. For those who have Deadpool 5/5/3 or for those that have Patch 3/5/5 and use TBTI....How often can you get Whales or TBTI to go off? Whether you choose to boost or not, how realiable are those skills to you? That's where Full Blast sits. It's a very expensive but more than likely game ending skill and will be going off roughly the same amount of time it's going to take to get Whales or TBTI off.

That's it, I'm done with Cyclops. As of now, he's a great PvE assest no matter what the build, he will help transitioners with a high dmg output, but he can't compete with 4hor and X-Force right now so the key then for every player is to optimize him that best fits your top PvE lineup and fit him in there.

I don't really agree with your Captain Marvel analysis: the cases are wildly different. For one thing, going 4/4/5 on Captain Marvel turns her red from terrible to.... poor. Even after the upgrade, her red just doesn't really do enough damage for you to want to cast it. Cyclop's red and black on the other hand, go from mediocre to very very good from 3->5. And likewise, Marvel's yellow goes from good to very very good because of the extra 3 black AP that it generates.

The main reason why 5/3/5 for cyclops is good is just how the covers progress.
Yellow is an average upgrade from 3->4 and 4->5. 6->8 tiles isn't that big of a deal, especially since the ability is cheap, so the odds of there even being 8 TU tiles the second time around is unlikely. Also, the stats show that you get an extra like 1 red tile per cast, which is... unexciting to say the least.
3->5 black and red on the other hand, double the damage and change them from mediocre to very efficient damage spells.

Can't really see an argument for any other general purpose build because of this, unless you are just straight up planning to never use his black or red in any circumstance whatsoever, which seems unlikely in Heroics.

jimstarooney

Hes a monster now i have used him.hes almost 4 star class and im interested to see how high he ranks when mischief maker does his next rankings.i think he will be top 3 star.

atomzed

After hearing the arguments from NP and phaserhawk, I changed my opinion. Will go for 535 instead. In the loaner Cyclops games tat I played I was getting 7 yellow quickly.... So 5 red per conversion is enough...


@Phantron, thanks for the explanation on BP. Next time I would aim for yellow and leave black later. Will see how it turns out for me.

ClydeFrog76

I'm really digging Scott.

As much as it pains me to say that.

Unknown

ClydeFrog76 wrote:

I'm really digging Scott.

As much as it pains me to say that.

well he looks like a slim jim and nothing changes how idiotic he was when he cheated on Jean with Emma(I'm cheating on a psychic, this'll totally go well)

Unknown

ClydeFrog76 wrote:

I'm really digging Scott.

As much as it pains me to say that.

ClydeFrog76

Man I hate that stupid X for a visor.

Unknown

more reading lists please!

as for cyclops, i've really loved the direction of the character since avengers vs. x-men. i think he's the most interesting character in all of the marvel now stuff that i've read. i'm interested to see where he will go after the developments of the newest issue of uncanny that was out today.

and i need to get my hands on whedon's astonishing run. i've always wanted to get the omnibus, but prices for that are way too steep. may have to pick up the complete collections instead. i've heard it's fantastic.

Unknown

ClydeFrog76 wrote:

Man I hate that stupid X for a visor.

haha, i kind of dig it. one of the very few "modernizations" of characters i've liked in a long time.

Unknown

ClydeFrog76 wrote:

Man I hate that stupid X for a visor.

I'm indifferent about it.....I still can't get over the "snow white magneto" thing....but I'm not really a comic reader so I can't really get mad, lol. Things change for the kids...