***** Cyclops (Phoenix Five) *****

Bad

If the pairs are random Im throwing off the towel here. You need to collect TU and then expect luck gives you matches. Perfectly he can swap 6 pairs and dont match anything.
At least Killmonger increased certain match damage and offered criticals . And KM is not one of the best.

ThaRoadWarrior

As I think about it - I actually wonder if that wild tile swap won't prove to be the Carbage Auto-Turn saving grace for him. Everybody undervalued that extra turn, but Carbage is way better than he read on paper for sure. You probably want to use Profe$$or X with Cyclops rather than Onslaught, since you need those Team Ups on the board. 

LavaManLee

ThaRoadWarrior said:

As I think about it - I actually wonder if that wild tile swap won't prove to be the Carbage Auto-Turn saving grace for him. Everybody undervalued that extra turn, but Carbage is way better than he read on paper for sure. 

The challenge is that the swap for 5Cyc costs 7 Yellow but the extra Carbage turn is passive.  But, your point is well taken.  Carbage was supposed to be just awful and, though not meta, he certainly isn't awful.

ThaRoadWarrior

Oh it’s on the active...I take it back. If that were start of turn passive like MEHulk then it would slay probably.

It’s 3ap cheaper than Doom’s shuffle, but doom has that passive yellow siphon to help him get there. I don’t know...I’ll be curious to try it anyway.

ThaRoadWarrior

Got to respect the choice to put him next to two of the least effective, most expensive 4* characters vs a do nothing goon type on the first node you get to play him lol.

BlackBoltRocks

ThaRoadWarrior said:

Got to respect the choice to put him next to two of the least effective, most expensive 4* characters vs a do nothing goon type on the first node you get to play him lol.

I liked that they did that. It gave me the chance to see Sighclops’ animations. I quite enjoyed them; its just a shame he’s so meh.

LavaManLee

I know this is only the second day of his "Introduction" but he already seems worse than 5Mags.  The other problem is, based on other characters you might run him with, when would you ever use his green/yellow/red?  None of them are better than 5Thor/Okoye/Apoc that you might pair him with.  Maybe he's meant to go with 5PX or Kitty?  I really do not understand this character at all.

Blackstone

He would actually be pretty effective as a battery... If he wasn't so slow.  

... On turn 20 something he's ready to contribute.

I found myself wishing that my Emma and Namor covers were lower level so they would go down and I could see the animation for cykes black power.  Alas, I could not drag the match on long enough.

ThaRoadWarrior

Blackstone said:

He would actually be pretty effective as a battery... If he wasn't so slow.  

... On turn 20 something he's ready to contribute.

I found myself wishing that my Emma and Namor covers were lower level so they would go down and I could see the animation for cykes black power.  Alas, I could not drag the match on long enough.

If you were so inclined, you could enter/retreat a bunch of matches until they were ready to get stomped out, similar to the 50thor prep plan. Or do some easy nodes with Thano5/iHulk

I do think he is probably going to be best with Profe$$or X/Onslaught and try to do the cascade factory thing, using X's purple as a yellow battery maybe.

Bad

I played him and his yellow worked exactly like I said. I fired it with 6 TU and he swapped a lot of tiles without actually matching anything. 
Long time later I fired it another time perhaps with 8 TU. I got really lucky and he matched just one thing.
Animations are really good but wasted on him.
Do you want a 5* really slow for only firing yellow? Cyclops is for you.

ThaRoadWarrior

Bad said:

I played him and his yellow worked exactly like I said. I fired it with 6 TU and he swapped a lot of tiles without actually matching anything. 
Long time later I fired it another time perhaps with 8 TU. I got really lucky and he matched just one thing.
Animations are really good but wasted on him.
Do you want a 5* really slow for only firing yellow? Cyclops is for you.

Why bring Cyclops to only fire yellow when I already have Okoye for that purpose? <jokes>

Polares

I think at this point it is unanimous he is REALLY BAD.

As I said, I think he is Banner/Wasp level bad.

Devs MUST lower the cost for his red to 7, make the repeaters at the very least 2-turns, remove the stun from his green and make it 7 AP too. Then at least he would be usable... sometimes...

LavaManLee

He is so bad I am actually thinking about unloading my hoard now and getting 5Mags and then build up again for the three months 5Cyc is in LL.

Tiger_Wong

Yeah, ummm..... after using him, I see why his green is 10 and repeaters are 3 turns. If either (god forbid) both of his powers are cheaper/repeater has shorter length of time, he would EASILY loop himself just by putting him half-life Thor. 

Let’s say we put him like @Polares says. You know his red also generates green right?

- 3 2-turn repeaters than generate 3 green. 
- half-life thor getting.... let’s say 1 each of yellow/green/red. 

- green at 7 AP and it puts 7 red basics on the field. 

How hard would it be to put the 2-turn repeaters on alternating turns? Or the same turn have 6 repeaters? Not hard at all. So you’re getting 3 each turn. Thor is getting you 1. You MIGHT have make 1 match. Unless you put 6 out on the same turn to increase your chances on the 2nd turn that they won’t be matched/destroyed. Pretty much guaranteeing about 3-6 green on the 2nd turn. 

You’ll be firing both powers on every turn. Probably multiple times. 

gravel

ThaRoadWarrior said:

Blackstone said:

He would actually be pretty effective as a battery... If he wasn't so slow.  

... On turn 20 something he's ready to contribute.

I found myself wishing that my Emma and Namor covers were lower level so they would go down and I could see the animation for cykes black power.  Alas, I could not drag the match on long enough.

If you were so inclined, you could enter/retreat a bunch of matches until they were ready to get stomped out, similar to the 50thor prep plan. Or do some easy nodes with Thano5/iHulk

I do think he is probably going to be best with Profe$$or X/Onslaught and try to do the cascade factory thing, using X's purple as a yellow battery maybe.

I actually did this for a second match to see the black animation.  The animation worked, the power didn't kill either of the remaining opponents.

DAZ0273

Blackstone said:

He would actually be pretty effective as a battery... If he wasn't so slow.  

... On turn 20 something he's ready to contribute.

I found myself wishing that my Emma and Namor covers were lower level so they would go down and I could see the animation for cykes black power.  Alas, I could not drag the match on long enough.

This. I had enough black AP to fire twice but I guess the Sentinels do suck as hard as Cyclops does, oh well.

HoundofShadow

It actually sounds plausible that new 5* characters with active power in either R/G/Y receives a "caution" note due to the high usage of 5*Thor, who helps to generate R/G/Y + and the choice to use +4ap boosts at the start of the game. 

Tiger_Wong

BlackBoltRocks said:

Tiger_Wong said:

Yeah, ummm..... after using him, I see why his green is 10 and repeaters are 3 turns. If either (god forbid) both of his powers are cheaper/repeater has shorter length of time, he would EASILY loop himself just by putting him half-life Thor. 

Let’s say we put him like @Polares says. You know his red also generates green right?

- 3 2-turn repeaters than generate 3 green. 
- half-life thor getting.... let’s say 1 each of yellow/green/red. 

- green at 7 AP and it puts 7 red basics on the field. 

How hard would it be to put the 2-turn repeaters on alternating turns? Or the same turn have 6 repeaters? Not hard at all. So you’re getting 3 each turn. Thor is getting you 1. You MIGHT have make 1 match. Unless you put 6 out on the same turn to increase your chances on the 2nd turn that they won’t be matched/destroyed. Pretty much guaranteeing about 3-6 green on the 2nd turn. 

You’ll be firing both powers on every turn. Probably multiple times. 

To be fair, he was up against three non-movers in the Sentinels. I’d wager he’d be notably less efficient against three tile movers. Repeater tiles that aren’t fortified won’t last long against the latter.

Reducing the repeaters to 2 turns wouldn’t be game-changing imo. It’d be comparable to 5* Ghost Rider’s Green. Cyke does a fixed amount of damage, while Ghosty destroys thrice as many tiles and deals thrice as much tile damage.

For his Green, putting it at 8 AP wouldn’t be gamebreaking either. Compare it to PhoenixJean’s Purple, which costs 7. Cyclops being able to convert enemy Strike and Protects would warrant the extra AP. The random stun is cherry on the cake, since you can’t pick who you want to stun (unless there’s only one enemy left).

GRRR’s repeaters fall to the ground and become pretty bad because they destroy the tiles surrounding the repeater. Cyclops’ pop random greens around the board. This is also better with Thor because Thor is destroying G/Y/R every turn so, quite often, GRRR doesn’t even have any tiles to destroy and just fall to the ground and gets nothing. It’s why, GRRR isn’t as good a partner with Thor in practice as he looks on paper. 

And putting his green at 8 would be ok but only if you keep those repeaters at 3 turns. At 2 turns, you’re still creating 7 red and probably firing his red power every turn. 

Bad

Half thor is another character who is exceeding good. It could be fixed easily adding to his ability "he needs to take damage in this battle before activating this passive " (oops, I did it again, a suggestion to balance a really popular character).
And because of thor next characters must be tweaked.

Tiger_Wong said:

And putting his green at 8 would be ok but only if you keep those repeaters at 3 turns. At 2 turns, you’re still creating 7 red and probably firing his red power every turn. 

Probably, but not asured. And he would be good. Do you know of someone who fires every turn and even more its AoE?
Yes, old hulk buddy.

Polares

Tiger_Wong said:

Yeah, ummm..... after using him, I see why his green is 10 and repeaters are 3 turns. If either (god forbid) both of his powers are cheaper/repeater has shorter length of time, he would EASILY loop himself just by putting him half-life Thor. 

Let’s say we put him like @Polares says. You know his red also generates green right?

- 3 2-turn repeaters than generate 3 green. 
- half-life thor getting.... let’s say 1 each of yellow/green/red. 

- green at 7 AP and it puts 7 red basics on the field. 

How hard would it be to put the 2-turn repeaters on alternating turns? Or the same turn have 6 repeaters? Not hard at all. So you’re getting 3 each turn. Thor is getting you 1. You MIGHT have make 1 match. Unless you put 6 out on the same turn to increase your chances on the 2nd turn that they won’t be matched/destroyed. Pretty much guaranteeing about 3-6 green on the 2nd turn. 

You’ll be firing both powers on every turn. Probably multiple times. 

You are assuming all repeaters survive, which we know it is not the case. But I see your point.

Ok, lets leave red at 9, but change green to what I said. Or the other way around, so red is cheaper and at least he can counter Hulk. Lets just give him a way of actually getting to fire one of his powers a bit early, so he can actually get to fire the second one.

Or even dont change the cost but make 2 turn fortified repeaters! Just give him a chance of doing something! What it can not be is in the way he is now, where he will never get to fire any of those powers, and when he does they are useless. 

In its current form he is useless

Common Devs just buff him a little, give him a chance!!!!