**** Ikaris (Eternals) ****

shardwick

He really jacked up the enemy team pretty much all by himself so even though a 270 Icarus won't be able to do the same amount of damage as a 530 Icarus I think he could be really annoying in pvp.

Daniel2121

I once had him as my last active character (my other two chars I think were Polaris and Dusa. They were knocked down). The tile matches Ikaris does while alone and airborne are passive and automatic, you have no control over what tiles are matched. This means he might not be able to "keep himself airborne forever" if he fails to complete the AP cost for his purple and/or yellow abilities.

I still think he can be a huge annoyance with those two skills maxed. I really hoped to cross paths with someone having him beyond than 1/1/1 but I couldn't find anyone. 1/1/1 keeps him too weak to even make me waste a team slot for Archangel...

HoundofShadow

Bring on Balance of Power during the next off-season. I can't wait to try out 550 Ikaris.

Anyway, counters can be divided into two categories: preventive and reactive.

Reactive would be using direct counters like Archangel or Elsa.

Preventive would be ap denial, ap steal and stun etc

There's another one strategy where you play the airborne game. It's like using rock against a rock. Bring Hellcat, Throg, Vulture etc and time your airborne. I think some players would have adequate training for airborne vs airborne match. With the right timing, Ikaris would be downed.

Daniel2121

HoundofShadow said:

Bring on Balance of Power during the next off-season. I can't wait to try out 550 Ikaris.

Anyway, counters can be divided into two categories: preventive and reactive.

Reactive would be using direct counters like Archangel or Elsa.

Preventive would be ap denial, ap steal and stun etc

There's another one strategy where you play the airborne game. It's like using rock against a rock. Bring Hellcat, Throg, Vulture etc and time your airborne. I think some players would have adequate training for airborne vs airborne match. With the right timing, Ikaris would be downed.

What do you mean by "the right timing"? As far as I realize, when an enemy is airborne, it is unable to act (so long as it's not a hero coded to act while airborne as Ikaris is) but also immune to damage. So what you can do in this situation is gather AP for your skills and then unleash them when the enemy lands. But you can't always count on being able to gather enough AP for anything (even a stun) by the time that enemy lands.

HoundofShadow

Right timing refers to when you are dealing with Ikaris.

For example, you use Hellcat and you have 7 purple aps.

AI Ikaris: goes airborne for 2 turns, and end his turn.

You: make a match and end turn, instead of going airborne.

AI Ikaris: makes a match and passive activates. Airborne countdown to 1. End turn.

You: goes airborne for 1 turn.

AI Ikaris:. Lands and make purple matches. 

You: return from airborne and stun Ikaris for 4 turns.

If you go airborne at the wrong timing, then you waste your power. So, the timing will differ depending on which airborne character you use and how many turns their airborne is. Alternatively, you can go invisible with other characters. like Wolfsbane or Invisible Woman, which I just remembered.

It's not a hard and fast rule, but it shows different ways of dealing with airborne enemies.

TheEyeDoctorsWife

I also found him overpowered in the Welcome To… event as he alone KO’ed both Day 2 and 3 teams . I am thankful for this however as it was a huge time and strategy saver as it seems both Apoc and Okoye put his damage off the charts beyond my calculations . This was the closest thing I’ve seen to Polaris in 4*.

Bad

It's true that apoc boosts his airborne side attack.
I think it's a bug as it's something related to match damage. They put cyclops there for that reason, for to increase his match damage. 
But ikaris with SS deals 15k damage right now, and on a small cascade he decimates foes(better than polaris).

Sekilicious

In his 5e in Unstable ISO-8 he is far less reliable than in his Welcome event. Mine is only 3/2/2 but I have been having a tough time finding the Red/Purple to keep him in flight in some matches. Spiderman 2099 and Polaris are still better partners for Apoc/Okoye in 4* land as they have fewer contingencies. But good to know that Ikarus can fill that void if you’ve missed those two somehow.

dianetics

Bad, I don’t think it’s a bug.
The power multiplies whatever the match damage would have been, and then apoc/okoye or any other power increasing effect will get tacked on after.

TheRiddler

Yeah I've been using him with Okoye in the PVP.

Sekilicious

dianetics said:

Bad, I don’t think it’s a bug.
The power multiplies whatever the match damage would have been, and then apoc/okoye or any other power increasing effect will get tacked on after.

I was also expecting it to work like Juggernaut’s AoE, which also procs on matching. That Ikaris is boosted by passives and Juggernaut is only boosted by strikes seems inconsistent. Though it is consistent with SM 2099 I guess, though SM does other things as well.

Bad

I've been using PX boosted purple and never sent ikaris flying.
I thought his match damage wouldn't be boosted as many characters usually act.
Ikaris needs 6 purple but after that he is free. If apoc and okoye can boost him he is better than spider or polaris who need other conditions, plus he can revive if taking an AoE. 
Now okoye can run polaris and ikaris for a total carnage. It should be called the okoyis team, i.e.

dianetics

Jugs proc is on his own matches.
Ikaris is acting like a fired power on any match.
So he is getting his damage multiplied by yellow, then multiplied again from his purple, and then getting any other bonus damage added on at the end.
I still think the purple is doing too much.
I imagine electro, apoc, and Ikaris will make some obscene numbers if electro can toss out a couple of her strikes.

Sekilicious

He needs more than 6 purple. He needs 6 every time he lands unless he has 8 red.  Without either of those he sits on the ground and tanks. Dying and then five rounds of flight if you have 9 yellow seems good but by the time you find 3 yellow matches your team will likely be dead as well. Or Okoye and Apocalypse will want to use that yellow for other purposes. 

Ikaris is good.  His free matches has been proven to be effective with Carbage and Grocket. Free damage that can be boosted has been proven effective with iHulk, Spiderman 2099, Medusa and others. The extra match damage is good with Juggernaut, Karnak, Colossus, and Shang-Chi (and apparently Adam Warlock but I don't have him). Keeping him airborne is pretty easy, though no where near as easy as Vulture. None of these characters do as much as Ikaris but they also do not have the same contingencies. 

I have my doubts that he will replace Juggernaut or Medusa with Polaris and Grocket in Pick-3 since they do his extra damage with fewer contingencies and no ap cost. I certainly wouldn't run him before Polaris or Grocket or their proven counters in Pick-2. There are more effective Apocalypse and Okoye pairings in PvE if you have them and any 4* partner will paint a target on your back in PvP if you have either of those champed. We will see how he plays when I get him champed as these are my initial impressions. 

Daniel2121

Wait... did I read this right? Damage made from matches made while Ikaris is airborne can be amped by Apoc's Shared Strength?! Wow. Crazy

TheEyeDoctorsWife

With a Red AP generator and cosmic blast at 5 he’s practically infinite airborne . With a power booster as a third teammate the synergy is great , you’re giving 4 yellow to either Apoc or Okoye .  IM3, Apoc, and Ikarus is one possibility.

entrailbucket

They really need to straighten out what gets boosted by Okoye Apoc etc and what doesn't.  Right now it seems to be based on whatever arcane way the power is coded in their system, but it doesn't make sense to anybody without access to that stuff.

I don't believe that they're actually deciding which powers get boosted, because if they did, those decisions would follow some rule.  If Ikaris gets boosted then Juggernaut should get boosted too. 

At the very least, we should be able to look at a character's power description and know if it gets boosted or not based on the wording.

Sekilicious

entrailbucket said:

They really need to straighten out what gets boosted by Okoye Apoc etc and what doesn't.  Right now it seems to be based on whatever arcane way the power is coded in their system, but it doesn't make sense to anybody without access to that stuff.

I don't believe that they're actually deciding which powers get boosted, because if they did, those decisions would follow some rule.  If Ikaris gets boosted then Juggernaut should get boosted too. 

At the very least, we should be able to look at a character's power description and know if it gets boosted or not based on the wording.

It might be as simple a reason as Juggernaut having his AoE boosted would be game-breaking insanity for a 4* (Maybe still less than Polaris, lol) though they still have iHulk in the game. It would not be game-breaking now that Wanda and Electro are in the game. Ikaris at least only hits 1 opponent for boosted damage and that has precedent. But yeah, I agree with everything you say. 

Anon

I dont think Juggs AOE being boostable would be game-breaking since he has to tank to get it. Its not easy for a 4* to tank over a 5*.

Edit: Typing in coherent sentences is hard.

entrailbucket

If they consider a certain ability game breaking when boosted and another ability to be allowable, I'm fine with that. 

The problem is that the wording and operation of the powers isn't consistent, so we can't tell what gets boosted or not without testing it (and then remembering it for every character).

If all the boostable and non boostable abilities were worded the same way it'd be really useful.