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

Btw, it was just posted on Reddit that Ikarus feeds iHulk. I assume because they’re both immortal.

dianetics said:

Hound you are right but the only problem is that he airborne for 4 turns for 6 ap.
With be4st and Karnak they are most likely jumping in front eating incoming damage.
You can stun them, use powers on them, or knock them out.
Ikarus is doing anywhere from 400-2000 every turn with little you can do about it.
Using him it just feels like that damage is too high and could possibly use a slight adjustment down from that 380.

5star Archangel. Stuns airborne enemies passively

If c5lossus is tanking, he will take minimal damage. 

dianetics said:

His damage is great no doubt.
I put teams out to turn purple ap to get him airborne forever.
I wanted everyone to get knocked out so he could stay airborne forever.
I had no trouble clearing these events. I made no matches while I watched the ai crush the nodes in front of me.
I literally spent about 5 minutes just watching the ai play against itself.

If you like that way... You have a deathwish on the characters offering purple to be crushed floor down, for to deal chip damage anyway....
With polaris I went trought the 2 hardcore nodes in less than 3 minutes. 

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 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.

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*.

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 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.

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.