Compared to other potential PvP enemies in Marvel: Avengers Alliance, Cyclops isn’t only frustratingly well rounded, but he can also appear in enough variations that it is hard to develop a single strategy against him. He is both an enabler and a character capable of dealing high damage on his own. These features make him one of the more difficult PvP enemies in Marvel: Avengers Alliance. If, like many players in the game, you are losing to him more often than you are winning, the following strategy guide will teach you how to defeat Cyclops in PvP in Marvel: Avengers Alliance.
Alternate Uniforms – Cyclops is good enough that you will often see him in his base uniform, but there is about a 50% chance that he will appear in either his Phoenix Five uniform or his Uncanny uniform. These uniforms are very different and require very different strategies to counter. If he is present in the Phoenix Five outfit, don’t waste your time putting up shields. If you can apply either magnetized or impaired to any or all of the enemies in order to prevent the critical hits that will otherwise be coming. If he is present in the Uncanny outfit, shields are practically critical, unless you can apply exhausted to all enemies. This outfit grants his allies additional attacks. You need to stop those extra attacks or be ready to absorb them.
Stealthy Attacks – Cyclops always starts every battle with Evasive Maneuvers. This means that every member of his team will counter the first attack against them. If at all possible, only use stealthy attacks. If you can, only use single target attacks and focus all those attacks on a single enemy. An area attack after Evasive Maneuvers will practically assure that you lose the hero who makes that attacks, unless it is Valkyrie attacking with Flight of Valkyrie. You can also strip the Evasive Maneuvers buff with status effect removal, but other than the counterattack, the status effects granted by it aren’t that great, so this is a waste of a removal power.
Do Not Rely on Class Special Abilities – Usually the first thing most players do when they enter a PvP match is look at the enemies and look for favorable class match ups. Against Cyclops, this habit can actually hurt. He can apply disadvantage with Exploit Weakness and almost certainly would. When devising your strategy against his team, it is best to assume that none of your characters will have any class special abilities. If you happen to be able to take advantage of one, that is nice, but you should assume you won’t if you want to increase your chance of winning.
Winded – Odd as it may seem, the best debuff against Cyclops is the winded status effect. Or, stated better, winded is the best negative status effect to use on his team. He can apply flanked to your team and winded will prevent enemies from taking advantage of that status condition. Assuming you can only apply the status effect to one enemy at a time, it is generally best to apply it to whichever enemy acts directly after Cyclops, to best prevent flanked from hurting your team.
Iron Fist – When all other tricks fail, Cyclops falls easily to Iron Fist. His ability to prevent counterattacks and follow-up attacks turns Cyclops’ greatest assets into liabilities. Just make sure you use one of the scrapper versions of Iron Fist, because otherwise you could fall prey to a blaster version of Cyclops.
