Seatin made a rookie mistake (but it isn't his fault) - Mr. Sinister synergy with Cyclops
Colonaut123
Member Posts: 3,091 ★★★★★
So if you haven't watched @Seatin vid of his 6* Blue Cyclops, then do it now:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxy_Dva7Crs
Anyway, Seatin used a synergy team composed of Blue Cyclops, Cable, Mr. Sinister, Havok and Magneto. I would say, not the best synergy team for one good reason: Mr. Sinister.
With any Cyclops, Mr. Sinister synergy gives Cyclops Special Attacks +20% critical hit rating and True Strike, ignoring armor, resistance, evade and auto-block.
This is a synergy that actually NERFS Cyclops rather than boost it. Cyclops has only one good thing: his armor break. On the SP1, a rank 1 6* reduces armor rating by 1310.66, SP2 by 1610.71 and SP3 by 2133.67. Red Cyclops has much better armor break but this ain't too bad. Three stacks of armor break goes well below zero, against a champion with a challenger rating of 110 and base zero armor rating, the SP1 AB's increases your damage by 65.73% and 70.21% for the SP2 AB's.
But alas, as True Strike ignores all armor rating, including negative armor rating, which means you lose all that extra damage for every special attack. As beam attacks are the only ones benefiting from increased critical damage rating from the sig, you lose twice. That's a very rookie mistake Seatin made here and distorts the performance of Cyclops significantly (but no, still no god tier!).
But hey, you gain +20% critical hit rating. Assuming it is only +20% base critical hit rating (including masteries), a R5 4* gains 212.6 critical hit rating. Not that much, certainly as you've 70% chance of propping precision, which increases critical hit rating anyway by 1103.85. Thanks to diminished return function, that's pretty much none increased critical hit chance. If you're interested: without the synergy the crit chance against 110 CR and no crit resistance is 51.38%, with the synergy is 53.72%.
But it isn't Seatin's fault. Not many people know about this annoying interaction of True Strike and armor break, or the diminishing return function of critical hit rating. If anyone should know, it is Kabam. Synergies are supposed to improve the champion, not detriment them. Yeah, I assume there are match-ups that outweigh the damage loss (like evade champions or really stacked up resistance champions), but not many.
To sum up, Kabam really missed the mark with this synergy. A shame, because Cyclops can really use some good synergies.
No, if you want a good Cyclops synergy team, it is this:
- Blue Cyclops (Mutant Agenda with Wolverine, Nemesis with Magneto)
- Havok (+100% AB duration with Cyclops)
- Magneto (Enemies with Wolverine, Nemesis with Cyclops)
- Wolverine (Enemies with Magneto, Rivals with Cyclops)
- CAIW (Mutant Evolution with Wolverine (+20% passive prowess))
- Namor (Friends with Magneto (+5% attack rating), Enemies with Magneto (+155 crit rating))
I hope Seatin is going to redo the video with this synergy team, I wonder how Cyclops will perform then. I think Cyclops will hit harder during his special attacks, maybe bumping him up to pretty useful tier.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxy_Dva7CrsAnyway, Seatin used a synergy team composed of Blue Cyclops, Cable, Mr. Sinister, Havok and Magneto. I would say, not the best synergy team for one good reason: Mr. Sinister.
With any Cyclops, Mr. Sinister synergy gives Cyclops Special Attacks +20% critical hit rating and True Strike, ignoring armor, resistance, evade and auto-block.
This is a synergy that actually NERFS Cyclops rather than boost it. Cyclops has only one good thing: his armor break. On the SP1, a rank 1 6* reduces armor rating by 1310.66, SP2 by 1610.71 and SP3 by 2133.67. Red Cyclops has much better armor break but this ain't too bad. Three stacks of armor break goes well below zero, against a champion with a challenger rating of 110 and base zero armor rating, the SP1 AB's increases your damage by 65.73% and 70.21% for the SP2 AB's.
But alas, as True Strike ignores all armor rating, including negative armor rating, which means you lose all that extra damage for every special attack. As beam attacks are the only ones benefiting from increased critical damage rating from the sig, you lose twice. That's a very rookie mistake Seatin made here and distorts the performance of Cyclops significantly (but no, still no god tier!).
But hey, you gain +20% critical hit rating. Assuming it is only +20% base critical hit rating (including masteries), a R5 4* gains 212.6 critical hit rating. Not that much, certainly as you've 70% chance of propping precision, which increases critical hit rating anyway by 1103.85. Thanks to diminished return function, that's pretty much none increased critical hit chance. If you're interested: without the synergy the crit chance against 110 CR and no crit resistance is 51.38%, with the synergy is 53.72%.
But it isn't Seatin's fault. Not many people know about this annoying interaction of True Strike and armor break, or the diminishing return function of critical hit rating. If anyone should know, it is Kabam. Synergies are supposed to improve the champion, not detriment them. Yeah, I assume there are match-ups that outweigh the damage loss (like evade champions or really stacked up resistance champions), but not many.
To sum up, Kabam really missed the mark with this synergy. A shame, because Cyclops can really use some good synergies.
No, if you want a good Cyclops synergy team, it is this:
- Blue Cyclops (Mutant Agenda with Wolverine, Nemesis with Magneto)
- Havok (+100% AB duration with Cyclops)
- Magneto (Enemies with Wolverine, Nemesis with Cyclops)
- Wolverine (Enemies with Magneto, Rivals with Cyclops)
- CAIW (Mutant Evolution with Wolverine (+20% passive prowess))
- Namor (Friends with Magneto (+5% attack rating), Enemies with Magneto (+155 crit rating))
I hope Seatin is going to redo the video with this synergy team, I wonder how Cyclops will perform then. I think Cyclops will hit harder during his special attacks, maybe bumping him up to pretty useful tier.
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Comments
Also does it mean pierce mastery and crits in general benefit less from armor break? Still find negative armor ridiculous, thought they got rid of it after 12.0
there are a couple of problems with your analasis.
the synergy team you mention would be better than him in cases where the defender is immune to armor break. in addition truestrike is not just about ignoring armor, but evasion, resistances and autoblock. There are probably more cases where true strike would be beneficial over armor break in story modes because of that, maybe even in war.
If you want to compare raw damage sure you may have a point, but raw damage alone would rarely make someone god tier, and there are several god tier champs who hit like wet noodles, but have great utility.
I'm a forum writer, not a youtuber, so I do not feel the need to 'showcase' anything but by written word. That's my preferred way of content creation, I do hope you respect that.
That is a good question. Crits only ignore 50% of the armor and pierce only adds up to 15% extra on top. I suppose crits are still affected by armor breaks, as demonstrated by the increase in damage for Medusa and others. So far, it is only True Damage/True Strike that ignores armor rating completely (check Corvus: regardless of the amount of armor breaks, he will hit the same, which is a clever balance: utility without extra benefit).
It is a common misconception that ever since 12.0, armor rating can't go below zero. It still can, it is limited. The current formula is:
armor modifier = |armor rating| / (|armor rating| + 1500 + 5 x challenger rating)
At a R5 4* with challenger rating of 100, 2000 positive armor rating will result in 50% reduction in damage, while negative armor rating results in 50% increased damage. 4000 armor rating however will only result in 66.67% reduction. It would require infinite armor rating to get 100% damage reduction (or increase).
If you would have the fortunate luck to pull a 5* Thor twice (or awaken him) and get him to sig 200 and rank 5, his armor break reduces armor rating by 4360.89 and would increase his damage by 68.6%. Two armor breaks would increase it to 81.3%. Three armor breaks 86.7%. As you can see, any armor break beyond two is pretty much moot, which forms the core of the 12.0 nerf of Thor. Still, 81.3% increased damage just by parrying twice is enormous. Watch out though, the SP1 deals True Damage, nullifying that damage boost.
I also never stated Cyclops would become god tier due to this synergy. That's absurd. I did suggest to bump him up to the pretty useful tier. Low demigod, perhaps, because armor breaks have higher utility these days. But certainly not higher than that. I do confess that is a stretch, so pretty useful tier is most accurate estimation.
I do hope you read my analysis in full, before pointing out problems I already (or did not) address ;-).
You have to be very, very careful about pushing the math too far in this game. The precise interactions of armor, armor break, and true strike and true damage, are not known absolutely, and have changed over time. It literally changed twice on me when I was trying to write up a description of it *post* 12.0, and I gave up (although I've been trying to get back to it).
For a less mathy illustration of the issue, watch Seatin's video at 8:35 and again at 10:16. Those are two SP1 attacks, the first one starts with no armor break and the second one starts with two. The first one ticks 559, 1465, 1953. The last two are crits. The second ticks for 1465, 1465, 746. The first two are crits. Note the middle tick: it is identical in both SP1 attacks. That means SP1 is dealing the same damage regardless of the amount of armor or armor break (we can infer that in both cases crits land for about 2.62x the non-crit damage: that means ticks one and two land for 559 if they don't crit and 559 * 2.62 = 1465 if they do crit, and tick three lands for 746 if it doesn't crit and 746 * 2.62 = 1954 ~ 1953 if it does crit: the tiny difference is probably a round off happening).
That doesn't automatically prove the synergy is broken: as others have pointed out there is a more complex trade off that is happening here. But it does illustrate the non-intuitive interaction between things that ignore armor (like crits and true strike) and negative armor effects like armor breaks.
Also why not just bring this up with him?
@Seatin
I actually already tagged him. I do hope he responds.
Bishop no armor break: medium hits 5601
Bishop two armor breaks: medium still hits 5601
Vid link:
Before you ask: 6* rank 2 Bishop has 260 base armor rating, rank 4 5* Corvus reduces armor rating by 361.76. Two should certainly reduce armor rating into the negative.
He doesn't hit higher due to the armor breaks.