Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order, already a stellar entry into one of my favorite game franchises, has been doing work with their DLC add-ons, including the online-compatible Danger Room from the most recent DLC add-on, DLC Pack 2, Rise of the Phoenix.
In the following series I’ll explore the ins and outs of optimal play with the best characters (for more of the game’s strongest characters, check out our Top Ten Characters in Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3), teams, and strategies that the game has to offer. First up: Cyclops.
Cyclops: Best in Damage
I find it fitting that the biggest overachiever of the Danger Room is the original X-Men leader and teacher’s pet, Cyclops. Cyke has exactly one job but he does it better than anyone: blast everything on screen until the game says “Victory.”
Cyke’s main tool is his Ricochet Beam, a hard hitting shot that passes through targets and bounces two times off of the stage boundaries. If you don’t point the aim stick while firing, he will automatically aim at the closest threat, turning to new targets after the last one drops, and any rebounds can catch additional foes at random. You can cut down on animation time by holding down block, also making it easy to dodge roll in any direction and quickly fire again from a safer position. If you can align Cyclops exactly 90 degrees from a back wall, he can have each use strike three times in succession, tripling his damage output against mostly immobile bosses.
Cyclops, beast mode. #MUA3 #Marvel https://t.co/qb70h9gchE
— AIPT (@AIPTcomics) January 7, 2020
That’s the highest level boss challenge available for Danger Rooms, cut down in a ridiculous matter of seconds. In the video above I weave in a use of Triple Shot, his backward leaping ability, because it makes Cyclops untargettable for its duration, avoiding the floor damage and repositioning without risking messing up my perfect ricochet angle against the back wall.
Danger Room mode places you against another team of four (playing an identical but separate instance of your room) to get the best completion in a series of constantly randomized challenges. When starting a Danger Room it gives you a preview of what each of the three rounds will entail. Cyclops’ favorite Danger Room mode is clearing mass swarms, using Ricochet to delete scattering lines of common enemies; if it lists multiple rounds of defeating the most enemies, Cyclops is a no-brainer instant pick. When Danger Room Hazards are active, targettable mechanical spheres appear, causing all manner of harmful effects. Cyclops’ Ricochet can break them from any range, saving his team a lot of trouble.
His other main specialty is defeating the boss waves such as Sandman or Dark Phoenix as in the video above. Standing apart from the melee suits him just fine, and when it’s time to let off his Extreme Attack, a wide laser channels out from him for tremendous damage in the direction he’s facing, transitioning seamlessly from Ricochet spam. It isn’t impossible that an opposing team of players could stack enough raw damage to beat Cyclops in a Danger Room, but it hasn’t happened to me yet.
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What do you think of Cyclops in Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3? Have you used him to his full potential as seen in our guide? Do you know a character who can outperform Cyclops in Danger Room mode? Let us know in the comments.
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