I did a quick writeup of what I think about current Cyrax. And decent buffs for him:
My thoughts on the Current Cyrax:
After playing with and against Cyrax for a decent amount of time now, I can accurately gauge how bad his nerfs hurt him. IMO, the worst nerf of all was the capture state nerf for net. Now, you're throwing a very unsafe projectile that on trade, will likely not grant you a combo of more than ~20 percent without meter.This is even less if you want an "ok" setup for a bomb, which in reality most of his midscreen meterless setups are not very good anymore now that net misfires after a bomb comes out. Now, it's very hard to get a far bomb after a net on trade (if not usually impossible), and its noticeably difficult to get your normal bnb without run. This all comes together with a damage nerf on top of that, so you're only doing around ~33 percent meterless on an optimal hit. The next nerf that hurt badly was net misfiring after a bomb hits. I completely understand why they did this, as they clearly didn't wantto be able to loop the unblockable back into itself, and I guess they thought this would be the best way to mitigate that. I don't mind that. The reason this nerf hurts so badly, is because stray bombs cannot be converted into even okay damage for the most part. You usually get around ~20-25 into a bomb setup. WHICH IS STILL OKAY. The main problem with this nerf, is imo his best prepatch tool (besides maybe net), was EX bomb.
This move granted a combo on hit and ok pressure on block. However now you get very little damage for spending meter into a bomb setup. Note: none of these meterless bomb setups are very good, they usually get blown up by quick roll/backdash. Maybe something will come along later
that I'm not aware of right now, but right now I think they are very gimmicky. Now, to get decent damage midscreen and stay safe, you need to spend meter for EX buzzsaw, which you cannot hitconfirm for the most part. So you're spending meter on EX buzzsaw,and EX bombs no longer grant you decent combos/setups. I used to be able to end my strings in EX bombs (which could be armored/backdash, but was still a great option as it was + on block and could catch backdashes if you used far bomb) and get a full combo and a good setup afterward.However now I'm FORCED to use EX buzzsaw if I want to capture with net afterwards. There were other nerfs like hit advantages getting nerfed (2,1 no longer grants an unblockable setup after net, however I believe 2 does, but it's much stricter than prepatch), that all take its toll on Cyrax.But his main issue is the capture state on the net.
Also: His "unblockables" (which are his main meterless setups), while still in the game, have always been nothing more than a gimmick. B3D4 pseudo-unblockable has always had a static timing of low low overhead/instant low. With a decent amount of practice you should be blocking it relatively consistently, and the string is unsafe even with a bomb out.
I propose two changes to Cyrax to make him a decent mid tier character:
1: Revert the net change. His combos become impossible/very hard to do from trades or even from simple hits if he's not nearly point blank. The damage nerf was fine but both this and a damage nerf were far too much.
2: EX bomb no longer causes net to missfire. This buff would give Cyrax an ok neutral game again combined with his new ex teleport, seeing as how his net can't combo from mid/full screen on trade, and bombs grant very little damage/weak setups on hit.
EX should be able to loop back into a capture state at least once, since you're spending meter.
his major problems right now:
-His ground net setups have been nerfed a good amount
-His air net setups have been nerfed severely (cannot do it after a normal or EX bomb, net does not hold long enough to actually grant a good setup unless extremely high in the air, which is very hard to time perfectly, you can usually backdash/jump out without a problem now)
-His combos are much more strict, and do less damage
-He's more meter reliant because buzzsaw is the only capture move you can do after a bomb, and this grants weaker setups than prepatch meterless.
-He has no really good mids, no decent pressure tools, no real reason to pick him over a lot of characters. They took his identity away for the most part.
I don't see any point of picking him unless you like being gimmicky and struggling in a lot of matchups with your favorite character.
Before anyone talks about how "Cyrax is still good" read this please.
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