Cyberbots/Cyclone

GP-D2 Cyclone

Introduction

Cyclone is a VA that forces opponents to watch their toes while defending relentless and long range air pressure. Cyclone has many tools to cause knockdowns and open up some of the very difficult to block okizeme options at his disposal, but his combos are typically short, risky, low damage, or some combination of all three. While Cyclone is considered to be one of the weaker VA's in the game he has access to unblockables by forcing opponents to guard low and high at the same time, and can be difficult approach through his long range options. If you like characters that can dominate neutral with long range pokes or like characters that excel at setting up traps that force your opponents into situations that re difficult or impossible to block, you might want to try Cyclone.

Pros:

• Gets lots of knockdowns in neutral from either his mines or his long range j.L+H poke.
• Can generate relentless pressure through j.H x 236H sequences
• Strong air options in his long range normals and projectiles that can be fired at multiple trajectories.
• Can force opponents into the air by placing mines on the ground.
• Tied for the second highest health in the game with Helion, Warlock, and Swordsman (only below Vise).
• Wielder of the drill, a romantic robot tool.

Cons:

• Only has a few good angles of attack, struggles with people getting above, directly under or behind him while in the air.
• Very weak options on the ground, both in terms of frame advantage and in terms of reach.
• While Cyclone wants to play the game mostly from the air, has only 3 jumps.
• Has very little to threaten VA's with stronger mobility or more air time.
• Very few combo options, some of which are prohibitively difficult to execute. This leaves Cyclone with low overall damage output.
• Properly teching Cyclone's knockdowns cuts off a lot of his options for setups.
• Has no good options for guard cancels other than throws.
• No good reversal options, even Cyclone's Giga Crush has no invincibility on the first frame, so it will sometimes fail if you try to use it as a reversal.

Normals

5L - Drill attack active on frame 8. It doesn't extend Cyclone's hurtbox, but it doesn't reach very far anyways. One of Cyclone's very few practical combo starters, can be chained into 5L into 5H, or directly into 5H. When chaining 5L>5L>5H, the pushback from the first two 5L's causes 5H to hit fewer times, resulting in the damage being about the same as just doing 5L>5H. When chaining into 5H, the first hit is cancelable.

2L - Active on frame 13, hits low, can be charge and special canceled. Another short and slow move.

5H - Active on frame 7. Cancelable.

2H - Active on frame 19. Hits low. Unfortunately not charge cancelable, so it is dangerous to try.

j.L - Active on frame 7. Faster air normal, combos into j.236H when close enough. Decent hitbox.

j.H - Active on frame 8. Good hitbox, special cancelable, combos into j.236H. Using j. H into j.236H is a key pressure string for Cyclone. This can be used to push the opponent backwards into mines with overhead attacks, which will create difficult or impossible to block situations. Mines on the ground plus lots of j. H is a recipe for damage.

j.2H - Active on frame 9. One hit, hits directly below. Cyclone typically wants to avoid having the opponent directly below him, so this move shouldn't be used too often. Can cancel into j.236H for a combo, but the angle required to do this makes it difficult to put into practice.

j.L+H - Bigger version of j.H, very long range. Knocks down on hit. This move is good for sniping people who have to block a mine low on the ground, giving you a knockdown whichever way they end up blocking.

Dashing L - Active on frame 5. This is the fastest of Cyclone's normal moves. Short reach but good hitbox around Cyclone's feet, can be used to remove enemy mines. The first and second hit can be special, charge, or super canceled. There is a slight gap between hits when guarded. Does four hits if not canceled. Charge canceling the second hit of this move can be a good setup for a tick-throw.

Dashing H - Active on frame 13. One hit, knocks down. Can be canceled into charge, specials, or super, but you won't be able to combo anything after due to the knockdown. HORRIBLE recovery if it isn't canceled, so try to at least charge cancel every time you use this. Is actually plus on block when charge canceled. Can also be used to set up tick-throws when charge canceled.

Throws

Normal throw range - 44

L throw - Drills into the opponent a bit, standard mash throw. Does more damage if the opponent doesn't counter-mash. Can be used to OTG, but the OTG throw animation will be the same as the H throw.

H throw - Tosses the opponent. Generally more stable to use. Can OTG.

Cyclone does not have an arm ripper throw.

Weapon

Mine Shooter.

5W - Uses 50% of the Weapon Guage per mine, will shoot two mines per button press, consuming 100% of the weapon gauge. You can charge cancel before the second mine shoots out in order to stop the gauge at 50% without spending all of it, but you won't be able to shoot mines again until that mine explodes. The two mines that shoot out don't fly very far but will roll forward on the ground. One of the mines will stop just a little ways in front of you, but the other will travel about 70% of one screen distance before it stops. If they spend too long on the ground without being triggered, they will explode on their own. Once the mines are on the ground, they hit low and knockdown on hit. If they hit while in the air, they hit mid and do not knockdown.

2W - Same as 5W, but the mines fall directly onto where Cyclone is standing and do not roll very far.

j.W - Cyclone shoots two mines in the air. These work the same as the ground mines, but come out at different angles. If he is too low to the ground when using this move, he will land before shooting the second mine. If this happens, only 50% 9of the weapon gauge will be consumed.

Specials

236L or H - Drill Cannon. Air ok. Active on frame 15 on the ground, frame 14 in the air. L fires horizontally on the ground and in the air. H fires diagonally upwards on the ground and diagonally downwards from the air. The ground version can be held to charge up more hits, maxing out at 4. Won't hit opponents that are too close to Cyclone. The jumping versions are generally more useful as the recovery on the ground leaves you wide open.

6, 4, 6L or H - Hyper Death Drill. A multi hit move that can be extended by hitting buttons after activating the move. The light version is active on frame 16 and the heavy version is active on frame 23. The number of hits increases by one for each button pressed after the first one. Both versions are very advantageous if you hit with multiple hits, and if you're close enough you can link dash L after. This is your main tool for special cancel combos, but it can be difficult to input during the short cancel windows on Cyclone's normals. You can do this move quickly while dashing if you input it as 6 [B] 46L or H. This lets you attack quickly from a distance.

2 (Charge) 8 L, or H - Cyclone Stamp. Stomp move that tracks and hits overhead. L and H versions adjust the speed and number of hits. Knocks down on hit. It can be used to setup unblockables in conjunction with a mine on the ground that will hit low, particularly from a knockdown.

236W or 214W - D3 Bomb. Uses 100% of the Weapon Gauge to launch a special mine in a parabolic trajectory. 236W will travel further, and 214W will land closer to Cyclone. If the mine hits the ground without hitting an opponent or being blocked, a large beam of fire will shoot out from the ground. The mine and the fire pillar knockdown on hit and do chip damage. The fire pillar will do more damage than if just the mine hits. The fire pillar stays active for slightly longer than you might expect, and can hinder opponents trying to fly towards you.

Super

LH - Giga Crush. Active on frame 7. The head hurtbox makes this difficult to use as an anti-air.

236236L or H - Final Death Drill. Active 15 frames after the super flash ends. You do not need to mash for more hits. Pushes the opponent back a lot so it may lose out on damage or hits if they get pushed out of it. More useful in the corner as a chip out tool.

Combos

Basic BnB combos, courtesy of Totu_Q.

Cyclone's combos don't come up very often in matches, but here's something to practice or try to look for opportunities to hit if you want to maximize your damage output.

If you hit a deep enough JL or JH into air 236H, you can land and continue the combo into dash L (2 hits)>646L.

With meter and up close you can do 646L (4 hits) > dash L (2 hits) > Giga Crush (LH). You can substitute the Giga Crush for 646L or 236236L/H but these are more difficult to input.

You can do L>H (1 hit) > 646H. The cancel timing on this is much more difficult than you would expect, making it less practical.

Extra Resources

Cyclone wiki, Much of the information on this page was taken from this wiki written by Savaki.