Dark Heroes

Cyclops is a poor Backliner, anti-Wave attacker and anti-Alien, but a passable Aku Shield Piercer. He has 44.2k HP with 3 KBs, 3800 DPS split equally over two hits in a 9.1s attack cycle at 460 range, and 15 speed. First Form is a support-type unit with a 50% chance of a 3s Freeze against his target traits, and a 50% chance of piercing Aku Shields, both only on his first hit. Evolved Form swaps these abilities for being Immune to Waves and Strong against his traits. Both forms come with a 5325 cost and 151s cooldown.

His main use is his First Form's 50% Shield Pierce ability from a high standing range with area attack, which is more consistent than non-uber alternatives, and may even Freeze the newly-pierced enemy as a bonus over his competitors. This is convenient for having an easier time against the likes of Fallen Bears, Le'Behemoths and bosses like Mamon or Jagando. Other than that, his standing range is just high enough to be usable for getting around early-game anti-CBahamut ~450-range enemies like SLOTH and Master A, while his Wave Immunity in Evolved Form may prove convenient for early Wave enemies if other alternatives are not unlocked yet. Newer players may also value his effective 88k HP and 5800 DPS against Aliens in Evolved Form for general ITF use, and similarly the Freeze ability in First Form may benefit players who have yet to get Surfer Cat throughout early Alien content.

Despite having multiple possible niches with his broad range of abilities, Cyclops is held back in all of them by abysmal base stats. His sub-CBaha DPS is barely passable in early game but after this it is really not fit for any purpose. Even his Strong-boosted stats are rather ordinary and matched or even outperformed by most decent generalists' base stats. As an anti-Wave attacker he is only barely preferable to the atrocious pre-TF Musashi, and vastly outclassed by almost all other alternatives. As a control uber, his Freeze has a pathetic ~30% uptime even assuming it always procs, and it only applies on his first hit, leaving it often feeling ineffective, and easily outclassed in the Alien meta. Similarly, his long attack cycle and absence of Shield Pierce on second hit make his average time to remove a shield 18 seconds, which is on the higher end for ubers with this role. Thus, on hard-pushing Aku stages, you still need some reasonable luck to land the pierce before you lose too much ground, and once again his poor stats offer no backup should the pierce fail; it's very much All Or Nothing, and when a spell of bad RNG strikes, it's 2.5 minutes of cooldown and ~5000 cash lost. As a result, taking into account both the pros and cons, he doesn't feel all that much better in use than just sending a handful of more disposable Researchers until they work.

In summary, Cyclops has five potential roles over his two forms but all are plagued with serious problems. His stats are unsuitable for general use, anti-Alien DPS or anti-Wave combat outside of very early game when you lack alternatives, his CC is of poor quality, and his Shield Pierce is hampered by a slow attack rate. Note that Wave Immunity and Shield Pierce are on different forms, so he does not counter DeathKory (nor Aku Face, due to range issues as well). He may not be bad to obtain in the early game when he may fill multiple niches you need support in, but when the difficulty ramps up you will likely find him inadequate in all of these situations except to break Shields, where there is still little competition.

Sharpshooter Saki is an excellent LD Sniper of super backline range (600 standing, 500 to 900 LD) with Target Only. She targets Aliens in all three forms, and additionally Red in her First Form, Zombie (+ Zombie Killer) in her Evolved Form and Relic (+ Curse Immunity) in her True Form. All forms have a DPS of 7600, 45.9k HP, 21 Speed, and 3 KBs. Finally, her cost is 6300 and her cooldown is 58s.

For her range and class, Sharpshooter Saki is blessed with an extremely high DPS paired with a really long 300 piercing range. This allows her to reach all commonly encountered foes of the traits she targets while standing at a safe range from the vast majority of them. As the Alien trait is famous for its high number of backliners, such as Ursamajor and Elder Sloth, Saki has a plethora of viable Alien targets. While her matchup against other traits is less impressive, she still proves effective against long range or stationary threats in her other 3 traits, such as Professor A, Zamelle, Othom and Mr. Puffington. Her recharge is also abnormally fast for her class and stat build, making it possible to stack her in the right situations, amplifying her already high DPS and enabling cheese strategies. When fighting away from the player's base, her fast speed aids her in reinforcing the frontline swiftly, while not being so fast it leads to excessive suicidal/clipping tendencies like in some other units.

Saki's core weaknesses are her short inner range and huge blindspot, which are incompatible with the high endurance and/or fast pushing nature of a good number of Red, Zombie (burrow/revive easily infiltrating her blindspot) or Relic enemies, such as JK Bun Bun, Zang Roo and M.Ost, although this can be remedied with the use of strong Crowd Controllers or special cannons. As she is a Target Only unit, another vulnerability is that her attacks are only triggered by units of her traits that are within her standing range, worsening her effectiveness on stages where the peons are of a different trait than the backliners. Lastly, her deployment cost is sky-high even for Uber standards. This can be alleviated by employing Double Cash supports, but still causes difficulties in rush-based or cash tight stages, of which there are many in her Zombie niche especially.

It's obvious that Saki can not be used as a generalist, but as her high range and piercing alongside high DPS are rare to come by, she's still a valuable specialist to obtain. In her traits, she's very compatible with Alien with its backline-oriented design and while the other 3 are more melee-oriented, she can often exploit them as stepping stones and prove very effective when the backline threats are present. She's very good in Queen Mother V's debut stage to easily rush into the boss's blindspot then outrange and quickly kill the otherwise-challenging 200% Professor A. Compared to specialist Snipers that can out-DPS her individually, Sharpshooter Saki can still compete by being far more stackable mid-battle, provided you can afford spawning multiple of her.

Detective Vigler is a Midranger and CC Support unit with 3200 base DPS and 30.6k base Damage at 360 range, 47.6k base HP with 6 KBs and a 100% chance to create Level 3 Waves, and a 98s CD. His First/Evolved Forms both have a 50% chance to Freeze Aliens+Floating/Aliens+Zombies for 5s, while his True Form has 100% Freeze and is Strong against only Zombies. Forms that target Zombies have Z-Kill. With talents, he also targets Relics. The TF is basically required for him to be useful outside of his excellent Research Up M two-slot combo.

For the first 2 forms, the good point about him is that you can use his excellent two-slot Research Up M combo, Cheating Heart, along with Madame Sumo. It is better than Biohazard + Bony Bone as it takes up 1 less slot for the same effect. For the True Form, besides his combo, his good effective stats (119k/95k effective HP and 55k/46k effective Damage per hit vs Zombie/Relic respectively) combined with his waves give him an effective 11.4k/9.5k DPS vs Zombie/Relic should both the initial hit and wave connect. This, along with a good CC ability, allows him to be a respectable anti-Zombie/Relic. His Strong ability means his wave can now clear Zombie peons with a decent 373 effective piercing range and his guaranteed Freeze with a decent 52 to 62% uptime means he controls bigger Zombie threats better than previous forms. Against Relic, he can tank a few hits from backliners such as Othom and Dogumaru while having enough range to challenge and effectively control the hardest pushing Relics in the game like M. Ost and Relic Bun Bun. His freeze can also be used to open up opportunities for rushes using units like Awakened Bahamut and Idi on longer range Relics like Dogumaru. He has a high KB count, which can be good especially for Zombies, and his CD is also not bad for his role.

Vigler's First and Evolved forms are just bad in that they have too few significant strengths for the weaknesses to even matter. For the TF, however, despite vast improvements, various issues do hold him back. A long foreswing (3.3s) and awkward range can prevent him from landing hits, for example, when he gets ambushed by resurfacing Zombies, or misses due to enemies in his range getting knocked back, or gets sniped by long range Relics like Othom and Loris. This can be somewhat mitigated by his decent bulkiness against Zombies/Relics allowing him to tank some peons of Relic Backliners, and adjusting your playstyle to better suit him, but still remains quite a big weakness. His DPS outside of Zombies/Relics is also too low, as it gets outclassed by Manic Macho Legs (accounting for the CD) rendering him useless as a generalist.

Vigler has a decent place in the meta, in both his anti-Zombie/Relic capabilities in TF (though talented Housewife and Uril put a dent in the uniqueness of his role) as well as his combo, which is extremely good over the entire game, especially in 4 star restrictions. However, he is limited by very underwhelming stats for a waver and Midranger outside of these niches. Despite his very big flaws, he's quite valuable to have.

Hayabusa is a great midrange LD Control/Support Uber with access to Critical Hits. He has an extremely varied skill set across his three forms with a variety of roles. His First Form has 10.2k Damage with a 30% chance to crit. His Evolved Form, Oni Hayabusa, has 20.4k Damage (4100 DPS) with a 50% chance to KB and Slow Aliens for 3.33 seconds and Slow Immunity. The True Form, Akuma Hayabusa, has the same effects against Zombies and Z-Kill. With talents, Akuma Hayabusa gains Aku target and a 40% chance of Shield Piercing. All forms have 47k HP with 7 KBs, and 25 Speed, a 5s attack frequency and 365 range with an LD radius of 250 to 650. Finally his cooldown is 108s and his cost is 4275.

Hayabusa's fast, reliable and high damage crits in First Form are sufficient to cripple all common Metal enemies. His wide LD area lets him crit entire groups of multi-layered metals, while regular critters would only hit the frontmost peons, making him extremely devastating in stages where a Super Metal Hippoe or Sir Metal Seal is guarded by shorter ranged enemies. In Evolved Form, his KB+high uptime Slow effect firmly controls Aliens throughout ITF and COTC, and most importantly his large piercing range ensures that the abundant Alien backliners are also knocked back so the rest of your units do not run into them and die. The True Form's same effects vs Zombies are less relevant but can still help against Zombies that don't burrow or already emerged. Much more importantly, Hayabusa's Shield Pierce talent makes him one of the best anti-Shield options in the game thanks to a solid 40% proc chance on a fast attack cycle, and once again his great LD area allowing him to comfortably snipe shielded backliners such as Fallen Bear and Wicked Face regardless of their frontline support. The additional Aku Target talent also lets him control such enemies with similar potency to his anti-Alien performance.

Hayabusa's DPS is a little underwhelming for his range class, leading to his use being mainly for crits or CC, with damage only as a bonus. While his LD is his best feature that lets him stand out from other units with similar abilities, Metals and Zombies can often push/unburrow into his blindspot and worsen his compatibility against them. On the other hand his low standing range and high speed can hurt him against similar range enemies like Ursamajor or Fallen Bear when there is not a stepping stone to exploit. Against Aku, his most apparent flaw is vulnerability to Surge/Death Surge, especially from Condemned Peng since his Slow Immunity actually backfires and makes him run into the Surge again.

Hayabusa is a great and verstaile uber with viable counterplay against 4 traits and a great piercing range which elevates all his abilities. With talents, Hayabusa's True Form becomes one of the most potent anti-Aku units in the entire game, a valuable niche with few quality options. Short range and suicidal speed hurt him but he can exploit stepping stones with his very good LD area to make up for this. There should be no hesitation in bringing him to any Metal or Aku stage, and he functions well for support in most Alien stages and situationally against Zombies.

Warlock and Pierre is a unique Uber with the "Target Only" ability meaning it can only hit certain traits, and the enemy base. In First Form, it targets Alien and Floating. In Evolved Form, Alien and Angel. In True Form, only Alien. His base stats are, however, very substantial to make up for this; 105k HP with 2 KBs and 14k DPS at 430 range. Another unique factor is that his First Form is the only unit to have the "Base Destroyer" ability which multiplies his damage to the enemy base by 4. His other forms lack this, but Evolved Form gains a Double Money ability instead. Meanwhile, the True Form has various immunities to status effects and in exchange for now only targeting Alien, has a ridiculous 158k HP and 21k DPS, about 50% more than other forms. All forms have 6135 cost and 165s Cooldown.

Warlock and Pierre is widely used to cheese stages. If you can get him to the enemy base, he can instantly rip ~400k HP off it in one hit, allowing you to bypass many challenges. His Target Only is a weakness at first glance, but for cheesing it becomes a strength, as it makes it easier to stack multiple Warlocks at the start of battle without killing anything. A handful of stacked Warlocks have sufficient damage to one-shot most enemy bases. Outside of cheesing potential, Warlock's amazing stats allow him to destroy most Alien, Angel, and Floating enemies in direct combat. In True Form, his stats become outright ridiculous, which, combined with his immunities to most of the common status effects which Aliens use, makes him a pure Alien killing machine. His Double Money ability (with area attack, and enough damage to reliably land killing blows) in Evolved Form is situationally useful in money-tight Angel stages, and never hurts to have in any case, helping pay for his large deploy cost. Finally, his True Form can access Wave, Warp and Curse Immune talents, filling out his anti-Status niche to cover later game Star Alien and Relic threats too.

Of course, the most significant and obvious weakness is that Target Only essentially eradicates his general usage as he can only be used in Alien, Angel and Floating stages. A combination of high cost, long foreswing, slightly lower-end range for a backliner and KB count also hold him back to a lesser extent, but for the most part his strengths vastly outweigh his drawbacks when he can be used.

Warlock is either literally useless against enemies that he cannot target, or utterly dominant against those he can. Pretty much solo-destroying three traits is already respectable, but his cheese potential is among the highest in the game too. A very valuable to own unit with irreplaceable abilities, and a top-level Alien counter.

The White Rabbit is an okay CC unit in her First and True Forms and a subpar Backline attacker in all forms. All three of her forms have the same stats, 49k base Health, 6 KBs, 465 range, and 3600 base DPS with a 9s attack rate, but with different abilities against Red and Alien enemies. Her First Form has guaranteed Slow proc (4.67 to 5.6s duration depending on treasures), her Evolved Form has the Strong ability, and her True Form has guaranteed KB and Weaken (5 to 6s duration).

The White Rabbit is used most often in her First Form, where she can consistently apply a long-lasting area Slow proc from a safe range, which works well on her target traits because Reds and Aliens tend to have strong pushers. She also has two 2-slot Slow combos which can efficiently boost her Slow uptime to a solid 60 to 72%. Her True Form also has an okay CC Support, being able to push her target traits back and Weaken them for up to around 80% uptime. In all three forms she has good survivability as her 465 range allows her to outrange many enemies, and her high KB count with her decent HP allows many opportunities for repositioning.

Unfortunately, The White Rabbit has several weaknesses which limit her usefulness. Her disappointing base DPS is even lower than Bahamut's, and even in Evolved Form her Strong ability only gives her 5400 to 6400 effective DPS, which is severely underwhelming for a specialist. While her CC abilities have decent uptime, she also has a long attack rate, which could spell trouble if you are using her as your main CC unit and she misses an attack. Her Knockback ability in True Form can sometimes be useful, but more often than not the KB is actually a detriment, as she can make your other attackers miss or advance into danger.

Overall, The White Rabbit's First Form is the most useful out of all her forms. She is able to outrange annoying enemies in early game such as Master A and THE SLOTH, and her Slow ability is good at controlling her target traits. Though she falls off later in the game due to her poor general stats, her niche as a ranged area CC support allows her to shine in a few late game stages, most notably Palcaccio Waters.

Catman is a Backliner with 440 range and 67.2k HP with 5 KBs. He deals 42.5k base Damage per attack, every 9.3 seconds, which amounts to roughly 4600 base DPS. As with some other Dark Heroes, Catman has a main trait and a trait that changes between forms. His main trait is Alien, and his side traits are Floating in First Form, Angel in Evolved, and Relic in True. He has Massive Damage against whichever traits he’s targeting as his core ability. His cooldown is 148s, with 5520 cost.

His strengths are good survivability owing to his large HP and KB count, decent DPS for his range (effective 18k DPS vs target traits), and of course, his traits. He outranges every single common Floating enemy, some painful Angels like Sleipnir, Chickful A, and Winged Pigge. For anti-Alien, Catman outranges everything except some backliners like Alpacky and Overseer Nyandam, and as a result, performs excellently against the typing. As an anti-Relic in True Form, he has the rather rare position of a Relic Nuker without needing to invest NP, and can help bolster your DPS in many situations, countering M. Ost especially well. As well as all of these trait specialties, he’s also just a solid generalist with a lot of HP and otherwise average, serviceable stats for the mid game.

Catman does have some flaws, the first being his high cost which makes it harder to put him out early. This can be his death sentence in stages with intense startoffs. The second weakness being his attack rate, which is somewhat slow and can be unfavorable in some stages, as it gives a lot of time for enemies to push to him. Lastly, his anti-Relic use is rather lackluster, as the only enemies that Slapsticks can’t already handle are those like Othom, Lowkey, and Loris, who can snipe/reach Catman anyway. This is made even worse by his expensive TF cost, which includes 2 Elder Catfruits.

In general Catman is a very solid Uber with high DPS and survivability, basically a better Crazed Bahamut. His weaknesses aren't as prominent compared to other Ubers. His bane however is his replaceability. His DPS against Floating can be matched by a stack of Cameraman, and against Relic by Slapsticks. His anti-Angel and anti-Alien aren't comparable with SRs or Rares. Despite all that Catman is still a very strong Backliner and his generalist usage is good too.

Mekako is a backline Uber that can perform in three different roles depending on form. First Form is a Tanker with Resistant to Alien and Black, and guaranteed Survive. Evolved Form is an anti-Alien CC / Support unit with a 50% chance of Weakening enemies for 8.33s to 10s and a 50% chance to proc Knockback. Finally, True Form is an anti-Alien Nuker/CC unit with Massive Damage against Aliens and 100% Slow for 5s to 6s. Her 97k base HP, 4700 base DPS and 445 range allows her to work well in all 3 of these roles as well as in general use, although the most useful forms are the True Form and, to an extent, the First Form. All forms have a 5925 deploy cost.

Mekako's First Form can use its considerable bulk to approach and damage high range Alien/Black enemies with an effective HP of 388k to 485k (depending on Treasures). Her Evolved Form is situationally useful to support your other units by weakening powerful Alien pushers. However, it is her True Form which offers the most value, bumping her effective DPS to around 19k towards Aliens. This alone is quite significant, and the additional Slow effect gives you a rare combination of high DPS and CC in one unit, making her a very efficient anti-Alien fulfilling multiple roles at once in battle.

Mekako's First Form largely fails at its intended job as a Tanker due to her high range for the role. Large groups of high DPS enemies, especially Blacks, should be prevented from reaching your Backliners with meatshields and CC, not tanked by them. Her Evolved Form is largely overshadowed by more spammable anti-Alien proc units, namely Psycho and Seafarer. Furthermore, KB has poor compatibility with Alien stages and you will find yourself often hoping it does not proc. True Form has the greatest strengths and most uses, but with her low KB count, she has few chances to reposition compared to usual Backliners, and the Survive talent is expensive and ineffective at lessening this. She also has a very high deployment cost so you need to be very sure she's the right unit to bring to the stage to be worth this. She is also designed primarily to counter conventional Aliens, not their Starred brethren, lacking the useful Barrier Breaker ability for an anti-Alien Nuker. Even if she can break most barriers with pure damage, you still have to wait until the second hit to start hurting the enemy.

While the weaknesses of Mekako cannot be denied, she is still a solid unit to own and a formidable Alien counter, carrying the majority of ItF and some parts of CotC, as well as later Alien-heavy stages. The 2 KBs are nice for the Tanker form but can hurt in many situations for the more utilized Nuker Form as well as more general use, but her immense damage against Aliens will often mean they are dead before you have to worry about that.

Akira is a good backline attacker with CC against Aliens in First Form. He has 51k base Health in all forms, and 25.5k base Damage at 430 range. His DPS works out as 4900, and he has a slightly low 3 KBs for a backline attacker. His three forms all have different abilities. The First Form has a 50% chance to Freeze Aliens for 4s, the second has Strengthen by 50% at 50% health, and the third has Strong against Alien. All forms have 138s CD and Weaken Immune, while the 2nd and 3rd have Wave Immune. Inferno Akira has Strengthen and Freeze talents, and also Survive.

Akira has sufficient DPS for his range and can act as a generalist Backliner, somewhat like a better C Baha/Ururun for most of early to mid-game, especially in Evolved Form with Strengthen. Freeze against Aliens is a useful niche throughout the game. In stages where Seafarer can't be used (either for restriction or enemies that outrange him), Akira works very well as a replacement. For the Evolved Form, activating strengthen brings Akira's DPS to a very respectable 7300. For the final form, Akira becomes an anti-Alien attacker with a very good effective HP of 127.5k, and effective DPS of 8800 (with full CotC treasures, which you may not have for most of the game). Talents allow him to take on the abilities of his normal and Evolved Forms, making him a very effective counter for any Alien threat. Wave Immune gives him a unique niche, and he can act as a generic Wave Immune Backliner. There are a few Alien and wave stages (such as Ajillo Highlands and Youcan stages) that Akira works very well in.

Although Akira has a short TBA, he has an extremely long attack animation, which can cause him to miss very frequently. His KB count doesn't give him much survivability, especially since Strengthen triggers at an awkward 50% in Evolved Form, usually costing Akira 2 of his KBs to activate his Strengthen. The First Form can be replaced by Seafarer Cat in most situations. Overall, Akira is extremely replaceable, and does not bring anything extremely special to the current meta.

Akira's versatility from his three forms gives him a good niche as both an attacker or a CC Support Uber. Even though Wave Immune isn't as rare amongst Ubers, it is still very valuable to have at all stages of the game. It may not be worth to invest in his talents, as there are other units that can benefit more from the NP. In summary, he is a generic attacker that works well against most enemies and within his niche, but because of his weaknesses, can be replaced easily.

Doktor Heaven is a great anti-Alien/Black Backliner. She has 5.8k DPS at 400 range, 187k HP with 3 KBs, an 8s attack frequency, 8 speed, 5400 cost, and a 168s cooldown. Her First Form has Insane Resist against her targets, allowing her to serve as a Tanker, while her Evolved Form (Professor Abyss) has Insane Damage, allowing her to serve as a Nuker.

Doktor Heaven works well as a specialist ranged Tanker with an absurdly high 1.12M to 1.31M effective HP (374k to 436k endurance). The main use of this is to approach and damage enemies that other units may struggle to land hits on, which is especially relevant against the plethora of Alien backliners. Similarly, she can shrug off high range or LD attacks which would snipe-kill conventional backliners, making her a superb Tackey counter in particular. Her high range for a Tanker also means she is safe from high DPS Melee peons until they break through your first line of defense, at which point she acts as an emergency second line of defense, with enough HP left to hold them off until you can push them back. Professor Abyss, meanwhile, packs an immense 28.8k to 34.6k effective DPS, which simply and effectively makes very quick work of just about any Alien or Black threat she outranges. While lacking the Insane Resist ability in this form, her substantial base HP means that she is still far from fragile, and even in dangerous situations will stay around long enough to do some serious damage before dying. Similarly, this means even outside her traits she has far above average survivability in either form, while also delivering decent DPS for her range class, and can be a solid choice of attacker on stages where conventional C.Bahamut/Ururun-like backliners tend to die often.

Doktor Heaven may be near-unkillable from raw damage alone, but her lack of immunities means enemies with CC effects can pose a problem, especially Star Aliens with Warp. In the late game, Curse can also severely limit her durability against swarms of high magnficiation melee Black enemies, to whom her base HP alone will not hold out for long against. Professor Abyss suffers from a very long attack frequency and foreswing, making her prone to missing attacks against low endurance enemies or being interrupted. Black enemies in general are also handled more than well enough with Pizza Cat as your DPS, so you don't really need another Nuker for them. Her long Cooldown also means that without the bulk of the First Form to ensure her survival, it is possible to lose her too early in the battle and be unable to recover.

Overall, Doktor Heaven's bulk is a great option to counter Tackeys and Alien Backliners, while Professor Abyss's raw anti-Alien/Black DPS can shred through just about anything, and both of her forms can be a decent general Backliner. While she is certainly not without flaws, she can trivialize certain Alien/Black centric stages, even ones which other Ubers/LRs can struggle with, and is a valuable unit to have available in those situations.