With Chamber being pushed out of the "Cypher Power Creep" role, it seems as good a time as any to look at changing Cypher to push him further into his role. I am going to suggest a small rework for him.

Emergency Mode

Whenever Cypher dies, all of his utility (excluding his ult) enters "Emergency Mode." This would have three main effects:

• / Spycam is not revealed for 15 seconds.
• / All trapwires are revealed but remain active for 7 seconds.
• / All Cyber Cages placed immediately activate.

Thematically, I think it makes sense for an info-centric/blackmarket character like cypher to have contingencies like this. At the end of a round, it may be beneficial for Cypher to keep a Cam spot secret for a small amount of time; this has the potential to let him use a Cam setup for a few more rounds. The Trapwires regain a lot of their lost power by effectively giving the same effect as the Viper buff (the one where her utility waits ~2 seconds to go down) by allowing a second to breathe before having to worry about flanks; this change also allows the same kind of counterplay that breaking the trapwires did before, but it now only allows agents with special utility to pass before the 7 seconds are up. The Cyber Cages means that there has to be meaningful placement. This really wasn't an issue before, but it makes sense for the other change in this post. Overall, I think this puts Cypher on a more even playing field with Sage or Killjoy because it allows his utility to have a lingering effect on the round for a few seconds.

Cyber Cage

• / Cyber Cages now make different audio cues depending on whether the enemy enters or exits the cage.
• / Cypher has a small overlay that shows how many enemies are in the cages. This overlay is not present when he is dead.

This change essentially acts to make the Cages not useless for defense now. It was very easy for the enemy to play around the cages in a way detrimental to Cypher. This effectively serves as a QoL change that also gives very valuable information to Cypher. Just like Viper, this change forces enemies to respect the smokes (although the amount of respect is lower than Viper's Smokes).

There's really no point in trying to add onto the Ultimate. Everything that needs to be said has already been said in this subreddit. I think a good first step is changing it to a live ping to help wallbangs and reduce distractability.

I would be happy if half of these changes were implemented. Cypher used to be a mandatory agent in every comp, but he is now a joke/troll pick. I want him to return to his former glory in some capacity (equip gun to cam???), but moreover, I want him to be a viable choice compared to the other sentinels.