As the title says. Don't get me wrong, I'm not dissing any of the people who play the agent. Agent abilities have little to no impact on skill and that is not the impression I'm trying to make. What I am saying however is that Cypher has progressively become more and more power crept by other agents. His whole kit is based around intelligence and getting information on the enemy and their movements, but his abilities are hardly best in class. In fact, his two major info abilities, Tripwire and Spy camera, are hardly useable for active info gathering.

The tripwires are flimsy and predictable, and while the wall hacks they give can be powerful under the right circumstances, they are prone to becoming very predictable, requiring them to be placed in new spots each time, lest they are shot out before they give any value whatsoever. And while I understand that they can be valuable tools for watching flanks and catching sneaky rotators, a careful agent will take care to notice them before stepping into them, only giving the rough indication that the wire was destroyed. KJ can do the same thing, but more effectively. While her range for her bots may not be infinite, they don't have to be with the value they bring to the table.

Spy camera is much worse in terms of info gathering. It's easily shot out, the info it gives is a ping that occurs every 2 seconds until the dart is removed, and the cooldown for the camera is quite long, meaning in the average round you'll be more likely to have the spike detonate waiting for your camera to come back than simply just using KJ, whose signature ability is much more reliable and can tank far more damage than the fragile spycam. Not to mention the tracking dart has a slow travel time, requiring cypher to lead the shot at moderate distances for a benefit that is relatively negligible. It can be useful in very select situations involving smokes, but other than that it's usefulness is limited by it's lengthy cooldown and lackluster information.

As for his ult, it's a joke. It may be a six charge ult, but it requires either you or a teammate to kill an enemy agent while you still live, activate it within 15 seconds of the agent being killed, and only for a ping that shows where the remaining 4 agents are for a split second. It only really helps if you are already pushing advantage and being aggressive, otherwise the information becomes irrelevant very fast, which is contrary to Cypher's strengths.

As for his Cages, they can be pretty good smokes, but if you wanna play smokes, there are many better choices that last longer and give more benefits, rather than an imprecise audio cue and a hollow top to see into.

Cypher feels like a relic of the past. His kit is based entirely around information, yet he has to work the most out of the rest of the info collection agents to get his, and most of the time the information given isn't even all that valuable, and he is only ever rewarded when the enemy gets careless with their movements. Compared to Sova or Fade, his info is simply way too imprecise and cumbersome to gain, and against a Yoru or Chamber, nearly useless. Don't get me wrong, I like the character and his design, but his kit needs some love. Or at least a small rework on some of the aspects of his info, because the split second pings don't really cut it when most of his competitors get full second moving wall hacks to work with at least, and multiple second very accurate wall hacks at most without having to rely on the enemy being careless, or having to go into a defenseless state by remotely accessing the camera. It bugs me to see an agent with such strong potential to basically be ignored by community at large, rightfully because his kit simply isn't compatible with the game as it is currently. I hope he gets some love in the future patches, but I'm not crossing my fingers. In fact, I doubt he'll be changed in any meaningful way soon.