So, unless they’re going to bring back the machine gun ground attack cyclone from early LotV, they should absolutely, absolutely not be reverting the cyclone.
Mass cyclone (the tech lab “old” one) is not a viable playstyle. New reactorable cyclone enabled terrans to quickly react to 4 min roach pressure which is absolute and utter aids done by unskilled players. Now if you go hellions you can just lose to roach pressure if you get slightly unlucky with the reaper. Nice.
And that would be okay if there was an upside but there’s not. The “old” cyclone is bad, you should always be going tank thor mech. The old cyclone is just an auto loss to lurkers and broodlords, not to mention it can’t actually fight any protoss units.
If it’s too strong against no battery overcharge protoss as a one base all-in strategy to go cyclones, that’s on blizzard for not being able to balance the game so that now the absolutely rightful removal of a broken protoss auto-win mechanic (and ofc, others need removing too) comes with a downside.
New cyclone straight up removed battle-mech. Old cyclone was much better for it.
New cyclone also greatly limited openings in TvP with cyclone openings and occasionally TvT with reaper cyclone openings. It was also significantly worse in TvT for dealing with BC openings; the reverted cyclone was a a huge counter to those openings.
It has a longer lock range, a longer target range (14!) and it ignores armour while dealing a TON of damage. IMO it was way better than the newer variation, even though the newer variation could be reactored.
The tech lab cyclone makes it easier to hold off 1 base shenanigans from zerg and protoss. Just got to buy enough time with a bunker. But yeah, can’t react to a roach push when it’s on your side with the non techlab version. Apparently if you only have hellions against roaches you’re meant to stand at the top of your ramp and abuse splash as much as you can but gl with that, zergs were already doing a variety of ravager all-ins off 3 base and now that most people are going 3 hatch earlier it’s a bit harder to read. Good thing to shake the meta up though, I bet in another 18 months we get a new version of the cyclone so it’s the old new old new reactored cyclone.
No way. Maxpax build was already figured out, and the voidray all-in is worse against the techlab cyclone. 1 gateway proxy, 1 at home is much better. Huk even stole my sentry into 3 nexus greedy build but he stopped at 1 and goes stargate, twilight. Shame, 4 sentries is better for a timing.
The real question is when are people going to bring back Parting’s adept twist build. Nevermind. Don’t think there’s many ladder players than can hit the 3:19 6 adept timing since most of the players on the PTR are dying without the battery overcharge.
Well with reworked cyclone it wasnt even possible to pull it off, at least not with straight proxy. Cannon rush into proxy void is possible but LAME. With new cyclone you couldnt proxy things at all since all your gateway units would lose to the initial cyclone so you cant possibly protect your proxy.
True. Im pretty excited that my 4 adept pressure (or 3 adept pressure and 1 adept to defend the reaper) is viable again. i love that build so much since its almost blind counter vs proxy rauder, so idgaf about early scout and going full adept is soooo cool vs terran especially since widow mines arent that good anymore so i dont need to chase the incoming medivac with mines.
BuT MaXpAx
Yeah. We saw maxpax winning vs clem with 4 gate blink stalker only. But going for non-aggressive options? You gonna die to everything
To be blunt, I don’t think Battle mech has ever been a viable long-term composition. Cyclones have never scaled up well enough for that, and they never will considering their design. Eventually, you need other Factory or Starport units in order to fight larger armies more directly.
What Battle-mech does do is allow Terran mech to be more aggressive and active.
Which is fine; battle-mech has always been a style that’s more bio-like than mech with hit and run tactics and mobility in mind; any direct engagements usually involve significant kiting and/or splitting in order to skirmish. Much like bio, the later the game goes, the more you’re relying on supplemental units to actually win fights.
It’s definitely a lesser style, but I do think it’s one that can work reasonably well to a point.
