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.
Nah the issue of battlemech is that it is ground based. It has no ability to escape in medivacs. The ability to retreat and reposition with medivacs is frankly terran’s strongest ability and any unit comp that doesn’t utilize this will not be viable at the pro level. The amount of pressure that can be applied to strain your opponent’s multitasking via a simple medivac drop is extraordinary. High level SC2 is about apm spam, and cyclones can only attack through the center lane. That means the opponent knows exactly where your army is, exactly when and where it will attack, and they can put their attention exactly where it’s needed. Bio in medivacs however can attack almost anywhere and at any time and they can reposition to hit a new location in the blink of an eye. This causes protoss players to make a stream of never ending multitasking mistakes, the most obvious of which is that they will f2+amove their disruptors into the enemy army.
Cyclones will never be good at the pro level because pro play is apm spam and cyclones have no way to leverage your ability to spam apm. Give the cyclone thrusters that allows it to hop up terrain and to hop over top of buildings like a reaper and then MAYBE it would be decent (it still wouldn’t be as good as a medivac of marines).
Because the game is balanced around apm-spam, any unit that is buffed to be strong at the pro level without needing apm-spam will be drastically overpowered at all skill levels as a result. That’s basically why protoss is overpowered right now. Well if they gave the cyclone +5 armor and +1 speed then you’d see the same thing happen. Because there are no APM requirements to use the unit, terrans would utterly dominate everything from bronze to gm to the world cup if the cyclone were actually a good unit.
To keep a unit balanced, as balance is implemented by modern sc2, the unit can only be strong if the player has strong multitasking.
Consider a medivac of marines: int he hands of a premier competitor, 3 marines and 1 medivac can kill 11 zealots – that’s a historical fact. In the hands of an ordinary GM terran, his focus will be in the wrong spot and the 11 zealots will instantly charge and kill the marines. This is what carriers and immortals and frankly everything protoss lacks. Their units auto-win fights without micro, and that means toss generally doesn’t even have to look at his army in order to manage it, and that makes them immune to multitasking based pressure.
You can think of the cyclone like going on a date with a hot babe, alright. Going mass Cyclones is like going on a first date where you’re trying to dazzle with speed and finesse—but if you don’t manage it carefully, things can burn out just as fast.
The cyclone has a lot of charm and wit, a lot of conversational agility, but underneath the surface she has emotional vulnerability so all this charm and wit is like a glass cannon of words. She has to be "micro"managed just right or she will feel neglected and become resentful and passive aggressive. Committing to the tech path of mass cyclone is a lot like committing to a relationship (easy to get in, hard to get out). That’s why it’s important to watch out for the red flags much in the same way a player wanting to mass cyclones might watch out for signs of siege tank production.
Every time you are massing cyclones, just imagine you are on a date with the cutest blonde you’ve ever seen – she’s sweet, bubbly, and absolutely gorgeous, but it’s all hiding how broken she is underneath. Without proper management, she devolves into a bucket of useless tears. That’s the cyclone. Be sure to kiss your cyclone goodnight and she will treat you right.
