Cyclones, who needs ‘em?

Why does this unit exist?

In developing units for Starcraft there’s two basic/fundamental reasons for a unit to exist. First, a unit’s concept is interesting and fun to use and second, it fills a role or gap in a races’ arsenal in a way that conforms to a race’s design identity. Coming into Legacy of the Void every race is well-rounded so I believe making fun, interesting units is the primary goal. There’s no more strategic roles that need filling, just make units that interact in ways that challenge us somehow. It is my belief that the Cyclone is a failed design and should be scrapped, and I’m gonna tell you why.

In RTS games the ability for a unit to abuse an enemy unit that has shorter range by kiting it is an organic byproduct of design. It informs unit relations and promotes skilful unit usage. Some unit relationships in Starcraft are designed and balanced in such a way as to presume one player will be controlling their units in this manner, eg. Hellions and Reapers vs Zerglings, Stalkers against Marines and Phoenixes against Mutalisks.

But the Cyclone is designed from the outset to be the ultimate kiting machine. Once it locks on it outranges anything short of a deployed Siege tank or a Tempest, assuming it can maintain line of sight, and can theoretically defeat any unit in a 1v1 situation so long as it can maintain that Lock On and remain out of their attack range. If a player were to amass a massive force of Cyclones what’s to stop them running rampant? What sort of downside or weakness do you give a unit like that?

If you make it slow or short sighted then it can’t achieve a full Lock On and its potential is wasted. It risks being easily swarmed by fast low tier units so it can’t be useful early in the game against races that can produce fast basic units, i.e., all of them.

Instead, make it expensive and slow to build then it’s difficult to amass and most people will not bother, especially since if you’re turtling as Terran you’re kinda meant to be making Battlecruisers or something.

Alternatively, give it low DPS over a long period of time and demand it receives a lot of specific attention then you have something that cannot be managed as part of a larger army. Currently it takes 14 seconds for a Lock On to finish. If you want to deal 600 damage to an Ultralisk over a 14 second period during a battle then by the time the Cyclone is finished doing it’s thing, the Ultra has finished its meal of Marauder steak and Marine chips. It’s also poor at defending against enemy air units which can almost always escape the Lock On mostly unscathed, bar the occasional Overlord who decided to take their coffee break deep inside the Terran’s base.

If it can only attack ground, how do you appropriately balance it alongside a race that has Siege Tanks? In a game that’s primarily about ground armies duking it out you cannot have a Terran factory unit that’s superior to Siege tanks at handling ground targets, and due to the introduction of Tankivacs into the game we cannot consider mobility to be that much of an asset. This was something of an issue with the Warhound back in the HotS beta; it was frequently much stronger than the Siege Tank in ground engagements and Mech lost a lot of it’s identity. Simply unacceptable.

If it can attack both air and ground, how do you balance it’s numbers in such a way as to not become oppressive? The Cyclone cannot replace the Siege tank as an anti ground unit and it cannot replace the Viking or Thor as an anti air unit so what is it for? It can’t harass as well as a Medivac, Banshee or Liberator, can’t pick out individual units like Snipe, Yamato cannon or Seeker missile or you’d have a problem. The Cyclone is by design a Jack of all Trades but since it must be a Master of None, it struggles to find relevance in Terran compositions.

I believe this is the essential conundrum with the Cyclone as it exists in the game, since it suffers from a combination of all these issues. Earlier in the beta the Cyclone was actually quite a powerful unit; its Lock On was extremely oppressive to play against right from the start of the game, particularly for Protoss players. Now that it’s been brought into line we can see the issues apparent in its design with clarity.

I don’t think the Cyclone is fun. This is always a hard thing to properly elaborate, it’s not like you can dissect a copy of Starcraft II and see where the Fun is hiding amongst the code. For me, and I’m speaking extremely subjectively here, fun comes in two forms: One is when something feels imbalanced, possibly because it is, like when a quartet of widow mines make a Mutalisk flock or Probe line disappear. Two is that tactile feeling of satisfaction that comes from handling groups of units in an effective and skillful manner, like handling groups of Marauder/Medivac against Protoss or dunking a bunch of Tankivacs within range of something tasty.

And it fails at both of these. Obviously any unit can be powerful and I will admit to a certain giddiness when Protoss were forced to open Phoenixes in the early beta just to draw the game out a bit before their inevitable obliteration. In its current state the cyclone is frustrating to handle, the lock frequently breaks and it deals far too little damage too slowly. Trying to use it as part of a larger army composition is a mug’s game, too much effort for far too little reward. I cannot speak for other Terrans but the lack of a conversation about the Cyclone is quite telling. Nobody is making them, nobody likes them, nobody’s sharing gifs or highlight videos or screenshots about Cyclones on reddit. The considerable buzz that the unit generated in it’s unveiling at Blizzcon last year was impressive but it’s depleted itself now. We’re all about Liberators now!

So, I ask again, why does this unit exist? Well, I believe in the latest patch Blizzard has shown us why. It’s to handle beefy armoured units with it’s Mag-Field Accelerator upgrade, particularly the Ultralisk. And this is a role that it currently fails at quite miserably. BC’s and Carriers will shred Cyclones to pieces while they try to get into initial lock on range and they simply don’t do enough damage to Ultralisks fast enough within a battle and lack the mobility to harass them outside of battles. I have a suspicion the Cyclone is part of Blizzard's recent campaign to try and justify Chitinous Plating making Ultralisks immune to Bio units (Big Snipe and Anti-Armour Drone being the last two ideas implemented, gone unused and swiftly discarded) and it simply isn’t working.

One is generally required to offer a suggestion after a long critique so here goes: Scrap the Cyclone as a forced kiting unit. It’s inorganic, it’s not fun and it’s got more problems than benefits. Perhaps you could give it a simpler, single target focus like the Viper or the Tempest? I’m not really sure, Terran is quite well rounded strategically, but the important thing is that the unit just doesn’t work right now.There’s nothing wrong with admitting the Cyclone was a failure. Most unit concepts never turn out suitable for prime time and that’s ok. Making units for Starcraft is a tricky thing and I guess this is what betas are for. At least Liberators are fun, am I right?