Why does Cyclops exist?

This question has been bothering me for a while...
What is Cyclops good for in the current balance?

I haven't seen a game where Cyclops actually seemed like a worthwhile thing to make. Particularly in a world where Grizzly exists.
Grizzly is just better than Cyclops for every use case I can think of.

Grizzly is a kiting heavy, its vulnerable at close range. Cyclops in comparison is more of an immovable object with greater close-range firepower.

I think Cyclops is obsoleted more by Minotaur than any other unit. As tanks you already have the sturdy Minotaur, which can tank most things, has better handling, and a much more affordable cost, so Cyclops ends up feeling like overkill. However, if you already have a bunch of minotaurs around, building a cyclops will probably serve you better than just making more minotaurs.

the slow damage is nice =P and the health is very good.. they are very hard to loose.. you can get like 10 end game by just not loosing any

quote: The Cyclop's slightly better on-paper DPS is irrelevant as the Grizzly has much better DPS in practice due to the longer range (so getting an earlier shot), higher burst and undodgeable shot. Due to their poor DPS neither are good close-range combatants and will lose if in a close ranged battle.

Cyclops also has 50% more health for only 10% more cost, and about 20% more speed.

Cyclops is basically a huge brick of health that is harder to kill, while giving your enemy reasons to kill it. Grizzly is better at actually dealing damage, and I'd agree its more useful overall. Still think the comparison to minotaur is the more important one, though.

One situation in which Cyclops can be useful is when the enemy is throwing such big shots around, minotaurs can't be relied on to survive anymore, but you still want a tough frontline brick.

All that said, I don't oppose the idea of a rework. Cyclops could use having a clearer role, maybe. It seems to be designed to be an anti-heavy heavy but its too slow and short of range to do that well.

I wasn't thinking of insta-death by giant lasers, more along the lines of slugfests happening frequently enough with big enough boys that your minotaurs keep dying due to your inability to watch them 24/7. Admittedly, now that I look at the Cyclops stats again and realize it only has 2x the health of minotaurs, its probably more cost efficient to just spam more minotaurs.

Like I said I don't think Cyclops is useless but it could use having more of an edge. ATM building a cyclops is a bit of a luxury for when you already have too many minotaurs. Maybe it could have significantly more speed so that it can chase big boys properly. It already has slow, so more speed could make it a dangerous big unit killer.

In one of those big team games I had a big stack of them as well as some other stuff and it got nuked. The Cyclopes came out in good enough shape to still be useful even without healing them up first. I at least thought it was nice.

quote: I've compared the unit stats, and yes, on paper it does look better. But don't forget that Grizzly's laser is notoriously unreliable. It almost never deals full damage. And a squad of Grizzly is more vulnerable to Ulti then a squad of Cyclops. And yeah, don't underestimate the slow damage.

Slow damage is OP, don't fly with ur lichos over a couple of cyclops - they will slow u to ur death and then a couple of jethros and llt finish u off :P

quote: Does anyone have any example situation/replay where a Cyclops is a better attritional unit than any of Grizzly, Emissary or Minotaurs?

Maybe against revenats? I haven't tested it though.

Cyclops is good imo, it just isn't as generalist or good in clusterfuck unit density.

Oflameo : At the stage of the game where you can afford a Cyclops, are Ogres and Maces really a threat?
Dantes tend to get skirmed to death in my experience (if they aren't just ultid).

[GBC]1v0ry_k1ng : You say it's good, but not in lobsterpot, so are you saying it's good in 1v1? Because that really isn't my experience.