Cyclops even more op

It got nerfed. Maybe more people just realized that it's better to invest on cyclops than on striders.

Cyclops has a near perfect mix of attributes to counter striders : tanky enough to survive aoe, fast enough to catch them, enough range to not be kited by the shorter range striders and kite cheaper riots

having higher hp/cost and good speed relative to striders also makes it less susceptible to anti heavies and artillery.

How is it any deadlier than before? I'm sure old Cyclops plus support would be better than current disruptor cannon Cyclops with support. We don't want to owl Cyclops, do we?

It literally does the exact same DPS, except it's slow is harder to use now.
How is that a buff?

???

I honestly can't tell if 4hundred is trolling or not. 0_o
Have you tried using glaives? A dozen glaives or a couple of dozen fleas will kill a cyclops in <1500 elmo (if the front lines are closer than this then see Emissary below).
Things that slow it like moderators, placeholders, buoys, another cyclops (lol) will also stop it retreating more than 300-600 elmo (technically a cyclops can kite a moderator but if they are attacking you they're going to need to turn around so you tag on the turn).
If you can manage the micro a couple of widows and some appropriate backup (e.g. fleas or redback) will work well.
A large number of Venoms will take around 500 elmo, though I wouldn't necessarily recommend trying it as it can go wrong too easily.
Dominator gives you their cyclops in a few hundred elmo.
A shield makes the hit and run attacks much less painful (allowing your dominators/moderators/etc more time to catch up).

^ The above are all assuming similar metal costs for your own army (ie. 2200 metal). Things get much worse for the cyclops user as armies get bigger, past 10K Cyclops raiding won't work unless you have a sufficiently large metal advantage that you should have made a minotaur ball and rolled the enemy's base.

Also, the Cyclop's damage is piss poor for its cost. If you actually want to mess up an enemy front line use Emissaries. They have similar DPS/metal but have fantastic range and are much much faster.
No chance of any of the above counters working on Emissary thanks to its exceptional speed and range and you can bombard for days rather than for a few seconds before running away.
You're going about things the wrong way if you're trying to mess up front lines with tank fac and you're using a Cyclops to do it.

Drascalicus : Uh, I think you've gotten confused about the Cyclop's speed. It's quite a bit slower than the Minotaur already and is slower than the Lance etc. Your speed nerf is already in effect (it's actually more than 10% slower than the Minotaur).
It's damage per cost is also one of the worst in the game.

quote: Also, the Cyclop's damage is piss poor for its cost. If you actually want to mess up an enemy front line use Emissaries.

Ah, it's just that Emissary is the perfect unit. Artillery range, riot aoe, raider speed, tank health.

I think it just must be flavour of the month, new distict sound makes them noticeable and attractive. Just played a ton of games where they are the dominating factor. I possibly have been caught up in the craze not creating alternative armies. Something still feels op about them

I think Phytophyte may have hit the nail on the head as far as balance of old Cyclops goes. If tank was not a viable starting factory and thus needed a second fac building, it would only appear quite late in the game. An old-style Cyclops is far less useful and intimidating when army size is ~5K metal rather than 15K, its weight matters a whole lot less then and it'll have a much tougher time surviving.
Similarly, if Kodachis only appear after 10 minutes in game then they go from overwhelmingly good to mediocre.

In theory if Welder gets turned into a battlefield reclaim unit that's a poor choice for construction and expansion and tank fac becomes a non-viable starter you could probably unnerf Cyclops and game balance would be improved. (though I wouldn't necessarily recommend this approach)

4hundred : That makes a lot of sense... They're definitely more noticeable and cool looking now. And given they'll tend to survive inconclusive battles they look better than they actually are.

Welder had a minor buff as a consequence of a major buff and then an almost equally sized nerf.

Kodachi was massively buffed though, cost went 180 to 160 and more direct damage - and unlike the share it did with the fire DoT, this part stacks.

Facswitching to the pre-nerf Cyclops was totally a thing.

Factories cost 800. They costed 1000 very briefly before Steam release iirc. For most of ZK's history they costed 600.

Facswitching to pre-nerf Cyclops was a bit of a meta-meta thing when it worked. Upon encountering a non-tank player in high-level 1v1, a Cyclops-aware opponent playing tanks themselves would quickly realise that all they had to do to win was to make a Cyclops, so they would conduct less aggression and focus on defense.

This provided weaker economy - especially as welders aren't cheap - against an opponent disregarding static defenses and going for heavy, raider-covered, but otherwise naked expansion. The combination of those factors would conspire to allow the non-tank (which means Rover, because other factories don't have Dart) player to actually pay 800 extra metal for their first Cyclops, which would also be unexpected by the tank player.

Alternatively, if the tank player went for heavy tank-raider build, Cyclops would be the most economical thing to get rid of it, because Cyclops used to counter all other tanks.

The cannon's physics were not touched.