Cyclops Priority: CD Reduction vs Spell Vamp vs High Damage?

Darkhider

For majority of cyclops users here, preferably those who use cyclops on ranked games and MVP cyclops users, what do you usually prioritize on making cyclops a meta?

CD Reduction - i know his passive allows his skills reduced 0.5 seconds every enemy successful enemy hit, but without using CD reduction builds even if I spam enemies with my skills to intentionally and quickly reduce the CD, i feel like his passive isnt enough or not being maximized to really reduced all his skill CDs.

Spell Vamp - I usually see people incorporate Concentrated Energy in one of their builds or use it with other Spell Vamp builds such as Ice Queen Wand and Necklace of Durance that gives additional 10% Spell vamps each, plus the 25% of CE totalling of 45% Vamp, excluding the mage emblem additional vamp. I know some prioritize this one, but what I observe when most of the builds are Spell Vamps, High damage  to enemies are compromised and the total Magic Power is usually low. So even if Cyclops have lots of spell vamps, he cant still make a high damage that much, leaving enemies still alive, thus mostly Assists instead or Kill is made.

High Damage - I’m really a fan of high magic powered mages who usually do the bursts or kill to enemies. The higher the damage, the easier the enemies are killed, but leaving cyclops vulnerable because of less sustain of Vamps or defense.

Between the three, which is the best to priorize? I know a combination of 2 is somehow still possible, so if you are going to pick two (2), which combination will you be picking to be an MVP Cyclops?

MY PROFILE:
Highest Rank - Epic IV
Current Rank - Grandmaster I (lost few games lately with cyclops)
Cyclops Matches: 76 (56.6% WR)

MY CURRENT BUILDS:

High Damage/ Less Vamp
1. Pillager Axe - For Retribution/Fast Farming
2. Magic Shoes - 10%CD Reduction OR Arcane Boots - +15Magic Pen
3. Clock of Destiny - Cheapest High Magic Damage with Mana for LT
4. Lightning Truncheon - Best paired with CoD for Mana scale
5. Concentrated Energy - 25% Spell Vamp, +70 MP
6. Holy Crystal - +90MP plus 15% Additional MP


High Spell Vamp/ Less Damage (modified Betosky)
1. Pillager Axe - For Retribution/Fast Farming
2. Magic Shoes - 10%CD Reduction
3. Lightning Truncheon - Do not maximize passive without CoD, decent damage
4. Concentrated Energy - 25% Spell Vamp, + 70MP
5. Ice Queen Wand - 10% Spell Vamp, 75 MP
6. Necklace of Durance - + 10% CD Reduction, +10 Spell Vamp, 70 MP


Cooldown + Damage
1. Pillager Axe - For Retribution/Fast Farming
2. Magic Shoes - 10%CD Reduction
3. Fleeting Time - 15% CD Reduction on all skills and 35% on Ulti
4. Lightning Truncheon - 10%CD, +75MP
5. Holy Crystal - 90MP + Additional 15% MP
6. Devil Tears - Magic Penetration

SKILL: RETRIBUTION

*To replace one item with Blood Wings only if with sufficient gold and the game isnt over.
*I sometimes replace Magic Shoes with Rapid Boots because I feel like Cyclops usually make a surprise and great escape with its high mobility partnered with his skill 2, whenever I feel like CD is less important and Damage + Mobility or Vamp + Mobility is more important.

NOTE: I am not a fan of Flicker so I use Retribution for fast farming. Fast farming, fast level up, more gold, faster to buy equipments, thus fastEr to be stronger at the game.

LETS BE REALISTIC: Most of the time, we are not able to reach the last 3 or 2 items of the build, and mostly we are only utlizing the first 3-4 equipments, that’s why I consider the first 4 items as the crucial ones. So i want to give emphasis on the first 4 equipments that usually needs to be tweaked.


EMBLEMS:
Mastery 3/3 - 5% CD
Catastrophe - 3/3 - 5% Magic Power or Should i use Contract for Spell vamp?
Impure Rage - for additional damage


Now with the builds that I have posted above, which do you think should I use more often? Which of the items should I replace? Which emblem combinationsn should I use

When you’re replying, pls also state your Rank, Matches and Winrate with Cyclops to see your reliability in your suggestions. Thank you.


Top 1 Global Player uses build #1 which I copied. The only difference is Holy Crystal is replaced with NoD.

Betosky uses build #2 which I also copied. The only difference is the shoes is the Blue Shoes for Mana sustain (less CD).

Charles

For me, spell vamp is useless w/o the damage. I prefer dmg over CD. I mean his skill CD is already fast enough. Enough for the passive to make it fast.

GlAceDonut

As the rank goes higher, more damage is needed. In my gameplay, I use Cyclops as an Assassin-like role ganking lanes so I use damage build like your 1st build. The only difference in our build is my boots, I use Rapid Boots to rotate faster and when I had to carry teammates and the Holy Crystal in which I switch to Blood Wings. For lower ranks from Warrior to Master, the most suitable build is your Spell Vamp build which I use for a while but isn't effective anymore because of low Magic Damage. But hey, I'm not that Pro yet in using Cyclops. I'm just in Grandmaster 4 but yeah this is my opinion.

Darkhider

Charles replied at 2018-7-22 04:40 PM
For me, spell vamp is useless w/o the damage. I prefer dmg over CD. I mean his skill CD is already f ...

Hello Charles! Your reply is very much appreciated. I have the same sentiment. I agree that spell vamp is useless if damage is low, and i think indirectly, the life steal is high whenever the damage is high, so might as well focus on damage right?

That’s why im only torn between focusing on Magic Damage mostly or combination of CD and Damage, because I tried using Pure damage only and it felt like the CD passive isnt enough. especially on cases like i need to REUSE SKILL 2 whenever i am chased by enemies and I already have low life. The frequency of repeating SKILL 2 then 1 then 2 AGAIN inmediately is life saving vs Using Skill 2 then Skill 1 then WAIT FOR SECONDS LIKE YOURE GONNA DIE ALREADY IF YOU CANT USE IT WHEN U HAVE LOW LIFE HAHAHA.

Darkhider

GlAceDonut replied at 2018-7-22 05:25 PM
As the rank goes higher, more damage is needed. In my gameplay, I use Cyclops as an Assassin-like ro ...

Hi GIAceDonut, thanks for your response. Appreciated!

I must agree that the higher ranks require higher damage than vamp. Vamp is only important to sustain, but you can also sustain if you can EASILY KILL the enemies easily and faster, that is by having a higher magic damage.

For the build #1, yes lately I also use Rapid Boots and I find it better for cyclops to be highly mobile. How about cooldown reduction? Is it an issue for you or the high damage build and high mobility is already enough for you? Because as I have mentioned on my previous reply, i find it very useful whenever id be able to spam Skill 2 then 1 then 2 again immediately, only possible when CD is very low. :)

This is the reason why I made this trend because i feel like high damage alone isnt enough (or was it just me?) haha.

Do you also use the same sequence as my #1? Thanks!

GlAceDonut

Darkhider replied at 2018-7-22 07:22 PM
Hi GIAceDonut, thanks for your response. Appreciated!

I must agree that the higher ranks require  ...

Oh my bad. Welp, I haven't updated my build to the current update and I am still using Betosky's old build. But as I said the best build for me has a great damage and a maximum CD reduction. This is my build now:
Rapid Boots-Lightning Truncheon-Concentrated Energy-Fleeting Time-Necklace of Durance and I don't know the others. the 2nd and 4th item may be interchangeable also I think. I haven't tried yet this build, will update you when I experimented on it.

GlAceDonut

I've experimented for quite a bit and searched for Betosky's build also. It seems that our build are almost the same. Here is my build:
Rapid Boots-Lightning Truncheon-Concentrated Energy-Necklace of Durance-Ice Queen Wand-Holy Crystal

I said that we need more damage than spell vamp but these items are the best items for me for Cyclops which also provided the maximum possible CD reduction (with buff) of 40% and a 45% spell vamp which is not pretty bad. But when I played Cyclops, I felt that I can't spam his skills anymore than usual. Can you confirm if Cyclops CD is nerfed also in this update? The only thing I'm sure is they nerfed Cyclops 2nd skill Spell Vamp.

Darkhider

GlAceDonut replied at 2018-7-22 08:15 PM
I've experimented for quite a bit and searched for Betosky's build also. It seems that our build are ...

For me, Betosky’s build is a balanced damage and high vamp. Like what i mentioned on my first post, with the new updates of the equipments, Lightning Truncheon’s passive of creating extra damage now depends on how high ur current mana is, and CoD provides an additional 600mana, highest mana if im not mistaken. So pairing CoD with LT creates high damage with high extra damage. With betosky’s build, i computed it, it creates lesser damage as compared to my build # 1, but builds a high spell vamp of 45%. But as we have said, for me its useless to have high spell vamp if we have low magic damage.

On contrary, I have checked each items and summarized with the highest possible damage:

1. CoD - 60 Magic Damage + 50 additional Damage (after 5minutes or fully stacked + Additional 5% Magic Damage (when fully stacked) = 110 Damage (+5% Damage)
2. LT - 75 magic Damage (+extra damage based on mana)
3. Holy Crystal - 90 magic Damage + 25% additional damage (+15% damage on skill usage)
4. Devil Tears - 65 Magic Damage + 70/40% Magic PEN (magic pen to really penetrate the high magic power)

Total of 340 Magic Damages + 5% from CoD + 25% from HC
TOTALLING: 442 Magic Damage

** Im also trying to replace LT with Fleeting Time to increase CD from 10 to 15%, with a slight difference of LT’s MP from 75 to 70 (not bad).

Downside: NO SPELL VAMPS AND LESS CD (10% CD from LT or 15% from FT)

=====
For betosky’s build, I also computed the magic power and Vamp:

1. LT - 75 magic Damage (+extra damage based on mana, but lower extra damage since lesser mana and not paired with CoD)
2. CE - 70 magic Damage
3. IQW - 75 Magic Damage
4. NoD - 70 magic damage

Total Magic Damage: 290 Magic Damage + 45% Spell vamp + 20% CD Reduction (10 from LT and 10 from NOD).

DOWNSIDE: Lesser damage possible but with high spell vamp sustain and CD.


So i guess its just a matter of choosing between High damage with less or no vamp, or Average damage with high vamp. :)

Can you help me or someone here experiment with this builds, and possibly see how your gameplay progress? Thanks!

For his nerf, yes i have read that his spell vamp for skill 2 is decreased by half (theres a video on youtube) that will be applied on the future patch update but not yet applied on our current gameplay version. Its my first time to use Cyclops so i cant compare whether they also increased the CD of skill 2 or not.

GlAceDonut

Darkhider replied at 2018-7-22 09:00 PM
For me, Betosky’s build is a balanced damage and high vamp. Like what i mentioned on my first pos ...

Oh, the spell vamp nerf is in the next update? I've felt that his spell vamp is reduced already though, lol. However, I like that you experimented and computed the items damage for Cyclops. I've never really done the math, I guess it is just a matter of instincts and what we feel is the most suitable to our gameplay. You inspired me to create a guide but probably will be doing that for a few weeks from now. But I'll be glad to try these items and experiment with you. You can add me if you want, my ID is provided in my signature.

Zakiachmad5

i prefer high damage build but personally i will switch holy crystal to either ice queen wand or necklace of durance, then if i have enough gold i will sell pillager axe to holy crystal

if i am not wrong, cyclops's spellvamp from skill 2 will be nerfed so it make more sense to be more focused on damage or CDR