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[D] Are banshees superior than vikings vs P? - Page 2

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Cyro
Profile Blog Joined June 2011
United Kingdom20341 Posts
December 16 2011 04:29 GMT
#21
I think banshees could be superior to vikings in some situations, but it is much harder to utilise them properly, and would change the game a lot more than just amoving with unit A instead of unit B.

It is something that could maybe be explored in the future to see if it was valid as a potential strategy, but it would take a lot of change to effectively use banshees as your only anti-colossi force i think.
"oh my god my overclock... I got a single WHEA error on the 23rd hour, 9 minutes" -Belial88
aviator116
Profile Joined November 2011
United States820 Posts
December 16 2011 04:35 GMT
#22
vikings out-range the collosi, and they can be produced two at a time, so they can snipe collosi if they're too close to a cliff.
Banshees are better in some circumstances though. then again, HTs can feedback them ...
Bogus ST_Life IMMVP
statikg
Profile Joined May 2010
Canada930 Posts
December 16 2011 04:36 GMT
#23
Banshees are super hard countered by phenoix, vikings are not. Therefore you would need to get vikings anyway even if you had banshees....it would become very hard to micro effectively, I just don't see it although I like the idea with the light vs stalkers factor.
jrdn
Profile Joined September 2010
United States132 Posts
December 16 2011 04:36 GMT
#24
On December 16 2011 13:24 fuzzy_panda wrote:
jrdn can you please address the issue of viking range? the main reason that vikings are used is because of the ridiculous range they have. some people even call them the siege tanks of the sky



Sure . The viking's range is indeed impressive. In addition to having the possibility of getting pot shots on the colossus (not always possible) you will set the maximum range that the colossus can advance to. The only problem with the viking is during the battle itself it can become very marginalized. At this point in our example we have (900 min, 450 gas) invested in units that can only attack a very small (however important) portion of our opponents army. If the protoss micro's his colossus so that the vikings have to take heavy stalker fire, or if the colossus micro backward, extending the fight in a retreat with colossus covering the retreating zealots, even if the colossus die the best case is you traded your resources for his (vikings kill colossus and did nothing else). With the banshees you have strong opportunities to kill the colossus, or if not kill other parts of his army. The dps for the banshee is pretty close to that of the viking, plus I'll wager that the banshees will do more dps over the course of an engagement when you factor in all the time the viking is just floating there.

I'd like to re-emphasize as well, when you have banshees the focus of the fight is not necessarily the colossus. You, the terran, now have a piece of tech that the protoss has to respond to or else he will not trade anywhere near efficiently.
“The sole purpose of an opening is to achieve a playable midgame”
jrdn
Profile Joined September 2010
United States132 Posts
December 16 2011 04:39 GMT
#25
On December 16 2011 13:36 statikg wrote:
Banshees are super hard countered by phenoix, vikings are not. Therefore you would need to get vikings anyway even if you had banshees....it would become very hard to micro effectively, I just don't see it although I like the idea with the light vs stalkers factor.



Remember though, if your opponent is starting to pump phoenix he will have to cut somewhere else. He will either have less gateway units or less colossus. Therefore, if he pumps phoenix you can simply just pump more bio and steamroll.
“The sole purpose of an opening is to achieve a playable midgame”
Antisocialmunky
Profile Blog Joined March 2010
United States5912 Posts
December 16 2011 04:43 GMT
#26
Banshees are quite good early on but Vikings become better as the game goes on due to as others have said, Range.
[゚n゚] SSSSssssssSSsss ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Marine/Raven Guide:http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=163605
doner0
Profile Blog Joined July 2010
United States233 Posts
December 16 2011 04:44 GMT
#27
vikings have 9 range, banshess don't. Vikings do good enough damage to deal with collossus with out getting in range of their AA. Hence why banshees are viable regardless of their lack of cloak and dps
stokes17
Profile Joined January 2011
United States1411 Posts
December 16 2011 04:47 GMT
#28
idn I'd be thrilled to play vs no vikings and banshees instead. As long as I have ~12 stalkers with my army and reenforce with ~5 more I should have no problem taking out a bio force that's light in medivacs. You will have absolutely no ability to touch my collosi with your banshees without being in range of my stalkers, and with good force fields my collosi will be able to kill basically infinite bio. And I'm pretty sure I could just hit a 2 collosi range timing before you had a significant amount of banshees anyways (assuming i figure out what you're doing ^^)

so, I'm all for it lol
jrdn
Profile Joined September 2010
United States132 Posts
December 16 2011 04:51 GMT
#29
On December 16 2011 13:44 doner0 wrote:
vikings have 9 range, banshess don't. Vikings do good enough damage to deal with collossus with out getting in range of their AA. Hence why banshees are viable regardless of their lack of cloak and dps



There are additional benefits to the banshee route, however. Remember, most of your army is bio. If you are building banshees the protoss is going to be adding more stalkers (forced or else banshees become extremely effective vs army with minimal AA). This will do a few things. It will decrease the number of zealots he is warping in (needs to use warp in for stalker). Additionally, it will slow down his tech / limit his tech units. Because the protoss can't spam zealots, he will have less gas for HT, colossus, or other tech.
“The sole purpose of an opening is to achieve a playable midgame”
statikg
Profile Joined May 2010
Canada930 Posts
December 16 2011 04:56 GMT
#30
On December 16 2011 13:39 jrdn wrote:
Show nested quote +
On December 16 2011 13:36 statikg wrote:
Banshees are super hard countered by phenoix, vikings are not. Therefore you would need to get vikings anyway even if you had banshees....it would become very hard to micro effectively, I just don't see it although I like the idea with the light vs stalkers factor.



Remember though, if your opponent is starting to pump phoenix he will have to cut somewhere else. He will either have less gateway units or less colossus. Therefore, if he pumps phoenix you can simply just pump more bio and steamroll.


You spend money to make banshees, he spends money to make phenoix, you have to spend more to deal with the collosus since the pheonix are owning your banshees so hard, hence you lose out on this transaction.
dhe95
Profile Blog Joined December 2008
United States1213 Posts
December 16 2011 05:03 GMT
#31
going banshees instead of vikings forces you to engage protoss in order to kill collosi because of the banshee's limited range. so assuming an engagement is started, what will you do when protoss ffs your army and kills your banshees?
with a viking's range, the viking will start out much farther away and will have a much easier time retreating and will actually be basically on the terran army when its attacking, but banshees are forced to be right on the other stalkers in order to do damage to collosi
jrdn
Profile Joined September 2010
United States132 Posts
December 16 2011 05:12 GMT
#32
On December 16 2011 13:56 statikg wrote:
Show nested quote +
On December 16 2011 13:39 jrdn wrote:
On December 16 2011 13:36 statikg wrote:
Banshees are super hard countered by phenoix, vikings are not. Therefore you would need to get vikings anyway even if you had banshees....it would become very hard to micro effectively, I just don't see it although I like the idea with the light vs stalkers factor.



Remember though, if your opponent is starting to pump phoenix he will have to cut somewhere else. He will either have less gateway units or less colossus. Therefore, if he pumps phoenix you can simply just pump more bio and steamroll.


You spend money to make banshees, he spends money to make phenoix, you have to spend more to deal with the collosus since the pheonix are owning your banshees so hard, hence you lose out on this transaction.



First off, the first phoenix is at least 60 sec away. It is probably going to be at least 2 min before he has enough phoenix to do anything to your banshees (your banshees stay above your bio when you know there are phoenix around). Meanwhile, after another 2 min you can either have 6 vikings of your own to fight the air (you have 2 starports afterall). In addition to whatever other buildings your put down (if you put down 2 more ports you could have 6 vikings plus 2 more banshees, or if you put down more rax you can really output a ground force, or you could have cloak). Either way, if you are unable to get to the colossus you can camp over your bio near the battle line and start raining down hell on the toss gateway units (note...if the stalkers can shoot the banshees, the marauders can shoot the stalkers). Not to mention that it takes a +2 stalker 12 hits to kill a banshee.
“The sole purpose of an opening is to achieve a playable midgame”
FiNTer
Profile Joined December 2011
Finland153 Posts
December 16 2011 05:13 GMT
#33
On December 16 2011 12:56 Pokebunny wrote:
Reasons why vikings are better:
Range (huge reason)
- most of the time with vikings you want to be abusing cliffs and terrain to hit colossus before the battle starts. this is a big deal.
Lower initial cost
- 90% of the time, when you're building a port in your build order, you're not gonna have enough extra gas. this is the time when stim, +1, combat shields, etc are all being started.
Targetting/target priority
- related to the range / cliffs - when you're trying to pick off colossi, it is easier if you can just amove and they'll hit the right thing from full range.

Best Answer.
I always like when someone posts there with "great" idea and thinks pros hasnt figured it out
Slayers`terran fan
Azzur
Profile Blog Joined July 2010
Australia6267 Posts
December 16 2011 05:16 GMT
#34
This thread is going round-and-round in circles: A -> B -> C -> D -> E -> A

Anyways, in this kind of situation, I resort to my standard, "show me the proof". The OP argues that banshees are superior to vikings in a "TvP standard game" but cites 0 examples in pro-play and provides 0 replays. All I see in this thread is a bunch of theorycraft which ignores real-game situations.

Banshees can be superior to vikings if the build is designed for it, e.g. sky-terran, 1-1-1 all-in, etc. I even recall a GSL game where Jinro pops down 3-starports and makes banshees but that was used as a surprise weapon. I myself made a post about sky-terran, heavily involving banshees: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=175014.

However, I was advocating a niche style of play and I recognise that in a "standard game" it is clearly viking > banshee.
jrdn
Profile Joined September 2010
United States132 Posts
December 16 2011 05:18 GMT
#35
On December 16 2011 14:03 dhe95 wrote:
going banshees instead of vikings forces you to engage protoss in order to kill collosi because of the banshee's limited range. so assuming an engagement is started, what will you do when protoss ffs your army and kills your banshees?
with a viking's range, the viking will start out much farther away and will have a much easier time retreating and will actually be basically on the terran army when its attacking, but banshees are forced to be right on the other stalkers in order to do damage to collosi


The beauty of the banshee play is if you can't get to the colossus you can engage the gateway units from the safety of your line. Banshees are extremely durable to gateway AA. At this point you can stutter step your whole army backwards, banshees included, and destroy the gateway units following. At some point all the zealots will be gone, and you can turn back on the protoss, stim up and engage stalkers (closer to you due to faster movement speed) with bio and banshees. You now probably have some bio and some banshees. The colossus will have to retreat or die and he is forced into stalkers instead of tech.
“The sole purpose of an opening is to achieve a playable midgame”
OSM.OneManArmy
Profile Joined April 2011
United States509 Posts
December 16 2011 05:24 GMT
#36
The only build i see terrans usually have success with mass banshees instead of viking in TvP is the synester 4port, however phoenix's/HT/Archons can put a big hurt if the protoss is smart. A big point of the build is to have the element of surprise by hiding the ports. In battle, a scan or raven allows the terran to snipe of the observer with a thor/viking/marines. Typically, most protoss will have one observer and afterwards be in deep doodoo. If the protoss is able to prepare by having multiple observers spread out and bringing them in after one is killed, the protoss doesn't really have much trouble with dealing with the build.

The reason you can't go mass banshee on standard is 1) Banshees have less range. To risk flying your air so close to stalkers is pretty dangerous, plus you can't really go around sniping and harassing colossus as well.
2) Reactored starports are more convenient as well since you can go from medivac to double viking or do both simultaneously.
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jrdn
Profile Joined September 2010
United States132 Posts
December 16 2011 05:36 GMT
#37
On December 16 2011 14:24 OSM.OneManArmy wrote:
The only build i see terrans usually have success with mass banshees instead of viking in TvP is the synester 4port, however phoenix's/HT/Archons can put a big hurt if the protoss is smart. A big point of the build is to have the element of surprise by hiding the ports. In battle, a scan or raven allows the terran to snipe of the observer with a thor/viking/marines. Typically, most protoss will have one observer and afterwards be in deep doodoo. If the protoss is able to prepare by having multiple observers spread out and bringing them in after one is killed, the protoss doesn't really have much trouble with dealing with the build.

The reason you can't go mass banshee on standard is 1) Banshees have less range. To risk flying your air so close to stalkers is pretty dangerous, plus you can't really go around sniping and harassing colossus as well.
2) Reactored starports are more convenient as well since you can go from medivac to double viking or do both simultaneously.



1) The idea is to use the banshees to snipe the colossus if you can abuse terrain (or are otherwise safe from stalkers). If this is unavailable, the banshees are still available to do their dps to ground units. It takes 14 hits from an un-upgraded stalker (13 from +1) to kill a banshee. If this is a standard fight and you did the worst thing you could (sacrificed your banshees for even 0 damage) you just soaked up 56 stalker shots. I am extremely confident that by this time the zealots are long gone, and your bio is now pushing on his relatively naked colossus.

2) Your second point is not applicable as if you went banshees you would have 2 starports...and you could even upgrade medic energy .
“The sole purpose of an opening is to achieve a playable midgame”
jrdn
Profile Joined September 2010
United States132 Posts
December 16 2011 05:42 GMT
#38
My issue with the viking option is you make such a large investment (vikings are not cheap!) for a completely defensive unit that has 1 real purpose. If the vikings are unable to fulfill that purpose in any way (stalkers killed off vikings and 1.5 colossus are still alive, he only made 1 colossus, etc) you essentially wasted those resources.

With the banshee option you have a unit that can fulfill many roles (harass - most common, army dps - most underused, tech advantage - flying and cloak). In the end it is the player who most efficienty gathers and uses his resources that wins the game. I really feel that many terrans are shooting themselves in the foot by creating such a specialist unit - viking who best case trades his value away (netting you zero value gained).
“The sole purpose of an opening is to achieve a playable midgame”
Suerte
Profile Joined July 2010
United States117 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-12-16 06:09:21
December 16 2011 06:07 GMT
#39
It's probally been posted but you've ignored the possibility of cloak for banshees as well. That said, I think banshees are a bit more difficult to control in an actual engagement scenario and the ability to drop colossi from out of range is a huge asset, but I'm also a P player. Cloak and Obs snipe during combat is a very viable option as well however I suppose.
black3200
Profile Joined August 2010
Canada74 Posts
December 16 2011 06:08 GMT
#40
For some reason i thought that banshees did more DPS to collo... well maybe that is why im so bad lol, also you can make 2 vikings at a time so if you dont spot the colo till late you still have a chance to get some out before you die.. Also like people have said before the range is so good i have tired to use banshees for anti collo ( cause i thought that the banshee did more dps at the time ) and i would always get them picked off by stalkers. and sometimes when Toss knows you are going to go air for anti collo they will make Pho , which a banshee will be kinda defense less.
Give them nothing,But take from them..... everything!
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