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Hi guys, I kinda need help with my "train of thought"
So Yesterday i played a TvT - I went for a banshee opener, transitioning into marine tank viking.
My opponent attacks me with a few cloaked banshees, which i repel okay. Later, he hits me with a few more cloaked banshees and vikings. I deal with this semi okay, only loosing 5 harvesters, but trading my vikings for he's, and dealing with the leftovers with stimmed marines. I start building a few thors, to better accumulate for him doing this again.
The game goes on, and i do a bit of banshee harass.. Later on in the game, i Move a small portion of my army, 4 siege tanks, 2 groups of marines and 2 medivacs close to he's base, to snipe he's production facilities. It works out okay, but then all of a sudden he attacks me with Banshees, Vikings and Battlecruisers.
After killing my small attack, he pretty much just A moves he's fleed and kills me.
Now my question is, how should i have responded to this? What is the best counter, going against Battlecruisers? I feel like having 3-4 thors and about 20 vikings as my defense against he's banshee / Viking army was at minimal decent, but when he throws in battlecruisers in the mix, what am i supposed to do? Start doing battlecruisers myself? Doesn't seem like the ideal solution, Feels like i would having a never ending catch up to he's air superiority.
So what do you guys do when you see BC's in a TvT? Does this differ, if you are behind? And how does it differ if you are ahead?
Thanks
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If he goes mass viking+few BCs with no ground,you should just go mass marines to overrun his air army.If he goes BC only with no vikings,just mass vikings.
Also,what do you mean when you are behind? behind in expos? or what?
I also feel giving the replay would help quite alot on what uve done wrong etc.
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I'm pretty sure you need to add a replay, but I'll still give my 2 cents.
Fully upgraded(well atleast not behind atk upgrades vs bcs armor upgrades) rines are awesome against BCs if he doesn't have siege tanks/hellions to cover the ground underneath the BCs. If he does have some ground control under the BCs, thors + vikings work really well, but Yamato is a problem for the thors but clutch EMPs can help. Turrets(esp with range upgrade) are also good at stopping his BCs from advancing(again if he has ground underneath the BCs you should have surplus of minerals since rines are somewhat useless).
In general though, it's so dependant on exact situation. If he can get BCs in most cases it's over anyway and he's just throwing the cherry ontop of the cake. If he's doing the iEchoic build, I think you really just need to respond right at the start and kill him before BCs are out.
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The best preparation for a BC switch is IMO to upgrade your infantry early and consistently. There is nothing more scary to a 0/0 BC than 3/3 marines.
Depending on the situation, you may want to use vikings instead (if he also has a lot of tanks or for some reason managed to get even upgrades with his air on your infantry). However, in this case, as he already had air superiority, marines would have been the weapon of choice.
PS.: Thors utterly suck versus BCs, don't even think of getting them as a response.
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I don't play terran but wouldnt mass mass mass viking have stopped this?
Once you've taken out his vikings you can kite the battlecrusers and the banshees can only shoot down anyway. It takes a long time to get up to battlecrusers as well so he wouldnt have had that big a ground army and it's easy to scout if someone is going battlecrusers and crush them before, or prepare in advance. Can you post the replay of the game so others of a higher level then me, or just terran players in general can answer more fully
edit: Also,what do you mean when you are behind? behind in expos? or what?
I also feel giving the replay would help quite alot on what uve done wrong etc
I think he ment that if he went for BC's after the other guy already had BC's he'd be behinf in that way
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The only viable Terran counter to upgraded BCs is mass Vikings, or hundreds of Marines (not even an exaggeration).
BCs should be easy to spot- even if he hides his Fusion Core, 0/0 BCs die very easily to massed Marines, which means if you notice his Vikings are constantly being upgraded, especially in armor, he is very likely to go BCs.
3/3 Marines alone vs 3/3 BCs is not winnable unless you have 10+ Barracks with Reactors going at full production. Your only real chance is to mass more Vikings than them, try to pick off their Vikings with your Marines, and hit the BCs with both Marines and Vikings together.
No other units in the Terran arsenal will beat BCs in any reasonable number. Thors are the last unit you want, as a BC/Viking lategame will inevitably have loads of Marines, which completely eat Thors. Thors also take something like 30 volleys to kill an unupgraded BC.
If you spot him getting air upgrades, start building extra Starports yourself. Be more aggressive with your Tank line as well, to punish his investment in tech before it rewards him.
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Another strategy that is plausible is using the Thor's strike cannon on the BC before the Yamato alongside marine support.
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On April 11 2011 20:16 jelle wrote:Now my question is, how should i have responded to this? What is the best counter, going against Battlecruisers?
If you just let him get out a decent number of Battlecruisers without punishing him then you are going to be in trouble. It is a very big investment that takes a very long time so before he gets a critical number of them he's going to be a lot weaker than you. Like someone already said, if he's getting air upgrades then that's a very good indication that he's going BCs. If you don't spot them in time or if you're unable to exploit his weaker ground army then the best "oh shit" decision would be do put a reactor on your starport and even get a 2nd starport. You'll need a lot of Vikings considering that he'll have better upgrades. It's not a great spot to be in.
On April 11 2011 22:25 Pwnographics wrote:
Another strategy that is plausible is using the Thor's strike cannon on the BC before the Yamato alongside marine support.
You can't Strike Cannon air targets. Don't get Thors vs BCs!!
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Not sure if it's viable in the slightest but I remember seeing a game with Morrow (as terran) in beta where he beat battlecruisers and vikings with ravens and vikings. He used seeker missle to kill or make the vikings run away while he picked off the battle cruisers with his vikings. But as stated, that was beta and 6+ months ago and I don't play terran at all, so take that as you will. 
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if BCs suprise you, you can go for turrets, (the building upgrade would make a single turret a stronghold against a 0/0 bc) it gives you enough time to switch up your build. Ravens are a good counter to bcs and are build easier alongside with vikings.
But some Turrets are a perfect savespot against terran air (like the planetary fortress is agains strong short range ground) and the thors can extend the turrets range abit (so your vikings can do hit and run and you can slowly move your turrets farther and farther, a pdd has the same effect, but if the players are not good at army spreading a thor will tend to hit all the vikings.)
I would not suggest marines, first siege tanks can keep the bcs save and allow mass repair. Also hellions below the bcs, would just destroy marines trying to get close to the bc.
So as mentioned above watch for air armor upgrades ^.^ . And either do an all ground attack or prepare for the bcs with turret upgrades and reactor starports. ghosts can also help to reduce the yamato damage, killing banshees and ravens.
But right now i would consider bcs to be the easy to use unit, but the conters work really well with some effort, though with more effort your bcs are become even more beasty ^^.
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On April 11 2011 22:11 Scare_Crow wrote:No other units in the Terran arsenal will beat BCs in any reasonable number. Thors are the last unit you want, as a BC/Viking lategame will inevitably have loads of Marines, which completely eat Thors. Thors also take something like 30 volleys to kill an unupgraded BC.
Just wanted to point out though that the thors are more to contest the vikings, since vikings clump like mad in viking vs viking battle, esp where one side is trying to kite. Raven's HSM range < viking range, so they are at best risky. I'd also hardly say rines eat thors, but it ofcourse depends on the situation(most situations you'd have rines + tanks around your thors and the battle would be taking place in the no-mans land between the tanks, where no AA reaches other than thors/vikings).
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You might want to watch MKP v MVP g3.
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I love going the iEchoic route in TvT (Starports and Factories for air and hellions) and the thing you have to remember is that Terran just can't really stop the 3/3 BCs without utter air dominance, which a player going air will probably not let you have. However, you can actually have 3/3 marines by the time his battlecruisers begin to come out if you are upgrading constantly. The dangerous part of the iEchoic is the hellions, as they tear through the marines, so you'll need to be very careful and probably use tanks to deal with those. Tank marine, when upgraded, beats the hellion/airfleet army in a straight up match.
Be aware, however, of the harassment in the early-midgame from air - turrets help, as well as having vikings patrolling the perimeter of your base.
edit: Oh, yeah, and thors are awful vs. BCs. They can help with the viking fight, but, I'd rather invest in more vikings. If upgrades are equal, they hit BCs for 12 damage every 3 seconds, a DPS of 4.
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I use a lot of BCs in TvT as it's the only way to finish off a Terran opponent if you're going for air.
If your opponent is ahead of you in upgrades and ahead of you with vikings, then you should GG because there's no way you will win. BCs have 3 base armor, so if he's ahead of you on upgrades, then your marines will do 2 damage or 1 damage per shot. Your thors will do 8 damage or 4 damage per burst. As you can see, this is not cost effective against BCs.
The only thing that beats BCs are vikings. Vikings will destroy BCs, but if he's been going air all game, then he probably has more vikings than you. I have been advocating air dominance in TvT for a long time. If you let your opponent control the air, then you're not going to be able to harass, you're not going to control the map, you're not going to be able to spot for your siege tanks, etc.
The way I see it BCs are the game-ending unit for TvT. Brood Lords break turtling Terrans in TvZ, but BCs break turtling Terrans in TvT.
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I don't generally build Thors in TvT in these circumstances. If you're going marine/tank/viking at a certain stage, then stick with it until you have a good reason to deviate. What you SHOULD be doing with this composition is constantly prodding with your vikings (and maybe even a few scans) to observe what your opponent is doing, and how many vikings he has. Always try to keep 3-5 vikings above your opponent's numbers.
If you can see he's going heavy air builds, get up a few more starports and get out more vikings (they build pretty fast, so generally I only use 1 reactor until after 3 base). What you should do in the mean time is mobilize your tanks around the xel naga towers and try to deny your opponent's third (or any expo after that). Build a few sensor towers if your scouting/awareness isn't that good, and make sure to put up a turret at xel tower positions where your siege tanks are camped at. Maintain air superiority ever so slightly at all times, and pick off vulnerable BCs/vikings/ravens/medivacs whenever you can.
TvT is characterized by heavy viking, but also by how you control the map. Vikings are part of how you will exercise this control. Even if you think you have viking superiority, you can't just sit back with it. It's a mobile army, and you need to use it's advantage to scout and snipe and pave the way for your encroaching siege tanks. Often times your opponent will start to buckle under your pressure, and their inability to expand, so they'll either go massively into air (which you'll be able to easily spot) or go massively into ground for a siege break. If you see them going into ground, abuse your air superiority and do fast, multiple rine drops until you can get out BCs. If they go air, try to delay your opponent's expo for as long as you can (it'll take a while for them to get out enough vikings AND BCs), and expo freely and put up more starports all the while. This will mean you can outproduce your opponent in vikings in a flash because of your stronger eco. Be prepared for a massive air war though, but you should be able to churn out rines and vikings like a madman. If you are really good at your army control, you should be able to avoid that altogether by continually picking off enemy units, so even if they outproduce you, you maintain a snowball effect advantage. The counter of this is for them to land their vikings immediately after making them, but they'll lose all their other air units in exchange.
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Generally a small BC count can be handled by thor/viking/raven/general ground mix. just point defense drone like a champ and you will be fine 
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EPT
