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I don’t typically post in this forum because I feel noobish.. especially after reading some of the well thought out responses you guys post. I guess basically what I’m looking for is some of the higher level players to poke hole in the strat. I’m not posting a replay because I want this discussion to be more an overall discussion on the start versus analyzing a specific game.
I’m Platinum player who plays Random. Recently in my TvP I’ve been trying out BC’s & Banshees with some success.. and it may only be successful because of the skill level of my opponents is obviously relative to my own, but it seems like P has a hard time countering it.
I saw a game in the GSL (can’t remember the people’s names) but it was TvT and one of them went mass hellion…his opponent switched from MMM to BC’s late in the game… the tech switch caught his opponent completely off guard and he rolled over him.
So I thought why not start the game with the intent of getting BC’s late .. however in TvT it seems to me like the Terran army could actually stop it because ‘typically’ Vikings are already used.. and you could mass enough up with Thors and handle the slow BC’s.. I think it only worked in the Pro game because his opponent was going a style of mass hellion.
So to me.. Protoss seemed like the better of the 3 races to try it against.
I’ve only tried it out twice but both game I’ve won relatively easily. The only problem so far is opening with the 1.1.1 build can be weak against early protoss pushes. A few siege tanks, marines in bunkers and a couple turrets to ward off their obs so I can cloak my banshees and I can usually hold the line… from their I basically use my banshees for map control and turtle till my thirds up and running.. lots of turrets to keep his scouting minimal (especially around my extra starports).. a bunch of tanks and a couple thors has my opponent thinking I’m meching so normally they don’t get high templar.. unless they just assume I’m going Bio which sometimes can be a problem.. but if they get colossi they’re basically useless against banshee’s and BCs.. the templar could potentially be a problem so I’m relying a bit of them seeing my army composition prior to the BCs so that they don’t get High Templars. The idea is to try and catch them off gaurd. Even if I don't produce the BC's the army composition Tank/Marine/Banshee/Thor can still hold it's own...I don’t actually start producing BC’s until my 3rd is up and running. I try to have 4 or 5 starports and a bunch of minerals and gas saved up to start producing them in bunches. During this time I usually produce a raven and a few more banshees so that when the armies engage I can snipe the obs and keep my banshees alive.
Do you think this is a viable strat? Or is it just because I’m at a newbish level that it’s worked thus far?
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i've always felt BCs were viable in TvP... i love them but i dont use them because i'm using mmmgv... apart from that if you want bcs to work you'll need ghosts, mainly for either emping templars/softening shields of colossi so yamatos can one hit them or by emping your own bcs and using thors and vikings...
i really would like to see that composition: BCs thors marauders vikings ghosts... hell ... bcs own immortals either by yamatoing or by shooting (since they are like a machine gun and immortal's shields wont work vs bcs!)
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On July 06 2011 00:06 xTrim wrote:
i've always felt BCs were viable in TvP... i love them but i dont use them because i'm using mmmgv... apart from that if you want bcs to work you'll need ghosts, mainly for either emping templars/softening shields of colossi so yamatos can one hit them or by emping your own bcs and using thors and vikings...
i really would like to see that composition: BCs thors marauders vikings ghosts... hell ... bcs own immortals either by yamatoing or by shooting (since they are like a machine gun and immortal's shields wont work vs bcs!)
Before the nerf to the Ground Attack, Mass BCs late game with Marine support was almost unbeatable as Protoss(its still very strong)
Cant mass voidrays since half of them will die instantly to BC Yamato+ marines, stalkers just dont attack fast enough to do jack shit and die, and phoenix? lol?
I don't think its as good as it was many patches ago, but its still very very good
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Honestly, if they see you're going thors, maybe they don't realize this at the platinum level, but feedbacking thors is such a major help to the protoss army. It's entirely worth it to get ht's if you see thors or even banshees, not just for the storms but feedbacking as much as possible. Not to mention, Blink stalkers + sentries + armor upgrades = no damage from BC's (and considering you don't even start BC's until your 3rd, armor should be going up.) I wouldn't say it's viable in the top dia - masters level, but for where you're at I'd consider it useful.
Mid Diamond Protoss' two cents here.
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ok well from when i played as T i loved to use BCs when i could but i found it to be best if you put on early bio pressure and just slowely tech to air> it works well because usually the toss will expect medivacs but then bcs come out of no where and they have colosi and zel/stalkers. it shoulkd overwhelm them but you have to hold off until that point and not let obs see you making BCs. also ravens using PDD helps BCs out alot so maybe get 1-2 of them while your tech BC tech is still building
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United Arab Emirates245 Posts
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BCs and ghosts completely destroy pure gateway compositions.
As you approach lategame, you want a stronger more cost effective mass of units and BCs will get you that. If you reach a lategame orbital-only economy, you can start brining scvs along with your BCs, yamato the void rays, emp everything else, will pretty much wreck any protoss army that isn't pure voids.
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1-1-1 does not need siege tanks to hold any protoss push. (bunker at 4:00 + good scouting holds all aggression)
If executed correctly 1-1-1 will allow for pdd push into protoss natural as u expand behind it.
Once expansion is down and gas is saturated add 3 more starports crank banshees... then you can move to bc's when you feel banshees are no longer viable vs toss army comp.
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BCs are worth getting in TvP IMO if you can transition to them safely. I played PvT against one of my friends (he's mid-diamond T), and the response BCs require is pretty serious.
T is supposed to have a hard time transitioning to BC, but if P tries to go for a direct response, he'd have to tech to HT and voidrays and amass healthy numbers of both to handle the BCs head-on, and it becomes even harder when they have Raven or Banshee for backup. Also, if it's lategame and you have enough bases, make sure you keep up with air upgrades to (eventually) beat the ground armor+guardian shield combo on his gateway units.
Basically, as T, you want to keep the BC transition hidden for as long as possible so that P has less time to either a) transition to the correct counter or b) move in and kill you before you mass enough BCs. If you can get BCs safely, it's worth doing just because it's quite hard for P to handle them. If you're both maxed and you can keep the core hidden and have 3-4 starports around lategame, you can start reinforcing with BCs and bio after your armies clash.
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A long time since I used BCs. But against protoss you absolutely must have ravens for point defense drone to protect against Stalkers and Yamato to snipe the void rays and keep the energy low.
If you manage to get 2 ravens and about 4 BCs out there is very little anyone can do to stop you for quite a while if you park them in his base.
Your biggest thread would be templar with feedback and storm. To counter that you either need marauders or ghosts or establish a perimeter with tanks which all can be a little tricky.
When I was still using that build BCs were slow and khaydarin amulet was still in the game. Still managed to get it to work a good amount of times. Now it should be even better.
So, a marauder/ghost opening is quite safe against most protoss builds ... and when you then get up 3 starports you're set.
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You guys crack me up just EMP your battlecruisers if hes templar heavy (You need 1 emp) or do the basic emp battle vs temps as always 
Great profit ^^ he will either have many voidrays or many templars with stalker spam
BC's dps is just insane scaling with upgrades, however people shamefully :/ thinks that ''oh 3 bc's didn't win vs a 200/200 toss army, they sucks..
:/ :/ :/
TL:DR I encourage bc experimenting
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Pretty much every idea for a new strategy in TvP or TvZ receives the same couple of answers. It's always great except for Infestors and High Templar.
Feedback would be devastating to BC and HT range is long enough that they would get away with it. Additionally, guardian shield plus stalkers would be very powerful against this.
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BCs are completely useless because their base dps is so pants that protoss can just ignore them, melt your ground army, then retreat.
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Mass 3/3 BC + ghost is the strongest TvP lategame. It's just very difficult to reach it.
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On July 06 2011 04:05 avilo wrote:
Mass 3/3 BC + ghost is the strongest TvP lategame. It's just very difficult to reach it.
Pretty much like mass 3/3/3 carriers + HT is for protoss.
Would be curious to know who would win that fight :p
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Watch Trump if you wanna see how good BC's and Banshee's can be vs Protoss late game ^^
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Generally speaking, I'd be careful with strategies that rely on hiding some specific tech and catching the opponent off-guard. Especially in the higher levels you have to assume, that every startegy is scoutable for reasonable cost. That means a truly good startegy should still be good after the opponent scouted it.
Off the top of my head I can think of two major criticisms about your proposed "mech faint" into BCs; Firstly you have a very immobile army during the late mid game int late game, meaning you are giving up map control ,leaving the protoss free to expand wherever and whenever he pleases, without being punished in case of greedyness.
Secondly, I find it hard to image where you would allocate your gas to in terms of upgrades. Weapons, Armor, Marines, Marauders, Banshees ,Ravens AND gas heavy units on only three bases ( 6geysirs == 224 / 240 per minute). FEELS to me, like you end up with a weakly upgraded and small army, especially in case of gas deny / harrass. But this would of course require a lot of testing to answer definitively and is just a judgement based on my experience.
Don't get me wrong, I like your urge to incorporate more Terran high tech units into solid play, I feel the same, but what we need is not some build order that lets us get unti X faster, or even in a save way. We need a good reason to get unit X, a reoccuring problem that gets solved by getting that unit and using it in a specific way.
The way the game is played now, it seems there isn't any problem a Battlecruiser would fix, that a Ghost already couldn't, with the difference, that Ghosts are cheaper, more versatile and for most of the current strategies, there already is the supporting infrastructure up and running in order to produce a good number of them. Basically any strategy where you end up with barracks , some tech labs and infantry upgrades synergizes well with Ghosts, for hopefully obvious reasons 
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On July 06 2011 00:17 Strykerz wrote:
Honestly, if they see you're going thors, maybe they don't realize this at the platinum level, but feedbacking thors is such a major help to the protoss army. It's entirely worth it to get ht's if you see thors or even banshees, not just for the storms but feedbacking as much as possible. Not to mention, Blink stalkers + sentries + armor upgrades = no damage from BC's (and considering you don't even start BC's until your 3rd, armor should be going up.) I wouldn't say it's viable in the top dia - masters level, but for where you're at I'd consider it useful.
Mid Diamond Protoss' two cents here.
This.
I play a rine/thor/ cloak banshee with a raven build and will win vs any heavy Colo army. ravens spot one, thors snipe obs, banshees will win. I'm able to ladder this way because so few toss remember they have "feedback" as a spell. high template wreck an energy heavy terran build, and BCs have said energy. melted.
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The number one problem with BC's is upgrades, you need air upgrades for BC's to be truely useful but the question is when to get them.
I guess by going bio in TvP you may already be getting air ups for vikings, either adding a second armory at some point or just slowly getting the armour after attack you could possibly transition into a more air focused Terran composition with bio support as opposed to bio with air support.
I might look into this myself for a bit of fun.
In TvZ you have a similar situation, except you arent likely to get any air upgrades. However you mainly get only mech attack for tanks if you go tank marine, you could possibly squeeze in another armory (possibly forgo double ebay) and get +air armour for BC.
The main problem with this is you can never really mass BC in TvZ, zerg can just spam corrupters and put a stop to them, with a few blords for dealing with the ground, however a few BC's may be useful and force zerg to overreact or just give you an extra in a battle to control an area, its something you'd have to experiment with but in a match between MVP and Dimaga a while ago MVP did get 2 or so BC's to help out against an ultra ling infestor composition when he decided to play defensively.
So yea in short its possibly viable to do in TvP if you refined it well enough, TvZ I think its probably more situational and you should probably only think about 2 or so BCs to help rather than massing them, but im really not sure on that match up.
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EPT
