On February 06 2012 20:59 EndOfLine wrote: I love this guide!
watched this vid. ROFL As a zerg player, im going to play as terran a few times on ladder JUST because of this. Wonder if it will work vs terran and toss??
TSLPolt Beat Hashe (terran gm) with it. Vs protoss you'd be better off just 1-1-1ing, because unlike zerg, protoss will be constantly making units, not stupidly droning when they know a push is coming.
On February 06 2012 13:51 Mobius_1 wrote: Well this seems like a fun build to throw in to mess with Zergs TotalBiscuit must approve.
I think the only way this can be improved is if every appearance of the word "Battlecruiser" is in big red bold underlined capital letters.
Yeah, I can see why this would be a great followup to reactor hellion opening with marines to deny ovie scouts. Surprise Battlecruisers are pretty damn difficult to stop with any of the standard Zerg compositions that can be teched up at that stage. (NP's could screw you over but it looks like it hits before that, and rushing for NP leaves basically no defense for 1-base-all-in-worth of marine tank)
One base BATTLECRUISER TvZ Hello all, this is DoctorFunk, mid masters random on NA. About a week ago, I saw a hilarious vod of Naama vs IdrA on Metalopolis where Naama executed a 1 base BATTLECRUISER build against IdrA, and easily won. This got me thinking and questioning how viable it could be on certain maps. It's a straightforward, sloppy, fun build that can be used for close air TvZ. This is just a quick, simple guide for a quick and simple build. I've only tried it a few times, and haven't lost yet(to low-mid masters), probably due to them not knowing how the hell to react. I've seen hydras, corruptors, and generally everything that marine tank turns to goo.
The strength of this build comes in a few different forms. The first is the repair ability. You can send your BATTLECRUISER to harass, and simply pull it back to your base, repair it, and send it back. You never want to lose these BATTLECRUISERs, and you shouldn't.
The second strong point of this build is that the zerg players simply do not know how to react when they see the BATTLECRUISER. Sometimes they will try muta, sometimes hydra, sometimes corrupter. I think the best choice is queen + spores.
The third strong point is that you will be building up a marine/tank army on top of the BATTLECRUISERs. The zerg player will often prioritize the BATTLECRUISERs and just get rolled by your marine/tank push.
This build order is not exactly precise, and can vary a little bit depending on what you do whether its a 1rax bunker pressure, etc
Constant scv production, constant supply depots. only cut when your first bc is out, scvs are just as valuable as marines because of repair.
10- Supply depot 12- Barracks 13-Refinery 15 Orbital 15 Marine 16 Supply depot 17 Marine ~17-18 Factory at ramp 18-19 reactor on rax 18-19 second refinery
At factory completion, swap with barracks reactor and reactor out hellions. Also, add starport. Produce marines out of naked rax.
After 4 hellions out of the factory, swap the barracks onto the reactor. At starport completion, build fusion core immediately then tech lab on starport. At fusion core completion, start your first BATTLECRUISER(Yes!) ~Add another barracks as minerals permit, you could use an extra rax for marine production. Also, add a tech lab to your factory and begin tank production.
From here on out, you will have constant(ish) tank, marine, BATTLECRUISER production, any more information on build order is not necessary. If you don't have the gas for a tank due to your second bc, add in a hellion before building another tank.
You will make harass with your first bc, and make your push at around 11:30 with two BATTLECRUISERs, 2-3 tanks, a handful of marines, ~12-15 scvs and however many surviving hellions you have.(Preferably four)
You can refer to the replays for more specific timings. I didn't list exact supplies because I don't like that. Just make sure you don't supply block yourself. You need those one-basing mules, and don't want to delay production or supply drop. If you're supply blocked pretty bad, calling down supplies is not terrible, but that's a discussion for somewhere else.
This is the fun part of the build. It can be executed in many ways. When they see it
The Engagement
Since it begins as a standard reactor hellion opening, you want to keep your initial 4 hellions alive. Do not suicide them to kill drones. Simply poke in and out, and maintain map control, deny scouting, while denying creep spread.
Use your marines to deny overlord scouts. The less prepared they are for your initial BC, the more damage it will do. The more damage it will do, the stronger your push will be.
I only recommend this map for close air positions. With your first BATTLECRUISER, you want to be an abusive terran. Fly to their base, kill queens, kill drones, and fly back for repairs, then repeat. Believe it or not, queens can actually kite bc's on creep, so be ready for this. NEVER lose a bc.
When your second bc pops, it's time to all-in. Pull scvs, marines, tanks, bcs and hit the natural. Hard. Aim to have your siege mode complete as you arrive. Keep your bcs in front with scvs repairing. A lot of the time, you will enjoy a swift victory and a rage-quit from your opponent.
This is not a solid reactionary build. It is a one base all-in. I will only list what steps you need to take to stay alive from various things, but I will not cover everything, because it should be self explanatory(throw down a bunker, pull scvs to repair) Your hellions run into roaches If your hellions see roaches, immediately throw down 1-2 bunkers are your ramp and pull 6-8 scvs to repair. You should be fine, just don't let them bust your ramp or lings will stream in. 1 base baneling bust You should have scouted that he went 14/14 and has not expanded. Again, bunkers are good, hellions are good, and repair is good. It's even better if your reactor is inside your base. If not, you'll probably lose your reactor and a depot, and he will lose the game. If he 1 base baneling busts, do not carry on with this build. Instead, i would keep reactoring out hellions(probably 6), expand, and carry on standard. Just don't mine out of that second refinery for a bit.
This is a fun build. It can be pretty abusive, and shows that BATTLECRUISERs are actually pretty good and pretty hilarious. It's somewhat viable. I'm sure it can be easily countered, but I'm not going to talk about how, because then this build wouldn't be fun. Winning is fun. Having said that, I have yet to lose with it due to the generally confused zerg response and marine/tank/hellion/bc/scv all in. Replays follow.
Here are a few replays. They are not the most crisp execution possible. I have to sort through my games to find the rest, and will add more as I try it more! Enjoy.
This one is against a lower level, and more of just a demonstration of a poor reaction (died to the first BC)
This is just a more refined demo against AI. If you want more exact build orders, check here.
On February 06 2012 20:29 Mahtasooma wrote: Funny thing is: IdrA actually scouted this way WAY early and didn't react to it AT ALL. Like... not a single bit. I assume he assumed that the Terran would cancel his build because IdrA scouted it. But... well, he didn't.
He thought there wouldn't be any ground units with this all-in. You can tell because he made at least 9 queens, and almost no zerglings.
On February 06 2012 14:30 krooked wrote: I tried it close by air on meta. Won easily and I got a lot of hate from the opponent. I don't like to get yelled out so won't be using it much more
A lot of zergs just call out Terran for the hell of calling out Terran. It's gotten better recently, but just yesterday I got a game on ladder where the Zerg was hyper-aggressive, but never really droned a lot. So, I eventually managed to push with marine/tank and a metric ton of banked minerals.(I wasn't playing great at the time; I was just on a losing streak.) He BM'd me before quitting.
Note that this is on NA ladder, I would assume people are more BM here.
Zergs call out a Terran because we feel fragile, and we are fragile, in the matchup. Our marine-killing unit dies with the marines and costs gas. Terrans can build expansions in the safety of their base, then float out, drop mules, and have another marine army. Seige tanks can split bases, making it impossible to reinforce against an army that can't be whittled down, but needs to be overrun.
Terrans have 18 unit/building upgrades, zergs have 12. Two of those essentially give zergs a dropship. Terrans have more spells, more casters, more units, more upgrades.
Case in point? A battlecruiser. Take a standard play, add a battlecruiser, it works. Try the same with a zerg unit. Add two ultralisk into the mix, or two broodlords. It doesn't work. Zerg, for the most part, can't be cute. They have to play standard, they have to simply overpower you and choose where and when to engage.
At the highest levels, where everyone knows their timings, it pretty much works. But my point is, Terrans have a lot more options to subtly change their play, taking a standard composition and tweaking it, slightly, making it hugely more effective. Zergs just don't have that chance, not in the same way.
Not saying its unwinnable. But I think there's a problem when one race has 1/3 more options than another. It leads to a situation where the less diverse race just gets "figured out" and winning becomes much more difficult.
Baneling-queen-ling beats this. Throw some brofestors in also also why no have spores at front if you kill the scv you win, banes are also good vs marine.
I am loving this info! I know nothing of the tvt or tvp match up.
However, I wonder if it would be possible to drop the tanks, Get another star port, and use all the gas on just BC's, and just the extra min on marine and helion????
On February 06 2012 22:46 IOvEggY wrote: Baneling-queen-ling beats this. Throw some brofestors in also also why no have spores at front if you kill the scv you win, banes are also good vs marine.
This. Naama was just joking around with that build. I have no idea how idra managed to lose that game, i'm sure he would win if that happened again.
Back when they first buffed BC speed I would do a 2 BC all in on the PTR. It was 2 BCs plus marines and hellions and I think it hit around 10-10:30. It worked against the noobs but anyone smart enough to build ling bane just crushed it.
The third strong point is that you will be building up a marine/tank army on top of the battlecruisers. The zerg player will often prioritize the battlecruisers and just get rolled by your marine/tank push.
In my humble opinion. the above is not "the third strong point" - it is THE strong point. As I see it, the reason this build works is not that it is a "battlecruiser build" - the reason it works is that it's NOT a battle cruiser build, but rather a battlecruiser flavored 1-1-1-ish/multicomp build. The thing is that the BC presence and harass screws with the zerg mind enough to make them forego proper scouting and be defenseless against the marine/tank component of the push. It's like when someone (not that it ever happened to me *cough cough*) gets contained by hellions and forget (ie do not have multitasking/calm/presence of mind enough) to scout the T follow up and lose to banshees or marauders or tanks or whatever EVIL ways the T decided to go after hellions. The BC picture is too large in the mind of the zerg and other threats get dwarfed. Probably because the BC are less frequently seen.
Ah well something like that.
Disclaimer: Having said that, I guess people would lose to pure BCs too. TT
On February 06 2012 08:57 Wortie wrote: I serously don't want this to be popular, please remove this thread. I just watched the vod and it seems like another good terran all-in. My only thoughts are: I have to learn to deal with this shit too???
Here's the vod btw:
Lol i love your attitude man. Definitely terran has a lot of tricks. I guess you just have to deal with it and improve your game.
On February 07 2012 00:26 zasta wrote: Aahahahah brilliant! I'm so glad you warned me of this :D
If I ever scout a fusion core like that I'm going to be ready with neural parasite. Battlecruiser/ling/bling works quite well against marine tank.
I don't think you can get NP in time for 'dem BC's. Counter is stated earlier in the thread as ling/queen with optional bling.
ling/bling queen really isnt even an optimal "hard" counter. by that i mean itll come down to where your spores are, where the battlecruisers are, how well you micro, and if siege mode is done. at worst for terran they wont be able to keep thier scvs with their battlecruisers.
and infestors won't get out in time to do anything.
On February 06 2012 17:33 amostan wrote: Just wanna point out that Naama went gas first - fastest reactor helion. Nice post! Would love to try this out considering how much i dislike playing close air vs Zerg on Meta. Cheers!
yup, fast hellions are good too. I prefer rax first, the gas seems to line up better. Also you can build the rax at the cliff, lift it to the low ground and do some 1-2 marine bunker pressure. Every little thing counts. You want to be an annoying ass Terran. They defend the bunker pressure.. "what a relief." then your hellions go in and roast some shit. Then they see a battle cruiser and question your sanity.
On February 07 2012 00:26 zasta wrote: Aahahahah brilliant! I'm so glad you warned me of this :D
If I ever scout a fusion core like that I'm going to be ready with neural parasite. Battlecruiser/ling/bling works quite well against marine tank.
I don't think you can get NP in time for 'dem BC's. Counter is stated earlier in the thread as ling/queen with optional bling.
ling/bling queen really isnt even an optimal "hard" counter. by that i mean itll come down to where your spores are, where the battlecruisers are, how well you micro, and if siege mode is done. at worst for terran they wont be able to keep thier scvs with their battlecruisers.
and infestors won't get out in time to do anything.
Incorrect. The Terran ground army isn't big enough to deal with mass ling bling. The ground army just gets crushed and then all the zerg needs is queens and spores to defend while he counters. This isn't a viable build at the master league level.
IMO a 2 BC all in is more viable against Protoss, although still easily countered if the Protoss player knows what he's doing.
On February 07 2012 00:26 zasta wrote: Aahahahah brilliant! I'm so glad you warned me of this :D
If I ever scout a fusion core like that I'm going to be ready with neural parasite. Battlecruiser/ling/bling works quite well against marine tank.
I don't think you can get NP in time for 'dem BC's. Counter is stated earlier in the thread as ling/queen with optional bling.
ling/bling queen really isnt even an optimal "hard" counter. by that i mean itll come down to where your spores are, where the battlecruisers are, how well you micro, and if siege mode is done. at worst for terran they wont be able to keep thier scvs with their battlecruisers.
and infestors won't get out in time to do anything.
Incorrect. The Terran ground army isn't big enough to deal with mass ling bling. The ground army just gets crushed and then all the zerg needs is queens and spores to defend while he counters. This isn't a viable build at the master league level.
IMO a 2 BC all in is more viable against Protoss, although still easily countered if the Protoss player knows what he's doing.
idk, stalkers do alright against battle cruisers. And the toss should never lose a stalker. When it's health gets low, it can just run away. Battle cruisers can't exactly chase them down. Maybe with smart positioning(tanks protecting bcs from stalkers) it could work, but I don't really see it.
This sounded so good in theory but in practice it did not work at all. People in Platinum counters this perfectly, first they mass queens, they mass expand and go mass corruptor/queen ling/bling and then corrupter/broodlord.
Sometimes I am surprised that you can get away with so much stuff at master level that you immediately are punished for at lower levels. Or maybe you need really good micro to pull this off.