On April 09 2012 07:19 Durp wrote: I've never had a problem with battlecruiser play, since warpgate allows me to trade my entire gateway force for the bio force, then rewarp in a round of stalkers to mop up the battlecruisers. A battlecruiser or two left over doesn't really do anything, since BC play transitions well into a pure gateway army for the protoss, as HT/stalker can be used to deal with BCs, and warpgate mechanics with blink micro can allow the toss to clean up the remaining BCs before a sizeable reinforcement terran army can catch up to the battle. Your BCs don't have upgrades, and by this point, a protoss should be able to warp in enough stalkers to oneshot a (presumably) wounded BC.Then a simple blink retreat home to your remade army follows. In short, does BC play ever win when you trade armies? Or do you have to win the first battle to win this?
Also I imagine warp prism play would be exceptionally difficult to deal with, since the meat of your army is exceptionally slow, and you do not have fast and convenient reactored starports for viking production needed to control the areas around your base. (not to mention how minimal an investment this would be for protoss)
Since this OP was intended as a discussion, I'd love to know what terrans think the viability of a 'nuke-push' is. In late game TvP, you have tons of gas banking anyways, so the gas investment into nukes is not too devastating for you. Also, between the range of snipe and vikings, it would be very hard to blink in to kill a cloaked ghost when there are 5-6 ghosts and a bio force behind him. I've always found fighting terrans has relied on position, especially in the late game. Due to the power of the colossus and storm, it's usually the protoss who decides the location of the battle (when they pop their guardian shield and attack) since a waste of sentry energy is much less devastating than an overzealous stim. I'd love to know if this has been tried, or is viable. As a protoss, it seems pretty scary for me. Losing your obs to a scan+vikings when trying to spot ghosts can end a game for a P, and babysitting an observer can allow an aggressive ghost push pretty much right to the toss base(you can establish a pretty good concave behind your nuking ghost). Also in the lategame nuking two places at once vs Protoss is pretty rough.
Would love to hear thoughts
Just a quick note on this. The BCs will have upgrades, as you have to upgrade vikings. Its one of the reasons for BCs over Mech units.
I meant armor upgrades to effect the amount of stalker hits. I don't think I've ever seen air armor upgraded in a TvP
It is important to note though that BCs with no armor upgrades still have 3 armor, so even without the armor upgrades it still does decent.
Well if you're going to get BC's, there's little reason not to throw down a second armory and get the armory. The difference from 3 to 6 is double dmg reduced...
I completely agree that you want the armor upgrades, but I don't think the timing requires a double armory. You probably don't want to be trying to squeeze out double infantry and double air upgrades at the same time as that is just sooo expensive. You will have been working on your air attack anyways form a single armory, for your vikings and it should hit 3 not too long after your infantry hits 33. This is about the stage when you will be starting to get your BCs out, and because of their starting armor they will not die super quickly anyways even with 0 on their armor upgrades. It should be fine to start the armor upgrades at this point from the same armory that you just finished their attack upgrades with.
If you can find some way to squeeze in a double armory so that when you transition to BCs they will come out with 3, 3, I mean sure thats awesome. But you will need a huge economy to do that, and it will impact your army size throughout the game.
On April 09 2012 07:19 Durp wrote: I've never had a problem with battlecruiser play, since warpgate allows me to trade my entire gateway force for the bio force, then rewarp in a round of stalkers to mop up the battlecruisers. A battlecruiser or two left over doesn't really do anything, since BC play transitions well into a pure gateway army for the protoss, as HT/stalker can be used to deal with BCs, and warpgate mechanics with blink micro can allow the toss to clean up the remaining BCs before a sizeable reinforcement terran army can catch up to the battle. Your BCs don't have upgrades, and by this point, a protoss should be able to warp in enough stalkers to oneshot a (presumably) wounded BC.Then a simple blink retreat home to your remade army follows. In short, does BC play ever win when you trade armies? Or do you have to win the first battle to win this?
Also I imagine warp prism play would be exceptionally difficult to deal with, since the meat of your army is exceptionally slow, and you do not have fast and convenient reactored starports for viking production needed to control the areas around your base. (not to mention how minimal an investment this would be for protoss)
Since this OP was intended as a discussion, I'd love to know what terrans think the viability of a 'nuke-push' is. In late game TvP, you have tons of gas banking anyways, so the gas investment into nukes is not too devastating for you. Also, between the range of snipe and vikings, it would be very hard to blink in to kill a cloaked ghost when there are 5-6 ghosts and a bio force behind him. I've always found fighting terrans has relied on position, especially in the late game. Due to the power of the colossus and storm, it's usually the protoss who decides the location of the battle (when they pop their guardian shield and attack) since a waste of sentry energy is much less devastating than an overzealous stim. I'd love to know if this has been tried, or is viable. As a protoss, it seems pretty scary for me. Losing your obs to a scan+vikings when trying to spot ghosts can end a game for a P, and babysitting an observer can allow an aggressive ghost push pretty much right to the toss base(you can establish a pretty good concave behind your nuking ghost). Also in the lategame nuking two places at once vs Protoss is pretty rough.
Would love to hear thoughts
Just a quick note on this. The BCs will have upgrades, as you have to upgrade vikings. Its one of the reasons for BCs over Mech units.
I meant armor upgrades to effect the amount of stalker hits. I don't think I've ever seen air armor upgraded in a TvP
It is important to note though that BCs with no armor upgrades still have 3 armor, so even without the armor upgrades it still does decent.
Well if you're going to get BC's, there's little reason not to throw down a second armory and get the armory. The difference from 3 to 6 is double dmg reduced...
I completely agree that you want the armor upgrades, but I don't think the timing requires a double armory. You probably don't want to be trying to squeeze out double infantry and double air upgrades at the same time as that is just sooo expensive. You will have been working on your air attack anyways form a single armory, for your vikings and it should hit 3 not too long after your infantry hits 33. This is about the stage when you will be starting to get your BCs out, and because of their starting armor they will not die super quickly anyways even with 0 on their armor upgrades. It should be fine to start the armor upgrades at this point from the same armory that you just finished their attack upgrades with.
If you can find some way to squeeze in a double armory so that when you transition to BCs they will come out with 3, 3, I mean sure thats awesome. But you will need a huge economy to do that, and it will impact your army size throughout the game.
You would have 3-3 infantry upgrades done at least 5 minutes before you'd even think of transitioning to BC's. At least. Air upgrades will already be at 1-0 or 2-0 depending on your style, at this point you drop down an armory and get dual air ups.
On April 09 2012 07:19 Durp wrote: I've never had a problem with battlecruiser play, since warpgate allows me to trade my entire gateway force for the bio force, then rewarp in a round of stalkers to mop up the battlecruisers. A battlecruiser or two left over doesn't really do anything, since BC play transitions well into a pure gateway army for the protoss, as HT/stalker can be used to deal with BCs, and warpgate mechanics with blink micro can allow the toss to clean up the remaining BCs before a sizeable reinforcement terran army can catch up to the battle. Your BCs don't have upgrades, and by this point, a protoss should be able to warp in enough stalkers to oneshot a (presumably) wounded BC.Then a simple blink retreat home to your remade army follows. In short, does BC play ever win when you trade armies? Or do you have to win the first battle to win this?
Also I imagine warp prism play would be exceptionally difficult to deal with, since the meat of your army is exceptionally slow, and you do not have fast and convenient reactored starports for viking production needed to control the areas around your base. (not to mention how minimal an investment this would be for protoss)
Since this OP was intended as a discussion, I'd love to know what terrans think the viability of a 'nuke-push' is. In late game TvP, you have tons of gas banking anyways, so the gas investment into nukes is not too devastating for you. Also, between the range of snipe and vikings, it would be very hard to blink in to kill a cloaked ghost when there are 5-6 ghosts and a bio force behind him. I've always found fighting terrans has relied on position, especially in the late game. Due to the power of the colossus and storm, it's usually the protoss who decides the location of the battle (when they pop their guardian shield and attack) since a waste of sentry energy is much less devastating than an overzealous stim. I'd love to know if this has been tried, or is viable. As a protoss, it seems pretty scary for me. Losing your obs to a scan+vikings when trying to spot ghosts can end a game for a P, and babysitting an observer can allow an aggressive ghost push pretty much right to the toss base(you can establish a pretty good concave behind your nuking ghost). Also in the lategame nuking two places at once vs Protoss is pretty rough.
Would love to hear thoughts
Just a quick note on this. The BCs will have upgrades, as you have to upgrade vikings. Its one of the reasons for BCs over Mech units.
I meant armor upgrades to effect the amount of stalker hits. I don't think I've ever seen air armor upgraded in a TvP
It is important to note though that BCs with no armor upgrades still have 3 armor, so even without the armor upgrades it still does decent.
Well if you're going to get BC's, there's little reason not to throw down a second armory and get the armory. The difference from 3 to 6 is double dmg reduced...
I completely agree that you want the armor upgrades, but I don't think the timing requires a double armory. You probably don't want to be trying to squeeze out double infantry and double air upgrades at the same time as that is just sooo expensive. You will have been working on your air attack anyways form a single armory, for your vikings and it should hit 3 not too long after your infantry hits 33. This is about the stage when you will be starting to get your BCs out, and because of their starting armor they will not die super quickly anyways even with 0 on their armor upgrades. It should be fine to start the armor upgrades at this point from the same armory that you just finished their attack upgrades with.
If you can find some way to squeeze in a double armory so that when you transition to BCs they will come out with 3, 3, I mean sure thats awesome. But you will need a huge economy to do that, and it will impact your army size throughout the game.
You would have 3-3 infantry upgrades done at least 5 minutes before you'd even think of transitioning to BC's. At least. Air upgrades will already be at 1-0 or 2-0 depending on your style, at this point you drop down an armory and get dual air ups.
Yeah, i could get on board with that, makes sense. Just a side note as well, once 3 3 is done for your infantry, don't forget the building armor upgrade from your e-bay. Its cheap and is soo helpful, especially if you have any planetaries kicking around, you might also want to consider hi sec auto tracking if you have a bunch of pfs. Helps alot on some maps where there is just a bit of room behind the minerals where an opponent could stick some units to prevent mining.
Is there a solid answer why do you choose BC instead of Thors?
Both have energy which can be feedbacked(?) or emp'ed but Thor can tank the most problematic chargelots while BC can't. I think having 3-4 thor in front of your army when zealots arrive both limits the surface area of zealots and reduce the storm area. Considering all T. units are ranged, damage is not reduced at all and give you some reaction time to land some EMP's or snipes.
As mentioned by someone when ground army is cleared by storms an collosi, there is nothing BC's can do to stop the next warp-ins.
On April 10 2012 18:00 Laserist wrote: Is there a solid answer why do you choose BC instead of Thors?
Both have energy which can be feedbacked(?) or emp'ed but Thor can tank the most problematic chargelots while BC can't. I think having 3-4 thor in front of your army when zealots arrive both limits the surface area of zealots and reduce the storm area. Considering all T. units are ranged, damage is not reduced at all and give you some reaction time to land some EMP's or snipes.
As mentioned by someone when ground army is cleared by storms an collosi, there is nothing BC's can do to stop the next warp-ins.
BC's are significantly better, due to their mobility, high DPS, and the fact they CAN'T be attacked by chargelots (or colossi, mind you). Both are fairly resistant to storms, so it leaves the only actual unit that kills the BC to be archons or stalkers. Forcing stalkers is awesome. Thors don't force stalkers. Archons are only mediocre vs BC's, and can be Yamatoed too. BC's may also force void rays since stalker/archon blows vs it. Just have to avoid feedback, or if you don't want to deal with it just EMP your own. BCs are strong and can go sniping base to base. Thors can't, at all.... Thors are absolutely awful from personal experience, I tried to make them work a while ago and never could, even pumping out from 3 facts and getting armor ups.
Sorry, but i feel this is just a useless discussion.
If the game has been going evenly and both players are not playing passive or macroing bad (should stay low gas / minerals) the transition to BCs will cost you the game. 1 Battlecruiser costs almost as much as 2 !!! command centers. The first battlecruiser (if you want to keep a starport with reactor) Costs you 850/600 recources without upgrades.
If your behind, Battlecruisers will lose you the game.
The only way bcs wont cost you the game is if your significantly ahead, even then i feel its a risk.
If you really want some lategame air thing do something like lategame banshees - especially if you opened with cloak they just seem so much better. They have cloak (wich can really annoy if you dont have a lot of observers), theyr faster and they dont need armor upgrades to work.
Thors are terrible, sure you can debate wether they tank the damage well or not but even if they helped against a standard protoss composition, what do you do if your opponent scouts it and makes 3 immortals? + the points people made above
The point is not that bc's tank/ deal damage, it's the simple fact that they are slow. It doesnt matter what their role is if they arent at the fight. I see a bc, I won't care. I see many bc, I go to the other side of the map and trash an expansion. You will have to defend with a bc-less bio force that is smaller than a normal bio composition. You'll have 5bc on the other side as opposed to maybe 20 more bio units engaging me. At that point I'll pretty much murder you unless you actually have mkp bio micro. I'll have about 140 supply of 3/3 toss murderball with potential for about 40 supply more warp in. You'll be engaging with 100 supply of bio that i will kill in literally 4 seconds. I'll just continue to avoid your bc's until you try to push. In that case, lll try to defend a d we'll see what happens- still storms don't discriminate, bc don't dodge, and I kind I like my chances with a base race. Otherwise, I'll just starve you to death.
On April 10 2012 18:24 weikor wrote: Sorry, but i feel this is just a useless discussion.
If the game has been going evenly and both players are not playing passive or macroing bad (should stay low gas / minerals) the transition to BCs will cost you the game. 1 Battlecruiser costs almost as much as 2 !!! command centers. The first battlecruiser (if you want to keep a starport with reactor) Costs you 850/600 recources without upgrades.
If your behind, Battlecruisers will lose you the game.
The only way bcs wont cost you the game is if your significantly ahead, even then i feel its a risk.
If you really want some lategame air thing do something like lategame banshees - especially if you opened with cloak they just seem so much better. They have cloak (wich can really annoy if you dont have a lot of observers), theyr faster and they dont need armor upgrades to work.
Thors are terrible, sure you can debate wether they tank the damage well or not but even if they helped against a standard protoss composition, what do you do if your opponent scouts it and makes 3 immortals? + the points people made above
The game plays passive all the time, even at the highest level. In every matchup the game can become passive. That's a silly notion, really.
On April 10 2012 22:35 ticklishmusic wrote: The point is not that bc's tank/ deal damage, it's the simple fact that they are slow. It doesnt matter what their role is if they arent at the fight. I see a bc, I won't care. I see many bc, I go to the other side of the map and trash an expansion. You will have to defend with a bc-less bio force that is smaller than a normal bio composition. You'll have 5bc on the other side as opposed to maybe 20 more bio units engaging me. At that point I'll pretty much murder you unless you actually have mkp bio micro. I'll have about 140 supply of 3/3 toss murderball with potential for about 40 supply more warp in. You'll be engaging with 100 supply of bio that i will kill in literally 4 seconds. I'll just continue to avoid your bc's until you try to push. In that case, lll try to defend a d we'll see what happens- still storms don't discriminate, bc don't dodge, and I kind I like my chances with a base race. Otherwise, I'll just starve you to death.
How is that any different than a Terran MMM player saying he'll run around your deathball infinitely and drop you to death if you move out? You make it sound like it's impossible to defend. BC's aren't that slow, they're flying and received a speed buff a few patches ago. They can keep up easily.
That's also like saying you can just go around a BL army. Guess what, if you ignore the BL army, you're going to die. You can use little splinter tactics to take out expansions and such and do dmg then eventually engage the BL army, but you have to engage it regardless.
Since im pretty sure whoever that guy was isnt actually going to post lastshodows VODs can anyone point me in the right direction? Sounds pretty interesting (not as interesting as seeing him punched by desrow mind you ).
Another way to play lategame TvP is too just not let them sit comfy on 4bases and use drops and nukes to get them out of position, ofc BC's are just too cool to not get them ^_^
On April 11 2012 00:54 Squigly wrote: Since im pretty sure whoever that guy was isnt actually going to post lastshodows VODs can anyone point me in the right direction? Sounds pretty interesting (not as interesting as seeing him punched by desrow mind you ).
P.S. But, seriously, google next time :D 'last shadow sc2' --> 3rd or 4th link is liquipedia (http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/LastShadow) here're all necessary links
On April 10 2012 22:35 ticklishmusic wrote: The point is not that bc's tank/ deal damage, it's the simple fact that they are slow. It doesnt matter what their role is if they arent at the fight. I see a bc, I won't care. I see many bc, I go to the other side of the map and trash an expansion. You will have to defend with a bc-less bio force that is smaller than a normal bio composition. You'll have 5bc on the other side as opposed to maybe 20 more bio units engaging me. At that point I'll pretty much murder you unless you actually have mkp bio micro. I'll have about 140 supply of 3/3 toss murderball with potential for about 40 supply more warp in. You'll be engaging with 100 supply of bio that i will kill in literally 4 seconds. I'll just continue to avoid your bc's until you try to push. In that case, lll try to defend a d we'll see what happens- still storms don't discriminate, bc don't dodge, and I kind I like my chances with a base race. Otherwise, I'll just starve you to death.
I dunno what you're talking about, but this is just incorrect if you execute a proper transition to BCs.
I'm not gonna write specific build orders, since it is mainly a thing of mid-game transition, but in genereal, it's like this: 1) Play bio-centered macro-style, until around 120 supply. 1.5) Get bio upgrades to no higher than 2/2! perferably even 2/1. 2) From that point, start building a PF wall, trying to devide the map, and turtle on 3/4 expansions*. At the same time, start double Air upgrades, and build starports up to 5/6 (in super-lategame, they can be doubled). One reactored, rest tech-labbed. 3) While your bio force defends your half of the map, and a few ghost/nuke drops keep the toss occupied on their side of the map and prevent getting more expansions than you, 4) Start building 4 BCs/1 Raven bunches. 5) Once you have 12 BC+3Ravens, push into his main (perferably through the unwalkable side of the map, if there is any).
Yomato counters Archons/Void Rays, and if you see earlier that he has too many templars, you need to: a) Get 2 dropships full of ghosts with your BC army b) Expand all the yamato cannon before templars can feedback you, perferably on the templars themselves, to save the ravens. If he has lots of 3/3 stalkers, well, that's what the Ravens are there for - drop 2/3 PPDs above the bunch of building you want to kill, and his stalker army wont be able to do much to you.
*If a toss pushes into a PF wall, you should easily make it a very cost inefficient trade, if you don't forget your vikings and a few repairing SCVs.
I was trying to incorporate BCs in lategame but as someone said before i usually died while making them (90 sec buildtime T_T). Then i switched and started playing mass air which works very well ~70%winrate (~25master). However I sometimes lose because i transition into mass BCs; even having 16-20 3/3 BC I can die to a stalker warping. Thta's why I try to stay more on the banshee viking-obs-killing method. Looks again like the proper way to pull out BCs is to turtle like several ppl already had said.
Latelty I was wondering if one can play mmm + tanks vs toss or banshees instead of vikings. There was a guide somewhere around here on terran deathball but it was impossibly hard to play requiring even more micro then mmm+g+v. So the solution could be just mmm + g + banshee + a few vikings.
Nice guide! I find that many Terrans overlook the necessity of paying attention to unit compositions in the lategame! Z is not the only race that must be reactionary at times. I just watched HerO's stream and he lost an incredibly well fought PvT mostly because of composition switches. Hero countered a MMM army with Colloss, which died to vikings, after the trade the Terran anticipated HT's coming out, and was able to barely eek out a win with some clutch EMP's and good positioning. This was despite HerO's insane harassment level of over 9000 harassment
On April 20 2012 21:46 tdt.Baki wrote: There was a guide somewhere around here on terran deathball but it was impossibly hard to play requiring even more micro then mmm+g+v.
You might mean the Hammer 1/1/1 expand? The thread got locked, and as I see now, deleted.
Here are the some links though:
You can definitely play it in practice, and most likely slightly improve the build.
On April 20 2012 21:46 tdt.Baki wrote: There was a guide somewhere around here on terran deathball but it was impossibly hard to play requiring even more micro then mmm+g+v.
You might mean the Hammer 1/1/1 expand? The thread got locked, and as I see now, deleted.
This style (I watched avilo's video and I'm more based on that than the OP) is the exact analog to Zerg's roach/infestor transition into broodlords, which works very well and is the de facto strategy for late game ZvP right now.
You pretty much have all the same concepts in place:
1. Macro play until mid game with massive amount of low tier units
Zerg: classic roach hydra or just roaches Terran: classic MMM viking
2. Start trading low tier supply for tier 3 stuff
For that you'll need to hold the shitstorm of mass warp-ins. So you'll need to have:
2a. Static defense
Zerg: spines Terran: PFs, turrets
2b. Tier 2 tech to help with AoE and to actually be cost-effective
Zerg: Infestors Terran: Ghosts with nukes
3. Get the actual tier 3 tech
Zerg: Broodlords Terran: BCs
For those pointing out that BCs are slow, you lose map presence, etc, these are not goals in this style in the first place. I read a few people also imagine there would be too few BCs, which clearly shows he didn't understand the strategy at all.
4. Avoid mothership
This one is exactly the same goal as Zerg and Terran. You cannot afford to get caught in a vortex.
5. Work your way to win the game
This again is exactly the same overall mindset for both races.
5a. Opponent aware of his role and having a good composition of their own and good positioning: choose your best ground for fights, snipe bases, force good trades for you with multitasking (terran drops, zerg run-by's, etc).
5b. Straight steamroll your opponent with a good timing.
Tier 3 tech for both races allow for that, being both good siege units and high dps'ers. They are slow, so map presence isn't quite their strong points, but yes, they can be used for timing attacks with element of surprise or you can work your way into favorable positions if that's not the case, which then it will boil down to who is the best player and makes better decisions.
Of course they being very distinct races, there are counter-balancing points.
Terran has an immense defensive arsenal that is much stronger than Zerg's, which leads to a much more passive play (in my mind it reads: boring games, but nukes can obviously be entertaining), and reminds me actually of TvT, where you have to be extremely patient.
Zerg on the other hand is much more dynamic (also thinking of nydus, ling speed, burrow mechanics). They also have the strongest tech switch of the game I think, so they should exploit that.
While this strategy looks awesome to me as a player, as a spectator I really hate the trend towards passiveness.
In Avilo's video, he says he ideally would trade all of his army to BCs + ghosts, which I don't think is the ideal actually.
For a player with much better mechanics (now I'm talking S-class Terran level), he would aim to have less and less static defense to get away with while transitioning to BCs and that pretty much resembles what Zergs need to do with their own units, the decisions they have to make about composition, positioning, trading, etc. So it would require the Terran player to be that dynamic too, which is awesome to watch too (imagine Terrans relying solely on nukes for defending the mass warp-in, for example, placing them perfectly each time. Or rather counter-pressuring with multiples nukes to make Protoss retreat, while expanding behind it and massing more and more BCs, which is feasible for a S-class player).
This I think enriches a hell of a lot the TvP matchup.
This depends much on maps though, so it will be a floating balance that players will have to think of all the time.
EPT
).
