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I like the idea. I had a similar idea a few months ago using banshees Banshees vs Vikings Comparison. I think if you do the BC transition too early, as others have said, you run the risk of being run over. Perhaps start BC's once you are maxed (16-20 min mark).
Personally, I think using a degree of Sky Terran can be very powerful against Toss. What most people don't seem to understand is that when you have a strong air presence the protoss needs to react to your build instead of the other way around. Zealots, forcefields, immortal, and colossus are relatively useless vs air..and these are the units that are strongest vs bio.
Although I mentioned waiting until you are maxed, I encourage you to try before-hand as well. A maxed bio army with 4 BC's could be quite potent. And don't listen to these guys who think that the lack of a strategy at the pro level indicates its inferiority....such an attitude prohibits innovation. If you are more interested in Sky Terran I recommend Synystyr's Guide and Yoshi's Guide. Good Luck.
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Nope, it requires a fusion core as well as being inferior when it comes to actually killing the colossi.
BCs are good in the hyper late-game against Protoss for different reasons, but vikings > BCs in the mid-game and "early" late-game, both for aggression and defense.
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I don't know how cost efficient it would be. Feedback and a quick blink would murder BCs and they are also very slow.
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BC's can only work in the extreme lategame, and to safely transition into them you must have the support of 5+ mining bases (2-3 of which are planetaries), additional orbitals 15-20+ ghosts, and mass vikings. If it reaches this point toss can have just as many carriers and a mothership.
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I think the way to use BC is definitly with ghosts. You almost need to base your entire game plan around EMP for it to work.
Think about it, every counter that protoss has for BC fares REALLY badly vs EMP.
HT (needs energy) / archon (350s/10hp) / stalker (80s/80hp)
you can wipe out most of the problems with EMP carpet bombs.
if they are zealot heavy kite with marauders and lets the BCs do their damage.
I think the main fact is that there is no place for marines in the terran late game. Colossus and storm annihilate them so fast, I think late game terrans should be replacing them with 'something' more durable.
I think it was Byun vs Rain where Byun was sacrificing marines and replacing them with ghosts to some success.
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I watched incontrols stream yesterday and he played a terran that did go BCs in the very late-game (daybreak split in half, 5 bases each etc). It looked like he (wisely) didn't want to engage the P bio slaying ball, so he threw down about 6 starports and massed BC behind PFs in the middle. The BCs did very well until they died because of the broken late game warpgate mechanic- P remaxed with blink stalkers in seconds with the absolute absurd amount of ready warpgates. As incontrol said himself, at that stage you're basically facing a 600 pop protoss army. So yeah. No.
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Hey jinx, solid theory, but I think it doesn't hold up for several reasons.
Its no so much the cost of teching to BCs that is the problem, its the timings. A healthy protoss macro will have both collossus and high templar at some time between 12-15 minutes, or about two minutes or so after they finish their third base. The fastest you could get a BC without delaying MMM upgrades and tech would be probably somewhere around 13.5-15 minutes, which means as you get your first BC protoss would probably have mixed tech at this time.
The mid game in TvP is easily the hardest part of TvP for terran, because terran tech actually developers slower then protoss tech because of how much terran must commit to MMM in the early game in order to survive, and also put some kind of halt to protoss expansions between 10-13 minutes. At ten minutes pretty much any terran build is going to have you just getting medivacs and finishing crucial bio upgrades, while a collossus or a high templar is not far off for protoss. If you have an under teched bio force and protoss hits a strong two base collossus timing or archon/zealot timing you are just screwed if you don't have vikings or ghosts in your composition.
Protoss will start to hit their first max at about 16 minutes and this is with mixed tech and 3/3. if terran doesn't have a compositions that can deal with both templar and collossus cost effectively then terran is in a lot of trouble at that point. I think even if you skipped ghost tech entirely and stopped medivacs and three and went straight into bcs, you would be lucky to get more then two or three by that time. This leaves you very open to just getting run over by a protoss death ball. You are certainly going to have a difficult time holding a third base none the less taking a 4th.
It is for this reason that I think you don't often see BCs in TVP, is not that they aren't cost efficient against gateway/robo armies, its that there is a gigantic timing window where terran has essentially nothing while they are making the transition into them. It makes much more sense for terran to get vikings and ghost, and then late game substitute less and less marines in their armies for more and more vikings, mauraders, and ghosts with planetaries to help with positioning. I think ghost/viking/maurader super maxes for terran are just as cost efficient and much safer and easier transitions for the late game. I recommend you watch Byun and his series with Rain and Genuis if you want to learn more about "standard TvP". His late game transition into mass ghosts was/is very strong, and in my opinion the future of the matchup.
That being said, I have seen players who have put a lot of effort into going BCs versus protoss. I recommend you check out this mans stream: http://www.twitch.tv/crazystupid0/b/259143679. He is a high masters player who, at least at one time, used to go BCs versus protoss every game (I think it was him anyway!). He is a good guy and I am sure he would be happy to talk to you about it if you asked him.
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You could also check out the GSL finals for... Was it last season? Or the season before that?
Mvp vs squirtle, on metropolis. A good showcase of BC in tvp, and also and insanely epic game
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On September 21 2012 04:54 ButtCraft wrote:Show nested quote +On September 21 2012 04:44 jinx1281255 wrote:On September 21 2012 04:32 ButtCraft wrote:
BC's fail to see any use in high level play because they are just a completely slow, expensive, useless, garbage unit with questionable dps and terrible range. This is not constructive and is unsubstantiated. Don't bother posting useless opinions unless you wish to specify a particular situation in which these apply. DPS is not the issue, it is the ability for the BCs to tank for the bio army (which has excessive DPS). Range can be a problem, situationally, the BC is for main engagments, not for rapid base defense. Though, I do agree that their ability to retreat is a problem in many maps. I'm just giving you my opinion. I'm high masters terran and I think BC's are useless in TvP. What damage is it going to tank? STALKERS? The real damage dealers in TvP are a combination of collosi, storm, and chargelots. BC's cannot tank damage from these units. There's a reason you don't see them in high level play.
All hail the 'high' masters terran opinions! GSl finals means nothing.
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If the game ever becomes a turtle game where the Protoss can't commit to an attack into your Planetary and MMMGV, then you can slowly transition into BCs, though it hasn't been tested enough to say if it's better than the standard Terran army yet.
However, directly going for BCs can pretty much put you behind vs every Protoss build. The various warp gate timings, fast 3rd, Colo timings, etc. You just won't have any decent army to survive or you'll be behind Protoss in economy.
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In mvp vs squirtle game on metalopolis mvp went bcs late game he didn't go mid game. It works then sometimes.
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I like the idea or I tried something similar lately. However I'm just Silver and just beat a Gold player with it, so this might not work too far up the ranks. Still someone may want to try it my way.
What I do is a 1Rax gasless FE into 3Rax (1TL, 2naked) with Ghost Academy at first and producing only Ghosts and Marines. The reasons being: Ghosts with EMP are great against early Gateway armies (Zealot/Stalker/Sentry) denying FFs and having a nice splash, when Protoss has none (yet), and have a chance to reveal cloaked units (against DT rushes). Marines are quite good against all Gateway units, while Marauders mainly just against the Stalkers. Marauders also take away gas that you need for Ghosts and the later transition into BCs. I don't get a lot of Bio Upgrades aswell at first, because it takes so much gas (maybe Combat Shield, but that's it). For defense I rely on Bunkers to prolong the lifespan of Marines. I even go poking his front a bit with the Marine/Ghost mix, partly to scare him, partly to get rid of some Gateway units and delay his maxing out.
Then I add Factory and Starport (naked) to get a few Medivacs out to further help Bio. This will also lead the Protoss to think I'm going the usual Bio Style, just with early Ghosts.
Around the time of taking a 3rd I put up some Turrets to deny Observers and start adding Starports and a FusionCore while building TLs with the Factory. When possible, adding Armories to research air upgrades (armor first to make BCs even beefier).
I produce a few Ravens and then BCs as fast as possible. Marines are the mineral sink and Ghosts are reproduced when lost.
Somewhat later I start adding more Raxes (to get rid of Minerals and to have a fast panic Marine Production, if something goes wrong) and more CCs (to get more bases and/or to be able to sack SCVs).
The point of this: Pretending to go bio to have Protoss go Colossi/Gateway. As soon as he scouts BC tech, he's probably going Stalker heavy, because it's the fastest way for him to get anti-air. Raven PDDs will help against those a lot. Ghosts are used to get rid of possible HTs and apart from that to soften up the Stalkers with EMP.
In the 200/200 battle against the before mentioned Gold Protoss he attacked into my pre-planted PDDs, didn't have enough Stalkers to even have a remote chance to shoot down my BCs and ate quite a bunch of EMPs at the start. He clearly wiped my groundforce (Ghosts and Marines), but that was expected, leaving all his Zealots and Colossi as fodder for the BCs after all the Stalkers were gone. Additional warp-in of Stalkers ran into some new PDDs again, so the BCs had no problem. He gg'ed out. 
Again, there are probably some flaws. This may not work at near-pro-level. However it has some potential still imo, because I know my mechanics are bad and I could still get away with it very nicely. Better players could certainly get much more out of the idea than I can.
The downside is the transitioning phase (Bio -> Air), but transitions are always hard to do.
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From playing in teamgames with friends, 5 HT's feedbacking and then storming BC's screws them over so much, they are far too slow to move out of storm, no real energy dump before feedbacks land, can't imagine this would work in 1v1 when high energy HT's are so popular in the matchup.
Not to mention if you blanket storm under the BC's then the bio is going to back off, allowing the protoss to freely kill very expensive BC's.
Have to agree with the people thinking that this isn't a good idea...
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On September 21 2012 18:30 virtu wrote:
From playing in teamgames with friends, 5 HT's feedbacking and then storming BC's screws them over so much, they are far too slow to move out of storm, no real energy dump before feedbacks land, can't imagine this would work in 1v1 when high energy HT's are so popular in the matchup.
Not to mention if you blanket storm under the BC's then the bio is going to back off, allowing the protoss to freely kill very expensive BC's.
Have to agree with the people thinking that this isn't a good idea...
You're right, feedback has always been a pain for any energy unit (also a reason why Thors are crap in TvP). You have to EMP/Snipe the HTs before they can feedback all your BCs. That's also a nice thing about having Ghosts that early.
However so many HTs are gas expensive and after feedback you still need anti-air units to take the BCs down completely. With PDDs set, Stalkers will still have a hard time to do so. PDDs can be feedbacked too, but are much harder to hit than the bulky BCs.
I guess Protoss will have to deal with this more like with Zerg Lategame armies... Mothership and Archon toilet. Although EMPs can deny this aswell.
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i seen this style played yesterday night on incontrol's stream.
It didn't work, but Incontrol was commenting it was pretty good, if only he did repair the BCs, because at that point, the protoss could remax instantly, and the terran couldn't. He was pointing out that so late in the game, the protoss has banked so many minerals, the terran goes against a 600/200 army in waves, due to insta remax, which the terran can't do.
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BCs don't have the synergy with bio. Bio needs to kite chargelots and BCs can't kite and die to stalkers. If you don't kite chargelots, your bio dies. If someone has a high level VOD with bio+bc in tvp i'm interested to see it.
edit: btw what do you mean with
On September 21 2012 04:06 jinx1281255 wrote:
Even if templar use feedback, it doesn't really hurt them substantually if properly upgraded
Properly upgraded like energy upgrade not researched?
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On September 21 2012 18:45 BurningRanger wrote:Show nested quote +On September 21 2012 18:30 virtu wrote:
From playing in teamgames with friends, 5 HT's feedbacking and then storming BC's screws them over so much, they are far too slow to move out of storm, no real energy dump before feedbacks land, can't imagine this would work in 1v1 when high energy HT's are so popular in the matchup.
Not to mention if you blanket storm under the BC's then the bio is going to back off, allowing the protoss to freely kill very expensive BC's.
Have to agree with the people thinking that this isn't a good idea... You're right, feedback has always been a pain for any energy unit (also a reason why Thors are crap in TvP). You have to EMP/Snipe the HTs before they can feedback all your BCs. That's also a nice thing about having Ghosts that early. However so many HTs are gas expensive and after feedback you still need anti-air units to take the BCs down completely. With PDDs set, Stalkers will still have a hard time to do so. PDDs can be feedbacked too, but are much harder to hit than the bulky BCs. I guess Protoss will have to deal with this more like with Zerg Lategame armies... Mothership and Archon toilet. Although EMPs can deny this aswell.
Indeed, as the broodlord/infestor PvZ metagame displays, protoss have a hard time dealing with bulky tier 3 air units with decent supporting units, however unlike PvZ where not only do the infestors literally stop the protoss army from advancing in its tracks (fungal), but the broodlings from the broodlords themselves provide a barrier stopping the P army from advancing, a Terran doesn't have these tools available, infact it's quite the other way around.
It seems to be getting harder and harder for ghosts to land those "money" emp's, and whilst you're correct about it costing quite a bit of gas for a decent number of HT's, by the time a terran can get to a decent number of battlecruisers it's more than plausible that protoss can have 6-8 full energy HT's.
With colossi splash, storms under the BC's and even forcefields, there's just no way that I can see a bio army being able to stop the P killing off the BC's at the start of the fight, mass feedback, blanket storm, morph to archon, stalker focus fire.
Also the above mentioned remaxing from a lategame P is a huge issue for the terran, theoretically I just don't see this working at all, however it would be nice to see replays of terrans trying it out against equally skilled opponents to see how it goes in reality.
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Truthfully, BC + Ghost is the strongest composition in lategame TvP, 3/3 Battlecruisers pretty much don't die with Ghost and SCV support to anything apart from a Vortex. The problem with said strategy is getting there. There are probably 1-2 maps in the ladder map pool which would let you accomodate this strategy, as you're going to need to be on 5-6 mining bases to get the upgrades, units and planetaries out to ensure your survival during the transition. The main problem is also that you have to keep all your units together, as the composition acts as a deathball. As previously mentioned, the vortex is the single (and only) counter to this build, I've found.
As long as you can split the map in half and ensure your survival towards the later stages of the game, BC + Ghost is so strong. Yes, it is more immobile and you can't be dropping in multiple locations, but you have to be patient, make sure you have lots of sensor towers and missile turrets up so observers, high templar and motherships can't surprise you with vortex's, storms and the like. High Masters Terran if that clarifies the 'relevance' of any of this information.
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On September 21 2012 19:32 Pneumothorax wrote:
Truthfully, BC + Ghost is the strongest composition in lategame TvP, 3/3 Battlecruisers pretty much don't die with Ghost and SCV support to anything apart from a Vortex. The problem with said strategy is getting there. There are probably 1-2 maps in the ladder map pool which would let you accomodate this strategy, as you're going to need to be on 5-6 mining bases to get the upgrades, units and planetaries out to ensure your survival during the transition. The main problem is also that you have to keep all your units together, as the composition acts as a deathball. As previously mentioned, the vortex is the single (and only) counter to this build, I've found.
As long as you can split the map in half and ensure your survival towards the later stages of the game, BC + Ghost is so strong. Yes, it is more immobile and you can't be dropping in multiple locations, but you have to be patient, make sure you have lots of sensor towers and missile turrets up so observers, high templar and motherships can't surprise you with vortex's, storms and the like. High Masters Terran if that clarifies the 'relevance' of any of this information.
Can you provide a replay please? To me it sounds like a theorycraft revolving around a one single game everyone knows.
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I've tried making BC to transition to a tougher composition from my marine/Thor/viking, but it's terrible. It's better to make banshees, they add good dps, don't take extra damage from any of the units protoss is going to make and you can easily remove the energy so you don't get feedbacked to death, also they are great in marginal situations and adding that cloak/harass threat. You don't need that many starports(,3-4 is fine).To be successful with BCs you'd have to have 6 starports and churn them out at once with 3-3 upgrades ready and protoss can't attack you while they are making. Even then if he has plenty of stalkers, archons and HT's you are more or less shooting yourself in the leg. Banshees are harder to focus fire too.
Yes, BC/Ghost is good in a way, but it already takes a stalemate, like the mass wraith switch in BW TvT. I don't know how you split the map in SC2 against protoss. Would have to be a map with a single choke and 6 bases on both sides.
Really marginal IMHo.
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EPT
