It feels kind of silly (I am masters protoss NA) that I need to make this post, but I've actually lost a few times over the past couple days the the growing trend of fast cloaked banshee into mass battlecruisers. In this game I realize I made mistakes like overbuilding probes, but it seems like whenever I harass terran has the minerals to have tens of extra CC's on standby to float to every base.
In this game I went for a blink stalker, archon, HT, mothership composition but even after wiping out all of his BCs multiple times, and killing countless bases, it seemed like all the damage I did was merely drops in the pond. I guess I'm asking if anyone knows how to defeat such a unit composition from terran. I tried doing early pressure as he had hardly any units while building up his infrastructure, but he had 2 PFs and 2 tanks at his nat which seemed to clean up anything I could throw at him.
Although the game is 40 minutes long, I think it's safe to ignore everything after the point where you lose 20 probes and suicide your army into pfs and tank fire.
In the early game. Talking is great. Don't do it in game unless you can make your first pylon on time and constantly build probes. Oh, and make your second pylon on time. (You're behind here).
Be careful with your first units. Don't lose them to 4 marines - you need them to check his expansion. No need to lose that sentry either. You also have no idea what he's doing (losing your first obs is kinda a big deal when you have as little map presence / scouting info as you do). You should know whether he's expanding or not, and should have twice the units you actually have. (Way behind now - you might have lost.)
You could have handled the banshee better. Your stalkers should probably be in your main, since you haven't ruled out drops / banshee / mass reaper (seriously). You shouldn't have lost 20 probes (you could have prevented losses at your natural by not 1-aing everything after the banshee. That's just asking for him to kill everything at your nat too, with the banshees or with hellions / bio.) You could have left some stalkers and be chronoing out a second obs (you're floating 1000 minerals while this is going on). (Waaay behind - you've probably lost).
You actually see scvs going down towards his third base. Why not go investigate that? (Maybe a way to get back in the game!)
There's not much more to be said, other than that it's probably a good idea to make a proxy pylon if you're actually attacking, and that running all your units past 2 planetaries into heavy tank fire doesn't count as an attack. (YOU'VE LOST NOW. gg and leave. He could do anything at this point and win. He just happens to be going BCs, so it won't be for another 30 mins.)
As for the late-game. I'm just going to mention warp prisms, zealots, and your mineral bank. Also, 100 probes = too many. C'mon dude, you're masters.
Thanks for the comments. I understand that this game I was playing very poorly and fell way to far behind in the early game, I guess my point is that I'm still curious as to what sort of unit composition I should be aiming for in the late game in a similar situation.
Blink stalkers can win if he tries to engage by surprise before maxing and you don't have higher tech. But you must execute a solid blink-in and then focus down the cruisers 1 by 1 with shift click or just good timing. Even 1 wasted volley distributed among many BC could cause you to lose the fight. also you must be matching or beating his armor upgrade with your damage.
If he is waiting until max or even sacking scvs to get a huge army, you want to transition to VR w/ 3 or more starports and chrono out your air upgrades w/ double core. Meanwhile, you wanna get 4-8 stormers to clear out marines he might mix in to up DPS. don't commit to an engagement until you get a clean storm off on the bio. Try to use your VR to draw back his stimmed bio up to some high ground where you have templar in waiting. If he isn't being super aggressive, don't attack him until you catch up in air upgrades. Mothership for cloaking, black hole and recall definitely doesn't hurt either, but prioritize VR count and upgrades if resources are tight.
If you are unable to get map control and secure expos during the significant period of the game when he has massive amounts of resources tied up in the infastructure needed to get BC, then yeah, he probably chose to go battle cruisers because he saw that you were far behind. But if you are able to go up to 4 bases, all that gas and chrono boost should make a VR tech switch relatively swift and punishing.
I know in BW archons used to be ok too if you didn't have a lot of production up or you just lost your whole army or you're econ is wayyy gas heavy. But BCs are a little faster in SC2, so maybe they can kite or at least escape to high ground or water now? I bet archon toilet would be pretty strong if you have enough archons, but you would need a lot more than when you do it against zerg.
Look for MVP vs Squirtle in the GSL, I think it's a good example of what you might want to do if the BC numbers are really high. Archon toilet + blnk stalker + VR are the way to go, with HT for feedback/storm. Dealing with mass BC is sort of like dealing with broodlord infestor in PvZ; you have to be really careful and get the perfect engagement for you to come out on top.
You can also try to exploit his immobility while you try to tech to VR with warp prism zealot drops, although PF's will probably negate that. Storm drops could work but probably not since by that time he has a ton of mules to use.
There is no way to fight a well-controlled army of critical mass Battlecruisers with Raven+Ghost support, but if Terran can get away with getting that, Terran could in 99 out of 100 cases have won with just normal mvg-lategame.
Edit: as mentioned by others, BC-ghost-raven is like Infestor-Broodlord-Spine-Spore-Corruptor, except much more powerful and infinitely harder to get (unless you're in a commanding lead)
Archon toilet works surprisingly well, but as Netherh said all of your early game mistakes put you behind way earlier and you should have lost to a standard composition anyway. The best defense against mass battlecruiser / raven / ghost is to kill them before they can get that since it's such an almost impossible composition to achieve.
The answer, like others said, is that he should not be able to get mass bc. You lost in this game because you fell way behind in the early game, not because you were unable to deal with the bcs. Terran pretty much has the strongest endgame composition in bc, raven, ghost. (yes voids beat bcs, but voids clump a ton so seeker missiles would destroy them, just like in pvz where voids work great against bls and corruptors, but infestors own voids easy) But he shouldnt ever be able to safely transition to that without the threat of you just walking to his base during the transition and killing him.
i watched the replay because the title was interesting but after watching it, well, i don't know what to say.
there isn't ANY game in a master league ladder game that lets terran somehow get 7 comand centers at the 11minute mark and not get killed with 1 tank and a bunker with 4 marines in it. he hid a 3rd base at the very start which went unscouted and even after scouting it you just let it sit there. it dosn't help with the fact that you had a obs right ontop of the construction of 3 starports and 3 armorys, and you chose to walk your entire army throu the frontdoor with 3 pfs and reseting your supply back to 41.
you made basicly all the wrong choices and wrong judgement calls at the worst time, instead of sniping the hidden detached 3rd you chose to walk throu 3 pfs at point blank range, instead of blinking up into the main and fight his entire army which at that point was only 3 tanks and 4 marines in a bunker you walked throu 3 pfs instead. and later on you let that 3rd at the bottom sit there and didn't do anything to it.
normally if terran makes bcs its like auto loss because you can just throw stalkers at it and youll win, its not cost efficient for terran to make bcs in tvp, but you basicly let him getaway with everything and made all the wrong choices
I play only sky terran vs P and most of my games go 25mins+ , here are my points:
The first biggest error you made was that he went 3 command centers at 7 mins 30 seconds with only 4 marines in a bunker.
Sure he pushed with 4 marines but that was a fake to pretend he was being aggressive. Heck at this time you could blow on him and he would have died. P love their late game too much and try to get their 3-4 bases and a billion warp gates, but remember T can eco cheese as well.
You saw he had a techlab on starport and you were close air positions, yet you didnt have any stalkers by your main mineral line, and no obs there. 10:45 banshees is not fast banshees. You lost 20 probes.
At 12:30 you walk your army into two planetarys for no reason, with zero scouting ahead. This is pointless.
You finally take your 3rd base at 14 mins by which time T has 10 CCs, has killed 20 probes and all your first army. The game is over, but of course T wants to macro up and make P pay for his non-aggression.
At 22 minutes you finally do something right and do a full blink in and snipe a CC. This was good, you could have continued to do it at his 3 lower bases but you sat back.
At 24 minutes somehow you have a way backinto the game. You walk into a terrible engagement but because your stalkers were upgraded you came evenly. By the way at this point both people have overmade workers, you have 100 he has 85.
At 26 minutes he has a terrible engagement and loses all his BCS. You have 4000 minerals and 700 gas in bank... At this point you could have done one warp in with your 30 gates and then gone on a rampage off all his lower CCs. But whats that... you only have 11 gates at 26 minuntes and thousands in the bank. Instead you just sit there being passive.
he engages poorly at 30 minutes and you are able to kill most of his BCs for most of the next 10 minutes you were rolling his bases but you were too late. He didnt really need the money at that point, best thing that you could have done then is blink into his main and take out his time consuming production. Your observer would have seen they were un defended.
Sorry to sound harsh, but you were way too passive and let T get a huge econ advantage. You had opportunities to get back into the game but you didnt punish him when he lost all his expensive units. His production was terrible to be honest, only 6 starpoints. With all that income he could have also made 12 reactor rax and padded his losses with throwaway stimmed marines.
Remember BC are slow (far slower than blink stalker). A massive stalker ball can blink across the map taking out T's production and gas. Then trade with his BC and he will not be able to replacement as quickly.
EPT
