|
Hey guys. I used the search function and basically read every battlecruiser thread there was. There hasn't been a good battlecruiser discussion in over 3 months now it seems.
I'm not too high level of a player and don't consider myself to be all that skilled, but I have been watching pro level Starcraft for 2-3 hours a day every day for a year now. I know the trends, I know what to look for in a good player, and I follow mostly every pro player on the scene riight now. But there have been a few complex discussions between myself and my other Starcraft loving friends recently and I'd like to get to the bottom of at least one of them, because I don't feel like my answers have been sufficient in this case.
My question is ultimately about Battlecruisers and why they are *almost* never used in the late-game, even by a terran mech. Keep in mind I am talking about fully top tier level players. You don't see MVP, MMA, Bomber, MarineKing, etc... use Battlecruisers - almost never. Thors, yes. Other mech units, yes. But battlecruisers? It's almost like a spark of life into each game whenever a fusion core actually starts getting built.
The DPS on Battlecruisers is top 3 in the game, and that's without Yamato cannon. The price is also one of the highest in the game too, though. That's usually my reason to friends about why they are never used. Starcraft is more of a game of speed than a game of theoretical might. Just because they are the highest DPS unit, doesn't make them anywhere near *worth it* to build for top tier players.
Especially since they are so slow and are countered by many units in all 3 races inventories. The slow speed is one of the top reasons I've heard from others on why the Code S players don't use them; too much potential kiting, especially in matchups like Viking vc BS (with V's having 1.5x the range of their opponent).
Am I correct in these reasons on why they simply aren't *that* good, or is there more that I'm not really seeing, being a lowbie? I can use BC's all day in the lower leagues and win, obviously, but when watching master and grandmasters streams, it's almost a joke or an accident when you see that fusion core pop up.
Thanks in advance for the thoughts!
Psilo
|
They are used in TvT. God knows why, since Vikings hard counter them and each terran is already massing vikings.
In TvZ, if you go BC, you die to corruptor.
In TvP, they go blink stalkers or void rays.
And above all else, they are expensive, hard to tech to and they have to pay for themselves.
You need like 4+ bases to get them anyway, and terrans cant get to 4+ bases since they dont know how to macro.
|
Usually it's:
-Never reached that point.
-Never needed it.
-Too expensive.
|
O_O MVP used Battlecruisers to great effect in TvT when he went mech, particularly against MarineKing in GSL January and the Super Tournament.
Other than that I have nothing else to say, I don't use battlecruisers much.
EDIT: Also not sure if trolling.
|
On January 31 2012 11:05 Raithed wrote:
Usually it's:
-Never reached that point.
-Never needed it.
-Too expensive.
Yeah, makes sense. "Never needed it" is a good one.
I'm still wondering about the too expensive thing though. Do you think theyre too expensive because they are LITERALLY not worth it, or because you can build 2-3 units of OTHER types with the same price you can build a battlecruiser?
(the latter is the reasoning I usually use)
|
You're correct in many points, that battlecruisers are slow to move, slow to build, and countered easily. HOWEVER, there are several examples of high level TvT where siege tank lines force a stalemate, and one player gets some battlecruisers to break the lines. In this sense, battlecruisers serve a similar role to broodlords in ZvT: They force the siege tanks to back up to a defensive line, force vikings, etc.
Obviously, though, if you have few or no vikings, battlecruisers will die WAY too fast.
|
On January 31 2012 11:07 Psilo wrote:Show nested quote +On January 31 2012 11:05 Raithed wrote:
Usually it's:
-Never reached that point.
-Never needed it.
-Too expensive. Yeah, makes sense. "Never needed it" is a good one. I'm still wondering about the too expensive thing though. Do you think theyre too expensive because they are LITERALLY not worth it, or because you can build 2-3 units of OTHER types with the same price you can build a battlecruiser? (the latter is the reasoning I usually use)
Well, terrans would prefer having 3 tanks over a battle cruiser. It's just efficiency, thats all.
|
On January 31 2012 11:06 JagerGard wrote:
O_O MVP used Battlecruisers to great effect in TvT when he went mech, particularly against MarineKing in GSL January and the Super Tournament.
Other than that I have nothing else to say, I don't use battlecruisers much.
EDIT: Also not sure if trolling.
Im not trolling. I watched all 152 matches in recent GSL up'and'downs and Code S ro.32 this month, and in only 2 games out of the 152, a fusion core was built. And one of those 2 was the hilarious accident that (Gumiho i think?) did, when he was meaning to build a factory in that spot. The recent terran GSL play is the reason for this thread.
On January 31 2012 11:08 spacebob42 wrote:
You're correct in many points, that battlecruisers are slow to move, slow to build, and countered easily. HOWEVER, there are several examples of high level TvT where siege tank lines force a stalemate, and one player gets some battlecruisers to break the lines. In this sense, battlecruisers serve a similar role to broodlords in ZvT: They force the siege tanks to back up to a defensive line, force vikings, etc.
Obviously, though, if you have few or no vikings, battlecruisers will die WAY too fast.
good stuff, thanks, makes a lot of sense
|
On January 31 2012 11:08 Psilo wrote:Show nested quote +On January 31 2012 11:06 JagerGard wrote:
O_O MVP used Battlecruisers to great effect in TvT when he went mech, particularly against MarineKing in GSL January and the Super Tournament.
Other than that I have nothing else to say, I don't use battlecruisers much.
EDIT: Also not sure if trolling. Im not trolling. I watched all 152 matches in recent GSL up'and'downs and Code S ro.32 this month, and in only 2 games out of the 152, a fusion core was built. And one of those 2 was the hilarious accident that (Gumiho i think?) did, when he was meaning to build a factory in that spot. The recent terran GSL play is the reason for this thread.
They were built for awhile following the speed upgrade as they helped break siege lines, but then people realized that Ravens and Vikings were probably more practical since the game would switch to a full out air war by that time.
They are also better vs Thors (a natural counter to mass Vikings/Ravens) than Viking or Ravens so they do serve some purpose in late game TvT compositions.
|
Aside from the obvious, I feel TvT shows why BC's are so rarely used. During the period when almost every top Terran was meching you had stalemate games where neither player could attack the other. This allowed an air transition to happen - enough time to set up Starports with Tech Labs, get air upgrades, get Ravens, blahblahblah. Air transitions that actually make BC's useful are really hard to set up, and throwing in a couple BC's into a standard composition doesn't really work - if you're going to sacrifice mobility for your army, you'd better make that army damn strong.
So really, the fundamental issue with BC's is that they're not effective enough to make up for the huge investment cost. If you can spend enough money to switch into BC's safely against anything but a meching Terran, you can just go fucking kill your opponent.
|
There could be a point where the metagame shifts and most TvT ends up in BC stalemates. BW TvT had quite a few BCs a few years ago.
|
On January 31 2012 11:11 FuzzyJAM wrote:
So really, the fundamental issue with BC's is that they're not effective enough to make up for the huge investment cost. If you can spend enough money to switch into BC's safely against anything but a meching Terran, you can just go fucking kill your opponent.
This makes tons of sense to me, especially in the "theoretically" termed debate that I always get into.
With this logic, would you then say that this exact idea is the reason that the TOP tier players can rarely make them work?
Is because those top tier'ers don't *allow* their opponent to construct such a reasonably well crafted army with a perfect amount of BC's thrown in?
I mean, that is a fundamental difference between the medium-to-high level ranking players (plat + diamond, and such), and the true Grandmasters of the game, right?
|
I'd assume unless in TvT, they're simply too slow to be in the right place at the right time to invest so much supply/resources in one unit
|
they're too easily countered by P/Z to be used in the respective matchups. In TvT they can be a major trump card with solid upgrades and a good economy (which is fairly often, due to the stalemate type nature of TvT, getting lots of bases isn't too challenging).
|
TvZ and TvP they get hard countered easily.
In TvT battlecruisers have received tremendous use as a unit composition switch. If the opponent has invested too much into marauder/tank or just flat out mech and you have procured a viking lead, a BC switch will often kill him.
|
I experimented some with battlecruiser a while ago in TvZ/TvP. They can be good in all matchups but especially in TvP they are really hard to transition in.
In TvP you need to be at a point where you are maxed, already 3/0 airgrade and have around 2k/2k ressources left with still good income ( atleast 3~basish minining/gasharvesting). That alone make BC only viable on big maps(taldarim) or splittmapscnerios with keymappositions where your opponent Protoss cant Engage. First i think its recommended when it goes to lategame transitions in Tvp that you go 3Ghostacademys nuke, after this BCs areviable if you make the right switch if the scenario is right.
So once you hit 3/0 you can start grading airplatin on your armory and switch to BCs.
I would only cosider it strong if you match all or most of the stated above in one match and also able to sacrifice SCVs and go mass orbital like its used in TvT, while holding keypoint @ Shakuras for example with maybe 1-2planetarys so you can be sure WHILE you sacrifice some of your supply in marinedropps/scvs that you dont die within your battlecruiser switch.
Theyre not any unit that u build and remax, if you go Battlecruiser in TvP its a completly Killmove/allin. If they all die ur mostlikely dead i guess.
I would really try to get mass orbital/Ghostwithcloak/BC 3/3 and try to use scanns to snipe observers, cloak ghost emp everything and kill with mass bc/ghost/bio maybe. Also this mass orbital/Only mule except for gases doesnt only leave u alot of supply for an almost 200/200 Pure army, it also gives u the ability to dropp mass mules to repair battlecruiser infight.
So yes on a very highlevel to match all those things at once where ur BC switch works vs another toptier player is pretty rar but it can be totally worth it. But i would never try to force me in my mindset to play BC in TvP it wont end good  .
|
Marine tank is so prevalent now in TvT after the BFG nerf anyway, you don't get as many stalemates anymore, it's much more back and forth. There isn't much time to safely mass up BCs. MVP made BCs in one of his games against MMA in Blizzcup, didn't go too well for him.
|
1v1: Agreed with most of what's said above.
Actually BC's are pretty good ULTRA LATE GAME against Zerg, Corruptors aren't that good, provided you have Vikings and a Raven (pdd ftw!) and you can Yamato the first couple. However you can't neglect a solid ground force. Which is why most games don't go there.
Most of the reasons given above are correct though, they are a late game "broodlord" basically. Their anti-air defences are far more formidable but you need critical mass of them.
Versus toss BC's actually hold up very well until the high templar show up, or you can EMP your bc's... but really you're better off making more bio instead of BC's. Since if you've EMP'd your BC's you cant yamato their VR's which will cut them up.
|
On January 31 2012 11:05 Lebzetu wrote:
They are used in TvT. God knows why, since Vikings hard counter them and each terran is already massing vikings.
In TvZ, if you go BC, you die to corruptor.
In TvP, they go blink stalkers or void rays.
And above all else, they are expensive, hard to tech to and they have to pay for themselves.
You need like 4+ bases to get them anyway, and terrans cant get to 4+ bases since they dont know how to macro.
Yes but if you have air superiority you can keep your battlecrusiers safe as long as you micro properly.
The reason why they're not used is because it takes a lot of time and money to tech to battlecruisers, so if you do manage to tech to BCs vs P and Z, its likely that you would have won faster if you'd just produced more of the standard unit composition.
The reason it works in TvT is because in TvT, even if you're ahead it is often difficult to actually kill your opponent, which leads to stalemates where one player can come back. A sky terran army can break your opponents siege lines and allow you to finish the game. Personally I think that unless your opponent also has a large (but still smaller because its a waste of time making either banshees or BCs if you don't have more vikings) viking fleet, banshees are superior to BC when you have air superiority, because they have higher dps per supply cost (I think BCs do higher dps with enough of an upgrade advantage), are faster and have cloak which means they can be used in a lot more ways than BCs.
If your opponent also has a large viking fleet banshees are probably worse because your opponent will find it easy to defend them when they're away from your own viking fleet and they are slightly worse than BCs for actually breaking siege lines.
|
I believe oGsTOP vs IMMVP in gsl September finals had bc.
Also believe EmpireHappy vs FnaticToD at dreamhack winter had bcs.
|
They're only used in TvT as far as I know.
Viking vs Viking stalemate -> Thors or Hunter Seeker Missile to defeat viking cloud -> Battlecruisers to survive HSM and Thors
|
United States7483 Posts
Adding 2-3 BC's into your army late game vs. protoss can be fairly good, because it forces a lot more stalkers into the army, and Protoss does not want to make a lot of stalkers (they are terrible vs. bio late game). You don't want more than a few, just enough to force more stalkers. Just emp your own BC's so they don't get nuked by feedback. This has been done a few times in the GSL.
|
Mechanic, Bionic, Marine Tank --> Sky Terran.
Other than that Battlecruisers are just a slow clunky unit with an impossible build time.
|
In very long TvT games they are used. They serve little to no purpose vs. Zerg and Protoss.
|
In TvT you need air superiority to win the BC war, and to win air superiority it comes down to whoever masses the most optimal Thor/Raven/Viking combination. By the time that battle is won or lost, the game is over. BCs are straight up worse than other units in the other two matchups, they get hard countered worse than Carriers and Broodlords and serve no purpose.
|
On January 31 2012 11:33 Mr Showtime wrote:
In very long TvT games they are used. They serve little to no purpose vs. Zerg and Protoss.
They can be useful against Protoss in certain cases. But that has more to do with Protoss AA sucking than BC's being good against protoss. I'm not sure why you wouldn't just go banshees instead though, in late game scenarios where you have an excess starport(s) with a techlab, and the bank, a 3/3/3 stalker STILL loses to an unupgraded banshee.
Mainly I would think they'd be there to force more stalkers. 10 Stalkers melts about twice as fast as 10 chargelots. They should be there to slightly skew enemy compositions in your favour, not to kill armies IMO.
|
1. TvT BC only used as 6 food banshee to hit tanks. It substitutes the banshee vs meching players with thors. Vs air, raven is a better viking tank for 1/3 the food, since 1PDD is the same HP as a BC.
2. TvP BC doesn't stop any late game protoss units, chargelots, archons, colossi, they don't care that you have 3 or 5 BC floating around. Your ground army will be gone before BC's do anything.
3. TvZ BC sucks against all late game zerg units. Doesn't kill ling/bane or Ultra/brood/corruptor
The BC is essentially as worthless as the Carrier, for approximately the same reasons - high rate of fire with low attack dmg that sucks against armor upgrades, and overlapping counters with existing units. The only difference is that it has a tiny use in TvT, because of how poorly the banshee is designed as a limited unit.
|
Another issue is upgrades. It's not often that Terrans upgrade air attack or armor, both of which help the BC greatly, while other units (in any matchup) are more likely to receive attack and armor upgrades which hinder the BC's DPS output greatly due to its high rate of fire.
Also it suffers from having overlapped roles. Banshees are excellent anti-ground units and are much easier to get, giving Terrans a very good unit for breaking siege lines without having to build a Fusion Core. Vikings are IMHO the best anti-air unit in the whole game and is much more effective than BCs at maintaining air superiority with its amazing range which is again super important on two sides of the siege line. Plus it is, again, cheaper and easier to get.
BCs are scary, but they are not hard to counter, especially at the highest levels. They rarely are effective for their high cost.
|
battle cruisers arent mobile
although they are tanky, mass vikings are cheaper and have "more use"
games dont reach by then
take too long to build
gas could be used for moar vikings/tanks
if ur really ahead in tvt and have air dominance, bcs are good. void rays rape bcs to some extent in clumps and marines cut down void rays so fast. stalkers will be too busy with ground force. zerg will just MASS corrups.
|
On January 31 2012 11:48 Mobius_1 wrote:
Another issue is upgrades. It's not often that Terrans upgrade air attack or armor, both of which help the BC greatly, while other units (in any matchup) are more likely to receive attack and armor upgrades which hinder the BC's DPS output greatly due to its high rate of fire.
Also it suffers from having overlapped roles. Banshees are excellent anti-ground units and are much easier to get, giving Terrans a very good unit for breaking siege lines without having to build a Fusion Core. Vikings are IMHO the best anti-air unit in the whole game and is much more effective than BCs at maintaining air superiority with its amazing range which is again super important on two sides of the siege line. Plus it is, again, cheaper and easier to get.
BCs are scary, but they are not hard to counter, especially at the highest levels. They rarely are effective for their high cost.
They're like an aerial Ultralisk.
|
It is very dangerous and expensive to tech switch to battlecruisers
even more dangerous and expensive to tech switch to carriers
switching between ultralisks and broodlords? cost of 1 building. np ezez
|
A month ago I played someone who went double starport banshee on 1 base. I held it off easily, and was like "lol this scrub".
Turns out he wasn't really planing to go double starport banshee, he just had double starports (not sure why he made them that early) and an engineering bay, as part of his plan. He took his natural afterwards with a PF, and I thought it was because he was so behind, but it turned out... he was going mass BCs. He suck a hidden third, and even though I saw it immediately when it landed, it was a PF with turrets by the time I made mutas to go over there. I took it out eventually, but he literally made 20 turrets by it so it was quite hard.
He massed BCs, and I mined out every base on the map, even his third. I went at him with ling/bane/muta, and it was just impossible, completely impossible to kill him. Then he a-moved out with a bunch of SCVs and Ravens with hunter seeker, it was extremely obnoxious because my mutas couldnt get near due to the hunter seekers, and corruptors all got raped pretty hard once he was on critical mass. I decided to mass infestors to deal with it, but FG doesn't exactly kill BCs quickly.
I eventually won through base trading and him being stupid, like not floating a building with his army, but it was incredibly obnoxious. I'd never seen anything like it. I mean literally, all he did was sit on 1 base BCs, eventually take his natural, and turtled on 2 bases and made BCs, and then pushed out with this deathball.
BC/Raven, pretty impossible to deal with as Zerg. Or maybe just ravens. Or BCs. I dont know, zerg has a lot of shit they can't deal with. It was just a ridiculous game.
switching between ultralisks and broodlords? cost of 1 building. np ezez
When are ultralisks ever useful? And the cost and time to tech to broodlords is more expensive than carriers or BCs (infestors have similar tech times to bc/carrier). I don't know what you are talking about, because teching to hive when the opponent is doing a 2 base push or gateway/rine-tank push will just always get you killed. So easy to just out manuerver zerg hive tech play and win with base trading or dropping
|
On January 31 2012 11:50 Belial88 wrote:A month ago I played someone who went double starport banshee on 1 base. I held it off easily, and was like "lol this scrub". Turns out he wasn't really planing to go double starport banshee, he just had double starports (not sure why he made them that early) and an engineering bay, as part of his plan. He took his natural afterwards with a PF, and I thought it was because he was so behind, but it turned out... he was going mass BCs. He suck a hidden third, and even though I saw it immediately when it landed, it was a PF with turrets by the time I made mutas to go over there. I took it out eventually, but he literally made 20 turrets by it so it was quite hard. He massed BCs, and I mined out every base on the map, even his third. I went at him with ling/bane/muta, and it was just impossible, completely impossible to kill him. Then he a-moved out with a bunch of SCVs and Ravens with hunter seeker, it was extremely obnoxious because my mutas couldnt get near due to the hunter seekers, and corruptors all got raped pretty hard once he was on critical mass. I decided to mass infestors to deal with it, but FG doesn't exactly kill BCs quickly. I eventually won through base trading and him being stupid, like not floating a building with his army, but it was incredibly obnoxious. I'd never seen anything like it. I mean literally, all he did was sit on 1 base BCs, eventually take his natural, and turtled on 2 bases and made BCs, and then pushed out with this deathball. BC/Raven, pretty impossible to deal with as Zerg. Or maybe just ravens. Or BCs. I dont know, zerg has a lot of shit they can't deal with. It was just a ridiculous game. When are ultralisks ever useful? And the cost and time to tech to broodlords is more expensive than carriers or BCs (infestors have similar tech times to bc/carrier). I don't know what you are talking about, because teching to hive when the opponent is doing a 2 base push or gateway/rine-tank push will just always get you killed. So easy to just out manuerver zerg hive tech play and win with base trading or dropping
Why are you making mutas against BC raven.
Some combination of roach ling bane would run over any expansion attempts.
|
The switch to BC gives your opponent a huge timing to come and kill you.
|
Actually, this is a good question.
Watch Ryung's TvP games in the previous up/down matches (GSL 2012 Season 1 up/down). When he reaches the lategame, he makes BCs to complement his bio-army. In my opinion, I think this style deserves alot more investigation and testing:
- BCs are a great tank and high DPS to boot as well.
- SCVs can be brought along to repair as well.
- Yamato is also very useful.
|
On January 31 2012 11:59 Azzur wrote:
Actually, this is a good question.
Watch Ryung's TvP games in the previous up/down matches (GSL 2012 Season 1 up/down). When he reaches the lategame, he makes BCs to complement his bio-army. In my opinion, I think this style deserves alot more investigation and testing:
- BCs are a great tank and high DPS to boot as well.
- SCVs can be brought along to repair as well.
- Yamato is also very useful.
It was only possible on that map Calm Before The Storm, where you're allowed as much leeway to do whatever you want.
|
The battlecruiser's role can be better filled by other units in every instance, I feel.
Maybe Yamato has some unique potential, but that's probably gimmicky and not significant enough to be worth the expense.
|
I've won around 20ish games (gold) rushing to BC's. It's kind of funny to watch your opponent kind of scramble around trying to figure out wtf is going on, laughing and applauding you while he GG's
|
On January 31 2012 11:30 Eee wrote:
Also believe EmpireHappy vs FnaticToD at dreamhack winter had bcs.
Yeah, but nothing good, useful or constructive can be taken from the most retarded game in professional SC2 history.
|
BC's were mainly used in TVT's and occasionally pop up in TVZ's. Now people just mass vikings+ravens late game tvt, making battlecruisers hard to use.
|
I'd rather make banshees. Who uses BCs for ATA?
|
On January 31 2012 12:02 Gamegene wrote:Show nested quote +On January 31 2012 11:59 Azzur wrote:
Actually, this is a good question.
Watch Ryung's TvP games in the previous up/down matches (GSL 2012 Season 1 up/down). When he reaches the lategame, he makes BCs to complement his bio-army. In my opinion, I think this style deserves alot more investigation and testing:
- BCs are a great tank and high DPS to boot as well.
- SCVs can be brought along to repair as well.
- Yamato is also very useful.
It was only possible on that map Calm Before The Storm, where you're allowed as much leeway to do whatever you want.
Ryung also used it against Killer on Daybreak.
Basically, in many TvP games, an impasse is sometimes reached where the person who attacks in an inferior position frequently loses. This would be a good time to transition to BCs.
|
It's the mobility issue.
In TvT, battlecruiser is used late game (vs. mech) because the problem is no longer mobility but breaking stalemate. In other match-ups, where mobility is very much needed throughout the game, BC is just not great.
|
I'm a EU master Terran that has experimented a bit with incorporating BCs into lategame armies.
First of all I'd like to take this quote:
On January 31 2012 11:05 Lebzetu wrote:
They are used in TvT. God knows why, since Vikings hard counter them and each terran is already massing vikings.
In TvZ, if you go BC, you die to corruptor.
In TvP, they go blink stalkers or void rays.
I've found BCs to be extremely useful in TvT. In games such as on Shakura's Plateau they are really effective at breaking the siege lines. Banshees can do the same job to some extent, but are very susceptible to marines and missile turrets.
BCs are very sturdy especially with armor upgrades, and can kill turrets off super fast with Yamato. In these cases I only get around 1-2-3 BCs. The most important thing is maintaining a higher viking number with better upgrades.
It makes it really hard for the opposing terran to push you back, because siege tanks on the ground will cover against marines running up shooting your bcs. Obviously Thors and Ghosts don't do much to BCs besides a minor chunk of damage, and the potential of being EMP'ed.
The rest Lebzetu says about TvZ and TvP is just useless bullshit(pardon the expression).
You might as well just say "I don't get unit y because they die to unit x" in any case of these discussions.
However, I feel like I've picked up on some reason as to why Battlecruisers aren't used very much in TvZ and TvP.
Without implying balance issues I'll say that Protoss and Zerg have better options at adapting to certain tech switches in late game.
I mean Terrans are often limited by add ons on their production facilities(Terran can only produce Ghosts out of the barracks that have tech labs, while Protoss can make high templars out of all their gateways).
Along with this Protoss have Chronoboost that can improve the speed at which they go down a certain tech path(Gateways, Robotic Facilities and Stargates).
Zergs are only limited by the amount of larvae they have as long as they have the tech building required to build their units.
Obviously all races are limited by resources if anybody should be confused...
This makes it a bit risky, in my opinion, to make Battlecruisers. They take 90 in-game seconds to make. That is quite a long time. Perhaps even the longest for any unit in the game I think(besides Carriers at 120 seconds that can be chronoboosted quite a bit by a Protoss on 3-4-5 bases)?
They are, in fact, quite a bit comparable to Ultralisks before the buff on their morphing time.
The long production time both makes them risky to get if you're building up an army, because they're expensive tech, and you won't have the food supply that you've invested in for 90 seconds. It makes it really hard to maintain pressure while attacking. If you have to back out, while sitting sieged up at a Zerg's expansion, because he's gonna be able to flood you in that 90 second window it's just a lot better to get the quickly built units.
It's risky if you try to rebuild them after a lost big battle, because the opponent has a lot of room to do damage untill they come out, and then it might just be far too late.
They have the Yamato-cannon which does a mindblowing 300 damage, but BCs are (still) so slow that it's very risky to try for example sniping tech structures or enemy mining locations with them.
The cannon could be used in combat, but not only are BCs really easy to hit with feedbacks(cannons cost 125 energy, which takes a long time to gain unless you buy more expensive upgrades for the BCs) they also take additional APM to control. As a Terran I would like to say that personally I don't have the speed to do this. When I played versus a Protoss it would be neat if I was able to kite, dodge storms, EMP, snipe, control Vikings away from Stalkers, while blasting 300 damage against the Colossi or Archons with the Yamato, but I don't have the skill for it. I think it's asking a bit too much from a lot of Terrans. Same goes for against Zergs with the whole marine splitting, more Ghost and Viking control, Siege tank target firing and so on. I don't mean to whine or say that it's too hard to play Terran, I think a lot of players could do it with some practice and special techniques(you know, scanning before going in, and just click Yamato on enemy units while moving in etc.).
Along with them they're very expensive (400 minerals, 300 gas). This makes them really hard to replenish especially if you lose a major battle. It feels a lot more safe replenishing with MMM, which builds a ton faster than super expensive BCs.
Like I said before they're still very slow. A long with this they don't have that siege function in TvP and TvZ, which Brood Lords have. They're basically just a flying 6 food that could just as well be invested in Marines or Marauders that work just as well in combat, and are a lot quicker when it comes to harassment(which I personally find very valuable).
The pros of BCs are pretty obvious imo.
They do a decent DPS(though for a 6 food unit it doesn't seem particularly high to me).
They can be used to punish Protoss armies that rely too heavily on Zealots.
They make it easier to position your ground army seeing as how the supply gets tied up in air units, which gives you an easier time making your ground units attack due to the fact that they won't clump up as much behind each other etc. pretty obvious stuff.
They can(like Brood Lords or Colossi or Storm and so on) catch an opponent unprepared if they lack AA.
They can tank a good amount of damage, while Vikings do their thing in peace(BCs absorbing Stalker fire, while Vikings kill Colossi).
If I missed out anything I'll edit it in. Hope you can use this answer. 
|
the main reason is simple, they are too slow, vikings can kite them easily with good micro. If BCs were faster and couldnt be kited as easily by other units they would prob be included more so imo
|
The definitive game where BCs were in the late game TvT for me was BoxeR v Rain in MLG (Orlando?) game 1 Metalopolis. That was maybe the first real game where BCs kinda made a difference. There was also a recent GSL game where it was BC/Viking/Raven/Thor/Tank vs Viking/Raven/Thor/Tank/Ghost (was it TSL_Alive vs IMHappy?). In Rain's case, the BCs made a difference and were basically there to soak viking hits and HSMs, and shoot off yamatos. But in Happy's case, the BCs seemed to be more of a liability with Alive's superior viking/raven count, with pdds to soak viking volleys. In both cases though, nukes were used to force siege tanks to unsiege and clear out turrets and sensor towers. In some TvTs Yamato cannon is used to again a better position (much like nukes) but the trade off is less vikings. Now, though, i think terrans prefer ravens for viking battles and ghosts to help gain a dominating position on the map.
In TvZ, i really can't see how BCs are useful. A murder of mutas will probably eat most BCs just because there's more of them and corruptors also do well against them. Not to mention in TvZ late game, there are always infestors. Against a late game Terran, zerg will most definitely have neural.
In TvP, i suppose BCs could be a fairly viable option. They are good against stalkers. And if you have vikings, void rays might not be too too much of a problem. Templars though are a huge problem and far cheaper than BCs. So in addition to everything else, ghosts have to be made too. I mean this has to be at least a 5 base v 5 base scenario. I mean how many of us play games that last till then?
I think BCs are just there to deter big air-to-ground tech switches (broodlords to ultra/ling; voidrays to zealot/archon; viking/raven/banshee to marine/marauder/tank) or soak damage. very rarely have i seen them used to gain better positioning or simply gotten for their firepower. It's like a flying thor, except more expensive.
|
Its often as simple as: There are better options available. BCs would be better in a game that wasn't balanced around soft and hard counters, but in reality it is. Theoretically they would be good against Broodlords, Ultras, and Carriers, but the 1st 2 are usually preceded by corrupters and the last one doesn't exist.
|
i tried bc's yamato cannon against colossus but feedback + stalkers and those bc's became expensive mistake
|
It's unnecessary in TvZ because marines with stim and medivac tank support is a lot more cost efficient.
It's also unnecessary in TvP because of blink stalkers and feedback. Yeah void rays are OK but the terran is probably going to have a lot of marines since BC's are very gas intensive and you will have a lot of minerals floating. I could MAYBE see BC's working in this match up if you utilize ghosts correctly for snipe/emp on templar and marauders for stalkers but even then you'd need 4+ bases and would have to keep up with upgrades since protoss usually gets double ups in this match up.
TvT they are the best late game unit. If you can get any kind of an air lead AT ALL with vikings then your BC's are pretty much uncontested. BC's are very good against marines, excellent against thors with yamato and can also 1 shot turrets and vikings with yamato. They are definitely used in this match up but again it's very hard to get to and often we see games end before then.
I understand why you made this thread but it's a very expensive high tech unit so you can't blame pros for not using them when often games can end before then.
|
Well in a few of my games when terran makes battle cruisers, I make a few templar and use feed back for massive damage. Other than that they don't seem viable because of the insane build times.
|
It's a good thing they nerfed them. Wouldn't want to see them in the game or anything like that...
|
My thoughts are:
TvT: If someone goes Battlecruiser, unless you aren't scouted, you will be countered by Vikings, very easily since even 1 or 2 vikings can start kiting your cruisers immediately. Battlecruisers in TvT will definitely require ravens, and the min number of vikings to 1 shot others.
TvP: I can see the Mothership being good, but if the BCs are split, or multi-harass, I can see it getting very difficult for the Protoss. Stalkers, and Voidrays can kill BC's, but BCs are far more efficient, especially with Yamato. I forget if BCs use energy anymore, but if they do, High Templars can help a lot.
TvZ: Mutas would probably get raped, unless you flew in, killed one BC, flew out, repeat. Corrupters would stand a good chance, I think they can kite BC's to some degree too, corruption will also help. Fungal Growth and Neural could probably destroy them very efficiently. Hydras... prbly the worst choice.
Now, the question really is, what ELSE are they using with BC's? Cause I can see a good Raven/Viking count, with tanks + whatever else being really good, it's just going to take a late game to get you the proper support for BC's, which is why they're not used too often. Maybe one day someone will find the magic composition with BC's, and then people can use them earlier with less risk.
|
Takes too long to get to, way too expensive, very immobile, easily countered, many better units to build, very risky. The only time it is really used is to break siege lines but then again you need a large existing viking fleet for that to be an option.
|
Treat it like a raven in the late game. You have a 2 second charge spell that kills target unit. Don't want to deal with 5 brood lords? Get 5 bc's to yamato them ^^
|
you cant usually get them since it takes up 8 supply. and 1 bc dont do anything. If you wantto build them might as well build a lot of them once which gives timing window for ur opponent to hit u hard.
|
In late game tvt there are often tanklines drawn across the map.
If Player 1 possesses a viking advantage, then he can mix in some banshees to pick apart Player 2's tank lines. Player 2 can counter this by mixing thors or turrets into his tank line (or a little bit of both).
Therefore to continue picking apart Player 2's tanklines, Player 1 can mix in some BCs, as thors do negligible damage to BCs. Turrets can be one-shotted with Yamato.
This was true in the mega-game a couple months ago, however this may or may not be the case anymore or is debatable. This latest Code-S game, I believe is one of the few high-level games from the current metagame that we have for study of split-map TvT. This game was played this month.
You'll need a GSL subscription to watch.
Hot6ix GSL Code S Season 1 - Alive vs IMHappy
Happy opens mech, Alive opens biotank, neither are able to kill eachother, so therefore the map is split. Both players build a respectable amount of turrets and vikings and ravens. Happy choses BCs while Alive does not. Alive pursues a methodical nuke push through the tank line protecting Happy's southern base. Alive also builds more ravens than Happy.
Alive proceeds to win the game although I can't exactly pinpoint why. You can blame the BCs but there were a lot of variables in play.
|
TvT: Vikings are too effective.
TvZ: Corruptor are toox2 effective.
TvP: Can't kill stuffs fast enough and various timing from 2 sides make it hard to get to a decently threatening BC fleet.
|
I think the reason is that in prolevel mid game mech is too efficient already that going BC is almost a step backward. There are just so many options from midgame to endgame that is already available on the tech which can handle other protoss or zerg endgame tier 3 units and tech. Terran can even switch back to 3-3 bio and still be comfortable vs tier 3.
|
Chances are in TvZ , the marine can fufill the role of a battlecruiser 10x better if you have decent micro. That's probably why you'll never see it in a TvZ
|
Problem with design. They have replacements in certain situations, Vikings for ATA, Banshees for ATG, that are cheaper, more mobile, and other benefits (Vikings have incredible range, Banshees have cloak)
It's similar to the Carrier, which has a similar role in the protoss army as the collosus, but is generally a inferior unit to the collosus.
|
I use them lategame in all 3 MU's, but they're a massive investment, so only if you're massively cashfloating.
In TvP, they're simply good to force a ton of Voids that you can Yamato. Protoss doesn't have much that's cost efficient vs BC's.
In TvZ, you MUST get ravens as well, for seeker and PDD vs the hydra/corrupters. Without ravens, BC's are not viable, so this is a massive gas investment and is only practical if you have a split map scenario. Not to mention usually you already have to have a few ghosts. It's mostly after you don't need to keep replacing tanks since they are dying but in a fortified position.
|
BCs are finishing units in TvT, after you've got the game in the back, you use the BCs to finish them off, there's not really any other way to kill a ton of tanks vikings thors and turrets other than BCs with backup.
In TvP, they can also be used as a finishing unit, a maxed army of upgraded BCs with a couple of ghosts (only scvs for gas, mass orbitals) will beat pretty much any protoss unit comp (stalkers don't stand a chance, and HTs can be yamato'd or emp'd if they try to go voidrays, you'll find out and be able to make a ton of marines quickly and easily).
Here are 2 replays I had in the past day showing that BCs are way more viable than carriers, and in fact necessary for TvT to not be a stalemate.
links:
TvP on Shattered
TvT on Antiga
|
All units in SC2 are too fast like zerglings and blink stalkers, even if he has mass zealot and u got 10 bc's, he will just run over your bases while your bc's with their dps wont kill anything. Bc's lack both mobility and dps for their cost.
TvT bc's are great I use them quite often in late game if I dont kill my opponent early, a lot of people make mistake thinking once you start bc's you should max them until you mine out everything on map. What you should do is once you get small adventage in late game you should switch to bc's make 4-5 and stop, start pushing break siege lines, usually players will overproduce vikings while you go back to standard mech or marine/tank depending what you are playing and you'll just win because he got useless vikings after killing your bc's.
TvP - stalkers just kill them not much to say about it and if you have SO many bc's that you can kill stalkers, why did you even make bc's in first place? You could probably win him with scvs at that point if he let you tech switch that hard.
TvZ - again mobility, zerglings will overrun everything while infestors or corruptors..or both kill your bc's like nothing. People mentioned "you could make them to kill bl's", yep you could but you could also just make viking + ghost and do the same thing 5x as better
|
two big reasons! Too much investment in infrastructure required to make them cost effective; ie. extra starports when you already have enough barracks and or factories to spend your money on. Secondly they are high attack speed/low damage so armor upgrades reduce their damage output by a lot, and your enemies upgrades on ground unit
armor will favour whatever upgrades you managed to get on your terran air, resulting in very low damage output. Both of these could get mitigated by planning for battlecruiser switch beforehand. However then comes all the explanation from the other posters as to why bc's just aren't very good anyway.
|
On January 31 2012 13:49 Empire.Beastyqt wrote:
All units in SC2 are too fast like zerglings and blink stalkers, even if he has mass zealot and u got 10 bc's, he will just run over your bases while your bc's with their dps wont kill anything. Bc's lack both mobility and dps for their cost.
TvP - stalkers just kill them not much to say about it and if you have SO many bc's that you can kill stalkers, why did you even make bc's in first place? You could probably win him with scvs at that point if he let you tech switch that hard.
I agree, but if you're tired and don't want to deal with controlling a bio army, you can build PFs in the middle of the map and spam nukes everywhere whilst tech switching to BCs, they usually leave after a short while.
|
On January 31 2012 13:49 Empire.Beastyqt wrote:
TvT bc's are great I use them quite often in late game if I dont kill my opponent early, a lot of people make mistake thinking once you start bc's you should max them until you mine out everything on map. What you should do is once you get small adventage in late game you should switch to bc's make 4-5 and stop, start pushing break siege lines, usually players will overproduce vikings while you go back to standard mech or marine/tank depending what you are playing and you'll just win because he got useless vikings after killing your bc's.
Definitely agree with this point. Don't try to max out on BCs lol. You're just asking to get stomped. A few is enough to break a siege-line or force viking production, since Marines don't cut it if you have tank backup.
|
They're a very risky and costly investments, that has a lot of counters in SCII.
TvP - Stalker-Voidrays do quite well against them.
TvZ - Corrupters
TvT - Vikings
They're also extremely slow, and that makes it hard to use effective. It's very hard to retreat with them if you find yourself in an unfavourable engagement.
DPS wise, it may be high but the damage is Damage Per Shot is quite low. With opposing Armour ups most likely ahead of you since Terran Air is in a category of its own, the DPS will be brought down severely. It's -1 Damage per shot after all.
That being said, it does have purpose in TvT. As others have mentioned, they're useful in breaking stalemates and Tank lines. But they'd have to be supported by a large number of Vikings.
I don't often see BC's in the other two match ups due to how easy it is to warp in a bunch of Stalkers, or wait 40s for a large batch of Corruptors.
|
BCs in SC2, unlike BW, have low base dmg but high fire rate. This makes them extremely dependent on upgrades.
If you look at the capital ships that "work" in both BW and SC2 you will see that they do because of "special" features:
Carriers in BW could micro so that they would not take dmg.
BL in SC2 rely on broodlings (that benefit from ground melee upgrades) that keep ground forces away (or deal friendly fire)
The difference between TvT, TvP and TvZ is that Terran has rubbish ground to air (armored) options. So they can be stopped only by air units. Plus, that Infestors and HTs can single handedly counter them,doesn't help either TBH.
|
On January 31 2012 11:05 Lebzetu wrote:
They are used in TvT. God knows why, since Vikings hard counter them and each terran is already massing vikings.
In TvZ, if you go BC, you die to corruptor.
In TvP, they go blink stalkers or void rays.
And above all else, they are expensive, hard to tech to and they have to pay for themselves.
You need like 4+ bases to get them anyway, and terrans cant get to 4+ bases since they dont know how to macro.
Thinly disguised terran hate..
|
The thing is, lategame battlecruisers are exceptionally strong in TvP, quite effective for capitalising on a lead in TvT, and have useage as part of the latelatelatelategame sky terran army composition vs. Zerg.
The problem is that they are extremely expensive, slow to produce, and only really function well when there are alot of them supported by other expensive units such as ghosts, ravens and in some cases vikings.
If you watch MVP or oGsTOP play TvZ, you will see that in the lategame they start to make battlecruisers. Unfortunately its such a late-game tactic that we almost never see the unit come into play.
If you watch MVPKeen play TvP, he also makes them in the lategame - but as we saw in a recent match of his, there is a hugely vulnerable period in the game where you are transitioning into them that is so easily exploited.
In TvT, they are pretty common, so I needn't go into that.
The battlecruiser is a good unit, and professional players know this. But it'll not be a regularity to see them, because they are so far down the tech tree, so expensive, so slow to produce, etc. etc.
Be on the lookout, you will see them eventually in that one-in-a-thousand game :D
|
I feel like the easiest situations to get Battlecruisers are those where you should probably just go kill him. Generally, you need to be quite a bit ahead. Of course, TvT stalemates are a big exception to this.
|
same reason as why carrier is not used often
-needs high air upgrades to do good damages
-has counters
-expensive
but terran can use bcs to break siege tank line. (also mass vikings ahead, with +3 armor can easily break the line since there is no atk upgrade for turret)
in protoss vs protoss we don't see carriers coz colossus are mobile tanks.
|
If they'd remove the energy from BCs, I feel like they could be sort of useful in TvP. At the moment Feedback deals so much damage to them that it's not even funny. Same thing goes for Thors tbh as well.
|
Because pros know how to end the game earlier and teching up to them leaves you vulnerable. Lower level players turtle too hard and miss all their timings so it seems viable, but it isn't most of the time. They also aren't that effective for their investment. There's better options in the super late game.
|
The thing is Battlecruisers are like Ultralisks, except more so. Like Day9 said: Ultralisks are a unit that you make when you are already ahead that you use to keep the momentum, not a unit that you decide to just "go". (Except NesTea, who somehow managed to make a huge comeback and win by pulling out Ultralisk/Infestor in the last second)
Battlecruisers are even more so, you can't just decide to go battlecruisers, the game's gotta be at that point where it's not really a big deal to make them anymore.
|
At least they are used more than the Carrier. :D
|
haven't read every post so excuse if it has been mentioned. Against armor upgrades if you haven't gone for air attack, banshees do better, as they are faster out if anti air is missing, which happens in tvz and tvt.
Where i love to use bcs is in tvt, yeah vikings hardcounter them, but my viking hardcounter their vikings, while the bc tanks quite alot of viking shots. (and covers the raven with the seeker). But i love sky terran anyway.
I also love to use them in tvz, personally the bc does way better against mutas then the thors, mobility advantage and does not rely on splash, the yamato is semi okay against ultras and since you upgrade air, broodlords are not to much of an option. Though mass t1-1,5 can easily ignore the bc shots.
Also the posts regarding vikings, voidrays, corrupters kill the bcs. Party true but bcs still do extremly well against air, and seeker missile is really effective against air that focuses bcs. And vikings do super well against everything that does good against bcs. Against zerg you could even land them if there aren't roaches or ultras around. So its not like vikings cut your army supply to fight ground.
That being said bc buffs your viking force and is really supply efficient, but doesn't work in C&C style mass one unit type. The ground nerf made it possible that you can ignore them with your ground army if your ahead in armor upgrades.
And thats the main problem with those high attack speed t3 units, they need upgrades and since they are air, they often start at 0/0 against 2/2 or 3/3. Though when preparing for broodlords you basically start +1 attack and finish it before you build a viking. I think in this situation its perfect to throw in a bc so the zerg goes blerg with trying to retain air control with corruptor infestor.
But its mainly the lategame upgrade disadvantage why bcs aren't build.
|
cause when u want to build them u realize that your air upgrades are at 1/0 when enemy has 3/3 ground and kill BCs ezpz
also: corruptor, viking
|
On January 31 2012 23:12 DrGreen wrote:
cause when u want to build them u realize that your air upgrades are at 1/0 when enemy has 3/3 ground and kill BCs ezpz
also: corruptor, viking
Pretty much this. Having to upgrade ship weapons and armor takes too much gas when you already did it for bio and mech. You can't afford it mid game so a late game transition to BCs isn't viable because their not upgraded and 3/3 marines would just own 1/1ish BCs.
I think an interesting idea would be to combine ship and ground mech armor so there's 5 paths instead of 6...
|
On January 31 2012 11:05 Lebzetu wrote:
They are used in TvT. God knows why, since Vikings hard counter them and each terran is already massing vikings.
In TvZ, if you go BC, you die to corruptor.
In TvP, they go blink stalkers or void rays.
And above all else, they are expensive, hard to tech to and they have to pay for themselves.
You need like 4+ bases to get them anyway, and terrans cant get to 4+ bases since they dont know how to macro.
Its funny how we are in 2012 and there are still idiots saying "race X doesn't know how to macro".
|
On January 31 2012 11:05 Lebzetu wrote:
They are used in TvT. God knows why, since Vikings hard counter them and each terran is already massing vikings.
In TvZ, if you go BC, you die to corruptor.
In TvP, they go blink stalkers or void rays.
And above all else, they are expensive, hard to tech to and they have to pay for themselves.
You need like 4+ bases to get them anyway, and terrans cant get to 4+ bases since they dont know how to macro.
Yea, this is obviously the reason pros don't use it.
Other than that they are used in very late game TvT to kill mech armies consisting a lot of tanks. They can take out thors pretty handily with Yamato aswell.
|
Well ... a Marine costs 50 minerals.
|
there comes a point in tvt where either player doesnt want to push because of the oponents tanks, and also there are turrets everywhere to stop drops.. u gotta take to air.. get vikings and BCs to hit ground... banshees could do it as well, but they are more easily dealt with marines and thors, but bcs only vikings can effectively kill them
|
On January 31 2012 23:19 Kuni wrote:
Well ... a Marine costs 50 minerals.
Marines aren't that great vs BCs, due to the high armor and the fact that BC's sort of rape vs ground, not to mention that you're probably stim into a siege tank line trying to snipe them. Vikings are the real counter. (Unlike vs Carriers when it's essentially vice versa)
|
There is a problem with upgrades as well, I play biomech and when I see a opponent go for a air transition I just smile because my 3-3 marines are going to rip apart his 1-0 or maybe at best 2-1 BCs. Be careful not to run into a seige line and your good.
|
On January 31 2012 11:05 Lebzetu wrote:
They are used in TvT. God knows why, since Vikings hard counter them and each terran is already massing vikings.
In TvZ, if you go BC, you die to corruptor.
In TvP, they go blink stalkers or void rays.
And above all else, they are expensive, hard to tech to and they have to pay for themselves.
You need like 4+ bases to get them anyway, and terrans cant get to 4+ bases since they dont know how to macro.
firstly, quit your Zerg bias.(go away) Secondly, the reason their used in TvT is to clear tanks. but only way to use them effectively is to have the most vikings.
|
They are just not good in small numbers
|
They're good in TvT because the only unit that couter them is Viking, but if you have air control with more viking then your opponent, a BC swich can often lead to a victory.
|
What realistic unit compositions / situations can you encounter in any of the match-ups that would justify getting battlecruisers? I dont think there are any, apart from the TvT siegeline stalemate. If it were not for that very specific situation, i'd say the BC would have shared the fate of the carrier in HOTS.
|
the issue in tvp is, during the late game bc's cost too much food and static defense is irrelevant. So this means that if your cutting bio to make BCs.. you have no way to defend vs pushes.... and with BCs taking so long to build.... your just fucked by the massive P deathball if they come walking over before you make a good amount of them.. I do however think if there was a way to transition into mass BC considering your already getting the air weapons upgrade to help vs collos... it would be a very strong switch.. but its just simply not realistic imho at the pro level
|
Marineking used them against MC in HSC4 and won the game. Arguably not the most serious game, but he won nonetheless.
|
If Battlecruisers had more of a role than heavily-armored tank spotter, we'd see more use. As it is now, you're better off to just save your gas and build another Orbital or two, and use scans instead.
|
Just wait til they get their boosters
|
BC are good against Terrans, because there is no groundunit that is efficient against them, when there are equal upgrades between them.
But they are not used against Zerg/Protoss, because they are countered by units, that protoss/zerg make anyway in the matchup (High Templar, Infestor, Corruptor, Blink Stalker). That's the reason, quite simple.
|
On February 01 2012 01:42 TeeTS wrote:
BC are good against Terrans, because there is no groundunit that is efficient against them, when there are equal upgrades between them.
But they are not used against Zerg/Protoss, because they are countered by units, that protoss/zerg make anyway in the matchup (High Templar, Infestor, Corruptor, Blink Stalker). That's the reason, quite simple.
edit: Removed, I was talking out my ass
|
goody has some bc build and i've seen him using it quite succesful, not too recently though
|
Mainly because they are too slow to retreat so you cannot poke at the enemy with them and only use them in defence and for main army battles. Having 1-3 of them in your army is pretty nice but you can't really have a BC army. HotS will give them a speed boost ability which should make them more interesting at poking and such.
|
It's hard to upgrade air ship attack and armor in any matchups for terran. The BC is somewhat okay in TvT mech vs mech, but other than that it sucks. The cost is big, the production time is huge and they just aren't worth it. The speed dosen't help either. They are similar to ultralisks in many ways except the fact infestor-ultraslisk is actually decent while BC dosen't have a good combo to go with.
|
Battlecruisers see play in TvT often enough.
In TvT, when you fall behind on the Viking count thors are a great tool to control space (they decimate vikings while clumped, which most terrans do while microing their vikings). In order to break these "thor contains" sky terrans will often go battlecruisers, since thors just don't kill battlecruisers, and the sky terran player already has the viking superiority.
Otherwise there is no reason to ever invest that many resources into a single unit that is easily sniped, easily countered, slow, cost inefficient vs the majority of late game compositions in ALL three matchups, and is a tech path least likely to be upgraded.
One of the MLGs had a great Rain vs BoxeR TvT on metalopolis where both players ended up going sky terran (the only way to break siege lines in lategame TvT). There's a gif floating around of the final engagement if you want to save 35 minutes of posturing and throwing away leads.
|
On February 01 2012 01:43 HackBenjamin wrote:Show nested quote +On February 01 2012 01:42 TeeTS wrote:
BC are good against Terrans, because there is no groundunit that is efficient against them, when there are equal upgrades between them.
But they are not used against Zerg/Protoss, because they are countered by units, that protoss/zerg make anyway in the matchup (High Templar, Infestor, Corruptor, Blink Stalker). That's the reason, quite simple. I'm gonna tell you about a little something I like to call the Thor...
Are you seriously telling us that Thors are efficient against BattleCruisers? Thors are terrible against BattleCruisers. Given equal upgrades, Thors deal something like 4 dps to them...
|
If you manage to optain air advantage in a bio vs mech game, which should be easy since, ur gonna have more bases. I can't see why BC's wouldn't be devastating.
Other than that, it will be too hard to reach a critical mass of BC's w/o getting stomped in the process. The critical mass does exist though.
|
Tier 3 units for both Protoss and Terran are very weak but strong tier 1 units make up for it.
|
They are quite good against thors especially since Thor dps is HORRIFIC. They're just too situational and you can often opt for other units that are cheaper and sometimes easier to resupply.
|
Fully upgraded battlecruisers are almost unkillable with ghost backup vs zerg. The biggest problem with the unit though is that while BCs are good with matching upgrades they aren't that good with no upgrades. So someone basically has to get full air upgrades before they are effective and that is WAAAY late into a game. If you wanted to get those upgrades early you would have way weaker siege tanks or marines and it's just not worth it.
It is actually ridiculously strong vs zerg, You have to have 30+ corruptors to counter 5 BC sice 10+ corruptors will die to snipes and yamato before the first BC falls. Also if you add vikings to the group the corruptors can't really wittle down BCs since they have low range.
|
in pvt, mass air terran = BC in late game
QxC did that vs whitra
|
On February 01 2012 02:04 Kluey wrote:
Tier 3 units for both Protoss and Terran are very weak but strong tier 1 units make up for it.
Wait, what? Mothership, Colossus, HT/Archon are all insanely strong. It's Stalkers/Sentries that get weak in lategame. Protoss relies on T3 units because their T1 units (apart from Chargelots) can't survive past midgame.
|
On February 01 2012 02:00 TheDwf wrote:Show nested quote +On February 01 2012 01:43 HackBenjamin wrote:On February 01 2012 01:42 TeeTS wrote:
BC are good against Terrans, because there is no groundunit that is efficient against them, when there are equal upgrades between them.
But they are not used against Zerg/Protoss, because they are countered by units, that protoss/zerg make anyway in the matchup (High Templar, Infestor, Corruptor, Blink Stalker). That's the reason, quite simple. I'm gonna tell you about a little something I like to call the Thor... Are you seriously telling us that Thors are efficient against BattleCruisers? Thors are terrible against BattleCruisers. Given equal upgrades, Thors deal something like 4 dps to them...
edit: Removed, I was talking out my ass
|
I made a calculation of unit effectiveness taking into account stats, range, AoE, cost etc. and got the following numbers:
Battlecruiser 46.3
Marine (stim shield) 89.6
Seige tank 77.2
Banshee 43.6
These units got their overall effectiveness tweaked to account for fighting BCs:
Stalker 51.9
Void ray (charged) 45.9 (53)
Hydras 48.3
Corruptors 47.8 (counted the increased damage with the spell)
+ Show Spoiler +The effectiveness number doesnt mean anything by itself (since its the squre root of the units core stats multiplied and divided by costs) but it does have meaning if you compare it to the number of some other unit. If some unit's effectiveness number is twice better than some others than it basicly means you need to have twice less resources invested in that army to have it the same strength. There are a lot of exceptions though for which i didnt account for: speed and mobility, ability to shoot air, ground or both and others.
So basicly the BCs are not much better or worse than the units supposed to counter it. But since other terran units have much better stats its prefferable to get those instead of BCs.
|
well, there getting a speed boost in hots so we might see bc harras?
|
On January 31 2012 11:03 Psilo wrote:
The DPS on Battlecruisers is top 3 in the game, and that's without Yamato cannon.
The DPS per cost isn't anywhere near top 3 in the game though.
On February 01 2012 02:20 HackBenjamin wrote:
BC = 400 Min 300 Gas
Thor = 300 Min 200 Gas
BC = Yamato Cannon - 300 dmg
Thor = 250mm Strike Cannon - 500 dmg over 6 seconds
BC = Air-to-Ground Range - 6
Thor = Ground-Air-Range - 10
I'm understanding your disbelief, but take into account the range advantage, the cost difference, and the abilities. Properly used, I firmly believe that the Thor can be used efficiently in this matchup to counter Battlecruisers. I think it's how you use it.
Strike Cannon doesn't hit air, and battlecruisers have 3 base armor which literally cuts thor air DPS in half (already very low per cost against single targets). The thor air cooldown is also among the longest cooldowns in the game (in fact I think it is the longest, period). If you don't know these basic facts you probably shouldn't post in this thread.
|
On February 01 2012 02:28 blah_blah wrote:Show nested quote +On January 31 2012 11:03 Psilo wrote:
The DPS on Battlecruisers is top 3 in the game, and that's without Yamato cannon. The DPS per cost isn't anywhere near top 3 in the game though. Show nested quote +On February 01 2012 02:20 HackBenjamin wrote:
BC = 400 Min 300 Gas
Thor = 300 Min 200 Gas
BC = Yamato Cannon - 300 dmg
Thor = 250mm Strike Cannon - 500 dmg over 6 seconds
BC = Air-to-Ground Range - 6
Thor = Ground-Air-Range - 10
I'm understanding your disbelief, but take into account the range advantage, the cost difference, and the abilities. Properly used, I firmly believe that the Thor can be used efficiently in this matchup to counter Battlecruisers. I think it's how you use it. Strike Cannon doesn't hit air, and battlecruisers have 3 base armor which literally cuts thor air DPS in half (already very low per cost against single targets). The thor air cooldown is also among the longest cooldowns in the game (in fact I think it is the longest, period). If you don't know these basic facts you probably shouldn't post in this thread.
You are correct I'll remove my posts
|
On February 01 2012 02:20 HackBenjamin wrote:Show nested quote +On February 01 2012 02:00 TheDwf wrote:On February 01 2012 01:43 HackBenjamin wrote:On February 01 2012 01:42 TeeTS wrote:
BC are good against Terrans, because there is no groundunit that is efficient against them, when there are equal upgrades between them.
But they are not used against Zerg/Protoss, because they are countered by units, that protoss/zerg make anyway in the matchup (High Templar, Infestor, Corruptor, Blink Stalker). That's the reason, quite simple. I'm gonna tell you about a little something I like to call the Thor... Are you seriously telling us that Thors are efficient against BattleCruisers? Thors are terrible against BattleCruisers. Given equal upgrades, Thors deal something like 4 dps to them... BC = 400 Min 300 Gas Thor = 300 Min 200 Gas BC = Yamato Cannon - 300 dmg Thor = 250mm Strike Cannon - 500 dmg over 6 seconds BC = Air-to-Ground Range - 6 Thor = Ground-Air-Range - 10 I'm understanding your disbelief, but take into account the range advantage, the cost difference, and the abilities. Properly used, I firmly believe that the Thor can be used efficiently in this matchup to counter Battlecruisers. I think it's how you use it.
Lol you can't use strike cannon against air but I think that thors can SITUATIONALLY cuonter BCs. If you have superior +1 upgrades to the BCs armor upgrades in large numbers thors can really kill bcs which tend to clump up alot.
|
On February 01 2012 02:20 HackBenjamin wrote:Show nested quote +On February 01 2012 02:00 TheDwf wrote:On February 01 2012 01:43 HackBenjamin wrote:On February 01 2012 01:42 TeeTS wrote:
BC are good against Terrans, because there is no groundunit that is efficient against them, when there are equal upgrades between them.
But they are not used against Zerg/Protoss, because they are countered by units, that protoss/zerg make anyway in the matchup (High Templar, Infestor, Corruptor, Blink Stalker). That's the reason, quite simple. I'm gonna tell you about a little something I like to call the Thor... Are you seriously telling us that Thors are efficient against BattleCruisers? Thors are terrible against BattleCruisers. Given equal upgrades, Thors deal something like 4 dps to them... BC = 400 Min 300 Gas Thor = 300 Min 200 Gas BC = Yamato Cannon - 300 dmg Thor = 250mm Strike Cannon - 500 dmg over 6 seconds BC = Air-to-Ground Range - 6 Thor = Ground-Air-Range - 10 I'm understanding your disbelief, but take into account the range advantage, the cost difference, and the abilities. Properly used, I firmly believe that the Thor can be used efficiently in this matchup to counter Battlecruisers. I think it's how you use it.
Thors are countered by BCs and assuming somewhat standard unit copositions countering thors is the only reason to ever build a BC. I don't know why you brought up strike cannon which can't even hit air. Also thor's range vs BCs is really pointless since they simply do so little damage that you dont have to care if you get hit. The reason is Thor's multiple low-damage anti-air missiles and BC's high armor. In TvT every other unit but thors are going to be killed by tanks and vikings. Tanks obviously kill thors too, but the problem is you can't take advantage of your air dominance without taking hits from thors.
|
On January 31 2012 11:08 Psilo wrote:Show nested quote +On January 31 2012 11:06 JagerGard wrote:
O_O MVP used Battlecruisers to great effect in TvT when he went mech, particularly against MarineKing in GSL January and the Super Tournament.
Other than that I have nothing else to say, I don't use battlecruisers much.
EDIT: Also not sure if trolling. Im not trolling. I watched all 152 matches in recent GSL up'and'downs and Code S ro.32 this month, and in only 2 games out of the 152, a fusion core was built. And one of those 2 was the hilarious accident that (Gumiho i think?) did, when he was meaning to build a factory in that spot. The recent terran GSL play is the reason for this thread.
That was vileIllusion vs FXOLucky in IPL TAC, not GSL. The most recent ONOG finals, vileIllusion and Kas got into a long game on Bel-shir and after a long base trade/stabilization period, Kas busted out a few BCs to snipe tanks and ended up winning the game.
|
why would you make battlecruisers if you can MAKE MARINES?
|
On February 01 2012 02:33 statikg wrote:Show nested quote +On February 01 2012 02:20 HackBenjamin wrote:On February 01 2012 02:00 TheDwf wrote:On February 01 2012 01:43 HackBenjamin wrote:On February 01 2012 01:42 TeeTS wrote:
BC are good against Terrans, because there is no groundunit that is efficient against them, when there are equal upgrades between them.
But they are not used against Zerg/Protoss, because they are countered by units, that protoss/zerg make anyway in the matchup (High Templar, Infestor, Corruptor, Blink Stalker). That's the reason, quite simple. I'm gonna tell you about a little something I like to call the Thor... Are you seriously telling us that Thors are efficient against BattleCruisers? Thors are terrible against BattleCruisers. Given equal upgrades, Thors deal something like 4 dps to them... BC = 400 Min 300 Gas Thor = 300 Min 200 Gas BC = Yamato Cannon - 300 dmg Thor = 250mm Strike Cannon - 500 dmg over 6 seconds BC = Air-to-Ground Range - 6 Thor = Ground-Air-Range - 10 I'm understanding your disbelief, but take into account the range advantage, the cost difference, and the abilities. Properly used, I firmly believe that the Thor can be used efficiently in this matchup to counter Battlecruisers. I think it's how you use it. Lol you can't use strike cannon against air but I think that thors can SITUATIONALLY cuonter BCs. If you have superior +1 upgrades to the BCs armor upgrades in large numbers thors can really kill bcs which tend to clump up alot.
I'm pretty sure that BCs are still easily cost effecient against pure thors. With Yamato Cannon especially. Obviously they still lose if you clump them up on purpose, but anything is going to lose like that. Thors have their place in viking vs viking wars. They are good in viking thor vs viking BC fights, but that's simply because they allow your vikings to overpower his and counter those BCs.
|
Cost wise BCs are 50 minerals more than Thors, seriously, Its the build time, it takes too long and suffer the same problem as Hydralisks they are too slow. Occasionally used in TvT but that should be shown for what it is a Sky Terran style that relies on high Viking count and then BCs are just a meat tank.
ZvT, 2 Corruptors to a BC is not considered worth it as Terrans have to push aggressively to deny additional expansions of Zerg how do BCs help this?
PvT, mass Stalker is the standard, Marine Marauder is the standard counter how do BCs assist the high mobility and harass strength of MMM or the damage output of ghosts?
Its just not the metagame style BCs dont fit in anywhere except for TvT.
|
Going mass BC against zerg isn't good idea because of neural parasite. If player A make 20 battlecruisers, player B will make 11 infestors which is pretty much hard counter to it.
BC cost >> Infestor cost.
|
Upgraded battlecruisers in TvT are absolutely the correct choice.
Mass vikings are good against them, but vikings can't kill turrets...BC's can.
Marine/Tank/Ghost in TvZ is so efficient that battlecruisers are almost a waste of money (but not necessarily bad, just very unnecessary).
In PvT, feedback, voidrays, blink stalkers, etc, make them a less than ideal choice. Boxer vs HasuObs in the NASL is a classic example of why they are bad in the matchup.
The new ability in HotS should revive their usage.
|
Would you rather have 2 banshees or 1 battlecruiser ? Banshees are just better in tvt.
|
On February 01 2012 02:00 TheDwf wrote:Show nested quote +On February 01 2012 01:43 HackBenjamin wrote:On February 01 2012 01:42 TeeTS wrote:
BC are good against Terrans, because there is no groundunit that is efficient against them, when there are equal upgrades between them.
But they are not used against Zerg/Protoss, because they are countered by units, that protoss/zerg make anyway in the matchup (High Templar, Infestor, Corruptor, Blink Stalker). That's the reason, quite simple. I'm gonna tell you about a little something I like to call the Thor... Are you seriously telling us that Thors are efficient against BattleCruisers? Thors are terrible against BattleCruisers. Given equal upgrades, Thors deal something like 4 dps to them...
The cannon ability does massive damage and stuns BCs.
|
On February 01 2012 03:38 willoc wrote:Show nested quote +On February 01 2012 02:00 TheDwf wrote:On February 01 2012 01:43 HackBenjamin wrote:On February 01 2012 01:42 TeeTS wrote:
BC are good against Terrans, because there is no groundunit that is efficient against them, when there are equal upgrades between them.
But they are not used against Zerg/Protoss, because they are countered by units, that protoss/zerg make anyway in the matchup (High Templar, Infestor, Corruptor, Blink Stalker). That's the reason, quite simple. I'm gonna tell you about a little something I like to call the Thor... Are you seriously telling us that Thors are efficient against BattleCruisers? Thors are terrible against BattleCruisers. Given equal upgrades, Thors deal something like 4 dps to them... The cannon ability does massive damage and stuns BCs.
Can't be used against air. I just learned this too =/
|
On February 01 2012 03:40 HackBenjamin wrote:Show nested quote +On February 01 2012 03:38 willoc wrote:On February 01 2012 02:00 TheDwf wrote:On February 01 2012 01:43 HackBenjamin wrote:On February 01 2012 01:42 TeeTS wrote:
BC are good against Terrans, because there is no groundunit that is efficient against them, when there are equal upgrades between them.
But they are not used against Zerg/Protoss, because they are countered by units, that protoss/zerg make anyway in the matchup (High Templar, Infestor, Corruptor, Blink Stalker). That's the reason, quite simple. I'm gonna tell you about a little something I like to call the Thor... Are you seriously telling us that Thors are efficient against BattleCruisers? Thors are terrible against BattleCruisers. Given equal upgrades, Thors deal something like 4 dps to them... The cannon ability does massive damage and stuns BCs. Can't be used against air. I just learned this too =/
Oh harsh! Thanks for the tips!
|
bc's have a place in tvt late game yes, but going thor viking is just as viable instead bc viking. TvP/Z they are too easily countered
|
On February 01 2012 02:09 StarBrift wrote:
Fully upgraded battlecruisers are almost unkillable with ghost backup vs zerg. The biggest problem with the unit though is that while BCs are good with matching upgrades they aren't that good with no upgrades. So someone basically has to get full air upgrades before they are effective and that is WAAAY late into a game. If you wanted to get those upgrades early you would have way weaker siege tanks or marines and it's just not worth it.
It is actually ridiculously strong vs zerg, You have to have 30+ corruptors to counter 5 BC sice 10+ corruptors will die to snipes and yamato before the first BC falls. Also if you add vikings to the group the corruptors can't really wittle down BCs since they have low range.
If you're facing fully upgraded BCs with ghost backup then you've already lost that game before because that's just too expensive army to get it normally. Terran should be way ahead to go for that. That's like ultimate army.
But yea, what people already said, upgrades screw BCs because they have great rate of fire but small dmg.
in TvT you'll see them in late late game
in TvZ you can get them in laze game if you're in good situation but they are slow so zerg can run around and screw with you + corruptors own you
in TvP stalkers will have 3 armor while you'll have maybe 1 on BC. Add guardian shield = BC does 4 dmg to stalker
|
its only usable against terran, in other situations they are just bad and slow.
|
upgrades
you have to already be ahead to make air tier 3 viable. and if your already ahead well, why extend the game and give your opponent another opportunity
|
How the hell did people think Thors countered BC's? BC's are the counter to Thors. Yamato shits on Thors, and any nonlight unit with a decent amount of armor is going to laugh as Thors tickle them.... Even somewhat clumped BC's counter Thors, assuming you aren't moronic and don't have 50% of them clumped getting hit by the same units.
And it would never get to the mass Thor vs BC situation. Whenever you go BC's you get ravens, and they'd simply drop a ton of PDDs, which Thors are awful vs with their crazy long cooldown. Thors aren't plausible at all in the longrun, only good while you're looking for a transition. Only time I've seen it remotely work is in a game Demuslim vs Murder on Demuslims stream where Demuslim had like 3/3 vs 1/0 and was fighting like 3 thors vs 3 BC's constantly and the BC's were always clumped and never had yamato, and never managed to get large numbers because Murder was starved.
|
On February 01 2012 03:43 willoc wrote:Show nested quote +On February 01 2012 03:40 HackBenjamin wrote:On February 01 2012 03:38 willoc wrote:On February 01 2012 02:00 TheDwf wrote:On February 01 2012 01:43 HackBenjamin wrote:On February 01 2012 01:42 TeeTS wrote:
BC are good against Terrans, because there is no groundunit that is efficient against them, when there are equal upgrades between them.
But they are not used against Zerg/Protoss, because they are countered by units, that protoss/zerg make anyway in the matchup (High Templar, Infestor, Corruptor, Blink Stalker). That's the reason, quite simple. I'm gonna tell you about a little something I like to call the Thor... Are you seriously telling us that Thors are efficient against BattleCruisers? Thors are terrible against BattleCruisers. Given equal upgrades, Thors deal something like 4 dps to them... The cannon ability does massive damage and stuns BCs. Can't be used against air. I just learned this too =/ Oh harsh! Thanks for the tips!
For future reference: Actually try things out next time before posting about them.
One of the major reasons why you will pretty much never see BCs in competitive play except maybe TvT is, that at the point where it is viable to build them (3+ bases, 20min+ games and possibly split map scenarios) most units will already be fully upgraded or well on the way to be so.
Most units with the exception of BCs that is, since terran air upgrades are usually only gotten in TvT.
3/3 Battlecruisers would be actually viable in TvP at least and possibly TvZ as well, but since there is no really viable way to make use of those upgrades anytime before, there just is no transition to that 3/3 BC state. And if you just send unupgraded BCs into battle against upgraded P or Z armies they quite frankly suck big time for their cost. This i especially true since they greatly suffer from opponents armor upgrades, each of those decreasing their damage output by at least 16%.
edit: oh well other people were faster ...
|
On February 01 2012 03:47 bLah. wrote:Show nested quote +On February 01 2012 02:09 StarBrift wrote:
Fully upgraded battlecruisers are almost unkillable with ghost backup vs zerg. The biggest problem with the unit though is that while BCs are good with matching upgrades they aren't that good with no upgrades. So someone basically has to get full air upgrades before they are effective and that is WAAAY late into a game. If you wanted to get those upgrades early you would have way weaker siege tanks or marines and it's just not worth it.
It is actually ridiculously strong vs zerg, You have to have 30+ corruptors to counter 5 BC sice 10+ corruptors will die to snipes and yamato before the first BC falls. Also if you add vikings to the group the corruptors can't really wittle down BCs since they have low range. If you're facing fully upgraded BCs with ghost backup then you've already lost that game before because that's just too expensive army to get it normally. Terran should be way ahead to go for that. That's like ultimate army. But yea, what people already said, upgrades screw BCs because they have great rate of fire but small dmg. in TvT you'll see them in late late game in TvZ you can get them in laze game if you're in good situation but they are slow so zerg can run around and screw with you + corruptors own you in TvP stalkers will have 3 armor while you'll have maybe 1 on BC. Add guardian shield = BC does 4 dmg to stalker
You can't take GS into account lategame, because rarely are there sentries even involved. It's usually blink stalkers trying to get in and out. And 1/1 BC's are extremely good vs 3/3 stalkers. You should be more worried about HT than anything else.
|
On paper, they could be decent against protoss because Voids are unused (terribad) and stalkers scale terribly with upgrades in the late game. But the rest of the terran units are designed to hardcounter in more efficient ways the protoss stuff (vikings counter collo, ghosts counter HT) which outshine the BC... So I guess it's because it has no real use, and is slow.
Maybe if Carriers were playable...
|
naama makes bcs very often , seems funny when he pwns some korean dude with 2 bcs and all scvs that repair bcs from the queens + spors damage while also pwning with like 10 marines 2 tanks (high ladder level games vs kor gms)
|
The main issues with battle cruisers is that their dps is significantly cut down due to armor upgrades. I only use battle cruisers in tvt due to the fact that if the opponent gets vikings i just have vikings of my own along with yamato.
|
On January 31 2012 11:05 Lebzetu wrote:
They are used in TvT. God knows why, since Vikings hard counter them and each terran is already massing vikings.
In TvZ, if you go BC, you die to corruptor.
In TvP, they go blink stalkers or void rays.
And above all else, they are expensive, hard to tech to and they have to pay for themselves.
You need like 4+ bases to get them anyway, and terrans cant get to 4+ bases since they dont know how to macro.
Hahaha, yeah sure man.
|
[Team Liquid Poster] Because Marines are too good [/Team Liquid Poster]
|
The battlecruiser has "High" DPS?
The DPS per supply/cost for Battlecruisers is abysmal. The only value the unit has is its high armor and decently high hp per supply.
|
Everything people above have said, and upgrades. Its similar to why a bio terran cant make a mech switch. BCs only come out late game when marines are 3/3 already and the BC has squat
|
Yamato Cannon+Seeker Missile+Timed Nuke hitting at the same time.
= Apocalypse
I want to see THAT in one game.
|
On February 01 2012 04:25 HungrySC2 wrote:
The battlecruiser has "High" DPS?
The DPS per supply/cost for Battlecruisers is abysmal. The only value the unit has is its high armor and decently high hp per supply.
considering BC's are flying units and thus can stack and all fire at once, the effective DPS they can dish out is pretty significant.
|
I think BC's are a viable transition for bio terrans who need some support for meching or marine/tank terrans in vs T matchups. Just requires about 5~6 BC's with a lot of vikings and some banshees for extra dps
|
Russian Federation4295 Posts
Nah battlecruisers, if tier1 infantry can kill everything ?
|
On February 01 2012 03:54 Icemind wrote:Show nested quote +On February 01 2012 03:43 willoc wrote:On February 01 2012 03:40 HackBenjamin wrote:On February 01 2012 03:38 willoc wrote:On February 01 2012 02:00 TheDwf wrote:On February 01 2012 01:43 HackBenjamin wrote:On February 01 2012 01:42 TeeTS wrote:
BC are good against Terrans, because there is no groundunit that is efficient against them, when there are equal upgrades between them.
But they are not used against Zerg/Protoss, because they are countered by units, that protoss/zerg make anyway in the matchup (High Templar, Infestor, Corruptor, Blink Stalker). That's the reason, quite simple. I'm gonna tell you about a little something I like to call the Thor... Are you seriously telling us that Thors are efficient against BattleCruisers? Thors are terrible against BattleCruisers. Given equal upgrades, Thors deal something like 4 dps to them... The cannon ability does massive damage and stuns BCs. Can't be used against air. I just learned this too =/ Oh harsh! Thanks for the tips! For future reference: Actually try things out next time before posting about them.
Nah, this is what forums are for. Discussing and learning things. Instead of spending a while figuring this out it was pointed out to me in minutes on the forum and other people who obviously had the same impression learned this as well.
For future reference: Actually find out what a forum is for before making arrogant comments.
|
|
|
On February 01 2012 03:35 ArcticRaven wrote:
Would you rather have 2 banshees or 1 battlecruiser ? Banshees are just better in tvt.
They both serve their purposes. For some instances having a Banshee around as a mobile harasser can be very beneficial. But in a straight up fight against a Terran army? Marine DPS absolutely wrecks Banshees.
Not to mention that the major fault with using them in direct combat is that Banshees have a tendency to over-kill targets. Ever use a few of them in combat as part of your ball? Since their shots are not instant damage, they stack up and waste a lot of shots. That being said they're effective for what they are, base-raiders, harassers and skirmishers.
In a long TvT battle with entrenched Tank lines and Turrets, Banshees will have trouble breaking through. Turrets and Marines are just too cost-effective against them. BC's on the other hand are mobile-tanks, with high armour and HP making them much better suited to break tank-lines and stalemates.
|
It's the same reason why the hydra isn't used in ZvT. The similar to the hydra which is countered by marines, tanks, thors, colossi, psi storm, roaches, infestors, lings, etc.... The BC is countered by hydras, corrupters, marines, stalkers, feedback, infestors, etc.... It has a similar problem to the hydra that if the terran army ever wants to retreat, the BCs all instantly die because of being slow. Tanks have the same problem, but offer as a bonus to the BC a huge range bonus. If BCs had more speed or range they might be decent.
|
In TvT battlecruisers are thrown in because "why the fuck not." Every other unit has been built, something needs to kill ravens quickly, and the DPS is very high. In other match ups however there are already some very strong methods (marines) that the Terran meta game has not evolved that far yet.
|
This is almost the same discussion with the "ghosts" before. It's just not or people haven't found any type of viable situation to use it. Or put up any type of bo using it being legit.
It's just how it is.
In broodwar the battlecruiser and the carriers were not even similar IMO. They were pretty much always used in the late/end game.
The thing is that SC2 is still very young and we haven't discovered how to use it properly yet. I think many has been thinking and been trying to use it ( toying with the thought ) but It's just not a viable thing "RIGHT NOW".
Which means that the actual metagame atm the battlecruiser or the carriers haven't been put in action as of yet.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
