Battlecruisers are too safe with the current Tactical Jump

General Discussion
1

I think that Tactical Jump needs a rework. Just a note here, I’m speaking from the perspective of Zerg, but this is an issue in all matchups.

It seems to me that Battlecruisers don’t really have a hard counter like other units do, mainly because they have such a ridiculous amount of health and they can instantly teleport out once it gets low. Other units require either instant retreat or profoundly micro-intensive counterplay to survive when faced with hard counters (think marines versus banelings). In contrast, even when faced with a huge cloud of Corrupters, Battlecruisers can either ignore them entirely while inflicting devastating damage in an enemy base or deal a huge blow to that army before Tactical Jumping back to safety where they can be repaired so they can just repeat over and over again. It seems wrong to me that Battlecruisers can eventually win the battle of attrition against their hard-counters just because their abilities are so robust.

I feel that Battlecruisers are way too safe of an option for Terran. They take an eternity to kill even if you invest a lot of resources into countering them, and even then, that doesn’t stop them from wreaking havoc in your bases.

I propose that the warp-in time for Tactical Jump be moved to BEFORE the actual jump rather than after. The ability to instantly teleport to safety is too powerful considering that there aren’t any significant downsides in my opinion. I imagine that the warp in duration was implemented to try and offset the monstrous strength in the ability to just teleport to any place on the map without vision, but in reality, it only gives an extremely skilled player enough time to salvage some of their workers and start moving their army to try and mount a defense. At the end of the day, Tactical Jumping a handful of Battlecruisers into someone’s base will generally ALWAYS get some kind of value whether we have a 4-second warning or not.

At least if there was a 4-second charge up time before Battlecruisers could jump out, there would be some actual risk to casually strolling into a ton of static defense and units that (((should))) hard-counter them. Importantly, If this change were implemented, it would still be possible to Tactical Jump out of an engagement, but it would require some actual strategy/forethought and Battlecruisers wouldn’t have the guaranteed value that they have currently.

I’m not saying that Battlecruisers are an unbeatable strategy (though they may feel that way sometimes), but they can definitely be used to great effect with little micro and/or strategy in one’s mechanics. Hell, even Protoss’ Recall ability renders their army helpless for a short time, and that’s still an extremely valuable ability that sees constant use in tournament play, so we have evidence that this mechanic wouldn’t kill the strategy in actual tournament play. I just don’t see anything positive to such a strong unit being virtually unkillable when they are so easy to get massive value out of. Both as a player and a spectator, there isn’t much fun in watching a super strong unit weasel out of their engagements for free every time.

Alternatively, if no one agrees with moving the loading time, I think it would be good for both Yamato Cannon and Tactical Jump to incur a global cooldown so they can’t both be used almost at the same time. If the devs insist on the Battlecruiser’s ability to always be able to jump to safety when the going gets bad, I don’t think they should be able to inflict enormous damage right before they do it. Yamato Cannon’s near-guaranteed damage is already frustrating enough to deal with on its own before you add the Battlecruiser’s ultrasafe gameplay to the mix. Not to mention, if a Terran player uses Tactical Jump to teleport into the enemy’s base and that turns out to be a huge strategical misstep, they could actually be punished for it.

Thoughts?

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2

Hey hey!
Ho ho!
Tactical jump has got to go!

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When 1 base terrans are beating 4 base zergs and you realize we’ve reached levels of kek that not even blizzard though were possible…

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Cheese is supposed to counter greed. 4 full bases means close to half your supply cap is invested in workers instead of an army. This is not, in and of itself, an absurd thing.

Having said that, BCs are stupid. If theyre going to be powerhouse units, they need to actually commit to being in that fight, and losing if things don’t turn out the way the terran wanted. Using BCs should work because the enemy didn’t prepare enough AA, not because you can go in, kill some stuff and get out with minimal loss of resources.

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You have fungal, use it.

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I don’t think forcing zerg to rush to infestors every game is a particularly healthy dynamic.

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Are we talking about the bc build or the TJ ability here? It seemed to me the last one.

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In this case, theyre interchangeable. The latter enables the former.

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Both, really. Battlecruisers have become a pervasive strategy throughout all skill levels because of how oppressively powerful they are even in the hands of relatively incompetent players. Battlecruisers are a problem that I think the developers should be looking at very closely, and Tactical Jump, in my opinion, is the primary reason.

10 Likes
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Ok, I will answer also to Kelthar with this.
Regarding the ability per se, with Zerg it has a clear counter: Infestors with fungal and neural. It’s the same scenario when a Terran has to counter a powerful ability (storm) with an ad hoc designed unit: the ghost. So it is not true that Zerg has no answer to TJ. To be honest, I personally find frustrating when some BCs snipe my CC and then blink out, but there are so many frustrating tactics in this game (nydus for example), and I learned to manage that situation time ago. So I think it is a better attitude to try first to exploit what the game gives to you as an answer, instead of complaining about it.
Regarding the build order: I understand for sure that it is a good strategy against Zerg, but it’s not unbeatable. I gave my opinion in the past about it (defend and counterattack) and I saw this as a successful reaction also in pro-plays. A Zerg player has to learn how to react correctly for sure, but is it so different when you learn how to react against a roach ravager all in or other forms of early committments? Again, it seems to me that when some new dynamics enter into play and players are confused/unprepared, whine is the holy answer. Let’s try to learn the game first.

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Without Tactical Jump they are kind of useless though.

The main problem with Battlecruisers is that they need to be in large groups to be effective (enough health to survive by splitting the enemy’s DPS, and enough numbers to not simply be overwhelmed). The cost and build time make it very hard to build up Battlecruisers in those numbers without getting killed during the transition.

Tactical Jump helps with that by allowing Terran to use Battlecruisers in small counts and build up their fleet.

It is perfectly reasonable for Battlecruisers to be vulnerable for that 4 second duration before they teleport and to require an upgrade for it, but Battlecruisers are not viable without Tactical Jump.

7 Likes
12

This is incorrect.

The problem with battlecruisers is that they can teleport. If you buff battlecruisers without removing teleport they just end up replacing banshee and liberator openers. Surprise surprise, that’s what blizzard did and that’s what we’re seeing right now. Remove tactical jump and they will not function as an early harass unit. Imagine how long the zerg has to position spores and queens and connect creep if you had to fly slowly across the entire map.

This is simple, terrans just don’t want to lose another free win opener like 3 rax reaper.

5 Likes
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Yeeehhh, everyone winning tournaments with that build. I got in diamond in no time with that.
I’m sure the same whine was there from Terrans when ravagers came out and Zerg were all inning all day long.
#LessWhineMorePlay

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14

I’m just pulling this off the top of my head, but if my memory serves me, Terran can have a Battlecruiser in your base at around 5:30 with more closely following it. If executed by a skilled player, they’ll also runby with Hellions at the front of your base.

The standard counterplay to scouting Battlecruiser aggression is to make as many Queens as possible. It takes about 5 Queens to kill a single Battlecruiser, more if you don’t engage properly. Multiply that by roughly the number of Battlecruisers the Terran produces.

Rushing Infestor tech fast enough to have energy for a Fungal Growth and especially for a Neural Parasite in time to meet a decent push of Battlecruisers would completely gimp the Zerg economy and make them weak enough to kill with a mech push.

The answer isn’t to rush tech.

I didn’t say that there isn’t an answer to Tactical Jump. I’m simply saying that Tactical Jump guarantees too much value considering that the Battlecruiser is already more than capable of getting value without it.

See my original post:

Yes, because there is sufficient counterplay to Roach/Ravager. Battlecruisers with Tactical Jump, on the other hand, can absolutely devastate the enemy even if they’re aware of what’s coming and take appropriate measures.

Tell that to the literal professional players who lose ungodly amounts of workers, army units, tech and static defense to Battlecruisers in both mid and late game. I’m not just talking about my anecdotal experience on ladder; The immense power of the current iteration of Tactical Jump is obvious to anyone who is remotely familiar with high level Terran play in tournament settings.

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I never suggested to counter the build with infestors, and if you read well my post, I answered to two different topics: the build order and the ability PER SE.
If you take tons of damage against that build, it’s because you need experience to properly react. Too much spores and you lose economy, queens out positioned and you lose drones cause of hellions, too many corrupters as follow up and you lose against cyclones. Just like properly reacting against roach ravager, for example. In tournaments there are plenty of examples about to how properly react to it.

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Are you actually stupid enough to think that Battlecruisers need to be buffed in combat right now?

Battlecruisers are fine in direct combat once you have a fleet of them. The problem is that you can’t reasonably get to that point without Tactical Jump.

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17

However, to be clear, I’m perfectly ok with giving to TJ need of vision so it becomes a defensive ability in the early game. Terranicil is right about its necessity for the unit. I think Blizzard will do something about it because it is becoming the only build used by pro-players, not because it is broken.

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If by “useless”, you meant “forced to respect hard-counters”, I’d agree.

Battlecruisers are capable of killing 5 Queens each in a straight up fight, not counting the Queens they can kill with Yamato Cannon. If the enemy is prepared for a Battlecruiser push, they’re going to lose a massive portion of their investment in defense, whereas the Terran can teleport out without losing a single Battlecruiser and only have to spend up to 25% of the total cost the unit to repair it fully. The more defenses you kill without losing Battlecruisers, the more your strength will snowball.

Even if you fail to win the game by rushing Battlecruisers, you can still fly them into an enemy base at almost any point for the rest of the game when they’re out of position and score a ton of worker kills or destroy tech/deny upgrades.

That’s untrue. A lone Battlecruiser can deny mining at a base entirely, as well as scoring worker kills and even more with Yamato Cannon. If the Terran player respects their enemies, they can safely deny mining and stunt the economy by running away before reinforcements come. Watch some of Special’s games to see this in action.

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19

No, by “useless” I mean that Terran would not be able to build Battlecruisers up in the numbers they need to be effective in combat.

That’s why Tactical Jump was introduced in the first place. Battlecruisers don’t synergize with Terran armies the same way that Carriers and Protoss units (Stalkers, Archons, Void Rays, etc) do.

Every air unit is useful when the opponent doesn’t have enough units that can shoot up to kill it.
That does not invalidate what I said, which is that Terran cannot build up Battlecruisers in the numbers they need to be useful in direct combat without Tactical Jump.

A few Battlecruisers in a fight are going to get slaughtered by Hydralisks, Corruptors, Stalkers, Marines, etc. The anti-air units will always outnumber the Battlecruisers such that the Battlecruisers will be killed off even if the opponent is not using the units that counter them (Corruptors, Vikings, etc).

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Yes, that’s the exact point. A terran was greedy and hit with a cheese that reduced him to 1 base while the zerg was on 4 with double the supply and loads of static defense. The terran wins anyway. The bc needs nerfs.

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