That’s literally its only use. They’re terrible in direct engagement. Just say you don’t want it to be a viable unit.
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The Mothership’s support abilities (Time Warp and Mass Recall) are strong enough to justify a mana pool. The Battlecruiser’s abilities simply are not.
That is simply a standard. However, almost any way you apply energy to the Battlecruiser would be problematic:
- It opens up new weaknesses (Feedback, EMP, etc) that Battlecruisers do not currently have and might too easily render them useless.
- The energy costs on the Battlecruiser’s spells would have to be extremely low (or extremely low compared to their energy generation) in order to match the current cooldowns. If the cooldown of a spell is a problem, it is far easier to simply adjust that cooldown directly than try to balance the spell with an energy cost.
- If Battlecruisers could store the energy for both TJ and Yamato Cannon, then either one of those spells could be spammed twice. This is way a bigger problem than the ability to use both spells on separate cooldowns. Double-TJ would allow harassment with no counterplay from the opponent, and Vikings and Corruptors would cease to function as proper counters when Battlecruisers can Yamato 2/3rds of them. Battlecruisers would also be able to snipe Carriers at a 1:1 ratio for some ridiculous results.
- If Battlecruisers cannot store the energy for two spells, then the Battlecruisers will be significantly weakened, which is also undesirable. We’ve already experienced Battlecruisers and Thors that were nearly useless because of their energy bars in WOL, and it would be a very bad idea to repeat that mistake.
That still leads to a much weaker Battlecruiser overall. There is no point in multiple abilities when you can only realistically use one of them, and only that one is generally worth using. That’s how Battlecruisers were in the WOL campaign.
Battlecruisers could be weaker per se, but also cheaper, faster to move and get out and/or with better stats utility than it’s current move across the enemy mineral lines version.
That’s why I said a full reimagining of the bc, keeping it more inline with sc1.
Tempest has some similar issues (though they have different roles and its categorical design flaws are more comparable to the swarm host) but they are also a good comparison with bcs as capital ships that were both conceptualized as heavy artillery support
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I wouldn’t agree. Battlecruiser is a unit, which is hard to get critical mass of. But if you get there, protoss has almost no counter to it, as tempest die way to fast to Yamato, being able to fire, while moving and being able to stack in one dot, like any air unit, makes stalkers weak against it too (when BC is in critical mass). So I wouldn’t say that BC is weak as a unit. It is more like terran either does not play mech in tvp or can not proper transition in them from bio.
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Ironically protoss is the best probably to handle early bcs, but the worst to handle critical mass in late game. Terran is decent with vikings cyclones and ravens as well, but sb and overcharge with blink stalkers is probably the smallest investment that helps defend. On tbe other hand, zerg has most issues early but it’s the easiest late game
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Early BC is brutal for zerg. BCs are able to start warping in by the 4 minute mark. If a zerg goes for a spire as fast as possible then it should just barely be finishing by the time the first BC arrives. And if the terran targets down the spire its game over. Hydras get melted by BCs. And if you went for a hydralisk den and Spire fast as possible chances are you only have one queen at the hatchery. And the bcs can fly out of range and use mules to repair. Its often game over if this happens unless the zerg has a way to counter attack.
Here again is a good example of how Zerg is dependent on Queen in the early game.
If you invest in hydra instead of queen/ ecco you are almost too few or too inefficient against many things.
similar with spire only that it is more expensive but may allow counterplay.
Stalkers shred to pieces any realistic number of BCs.
Also its impossible to transition to mass BC unless you are 1K MMR above your opponent and you are just trolling him
Nah, Queens counter that.
All you need is 1 more round of Queens.
You can’t make a unit with low DPS and low range useful otherwise.
What if they:
- removed the warp but made bcs have around 9 range
- Gave them defense matrix instead?
- Gave them two battlecruiser modes. 1st mode is cruiser mode. During this mode battlecruisers move faster, but cannot attack. 2nd mode is battle mode. Battlecruisers do their normal damage. Exiting into cruiser mode out of battle mode takes 10 seconds to take effect.
Alternatively.
Maybe the warp gets a few nerfs.
- Upgrade required at fusion core.
- Battlescruiser Holograms can be attacked.
- Can only warp to within a range of 35 from the current position. (Slightly bigger then a sensor tower radius.)
StarCraft I Battlecruisers were far too weak to be anywhere near viable in SC2. In fact, if you just improved Brood War’s pathing a bit, they would be useless in that game too.
That’s a fair assessment. Yamato Cannons basically renders any “counter” that costs more than 2-supply useless, and most ground counters cease to become effective after the air units reach a certain critical mass.
That would make mass Battlecruisers problematic. Battlecruisers would be slightly easier to get to sans warp, but they would also become completely broken in large numbers. If you actually intended to rebalance Battlecruisers with 9 range, either their DPS, health, or both would need to be substantially reduced.
Also a bad idea considering the Battlecruiser’s high durability. Defense Matrix would be better on a dedicated caster that players need to make separately.
That would be pretty much useless. 10 seconds (14 in editor) is an insane wait for a unit to become usable. Siege Tanks already have one of the longest vulnerability periods, and it is only 2/7ths of that.
Appropriate number crunching could be done. Saying things are the way they are and just coping isn’t how we are supposed to function. An energy system with some short cds to avoid rapid firing yamatos could most definitely work. It could also be that the massive tag actually conveys some real defensive bonus outside of being just a unit class
BCs with energy is what made them unviable vs Protoss, according to Blizz. On that point I agree with Terran players, that such a big investment shouldn’t immediately be countered by Feedback.
I have mixed feelings on Yamato. On one hand, it’s a fun ability that still requires micro and should be strong, but their isn’t a practical way of dealing with the target range of what, 20? There isn’t a clear way of avoiding the spell.
I think a reasonable change would be to remove the TJ invulnerability, so that the player has to make a calculated choice with consequence when moving them around. It also gives their opponent a chance to engage or ambush a bad call. See how that goes, and if BCs are still a tad too much, then look at Yamato.
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Cloak, burrow, enter transport.
I believe exiting vision range also works, but I don’t remember clearly.
It’s better to leave a unit in a good functional state then to revert them to a state which has proven to be bad in the past. Battlecruisers are better off now in LOTV than they ever had been in SC2, so I would rather see minor tweaks than see the unit reverted to a state that previously failed hard.
Except Battlecruisers would still be vulnerable to feedback, and you’ would still have most of the other energy-related issues that I mentioned. If you really need a cooldown to balance an ability, it is better to just stick with the cooldowns.
The purpose of tags is to determine whether or not certain bonus damage multipliers are applied. Your “suggestion” would involve changing a bunch of other units just to reduce their damage against massive targets, and I don’t agree that is a good or reasonable goal.
Battlecruisers also have more than enough health and armor for durability They don’t need some extra behavior to further boost their durability on top of that.
So? Is the Battlecruiser your 1st child?
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Honestly I belive that BC should be removed from the game.
Its concept of “Flying Bunker” is just bad.
BC in vs Zerg is getting killed almost immediately and what you do you fire Yamato and then Blink away behind static defense.
Corruptors moves at the speed almost twice as fast as BC and have no troubles in killing them.
Another way of how Zerg deal with BCs are Abducts into ball of Hydra - the same way of how Zerg deal with Skytoss, except Protoss have spell “Feedback” that is very good at denying Abduct.
In early game for BC to do ANYTHING useful its Teleport is also essential.
Heck, even AFTER Teleport were added BC opening were still bad, and it was only Teleport+Fire-on-the-move that made them not piss poor, but still worse than any of the normal openings.
You can play it occasionally as a cheese against your friends who don’t expect it but that’s about it.
Why should the BC be doing anything early game? Its a 400/400 Tier 3 Capital ship. The fact Terran can rush that and be safe from all-ins is insane in its own right. That would be like the zerg rushing to an Ultra Cavern, FINISHED at 5:00 and then having an Ultra teleport across the map 30 seconds later. And it STILL wouldn’t be as overpowered because Ultras don’t shoot up.
Because it takes so long to make BCs thus if you want to have BCs in your army you need to be building them from the start of the game.
Terran is not a Zerg who can make 200 limit of anything in an instant.
Terran also is not a Zerg and can not camp on his side of the map and do nothing: since Terran is not a Zerg he need to either kill significant number of drones or force Zerg make combat units instead of drones or kill a Hatchery.
If Terran don’t manage to do that he is super far behind, because Terran is not a Zerg.
Finally, Terran is not a Zerg and doesn’t have such amazing scouting tools that Zerg have. Thus you need to attack/harass to figure out what your opponent is doing.
By the way, Terran is not a Zerg.
PS. There is at least one guy in D2 (~3700 MMR) in EU who play 2 base Ultra rush. I lost to him. Couldn’t understand wtf he is doing and when Ultras came out they walked over my 200 Marine-Tank army.
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It would be more like if Ultra caverns could finish at 3:30 and then have ultralisks out and ready to attack at around 4:10. Battlecruisers can already be going out that soon. And now imagine if Ultras were air units. Most of the time if someone rushes a battlecruiser vs a zerg then its game over for the zerg if even if they have a few hydras and queens out because the battle cruisers could kill a queen, hydralisk den or spire, avoid spores and then just fly away. And they can also send mules in to repair the battle cruiser. And if they really want to be extra annoying they could send some widow mines nearby to back into. Its downright rediculous. A zerg would probably have an easier time dealing with ultralisks at 4:10 then battlecruisers because at least you could have an army of roaches and out by 4.
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