How useful is Banshee in general?

See title. I’ve tried Vikings across the board, but I’ve never felt compelled to use Banshee under any commander at any time. Can someone educate me on their usefulness?

(If this topic had been discussed before, I apologize.)

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Well, in general they are out-classed by other options. For example, Nova has better Anti-ground like Liberators or Tanks, etc. And for Raynor, Marines, Mines, etc. It is not an exhaustive list of comparison, the point should be clear that they just aren’t that great.

That said, it isn’t like they are so bad that it is obsolete. P3 Raynor can make mass Banshees or Banshee/Viking very easily and function very well (although definitely more brittle). Nova can use Banshee’s perma cloak to help cheese targets (such as on DoN or Sliver or Shards). Again the list isn’t exhaustive.

Mostly using Banshees (or more so exclusively banshees) is a meme build - something fun or perhaps a testament of CO understanding/skills at times. This is in the context of carrying (as I’ve seen my share of players who gets carried while they play an entirely meme/poor build… then goes on to boast how “ezpz” it was :sweat_smile: ).

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I can only ascertain to their usefulness with it comes to Nova. I use them all the time. Sure, Liberators and tanks do a lot of damage but banshees are cheaper and more mobile.

I think Banshees have their uses, for me mainly as a way to counter unit congestion since they are flyers. For Nova I use them against land based mech comps like immortal - colossus and when I’m too lazy to micro liberators. Same goes for Raynor, I get them against land comps to supplement my bio-ball and BCs. For Stukov I usually get them when doing mass DBack as P1 since the DBacks net flyers it makes banshees able to attack air and ground. Again the point here is they shouldn’t be massed but rather sprinkled in to support your army.

If you’re playing P3 Raynor then you should build banshees if you can (as in, they aren’t hard countered by the enemy/mutations) as they (along with Vikings) will unlock your top bar much faster than BCs. As the game goes on you can always add BCs later.

Nova’s Banshees are great but often overshadowed by other options. However, on DoN they are excellent at clearing during the night and against protoss robo comps they are great in conjunction with Libs (against pretty much any protoss comp starport units are king). They would also work very well against the roach/Lurker zerg ground comp (if you didn’t want to go barracks first and build mass Ghost).

Like others said, Banshees are alright but you just have better options.

Raynor’s Banshees can be used as complement to your bio army, they do have some dmg going and can be healed by medics in case of getting damaged by spells.

Like, you have a lot of marines that half of them isn’t shooting at enemy unless you stutter-step, banshees gives you that fast DPS especially vs hybrids. Still, siege tanks are better.

Nova’s banshees are good actually, it’s just overshadowed by other options being Siege tanks, Liberators and even Ravens.

Stukov Banshees are mostly used for P2 and even then I don’t like them, good side that they are self-sustainable via burrow healing+energy regen, problem is the lack of offensive capabilities besides the mech mastery buff, so they are just used for sniping objectives while your infested is something else.

In Raynor P3, they can be more effective than landed Vikings in early game or if somehow you’re either not in a hurry or not planning at all to go BC.
Splash damage from upgrade can be effective against infested too.
But they can be avoided in general.

I don’t really use air besides Ravens for Nova, so can’t speak about it.

With Stukov, despite an upgrade to give them “roach burrowed regeneration” and a Prestige, they are tragically bad…though Stukov air is not exactly intuitive in my opinion in general, worst than others commanders at least.

Oh yeah, I forgot about to Stukov’s Banshees (incidentally the one I probably used the most out of the 3 lmao).

Infested Banshees are actually quite self-sustaining due to its burrow regen, but unlike Raynor’s which has the small AoE, the lack-there-of makes them over-damage quite a bit. Their base damage isn’t all that great either, which ultimately makes them again a more meme-build for fun. Then consider that Infested Tanks and Diamondbacks are so insanely good… banshees again take a back seat.


Another point I wanted to clarify, in Raynor’s P3, making BC is better than Banshee, here’s the break down on why:

  1. Cost consideration: Banshee 225/56/3/30s vs BC 600/168/6/45s.

    • While on the surface, the cost may seem roughly 3x cost to 2x supply (BC:Banshee), this isn’t all that important when you consider the other… more practical points.
  2. Time consideration: To make 3 banshees, it would take a total of 30sec x 3 vs the 45sec of BC. So @30sec, +3%, @60sec +6%, and @90sec +9%. Compare this by @45sec +6%, @90sec +12%.

    • This means for 15sec (between 30sec-45sec), the 1st Banshee gives you a 3% top bar advantage but is quickly balanced out by the next 15sec (45sec-60sec) where the newly produced BC has a similar 6% - 3% = 3% higher rate. Then at this point, the rate of both are equal after 60sec for the next 30sec. Finally at the 90sec mark, BC’s supply efficiency overtakes by 3% (12 - 9). This cycle repeats. Every 90sec, 3% more supply efficient for top bar. The compounding effect per time frame = MORE top bar…
  3. Damage and Durability consideration: One of the major advantage of BC is its insanely good Yamato Cannon. Base damage aside, there is rarely anything on the ground that contests BC that doesn’t phase Banshee similarly (if not worse). It should be a no brainer as to why BC > Banshee x 3.

  4. Mobility consideration: As surprising as this may sound, despite BC’s slower movement speed, their Tactical Jump actually makes up for it quite a bit. So not only does this help with any strategic error on the player’s part (ie. enemy waves catching you out of position). This also helps with tactical manouvre by allowing access to areas (especially cheesing safer areas) that simply flying won’t get you there.

Now, if you’re the kind of player who thinks simply cost is everything then perhaps do consider making Banshees over BC. There are honestly no real good reason to make them unless you simply want to for fun. They are simply just “not better”. Given 2 base full saturation economy, 1 base economy, or even 12-work economy, I can tell you no matter the situation it is simply better (despite Banshee’s ability to cloak cuz coop is riddled with detectors lolz).

Nah, when paired with Vorazun they’re godly due to the glitch in the pairing. If one wants to cheat, at least.


They’re fine, Raynor’s work decently as a splash compliment to Marines, Nova’s are good if you don’t feel like microing Libs (which are generally just better though). Stukov’s I haven’t found much use for though. On their own en masse, not that great.

I think you’re missing the context of “in the context of choosing BC vs Banshees”, the choice is overwhelmingly better for BC (9/10 situations).

The post isn’t saying Banshees don’t work, it is saying it is usually used for fun.

Cloaked BCs are just as godly, without the obvious bug that makes them invulnerable. Then again, we can’t really compare a buggy situation with how they usually function. That’s not really being fair to the facts of the situation :slight_smile:

I should have double posted instead, the second part was a general response.

But yeah, outside of cheating with the Banshees, BCs are the better fleet option for P3.

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This is really funny logic, the obstacle to maxing out supply is not the time it takes to build a unit but rather the cost. You can build roughly 3 Banshees per BC so if you build a mixes Banshee/Viking army you will max out max faster giving you more top bar usage.

Obviously this requires building an extra starport or two!

Also, Banshees are an absolute must against comps with zerglings on escort missions. The amount of Terrezine harvesters I’ve seen get destroyed by ineffectual BCs is tragic. I’ve even had to learn this the hard way when learning to play Raynor P3.

Actually the limit to maxing out often is the time and not resources.

While resources are definitely a limiting factor, it often falls onto either mineral OR gas. And this only applies to early game where player is getting his economy set up. Once economy is online, it is always TIME as the limitation. In the case of P3, it is actually minerals being the limiting one during super early game.

However, as P3 still functionally works similar to P0, the limiting mineral only applies to super early game. Then this switches into gas, as MULEs renders any mineral limitation insignificant.

And it is due to this transitory fact for P3, when all considerations as laid out previously, there is no real difference in terms BC VS Banshee/Viking if you can control perfectly. However, in coop Brutal to B+, there are far too many AoE/mutators that affect mass Banshee/Vikings disproportionately. As a result, you’ll often find the average player suffer far worse going Banshee/Viking.

Similarly, the push power of 1-2x BC while not significant is far more impactful than 3-6 B/V. Unfortunately, for both Banshee and Viking to function well, they need to be massed a bit more. This means any super early to early benefit you highlighted is now moot (both in resource advantage and in top bar). And then there’s the upgrade considerations, as Vikings without range and AoE is next to useless while Banshee without AoE strafe is similarly weak. Meanwhile, BC’s Yamato is by comparison far cheaper and quicker to kick in.


Look, I figured you would disagree being as how you have always been. I’m just pointing out some very basic concepts of Raynor’s P3 in terms of how Banshee is applied, used, and observed to help OP. You are entitled to your opinion but I definitely disagree wholeheartedly.

As I said, I am not saying Banshees can’t work. I AM saying Banshees are just not that good.

I definitely specifically said “if you can (as in, they aren’t hard countered by the enemy/mutations)” so everything I said after that in regards to unit choice was specific to that condition right?

Your time VS resources thing is still nonsense. If you are macroing correctly then resources is your limiting factor whether that is minerals or gas depending on the stage of the game. You might be building 1 additional starport to pump out Banshees but this is not a factor. Whichever way you look at it you will be producing a greater supply of Banshees than BCs all else being equal.

Their upgrades are also a non-issue as you will finish all upgrades for Banshee/Viking super fast and for very cheap off just 2 Starport.

However, that is reliant on being able to keep them alive to benefit from their supply. This depends on map, composition, mutations and micro ability. As I said, against many mutators it is necessary to just skip straight to BCs but often it is possible to build a small, medium or even large flock of Banshees to dominate early game. Unless the enemy has splash damage (and most comps don’t get their splash damage until higher tech waves) then Banshees will decimate everything on the ground (with Critical upgrades).

Now, this is all predicated on you, as a player, being flexible enough to make adjustments to your build order and being able to macro effectively while microing your fragile Banshees as if you throw them into fights and lose them then you waste any advantage that you would hope for. Therefore some players are best off just building BCs. All you can do is try and practise different strategies.

This, to me, is the key decider against banshees. Some of those later-game aoe spellcasters are super annoying. But, I would like to use them more so maybe one day I’ll P3 again some more and actually choose DoN rather than random. :smiley:

I don’t understand why building additional Starport, researching upgrades (which are not reduced in price or time in P3) wouldn’t affect early game? That’s approximately 400-500 gas additionally in early game to ready Banshee/Viking vs Yamato…

The premise of Capitaine’s “banshees are better for top bar” hinges on them being cheaper and thus you can get more quicker. I think I’ve provided ample details on why this isn’t the case.

As usual though, he puts nothing behind his claims other than “if you can’t then you’re a bad player”. I don’t think that’s the right attitude or is sound advice. Avoiding splash with mass stackable air units is difficult, which obviously even more so for someone like OP who is asking about the basics of banshees.

  • When is there a time enemies don’t have splash? Zerg has fungal & parasitic, Terran has seeker & thor, Protoss has storm & archon.
  • That’s not even considering mutators at all like: Black Death, Blizzard, Double Edge, Nuke, fireworks, twister, Magmines, etc. Anything you can think of in mutation will make them fair worse than BCs…

I find it so stupid that every time people post some sound general advice, Capitaine takes it to some random fringe case to make it sounds like it’s somehow being used all the time. Like how often do people see other people use banshees? Lmao.

I still prefer BCs, but that’s not quite right. P3’s starports are gas free, so it’s only the 25 for the tech lab or 50 for the reactor each. You won’t need the fusion core right away either, so that’ll pay for the extra tech needed as well.

With upgrade down prestige, you’ll only see a +75 gas for all the upgrades versus yamato and fusion core. So going 4 Starports (2 tech, and 2 reactor), you’ll be looking at +175 versus BCs. (assuming I’m right, and the fusion core is 150 gas. Could be less, adjust as is actually correct)

To me it’s more about the fragility of the Banshees, even early game you can lose some of them fairly easily. Thanks to tac jump and their hp and armour, BCs are much easier to keep alive, especially earlier on.

It depends upon whose Banshees you’re using. Nova’s are decent, Stukov’s are complete garbage, and Raynor’s are actually amazing to compliment your bio army against anything swarmy and heavily ground based.

It’s funny that every time you write something about mutators you demonstrate how little experience you have with them.

Environmental mutators are all playable with Banshees and can be better than BCs due to faster movement speed if you can micro decently.

Black Death screws Raynor pretty hard but with cloak and range upgrade you can actually have a chance to be out of the range of the Black Death when the units die (5 explosion range vs Banshees 9 range when upgraded and cloaked).

Double Edge kills Banshees for sure, good job! You got one right!

You know where Banshees can really shine when it comes to Mutators? Any mutator where you want to destroy buildings as fast as possible. Kill Bots, Boom Bots, Outbreak, Void Reanimators, Heroes and Poops are all on the list. Maybe you can keep this in mind if you ever play some B+1+ games! (Of course this only applies on maps where destroying all buildings is a viable strategy).

Mmmm, I don’t think I overestimated the cost. Each of the Starports, while doesn’t cost gas in P3, will cost an additional 150min. That alone offsets the 2.6x mineral cost of the 1st BC. Furthermore, you’ll have to stagger the build of the 2nd Starport (thus delaying any unit and/or research coming out of it). Additionally, each of the Banshee and Viking researches needed (2 each) costs 100/100 and 150/150, totalling 500/500. I simply put down 400-500 because I don’t think you need all 4 research but 3/4 is definitely important (ie. cloak not necessary right away). <== so in fact, I’m trying to be as accurate and fair as I can here. That being, the ~250gas cost of getting Yamato vs the 400-500gas cost of Banshee/Viking offset any price limitation.

And its precisely this is the more important consideration I mentioned initially. All the cost aside, even if we did assume the costs were similar that somehow the offset doesn’t delay the initial Cooldown Reduction benefit. The brittle nature of banshee/viking is just way too notable.