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It’s been three weeks since the last unit page update on StarCraft2.com, and we’ve been starving for new official information since. Blizzard has finally come around with today’s update - officially presenting one of the Terran’s most famous units from StarCraft 1, the Battlecruiser.
These massive, heavily armored combat ships are virtual flying fortresses, built to keep the peace and dominate the space lanes of the Koprulu sector. Outfitted with bristling laser batteries and thick neosteel armor, these imposing vessels are among the most powerful to be found in terran space. Many commanders use battlecruisers as their command vessels during extended campaigns. There are several examples of vessels specifically refitted for this purpose, such as General Duke’s Norad II and Norad III, as well as the battlecruiser Hyperion commanded by Jim Raynor.
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The Battlecruiser is the Terran’s most capable, all around fighting unit. At the top of the tech tree, this was the unit Terran players struggled to get to and manufacture in large amounts. Indeed, a pack of Battlecruisers was capable of dealing with just about any threat, and it took special effort to take down a Terran player who could pump these out in a dedicated fashion.
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The Battlecruisers of StarCraft 2 appear to be designed to fulfill the same role with some further specialization. The Battlecruiser now comes in two flavors, sporting either the original, dreaded Yamato Cannon - which produces a high energy laser burst, capable of taking down many targets in a single shot, or Plasma Torpedoes, which burn ground targets to a crisp in a short deluge of fiery death. This is an area of effect ability - something which the Terran of StarCraft 2, battle hardened and experienced from previous battles, have learned to appreciate.
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With the new Plasma Torpedoes ability, the Battlecruiser, which was usually most effective in massed fleets, might now be also used as the Terran’s High Templar of sorts - a unit which the player keeps in every expansion, helping to defend it against hordes of rushing Hydralisks, reducing their health and numbers quickly and leaving only a few remains for static defenses to take care of. This will prove to be a great defensive measure - one which can be quickly turned into a powerful offensive force, when the player finally decides the time has come for a full, dedicated strike.
The Yamato cannon is a terrifying weapon that uses an intense magnetic field to focus a nuclear detonation into a cohesive beam of energy. The cannon requires a huge reserve of energy to fire, but its effects on the target are impressive, to say the least. Plasma torpedoes give battlecruisers an armament capable of saturating a target area with a lethal deluge of fire, ideal for breaking up oncoming attack waves or ravaging a defensive position. As with the Yamato cannon, a battlecruiser needs to build up a sufficient reserve of energy to unleash a plasma torpedo bombardment.
Either way, it looks like the Battlecruisers of StarCraft 2 will be even more versatile and lethal, filling multiple roles across the tactical spectrum. Players will have to decide how to best customize their fleet of warships, enabling them to deal with a greater variety of threats than ever before.
16 Comments to “New StarCraft 2 Terran Unit Page: The Battlecruiser”
Neglected Protoss Units: Immortal, Stalker, Phase Prism »
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Siegetanks - AoE
Thors - AoE
Reapers - AoE nades
Bcruisers - AoE
Banshees - full AoE
How brilliantly original.
It does give battlecruisers an ability to be threatening with just a small number, somthing that blizzard has been ding with a lot of the expensive units in the game. (Thor, Mothership.)
8 battle cruisers vs 8 ghost control by boxer T-T
i wonder if i want to shot mother ship down by yamato gun only
how many battle cruisers must i use ?
It does seem that terrans might be a bit weak against air, they have all sorts of ways to deal large amounts of damage to ground units, but in air-to-air battles don’t really seem to have anything particularly strong. (Vikings, which are just basic air to air, and have to be balanced with their raiding and ground form in mind, battlecruisers, which have yamato cannons to fight the bigger units but nothing really good against smaller ones, and predators, which we haven’t seen yet, which might be useful in general.)
Why are all the terran AoE units all focused on anti-ground which the terrans never really had a problem with in the first place.
I didnt like the brood war Valkyrie but we will be missing it when we get bombarded with Mutas.
They’re being defeated by the zergs…like the events of broodwar.
Zergs = mass
Therefore, AOE attacks…
Battlecrusiers have small multi laser attacks now !! looks nicer.
I wonder does battlecrusier’s small laser attacks activates immortal’s shield….hmm…SMALL LASERS, not the instant 25 damage shot.
Brainless
Dying fan of the Zergs
if you want to know how useful the banshees could be in SC2, take a look at it’s Warcraft III equivalent and how it’s used.
banshees = Druid of the Talon minus the cyclone.
oh and btw, it seems that we are using the same wordpress theme. sorry didn’t know that this theme is so popular, might as well change mine.
more power to you anyways.
It looks like Battlecruisers have been taken off the website. They might be adding a different unit for Terrans.
the cattlebruiser link still works and shows up for me
http://www.starcraft2.com/features/terran/battlecruiser.xml
I guess in the future, the term ‘air-superiority’ would be forgotten to the Terrans ne? If what I remember from reading a liitle bit if history is correct, the Battleship which was called the “Queen of the seas” prior to WWII was replaced by the Aircraft Carrier.
It looks from the videos like the plasma torpedo weapon takes a long time to kill those marines. Not sure how powerful that means it is…
It takes less time than it may appear, the marines take about the same amount of time to take damage and get killed as they do to go through the death and falling over animation.
This comment was so insightful, it got moderated.
Cheers
Anderson Mccutcheon
SC2Blog Editor
I hope Blizzard adds more air units to the Terrans. I think they should bring back both the wraiths and the Valkyries.
I don’t know if anyone feels about bc the way I am but they just don’t look as they should. The ones from SC made me love and later play as the Terrans. So basically my point is to make it more SC1 like.
The SC2 ones with plasma torpedoes installed are not that bad: they got this anchor-like shape of the “nose”(?). Nevertheless this ‘command part’ (bridge?) of the SC2 bc is way too high and wide. The air-to-ground cannons look as ugly as the previous Crucio Siege Tank cannon (the one with sexy lips).
I found it interesting to see how would the bc model look like with a little enlonged neck or the whole ship made slimmer.
BTW: Many thanks to the author of this blog.
they should really consider making the BC’s torps AoE against air, or something. they have way too many anti-ground AoE weapons. anti-air might give the BC some of the beloved mutalisk-killing effect we loved in the Valkeries of SC1. i do love the addition of multiple weaker laser burts, vs one slow, forward-firing burst. also, the yamato gun is a nuclear blast focused into a beam, not a laser.