I have been considering not getting cloaking for my banshees lately. Or at least not getting cloaking in certain situations. The way I see it, any good protoss player will definitely have an observer which will completely negate the ability to cloak early on when it is at its most devastating. For less money I could produce a good amount of units or structures. For example, against protoss, if they counter my banshees with stalkers, then that money translates into two marauders. Or, if they go anti air instead then the money can go to starting up viking production or even just getting some marines instead and having 200 gas saved up. Against terran though, I find that cloaking is good to get at one time or another, but not necessarily early on. In my opinion, early vikings are not really worth the benefits you get from them so if i am faced with those then i know that they have a weak land army that i can exploit since on the ground the vikings make themselves vulnerable to banshees while in the air the banshees go away and the army on the ground does damage. So basically, the whole point with the vikings is that a very strong counter to banshees is, in my opinion, not worth it early on so cloaking isn't required at that point because solid micro skills will keep the banshees safe from vikings and as far as marines are concerned, it doesnt take a genius to move banshees over a cliff. I find that the best zerg players tend to expand early and fairly often. If this is the case then i feel that having that third banshee makes for a devastating harassment squad. Three banshees can take out a queen which leaves a hatchery much less effective and the fact that i can repeat this at each expo means that the zerg player either has to split his army to protect the larvae production or simply constantly rebuild units. Plus, if they end up going mutalisk and I successfully scout it early, the money can go to viking production All in all, it seems like the 200/200 can be better spent since it is not necessary to use cloaking the way I see it. If anything you can get a raven and become impervious to any sort of invisible attacks against you. Any opinions on ditching the cloak?
I find them useful against zerg and terran mostly. The cloaking is good because it allows you to continue harrassing workers and armor without detection, rather than having to run at the first sign of anti-air. I also find it useful to have cloaking BUT NOT USE IT. Terrans will rely on scan to see your banshees, but since they aren't cloaked he won't use it. You then cloak banshees indiviudally when their at low life, so they don't die. Return them to base and repair them.
cloaked banshees are best against zerg... even though they can get detection at the same tech level as banshees, most zerg don't get overseers until after they know you're going cloaked units.
I find that a lot of the game comes down to whether or not the overseer can come before you do significant damage. In the event that the overseer comes, that is 200/200 down the drain. If you save the 200/200, then that can result in a situation where you attack, only to find that the zerg went mutalisk/hydralisk/already have overseer. If they went mutalisk then you have 200/200 to jumpstart viking production and add some marines to the mix to counter and eliminate a very strong unit. If they go hydralisk then you can use the money to counter while saving the banshees and attacking the expos that the zerg aught to have by now. And if an overseer is already present, then thats 200/200 in the bank. A lot of my mentality vs zerg comes down to the whole idea that good zerg players expand. A stealth attack can do significant damage, but the counter will come just because a loss of drones in one area isnt going to end a game then and there. I find that banshees in general can move well enough that you can micro them into having to move their units after you all over the map to preserve their income regardless of whether they are cloaked or not. Also, in the event of mutalisks, that 200/200 to counter them right away eliminates something that would be a problem regardless (banshees cannot hit them no matter what). In general, I think that the better players you face tend to be either better prepared or more responsive in the face of harassment from invisible units. Thats the main reason that I think that you aren't so much as making do without cloaking as you are reinvesting the 200/200 in an area that is more effective.
i find banshees useless most the time. there nice if you can get them really fast but it leaves you open to attack. and once you get them you can only get like 2 or 3 to attack before they start getting air.
Banshees are great as they will probably always do some good mineral line damage and if the cheese fails just retreat and they will be a great unit in your army composition.
I think cloak can be a really valuable asset since just a few seconds of your opponent moving an overseer/observer over to your banshees can result in a LOT of extra damage. If you're up against some stalkers with a couple banshees, if it results in just 2 more stalker kills then it was worth it. And that doesn't have to be all at once, if you kill anything close to 200/200 of your enemy's units throughout the entire game because of cloak, then it was worth it.
you dont need it while you attack, but it is ideal for cloaking to move into the base without being spotted, many people in sc2 dont get observers or overseers, although terran has their scan, it is also limited to the energy and command centers they have banshees are a really strong unit
As a zerg player I'm going to throw in that you either better have a lot of cloak time with your banshees or some nearby troops to fall back to. I make a point of following cloaked Banshees with my mutalisks until I can either intercept them with an overseer or their cloak runs out.
