EPTThanks for the well-written guide, OP. This is not a strategy I can expect to get many wins with in ladder play, but it is good to be aware of in case the opportunity ever arises. This is also a lot of fun to do when just playing fun games against friends. And the "stopping cannon rushing" section was decent too.
Guide to Cannon Rushing - Page 12
| Forum Index > StarCraft 2 Strategy |
|
Nybb
Canada13 Posts
Thanks for the well-written guide, OP. This is not a strategy I can expect to get many wins with in ladder play, but it is good to be aware of in case the opportunity ever arises. This is also a lot of fun to do when just playing fun games against friends. And the "stopping cannon rushing" section was decent too. | ||
|
lepape
Canada557 Posts
If you succeed, expand in the guy's old main and hope the two other players attack each other, and it suddenly becomes much easier. If you fail, you lost 3-4 mins in an unranked game. | ||
|
unsoundlogic
United States391 Posts
| ||
|
Tenbones
4 Posts
I don't play Protoss but the part on how to counter the rush is pretty helpful. I didn't know 4 workers pulled off the line would approximate the cost of a cannon being cancelled. My reaction is to usually lift off though. I also like the section on what to do if the rush fails or doesn't kill the opponent outright. Still, it's amazing how people separate "cheese" from viable options. If you didn't see or stop the cannon rush, someone fell asleep on defense. | ||
|
CurLy[]
United States759 Posts
| ||
|
Laggy
United States385 Posts
On September 20 2010 05:39 Nybb wrote: Lol @ people getting upset about this guide because it pokes fun at their arbitrary set of "Starcraft Morality." Imposing rules like "don't cannon rush because it is dishonourable" is the very definition of being a scrub. Saying "don't do this because it makes you a bad player" just doesn't make any sense. If you win with it, why stop doing it? It doesn't make you a bad player, it makes you a player who is willing to capitalize on every opponent mistake in order to win. If you go for a Forge-FE build (which is viable sometimes) and your early scouting probe sees no wall-off and the opponent doesn't chase it away, why not start a Pylon next to their base? Thanks for the well-written guide, OP. This is not a strategy I can expect to get many wins with in ladder play, but it is good to be aware of in case the opportunity ever arises. This is also a lot of fun to do when just playing fun games against friends. And the "stopping cannon rushing" section was decent too. I have a lot to say about your post but I'll keep it short and sweet I suppose. What I bolded is a statement that you state does not make sense when all it does is make sense, you obviously fail to see the flaw in cheesing and why it is called cheese. Cheese makes you a bad player because you are relying on your opponents flaw instead of your own skill, now your opponent can become smarter and what you have learned or have done will not be viable anymore. Your only strategy has no become futile, you have not learned game sense you have not learned how to play into the late game. You can't hope to win any tournaments if this is all you do or what you do every now and then, if you watch pro matches they scout cheese very often every now and then it'll slip and pass maybe win a game or two... out of hundreds. When people say it makes you a bad player it's because it doesn't help you get better it makes you stagnate into one build that is all in that you do not control the outcome of the game, thus you do not learn anything from and are left useless after it has failed. Hope this gets my point across -Laggy | ||
|
StuBob
United States373 Posts
| ||
|
bbq ftw
United States139 Posts
"Cheese makes you a bad player because you are relying on your opponents flaw instead of your own skill" Seeing as you play BW, I hope you won't mind me using some examples from there (the build orders and counters are more developed, making this line of argument better): 9 pool vs intended 1 rax CC often comes down to whether workers are pulled correctly. If T can hold the ramp, Z is at a disadvantage going into midgame. A mistake of ramp blocking can result in instant gg or snowball into some midgame loss. So basically, responding, in the T's view, is a matter of decision-making in a short time span, similar to the cannon rush. But the success of the rush can be viewed as capitalizing on an opponent flaw. A lot of early aggression strategies rely on opponents forcing bad decisions (July vs Best OSL Finals Game 1 anyone?). And yet there's fairly little moral outrage about this. Anyways, what it comes down to is that its impossible to have perfect decision-making (ever), so its not like there's a point at which cheese builds like this become 'invalid'. Which brings me to the greater point: a lot of people argue against 'cheesing' because it favors expertise in two facets of the game people aren't necessarily used to (early game decision-making/micro, but the former most heavily, as opposed to long macro games). An interesting thing I've read on the SC2 forums is that SC2 > BW because "strategy/decision-making is more important than pure mechanics". Its not like players shouldn't be tested on pressure-situation decisions, where one mistake will lose the game. Without this general facet of decision-making, SC2 would turn into some glorified version of a reaction time test. Just because its placed in an unfamiliar early game scenario doesn't make it any less valid. Just because you would like the game to play out a certain way doesn't mean anything that interrupts your intentions is the work of a skilless noob. In fact, if the game style reliably suits you, than that's a small victory all by itself. For those that are terrified by walls of text: By what objective measure is a Kwanro considered to be morally inferior to a Flash? if you watch pro matches they scout cheese very often every now and then it'll slip and pass maybe win a game or two... out of hundreds. Simply untrue. The success rate of time-honored cheese such as the 4/5 pool (BW), at least, is greater than that. Again an example demonstrating that with 'good cheese,' people's decision-making still fails them occasionally. Argue with the effectiveness of Rathe's particular cannon rush all you want; to argue that all cannon rushes/cheese are 100% blockable by the standard of a decent player is indefensible. PS Oh yes, the "Thanks for the easy wins u scrub, this would never work on me, a 1000 (-1500) diamond player :flex:" are quite good as well. Never knew boasting about being in the "elite" cadre of SC2 players (congratulations, put it in your CV) was considered so relevant to the discussion. | ||
|
croupier
United States92 Posts
Thanks in advance! edit: i'm protoss btw, so PvP replays are particularly what i'm interested in. | ||
|
Merlinius
62 Posts
On September 21 2010 04:02 croupier wrote: I'm running cannon rushers and having trouble defending. Can folks who are better than me - and able to defend this "strategy" - post some replays for me to study? Thanks in advance! edit: i'm protoss btw, so PvP replays are particularly what i'm interested in. i'd love to see some replays, too. @OP: could you post a couple of replays when your opponents managed to defend your rush? that would be great. --- i was just practicing defending a cannon rush with a friend where the aggressor places the pylon and forge in my base (on steppes). am i supposed to let the first pylon build? because i only have 9-10 probes this early in the game and he was able to place two pylons almost instantly. if i attack, my whole economy is basically dead and he can just cancel and re-build more pylons than i can handle because he is still mining all this time. or should i let his pylons finish and attack the forge instead? or even let the forge finish and attack his cannons instead? alternatively, i could also place a forge myself, once i see he is building the pylon. my forge would be a bit earlier than his. the only problem is, usually i build my first pylon close to my ramp in PvP, which makes it harder to place defensive cannons when forge and nexus are spread out. would that be a viable option? | ||
|
Nybb
Canada13 Posts
On September 20 2010 15:02 Laggy wrote: I have a lot to say about your post but I'll keep it short and sweet I suppose. What I bolded is a statement that you state does not make sense when all it does is make sense, you obviously fail to see the flaw in cheesing and why it is called cheese. Cheese makes you a bad player because you are relying on your opponents flaw instead of your own skill, now your opponent can become smarter and what you have learned or have done will not be viable anymore. The problem is your definition of a "good player," and this notion you have that "unsportsmanlike" players who cheese must be mutually exclusive with good players. Good players are those who consistently win more than most players, regardless of the opponent they face. If your early scout sees an opponent who will fall to a cannon rush, why would a good player pass up an opportunity for a fast win? You say that a good player relies on their own skill instead of on their opponents making mistakes. This is generally true, but, if your opponent does make a mistake, a truly good player will know exactly how to punish it. This is called playing to win. I'm not sure where you get this idea that players who know how to effectively cannon rush will only cannon rush all the time, and therefore be bad at everything else. Do you go into every other build thread and say "while this build may work on some people, it will ultimately make you a bad player because people will eventually figure out how to stop it and then you will have no idea what to do"? Why not? The only difference between this build and things like kcdc FE or 4gate is that most good players can easily stop a cannon rush right now, whereas people are still figuring out how to convincingly beat other builds. There is absolutely no reason not to spend a few minutes practicing cannon rushing. It is just one more trick to have up your sleeve for rare occasions, and doing it yourself will give you insight on how to effectively stop others who do it. If you are too stuck in your tower of "Good Sportsmanship" and "Real Skill" to try it out, you are the one missing out. | ||
|
AlaskaYoung
Canada14 Posts
| ||
|
catbert7
United States22 Posts
Has anyone thought it through and know a counter to the low-ground cannon rush that will leave you in a superior position in PvP? This would be building a pylon and cannon at the cliff right outside the base and making a second cannon in the base. And I'm talking about if a really good player was executing it, not some noob. So let's assume that you can't kill the building probe since a properly micro'd probe can't be surrounded and lets assume that they will make all the best responses to what you do. If they block off the ramp with pylons and build a cannon on the low ground and then a cannon on the high ground with the first cannon providing cover fire, is there ANY way to stop it other than counter-cannons? I have been wracking my brain trying to figure out the best ways to stop this sort of cheese and I really cannot find any way to stop low-ground cannon rushes other than building a cannon of my own to halt their progress, which is far from an ideal counter. There is no way to get stalkers out in time to stop the second cannon (the one in range of my buildings) even if I scout it right away, build gateway and core asap and chrono the stalker. Trying to stop the second cannon with probes is going to result in losing 3-4 probes only to have the rusher cancel the cannon and build it again for a loss of 38 minerals. Throwing a zealot in slows the process but nothing more. The base could be relocated but the lost mining time during probe transfer and lost probes would give the rusher a HUGE economic lead, not to mention they can easily do the same thing to the new base. Proxy rushing their base can be easily stopped by them building a single cannon for defense. I know about preventing the ramp block by patrolling a probe but even if the ramp doesn't get blocked and they just build next to the cliff it is easy to protect the cannon with a couple pylons and we should all know by now that killing pylons repeatedly with probes is so economically damaging that it will put you behind even if you manage to hold off the rush. As for countering with cannons... If they did block the ramp with pylons and they see my cannon go down where it will stop their progress toward my base and abandon their attack then I am slightly ahead in economy and they have wasted 200 minerals more on pylons but I will either have to make another cannon to kill their stuff or wait for a stalker, during which time they can fast expand freely. I can see such a scenario turning out in my favor but it doesn't really leave either party at a significant advantage. If they did not block the ramp and instead proxied their first pylon then the result is the same except that this time we had identical builds minus the slight loss of minerals from their earlier scout which will be easily made up for by their superior tactical position of having map control. All of this is assuming that your scouting is superb, btw. I'm out of ideas here so if anyone thinks it through and comes up with another viable option that can for sure put the defender in a superior position I'd love to hear it. On another note, what is the proper response when you find out that your opponent is zealot rushing if you don't scout it until the zealots are already in production or on the way and you did a 13-gate? Any way to hold it off without losing so many probes you'll be behind? | ||
|
rycho
United States360 Posts
On another note, what is the proper response when you find out that your opponent is zealot rushing if you don't scout it until the zealots are already in production or on the way and you did a 13-gate? Any way to hold it off without losing so many probes you'll be behind? you have two options here from my experience, assuming you're talking about someone who does something like 10 pylon 10 gate 10 gate: - stop probe production for a bit (cancel gas if you started it) and drop another gateway. your gateways will be slower than theirs, but you have a few more probes and you can usually equal their zealot count. if you have an even number of zealots you are more than okay because you have probes to help out since the fight is in your base. - stop probe production for a bit and drop a forge and a cannon or two as soon as possible. this response is better when you scout something super late and you can't possibly equal the zealot count. if the cannon gets up you're usually okay, but you have to produce and micro zealots out of your gateway as well and defending this way can be tricky against someone with good micro. i think tester played a game that is a good example of this defense in gsl 1 on metalopolis, he scouted a proxy 2 gate really late and managed to hold it off with a couple cannons and excellent micro. | ||
|
MarshalClaw
United States27 Posts
| ||
|
Tsabo
Russian Federation266 Posts
I play toss, and when I am cannon rushed I cry in joy of the free win. Defeting a cannon rush is as simple as: Do not get gas or cyber core, get a zelot, send it to his base, Expand on 400 minerals to the other side of the map, chronoboost zealots to pressure his base and if he gets cannons to defend just patrol arround you new base to spot any attempt to cannon it too. Transfer all probes once the new nexus is @ 60-75% done. Go on to win, but be carefull, as most cannon rushers have no clue of when to stop cheeseing and follow up with voidrays or DTs. | ||
|
Evoslayer
United States43 Posts
| ||
|
catbert7
United States22 Posts
On November 13 2010 05:14 rycho wrote: you have two options here from my experience, assuming you're talking about someone who does something like 10 pylon 10 gate 10 gate: - stop probe production for a bit (cancel gas if you started it) and drop another gateway. your gateways will be slower than theirs, but you have a few more probes and you can usually equal their zealot count. if you have an even number of zealots you are more than okay because you have probes to help out since the fight is in your base. - stop probe production for a bit and drop a forge and a cannon or two as soon as possible. this response is better when you scout something super late and you can't possibly equal the zealot count. if the cannon gets up you're usually okay, but you have to produce and micro zealots out of your gateway as well and defending this way can be tricky against someone with good micro. i think tester played a game that is a good example of this defense in gsl 1 on metalopolis, he scouted a proxy 2 gate really late and managed to hold it off with a couple cannons and excellent micro. Basically I'm talking about if you're on a 4 player map and you get unlucky with scouting so that you don't scout their base until their 2 zealots are just popping out. At that point you will have 1 gateway with a normal build and getting a cannon up will take at least 85 seconds (game time) and another gateway will take 65 seconds. At this point it would seem there is no way to hold it off without losing a ton of probes. Since there's really no way to catch up in zealots at that point I would think the only chance would be to wall-off and try to rush a cannon or possibly a stalker to kite but that would only work if you had already placed your buildings for a wall-off. | ||
|
Cyber_Cheese
Australia3615 Posts
On November 13 2010 10:19 Tsabo wrote: Ok, I didnt read the whole guide, let alone the thread. I play toss, and when I am cannon rushed I cry in joy of the free win. Defeting a cannon rush is as simple as: Do not get gas or cyber core, get a zelot, send it to his base, Expand on 400 minerals to the other side of the map, chronoboost zealots to pressure his base and if he gets cannons to defend just patrol arround you new base to spot any attempt to cannon it too. Transfer all probes once the new nexus is @ 60-75% done. Go on to win, but be carefull, as most cannon rushers have no clue of when to stop cheeseing and follow up with voidrays or DTs. and thats why you should read the whole guide; let alone thread | ||
|
MuMeise
Germany81 Posts
The great thing was that i beat him up so hard i think he was crying afterwards... but not unitl he wrote: "You got lucky this time" ...  sry but i play sc2 for relaxation after a hard days work and i look foreward for nice games, with struggles, retreads and stuff... and not for a 5 minute game of cheese. There should be a report flag: "Cheese player" like "real life threat" because its almost as bad... | ||
| ||
