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Personally, this is the scariest strategy I have to face as a Protoss player, and I'm looking for some tips to come out ahead with a 2-3 gate robo expansion build. Most of the time it's possible to scout the build and prepare a response, but I'm not sure what the best response is.
Usually after I see the hellions with a stalker poke or fast observer, I put 2-3 stalkers in each mineral line. The problem is that the hellions are so fast and, if they have BF, the tradeoff for the Terran always seems to be in his favor. In the time it takes the 2-3 stalkers to kill the hellions they've already wiped out half of my probes. Pulling the probes off the minerals just seems to line them up for a smart T to wipe them out faster, since the hellions are faster than both probes and stalkers. Now I've also tried positioning stalkers around corners of my base to prevent the drop in the first place, but there are so many seams that the Terran can come in through that this ends up being even worse, especially on maps with larger bases. If I put my stalkers in a corner of my base where I suspect he will drop the T can pull his dropship back before being hit by my stalkers, drop them outside, and run in through the front door or hit my expansion.
Now, investing heavily in stalkers (4-5 per mineral line) or cannons prevents the hellions from doing a lot of damage, but hellions are very gas friendly and I usually see stimmed marauders and a raven or ghost coming in not too much later to punish me for going heavy on stalkers or static defense. Not to mention, my troops are often split when he hits for fear of a drop - with stalkers in my main mineral line my front line doesn't stand a chance against stimmed mm and pdd.
My best case scenario is usually that I lose 10 or so probes, killing the initial hellions/dropship, while he grabs his own expansion. In this case it seems like the damage he did makes up for any macro disadvantage he had while, psychologically, I'm feeling pretty battered and always hesitant to leave my mineral lines to pressure for fear of more hellions. In the late game even with 2 cannons in each base it seems like a handful of BF hellions can wipe out an entire probe line before dying to the cannons, if my army is not there.
From my experience the weakness of the hellion drop strategy is a lack of mm in the early game, which means it can be beaten pretty handily by a 4 gate or 3 gate stargate. But when Protoss uses any sort of expansion build it feels difficult to come out ahead against this strategy.
Tips and insight appreciated. I am a 3k masters for reference.
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United States7483 Posts
You aren't going to stop the hellions from doing the damage they are going to do by putting stalkers in your line: you simply can't kill them fast enough. You can try forcefielding them away from your probes, but that's likely to just fail AND get your sentries killed.
I find that opening stargate against terran is fairly decent, chrono out a void ray or a phoenix and kill the drop ship. Also, put stalkers on patrol near the ledges of your bases, like terran does with marines for overlords. You might not kill the medivac quickly enough, but 90% of the time you'll scare the dropship away or at least buy more time to get more units out.
I've recently been experimenting with using hallucinated phoenix when I don't open stargate to patrol the air constantly around my base to spot drops as they are coming in.
If you kill 4 blueflame hellions and a medivac and only lost 10 probes though, you're actually ahead still. That's what, 500 minerals and 100 gas for the units, and another 150/150 for the blueflame research?
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I think the best way to stop this is stop the dropship from droping them, try to scout when the medivac is leaving if possible other or use sentries to trap them while you let ur probes escape.
You need to be on your toes because one slip up and ur mineral line is gone.
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Get few phoenix to deny dropships
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Just lose to that this week, it is extremely easy to miss and if you are not looking for just 3 seconds, all your probes will be gone. I think cannon will be the best solution until you can get higher tech.
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geting some phoenixs potroling are pretty much the only way to prevent hellion drops completely prevent helion drops. if you scout that they are doing a hellion drop as an opener, keep an obs on the dropship and make sure you have stalkers scatered around your main so you can hit the dropship when it comes, the best way to counter is to prevent the helions from landing. if the hellions do land make sure you kill the dropship and make sure you DO NOT run your probes in a line towards your natural. just send 2-3 workers to attack the hellion so it has to run or be blocked in and kill it with your stalker. lategame hellion drops are near imposible to prevent unless you happen to see it b4 it lands. the best you can do is make 1-2 cannons at your min line and hope you see the drop b4 it hits. i personaly think hellions are a bit op since they are like a mini reaver that moves faster and costs no gas.
edit: missing a word in the third line >.<
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On February 28 2011 15:28 Whitewing wrote:
If you kill 4 blueflame hellions and a medivac and only lost 10 probes though, you're actually ahead still. That's what, 500 minerals and 100 gas for the units, and another 150/150 for the blueflame research?
That's really not the correct way to look at that exchange. 10 probes is a huge economic hit. I don't know how much minerals a probe mines in a minute, but I assure you the cost of losing those probes is much higher than the medivac+hellions, especially when you consider the exponential impact over time (probes collect mins which makes probes).
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I recommend creating a wall around your mineral line with a single pocket of space which you forcefield.
just don't let him drop the millions directly into your mineral line cause then that sucks.....
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United States7483 Posts
On February 28 2011 17:04 CabSauce wrote:Show nested quote +On February 28 2011 15:28 Whitewing wrote:
If you kill 4 blueflame hellions and a medivac and only lost 10 probes though, you're actually ahead still. That's what, 500 minerals and 100 gas for the units, and another 150/150 for the blueflame research? That's really not the correct way to look at that exchange. 10 probes is a huge economic hit. I don't know how much minerals a probe mines in a minute, but I assure you the cost of losing those probes is much higher than the medivac+hellions, especially when you consider the exponential impact over time (probes collect mins which makes probes).
Right, but I also assumed that you have an expansion before he does, since he's rushing tech and you aren't. If you are rushing tech, you should be on one base and it should be incredibly easy to prevent this on one base. Since the OP mentioned that the terran expands behind this, you'd have more workers than he does anyway.
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forge, cannons on supply?
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On February 28 2011 18:11 speakerbox wrote:
forge, cannons on supply?
But the problem with this is, that when the terran does't helion drop you or when he scouts your canons, you will have wasted like 450 minerals on canons which will then be useless while the terran will have some mobile units who can still be usefull 
I think, that stationary defences should only be used as a last resort because after the attack is finished, they are useless
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having cannons in the main to prevent drops isn't by any means useless. Sure he might scout them and then has a slightly more mobile force, but it also prevents drops going down in later stages of the game where a big battle is going and you can't focus on everything at once.
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Yeah but later on, the terran can easily drop you with 2 medivacs fully loaded with marauders who can stim and own your base. At this point from what I have expirienced in the ladder, it doesn't matter if there are 1,2, 3 or no canons at all .... everything still dies unless you have units there.
And even if the canons prove to be usefull, you still will have a unit force, that is about 450 minerals weaker, than the terran. This is like 4 zealots .... so if you engage a battle outside of your base, you will have a disadvantage 
I don't want to say, that you can't "counter" this, but I think, that canons might not be the best solution =)
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Random player here.
I am personally a fan of this build, and no opening when i play terran without a 3 hellion dropship play is fun for me. I have also practiced to defend against this and the best way is to really just simcity your base and force field nicely, with stalkers ready to pick off the medevac should he load up.
If the drop was a total failure for the terran player (dropship+hellion all dead with no damage done) i really doubt he'll go for it again.
For players who say just open stargate, i normally pop a techlab on starport right after i get my dropship out, and if my hellions do NOT reveal a robo, cloaked banshees asap, if they do, depending on how the drop goes i either go for raven, or switch with factory/barracks.
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It's only feels unbalanced when the drop catches you offguard. Terrans are using this more and more so get in the habit of anticipating this. Here is my method of dealing with these drops that usually leaves me ahead.
You generally can guess which side they are going to drop from. Use your buildings to wall off that side. Make the hellions have to run to the other side of the mineral line and you have enough time to kill them before economic oblivion occurs.
Second, many BF builds transition to cloaked banshees so I often build a cannon behind my minerals in anticipation. This is probably the only case where you need cannons vs terran. the +1 armor upgrade is amazing against infantry in general and I would go as far as to say it's necessary against these harass builds because the tech means they are building mucho mariners.
Third, from personal experience I find that an immortal warp prism play is a great reaction to this harass. Initailly theimmortal is great at knocking out hellions. When you drop be sure to target supply depos and addons for guaranteed damage. Even if you are not that effective with the drop I find that the terran is rattled enough that in many games they stop their harass entirely. They tend to bunker down and maybe build turrets. You earn yourself enough time to tech up to your aoe preference to deal with the comming mmm push. In fact if your warp prism lives, 4 zealots in their mineral line does wonders when you catch them moving out with their death push.
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I assume that you would deal with this the same way you would in a TvT: Sim City.
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SimCity or extreme map awareness.
The thing about hellion drops is that any good terran drops just after or during a big battle. There's no chance you'll be able defend it with unit micro unless you're uber-pro.
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thats right folks put your buildings wisely , so the terran wont be able to do much damage , make your pylons-gateways-cybercore in a diagonal line - this way only probes will be able to get in and out , but hellions not.
My examples of a good anti hellion walloff :
Metalopolis:
Lost Temple:
![[image loading]](http://img638.imageshack.us/img638/4702/screenshot2011022814473.jpg)
Xel-Naga:
Scrap Station:
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as stated above - wall off the back of your mineral line so hellions can't get inside there
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On February 28 2011 22:16 turbopasca1 wrote:
thats right folks put your buildings wisely , so the terran wont be able to do much damage , make your pylons-gateways-cybercore in a diagonal line - this way only probes will be able to get in and out , but hellions not.
Really nice screenshots, everyone should really get into the habit of walling his mineral-line off - there's just no reason not to. One path has to stay open for your stalkers to walk in (also in case banshees come), if they have to walk in one by one that's bad.
What I furthermore wanted to add: if you can handle it speed/apm-wise you should mineral-walk your probes out, in case you didn't put your buildings in diagonal line (which I never do, makes me feel unsafe vs marine-drops stimming in). Meaning, you pull stalkers to the drop - or warp them in - and mineral-walk your probes right through them. If their hellions try to follow they run directly into your stalkers which obviously should be positioned in a way so hellions can't get past them.
I'd say it's really just a matter of praciticing the placement often...kinda like the wall-off vs zerg but a little bit more sophisticated. Once you have forced yourself to only place buildings in a certain way for a couple of games it slowly becomes something you "automaticly" do and doesn't take your attention away from what's going on.
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