|
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.
|
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?
|
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.
|
Get few phoenix to deny dropships
|
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.
|
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 >.<
|
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).
|
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.....
|
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.
|
forge, cannons on supply?
|
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
|
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.
|
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 =)
|
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.
|
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.
|
I assume that you would deal with this the same way you would in a TvT: Sim City.
|
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.
|
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:
|
as stated above - wall off the back of your mineral line so hellions can't get inside there
|
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.
|
Yeah wall off, but who said FF's are no good because the sentries just die? Correct me if I am wrong but sentries do not die that quick to hellions, sentry is light mechanical and does fine against them; few sentry with a couple of stalkers, wall them in and they are toast.
If you going for an expansion build you should be sentry heavy anyway right?
|
Thank you turbopasca1 ... now I get the general idea behind this Still have to get it right and to remember it thou :D
Wise words and great strategys are worthless unless you remember to you them
|
On February 28 2011 22:34 BuzzKerbox wrote:
Yeah wall off, but who said FF's are no good because the sentries just die? Correct me if I am wrong but sentries do not die that quick to hellions, sentry is light mechanical and does fine against them; few sentry with a couple of stalkers, wall them in and they are toast.
If you going for an expansion build you should be sentry heavy anyway right?
They are still light which means they take the full damage from blueflame. The regular drop of 4 hellions will oneshot a sentry.
That said, good building placement can help alot dealing with this. You'll probably always lose some probes, but he will lose 400mins in hellions, so the goal is to save as many as you can and you just might win the trade.
|
SimCity, every race does it vs hellion heavy playstyle(especially TvT), protoss are also lucky in that cannons can shoot both the dropship and the hellions. In BW protoss would make pylon walls and 3-4 cannons even to stop vulture drop harass, there is no reason why protoss shouldn't do so here especially if the terran is going mech.
|
On February 28 2011 23:24 bubblegumbo wrote:
SimCity, every race does it vs hellion heavy playstyle(especially TvT), protoss are also lucky in that cannons can shoot both the dropship and the hellions. In BW protoss would make pylon walls and 3-4 cannons even to stop vulture drop harass, there is no reason why protoss shouldn't do so here especially if the terran is going mech.
This is when you have 3 bases, of course. If you're spamming cannons on 1 base to defend against 3 hellions, that's sad. 2 bases isn't THAT bad; only 1 cannon per mineral line. 3 bases is good for dropping though.
|
As a plat T I have found hellion drops vs Toss to be very strong. Toss players at my level are often very aggressive and have their army warping in at a pylon in the middle of the map or even in your natural. When their army is so far out of position and 3 hellions drop their base, its pretty much a gg right there. This happens more frequently than one would think.
As a T, I have found that a toss that fast expand can somewhat negate the hellion drop. First, your probes are split up between two bases, and second, you have twice the production capacity to catch up in probe count. I feel that if I can kill enough probes I still end up even or ahead, but if it is well defended and I can only snipe 4-5 probes then the toss is ahead. Remember this is only the opinion of a plat player, so i may very well be wrong.
|
Yeah, as someone who always opens 3 hellion drop vs P, I would say the best defense is simcity + seeing the dropship before it begins unloading so you can try to take it out. Even if he gets to unload 2, that is a really big difference for you because it takes 3 hellions to 1 shot probes.
|
Even if you dump 450 minerals into 3 cannons to protect your main and expo, the Protoss death ball is much more cost efficient than the terran bio ball isn't it? Cannons plus a wall in like those very nice screen shots could probably minimize the damage a hellion harass can do.
|
On March 01 2011 00:58 DX Raider wrote:
Even if you dump 450 minerals into 3 cannons to protect your main and expo, the Protoss death ball is much more cost efficient than the terran bio ball isn't it? Cannons plus a wall in like those very nice screen shots could probably minimize the damage a hellion harass can do.
You won't have an extra colossi and stalker, and each colossi is important.
|
What I do is have a couple (2-4 depending on map) stalkers on patrol around my perimeter so that 2 stalkers will attack the drop-ship on it's way in always.
A stalker attacking a drop ship will most often just scare the Terran away from dropping at all.
Walling off your mineral line is great and all, but I just can't help the feeling that doing that will leave my probes locked in when they drop directly on top of them (which does happen). I'd rather stop the drop all-together than to try and deal with the units dropped.
|
the best way to deal with this is usually simply unit positioning and a simcity of some kind. that picture linked last page is actually really helpful. you don't need your army at the front of your base if you're scouting the terran's front. unless you see Terran moving out, your army should be IN your base, with stalkers/sentries in your mineral line. the timing of this is obviously important, but the idea remains the same. when you take your nat, then keep half your army in your main, half at the nat, and when you take your third, thats when adding cannons is a good idea, if not essential. but bear in mind, you have to constantly be aware of whether or not the terran could be at your front door.
if he attacks your front while dropping, thats when problems start. it's true for me and most protosses. you just need to be very aware of whats going on, and acknowledge that the possibility of him doing this is present every time he attacks you and position your units accordingly. positioning is key.
|
Wall of your mineral line like the guy in the SS above dose.
I find it that if the terran rushes the drop to much, aka 4/3 helion + pre ingniter + med and dose dmg with them until they die you will usually have so much of an army advantage you can just go kill him.
At the 9+ min mark or so however, just use imortals,colosy + smart wall-off and you won't losse many probes, if any for that matter.
|
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?
In this situation you're not taking into account the fact that there are now 10 less probes for you to mine for how long? The 10 SCV count that T has on you at that point will pay out by the time you get those other 10 probes out I believe.
|
As long as you have stalkers to handle the hellions, you shouldn't pull your probes at all man, that's just asking for a 15 probe kill all at once. Just be patient, let the stalkers kill the hellions, and cb 4 probes out. Unless you have stalkers waiting for the dropship you are going to lose probes, just don't freak out, pull all probes, and lose them all to a blue flame burst. If you are getting cannons, just get one. Typically, if I am not ready to push out, I have 3 chargelots and a HT (or like 2 stalker 1 ht) near each mining base, but because I go HT/Immortal vs Terran I have these units.
|
Like others have said, I've stopped doing hellion drops TvP simply because Protoss figured out how to simcity their base to nullify most of the damage. Sometimes if I scout they're putting their gateways/cyber away from the mineral line early game I'll opt for the strategy but defending it seemed to be figured out almost overnight.
|
i dont agree with people about walling off the mineral line as a solution to this.
I have encounter this strat on many different map since i have a teammate who plays Terran pure mech in the team to practice vs. Basicly walling wont help you that much considering focus fire of hellions and the number of stalkers will fit in the area of drop. Early game blue flame hellions deal a tons of damage to your economy and late game they are the perfect wall to prevent zealots get into the sieg tanks line. Notices how 10 blue flame could win vs 10 stalkers late game due to their splash damage.
The best solution i found to this is expand after each drop. You leave 3 stalkers in each mineral lines + 2 at ramp and mass expand. considering him losing 300-400~ in army, you should as well just go expand counter to it.
The only problem to my solution is that it requires a large map with a tons of safe expansion. Maps like xelnaga its almost impossible but i have tested it on GSL map and it works perfectly fine.
|
United States7483 Posts
The cannon solution works lategame, don't do it before then. Static defenses are bad unless you absolutely must have them.
Either pick off the dropship before it lands, or defend with a simcity. Those are your two options only.
In this situation you're not taking into account the fact that there are now 10 less probes for you to mine for how long? The 10 SCV count that T has on you at that point will pay out by the time you get those other 10 probes out I believe.
I also answered this above. I had assumed you had already expanded, since if you're on one base you should be easily able to prevent the hellions from doing significant damage, almost trivially, and your foe is behind on his expo (since he's using the drop to cover his going up), so you're ahead.
Obviously if you're on one base and you lose a buttload of workers you're in deep trouble.
|
On February 28 2011 22:41 Bagi wrote:Show nested quote +On February 28 2011 22:34 BuzzKerbox wrote:
Yeah wall off, but who said FF's are no good because the sentries just die? Correct me if I am wrong but sentries do not die that quick to hellions, sentry is light mechanical and does fine against them; few sentry with a couple of stalkers, wall them in and they are toast.
If you going for an expansion build you should be sentry heavy anyway right?
They are still light which means they take the full damage from blueflame. The regular drop of 4 hellions will oneshot a sentry.
Against blue flame sure, by the time T has blue flame though you should of at least scouted it or have more than enough units yourself off one base to deal with it.
The OP said he is 2-3 gate robo expanding, this is a way into the game, if the T is staying on one base your whole army is going to be at home as well for a while so sentry should be fine, of course you need some decent micro.
T is also going to be chasing your probes, not chasing your sentry, which you can have sitting out of sight anyway.
If your playing a macro game though I think cannons are fine, especially once you get to three or more bases, especially to protect the main which is not always easy to get troops back to; the time a cannon or two gives you to react is probably the most valuable thing here.
Reminds me actually was just watching Kiwikaki against Destiny in a few games the other day, he was playing macro games, laying 3-4 cannons down at expo's and it was very effective, mostly at giving him a lot of time to react to attacks and or focus on other things.
|
Its hella easily scoutable usually 1 base tech lab factory with any amount of hellions vs toss... blue flame hellion drop and with that info place pylons for vision of drops and watch your map.
|
This is a matter of practice. When it comes down to it, both skills necessary to deal with blue flame hellion drops are unintuitive. After a few times dealing with it you can simcity and position stalkers effectively enough to prevent all but one or two probes of damage.
|
iNcontroL
USA29055 Posts
Like almost anything in this matchup (OR game) it comes down to scouting.
If you read tech which you should with this you should be leaning towards an obs build or stargate play in any regard. Scout with 1-2 phoenix or scout with chrono'd obs asap. After that it is tower management and base vision. Make your 3rd + pylons in a ring around your base so you can have vision of the drop +3-5 seconds faster. It ain't much but it helps. There are obvious "key" spots for the first 2-3 pylons on the perimeter as obviously you won't have full vision by the first drop.
After that it depends on comp but stalker/sentry is fine. Pull probes and DON'T RUN instead spread them out as best as possible. FF tight spots to block off the hellions and target down with stalkers.
|
On February 28 2011 21:17 bodomReaper89 wrote: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 =)
yes but the cannons buy you time for your units which should be hotkeyed so they will arrive very fast to defend, and late game i just keep 2 ht and a stalker or zealot at each base with a cannon or 2. owns drops just feedback them and they all explode before they unload a single unit
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT![[image loading]](http://img62.imageshack.us/img62/9701/screenshot2011022814411.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://img52.imageshack.us/img52/212/screenshot2011022814421.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://img41.imageshack.us/img41/3046/screenshot2011022814450.jpg)
