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Blazinghand
United States25550 Posts
Guide: How to Defend Against Worker Rush
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/oB9GBl.jpg) Doom of Kings, Dirge of Hope, Devourer of Worlds: Worker Rush
Introduction
This is a compendium of everything I've read, seen, and experienced about Worker Rush, combined with several replays and VoDs generated by myself and my practice partner, Lucien. We are both in Master League, and knowledgeable enough about the game that we can adequately defend Worker Rush, so we made this guide. If you're an experienced member of the TL Strategy Board, you definitely know everything in this article, and are probably wondering why I've written it. Well, I've seen/heard of far too many people losing to Worker Rush. Fighting Worker Rush isn't something that intuitively comes to people, even if they've already lost to it. It's a frustrating strategy to lose to, and to a new player it can be very discouraging. This is here so that if someone searches "Worker Rush" on TL, they will find this guide, read it, and never lose to Worker Rush again.
What is Worker Rush?
A Worker Rush is a tactic in which a player uses only worker units (SCVs, Probes, or Drones) to attack very early in the game, before the defending player has any combat units. A Worker Rush comes in two varieties: vanilla Worker Rush, and 12 Drone Rush. In the vanilla Worker Rush, a player immediately moves out to attack with his first 6 workers (the worker that is being made will catch up sometime during the battle). The 12 Drone Rush is a Zerg-only strategy in which the Extractor Trick is used to let the zerg player quickly get 12 drones. He then uses these drones to attack.
How do I defend a vanilla Worker Rush?
Background: A vanilla Worker Rush will arrive at your base down several workers relative to you. Your workers have the ability to attack, just like zerglings, marines, or zealots, but they will not do this automatically. You workers by default will run away from anything attacking them, including other workers, unless you issue an attack-move command. If they are mining they will not even run away, so you need to attack-move to make them defend themselves. During an attack-move, your workers will proceed to a location, stopping to attack anything they meet, including enemy workers. Once they arrive at the location, you'll need to reissue an attack-move command to make them attack again if necessary. This is supremely important-- if they are mining or standing around, your workers will NOT defend themselves.
Basics: If you select all of your workers and attack-move, and your opponent does the same, you will win because you have more workers. You have more workers because you were able to produce workers with your income while he moved across the map. This is generally how you defend against Worker Rush, but there are a couple of tricks and caveats to watch out for, as you opponent might try to micro. The first order of business is to box all but one of your workers, and attack-move towards his workers. 90% of the time, this is ALL you will need to do. You will be attack-moving 10 workers against 6. You're done. Free win. However, if he micros really hard, they may be other things you need to do.
Pullback/stop Micro: After you tell you workers to attack-move, you'll notice that some of them get weakened before the others during the fights. In order to preserve your workers, you can pull these workers back by grabbing the weakened worker and right-clicking on a mineral to send him back through the battle to go mine. If you want him to keep fighting, you can give him a new order to fight, or alternatively you can select him, click or use your hotkey for Stop, then have him re-engage. When he stops fighting, the opponents workers AI will ignore him and go for the other workers, even after he starts fighting again, unless the opponent gives new commands.
Mining: It's usually a good idea to leave one or two workers mining during the fight, or sending weakened workers back to mine. Even if you do this, you will have more workers than your opponent, and the additional income will let you make more workers, further cementing your advantage. This is extremely important, as if you do not mine, your opponent could conceivably outmicro you-- if you do mine, you will gradually increase your worker count. If your opponent starts to bail or wants to retreat and heal, send your workers back to mine, and pull them to fight again when he comes back.
Buildings: Do not cancel any pylons or overlords that are morphing. It's worth it to halt a supply depot if you're going to lose the scv building it, but don't cancel it unless it's going to die or you really need the money. Cancel any vespene geysers you're taking if you get Worker Rushed, because you won't have time to benefit from the gas. If you are zerg, you can use Extractor Trick mid battle to make an extra worker if you don't have time/money for an overlord. Make sure your pylon/depot/overlord finishes, as getting above 10/11 food will give you an overwhelming advantage.
Mineral Walk: This is a foundational element of worker micro. If you pay attention, when they are mining, workers are able to walk through each other to carry minerals and return to the mineral line. This is called "Mineral Walking", and any worker returning resources or going to a mineral patch will gain this ability. Given the cramped situation when fighting, you should use mineral walking to maneuver your units. If you want to get all your workers into one spot near a mineral, tell them all to mine that mineral and they will stack up there. You can also use this to retreat weak workers through reinforcements or enemies, get out of surrounds or get into surrounds, or keep your workers close together enough to support each other. If you want to mineral walk away from your mineral line, you can tell your workers to mine at your natural, and they will mineral walk towards your ramp.
Racial differences between workers: Terran scvs have 45 hp, which is one more hit, but do not regenerate hp without repairs. Zerg drones have 40 hp, and will regenerate hp even during battle, making them take 9 hits like an scv. Protoss probes have 20 hp, 20 shields and only regenerate shields, and only regenerate it out of battle, which makes them the worst in a direct fight, taking only 8 hits, but the quickest-regenerating. If you are protoss or zerg, your workers will naturally heal if/when he starts running away. However, if you are Terran, your workers will not, but this won't really matter since he'll have fewer workers. If you're really worried about him wearing you down, you can have one of your scvs set to auto-repair (right-click the repair button) and this scv will repair your other scvs if it has no other orders or is on attack-move. Do not active this for more than 1 or maybe 2 scvs-- you need to have MORE attacking workers than he has, or he will win the fights. Remember that this will consume minerals.
Remember, A-move defends 90% of worker rushes. Everything else is just little frills you add onto your a-move.
How do I Defend 12 Drone Rush?
Background: 12 Drone Rush is the same as vanilla Worker Rush in terms of the types of micro and what the situation is, but the margin of error is much smaller. Whereas with the vanilla Worker Rush, your opponent has to guess where you are and may arrive late, and you will always have several more workers, the 12 Drone rush has time to scout and find you and engage you immediately. Because zerg can make workers slightly more quickly due to larvae, your worker advantage is going to be very small-- as small as 1 worker if you are playing on xel'naga caverns. In this situation, every principle of defending vanilla Worker Rush applies with the following changes:
If you are Terran: cancel your barracks at the top of your ramp. You won't be able to defend it and get it up, and that worker making the barracks needs to live. He is THE worker that you are up by when your opponent shows up. Mine 50 or 100 extra minerals before fighting, so that you can fight with all your workers (you will have 13 on Xel'Naga Caverns, more on other maps), and still make an scv and have mining. If he pulls back to heal or reposition, you can spend some more time mining and/or repairing. Hang on carefully to your worker lead.
If you are Protoss: do not cancel your Gateway, which you likely JUST started, unless he's focusing it and it's going to go down. If you can get a zealot out, you win. Your workers are slightly worse in a direct fight, but you still have an extra worker or two on him. Mine as much as possible, and chrono out more probes / a zealot and the game is yours. Send weak probes back to mine if you are worried about losing them in a fight, and bring them back to fight when they have more shields.
If you are Zerg: if you went for a quick gas, cancel it for the extra drone. You won't need the gas anyways. If you went for a quick pool, that's fine as long as you still have 13 or more drones. Make zerglings instead of drones when the pool finishes.
Closing Thoughts:
Remember, all you need to do is survive, and it's a fight between basically comparable units, and you have more of them. Your opponent has only two advantages: surprise and experience. He's likely done this more than you have, and you're probably not expecting it. Remain calm, attack-move your workers so they use combat AI, and relish in your free victory. In the professional scene, Worker Rush is considered the same as throwing a game because of how defendable it is.
Remember, A-move defends 90% of worker rushes. Everything else is just little frills you add onto your a-move.
Resources:
Replay Clinic: Examples of defending Worker Rush with every race!
Replay Pack: http://drop.sc/packs/507
In this replay pack, I defend as T, Z, and P the standard 6+1 Worker Rush, and defend as T against 12 drone rush.
Replay Clinic VoDs
Twitch.tv: http://www.twitch.tv/blazinghand/b/307802678
Embedded Video (Youtube):
+ Show Spoiler +http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yoc9ONz0ghI
Q&A -- your thread questions, summarized and answered here!
Q: Why doesn't A-moving win you the game?
A: A-moving is a critical component of fighting worker rush, and as I have laboriously and explicitly pointed out several times in my guide, will alone win you 90% of worker rush games. I highly recommend you read the guide.
Reddit Thread:
http://www.reddit.com/r/starcraft_strategy/comments/pekfv/guide_how_to_defend_against_worker_rush/
Special thanks to Lucien aka theshrabster for his help as a practice partner and worker rush opponent.
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this toss player is terrible <_<
User was warned for this post
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Cool guide, but I've always found box->a+move works pretty well.
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I like this guide.
I feel it's sort of unnecessary, but at the same time it's very well written and clear, so, thank you ^_^
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Italy12246 Posts
I sense this has to do with Gheed's blog.
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On February 07 2012 20:47 naggerNZ wrote:
Cool guide, but I've always found box->a+move works pretty well.
Did you read the guide? That's the first thing he says to do, then he says what stuff you can do to improve on that because if someone 12 drone rushes you with remotely competent micro then they will beat straight up a-clicking 10 times out of 10.
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On February 07 2012 21:01 Navillus wrote:Show nested quote +On February 07 2012 20:47 naggerNZ wrote:
Cool guide, but I've always found box->a+move works pretty well. Did you read the guide? That's the first thing he says to do, then he says what stuff you can do to improve on that because if someone 12 drone rushes you with remotely competent micro then they will beat straight up a-clicking 10 times out of 10.
Well if you're playing against players with competent micro then you'll be good enough to hold a 12 drone rush without a guide, wont you?
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Time to diffuse this into the bronze league! Gheed were coming to save you!
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I'm gonna do a blog in which I stop bronzies mining by doing that probe mining cancel harass with all 6 probes, in the hopes someone writes a "mining guide".
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Blazinghand
United States25550 Posts
On February 08 2012 02:46 Asday wrote:
I'm gonna do a blog in which I stop bronzies mining by doing that probe mining cancel harass with all 6 probes, in the hopes someone writes a "mining guide".
Technically this style of play would be a subset of Worker Rush, albiet an enormously sub-optimal subset. If you plan on pulling your initial 6 probes, you'll likely have more (though still very little) success attempting to fight your opponent than slow down his mining, since you yourself will have no mining to speak of. Furthermore, the amount of apm it would take to constantly mine-cancel on 6 mineral patches is enormous, making this a profoundly difficult rush style in addition to a massively unuseful one.
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Lol, Blazinghand you've made some great contributions to the community but this one is a bit ridiculous. I have played thousands of games, been worker rushed about 1/1000, and it was never even close.
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Oh people get the 'stick out of your ass' and realize that any user that might have trouble with a worker rush (read gheed's blog to learn that there are in fact a large number of players that) will now instantly find through the TL search engine a very clear answer. That's all this guide is really meant to do.
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On February 07 2012 20:44 theshrabster wrote:
this toss player is terrible <_<
User was warned for this post
FYI this is the TOSS player that is worker rushing in the picture in the OP.
Funny as hell.
I think he got warned for worker rushing :D
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The problem is.. With a 12 drone rush still I'm confident I'd beat a noob who read this guide (as clearly is targeted for noobs). You didn't explain how to defend via running far away and building more workers in the mean time with your spent money to have a significant advantage. You did not explain anything about mineral walking. And if engaging right when a 12 drone rush hits. Sending workers back to the mineral line is the LAST thing you want to do, you want to keep every worker in battle using the stop micro. Granted it's a guide and well-thought out guide. And while these 'advanced' techniques are going to be harder for a noob to execute. They are important because most 12 drone rushes are executed by better players playing on a smurf account. So all-in-all I appreciate you contributing of course to help noobs (as I know first hand how degrading and pissed they get dying to worker rushes). But I feel there needs to be a couple things reworded/added to make sure that the noobs truly know how to defend against someone capable of executing a good 12 drone rush. (obviously what I said does not apply to a 6 worker rush as that's stupid)
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Blazinghand
United States25550 Posts
I don't advise players to retreat and stall during a 12 drone rush because I don't believe that to be the optimal strategy. You will already have a worker advantage, either 1 worker if you're on Xel'Naga Caverns, or 2+ if you're on any other map, due to rush distance. Unless you've done something very weird, you don't need to worry about getting out extra workers-- you have a worker advantage already. Just engage and continue making workers.
I think I'll add a section on using mineral-walking to micro, though, since moving a lot of workers around in a cramped area can be difficult.
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On February 08 2012 04:15 Berailfor wrote:
The problem is.. With a 12 drone rush still I'm confident I'd beat a noob who read this guide (as clearly is targeted for noobs). You didn't explain how to defend via running far away and building more workers in the mean time with your spent money to have a significant advantage. You did not explain anything about mineral walking. And if engaging right when a 12 drone rush hits. Sending workers back to the mineral line is the LAST thing you want to do, you want to keep every worker in battle using the stop micro. Granted it's a guide and well-thought out guide. And while these 'advanced' techniques are going to be harder for a noob to execute. They are important because most 12 drone rushes are executed by better players playing on a smurf account. So all-in-all I appreciate you contributing of course to help noobs (as I know first hand how degrading and pissed they get dying to worker rushes). But I feel there needs to be a couple things reworded/added to make sure that the noobs truly know how to defend against someone capable of executing a good 12 drone rush. (obviously what I said does not apply to a 6 worker rush as that's stupid)
The 12 drone rush only has a worker advantage in close spots metal (or like maps) or on steppes of war. If I am wrong about that please post a replay proving so.
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To me this does feel like those big enourmous guides of the electronic products:D Not that they are not useful, but few people will actually read them 
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Gheed might not be happy about this thread... but the people he plays probably don't live here anyways...
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On February 08 2012 04:30 caradoc wrote:
Gheed might not be happy about this thread... but the people he plays probably don't live here anyways...
Honestly what if he worker rushes someone and they google Worker Rush Defense and they eventually find this thread. They will now have found TL. A guide like this makes TL more accessible to the players that do not know about TL.
With that in mind, this thread is amazing.
In fact:
https://www.google.com/search?q=how to defend worker rush
Check it out.
Mission accomplished, some worker rushed bronzie will now not only find the solution but he will find the strat forum of TL which no matter your opinion on this forum will be of GREAT use to a bronze level player.
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On February 08 2012 04:26 vaderseven wrote:Show nested quote +On February 08 2012 04:15 Berailfor wrote:
The problem is.. With a 12 drone rush still I'm confident I'd beat a noob who read this guide (as clearly is targeted for noobs). You didn't explain how to defend via running far away and building more workers in the mean time with your spent money to have a significant advantage. You did not explain anything about mineral walking. And if engaging right when a 12 drone rush hits. Sending workers back to the mineral line is the LAST thing you want to do, you want to keep every worker in battle using the stop micro. Granted it's a guide and well-thought out guide. And while these 'advanced' techniques are going to be harder for a noob to execute. They are important because most 12 drone rushes are executed by better players playing on a smurf account. So all-in-all I appreciate you contributing of course to help noobs (as I know first hand how degrading and pissed they get dying to worker rushes). But I feel there needs to be a couple things reworded/added to make sure that the noobs truly know how to defend against someone capable of executing a good 12 drone rush. (obviously what I said does not apply to a 6 worker rush as that's stupid) The 12 drone rush only has a worker advantage in close spots metal (or like maps) or on steppes of war. If I am wrong about that please post a replay proving so.
I wasn't even aware on close spots you'd be up a worker. Well Protoss has the worst workers so like I said I normally just run around for a second and spend the last of my money on 2-3 more workers then just crush the force. It seems a little sketchy on closer maps fully engaging without it because of each worker taking 1 less hit. Unless they do something stupid like get too far in my mineral line where I can form a concave/surround on them.
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On February 08 2012 04:49 Berailfor wrote:Show nested quote +On February 08 2012 04:26 vaderseven wrote:On February 08 2012 04:15 Berailfor wrote:
The problem is.. With a 12 drone rush still I'm confident I'd beat a noob who read this guide (as clearly is targeted for noobs). You didn't explain how to defend via running far away and building more workers in the mean time with your spent money to have a significant advantage. You did not explain anything about mineral walking. And if engaging right when a 12 drone rush hits. Sending workers back to the mineral line is the LAST thing you want to do, you want to keep every worker in battle using the stop micro. Granted it's a guide and well-thought out guide. And while these 'advanced' techniques are going to be harder for a noob to execute. They are important because most 12 drone rushes are executed by better players playing on a smurf account. So all-in-all I appreciate you contributing of course to help noobs (as I know first hand how degrading and pissed they get dying to worker rushes). But I feel there needs to be a couple things reworded/added to make sure that the noobs truly know how to defend against someone capable of executing a good 12 drone rush. (obviously what I said does not apply to a 6 worker rush as that's stupid) The 12 drone rush only has a worker advantage in close spots metal (or like maps) or on steppes of war. If I am wrong about that please post a replay proving so. I wasn't even aware on close spots you'd be up a worker. Well Protoss has the worst workers so like I said I normally just run around for a second and spend the last of my money on 2-3 more workers then just crush the force. It seems a little sketchy on closer maps fully engaging without it because of each worker taking 1 less hit. Unless they do something stupid like get too far in my mineral line where I can form a concave/surround on them.
I have only faced 12 drone rush as a Terran so I cant speak from experience as a toss vs it.
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I'd like to add that as a terran facing the drone worker rush that after you cancel your rax you want to kite around with your scv's for as long as possible while you get out 1-2 more scv's to ensure victory with the extra minerals you have.
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Normally I just fight in open ground and watch them try to micro. Micro in a worker rush situation just means that I stack 2 attacking workers on 1 so its like a mini focus fire. I lost once to a worker rush in bronze league... never again...
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didnt even know there is such thing as 12 drone rush :D anyways hold position micro for the win
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On February 08 2012 05:35 YosHGo wrote:
didnt even know there is such thing as 12 drone rush :D anyways hold position micro for the win
People used to try to 12 Drone rush me, I micro'd my probes and used shield regen. Hold position micro is a bad idea, it'll let the other player position for higher dps.
Although I never really understood the point of these worker rush threads floating around... I just always thought this sort of thing is such common sense that if you have to write to someone to explain it, they'll inherently not receive the message, and on top of that I just don't really think it's funny.
I dunno. I still enjoyed reading the OP.
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I find ghosts are the best response to a worker rush. Emp gets rid of probe shields while snipe outright one shots a worker. When you scout your opponent worker rushing--just tech up to ghosts and you'll be fine. Also,Ghosts deal extra damage to light units--workers are light units. This is not a coincidence.
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I think this will give me the edge I need to get out of wood league :D
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I think some of the commentors made good points about the way this guide is worded and its target audience, so maybe a few additional explanations would help, but the main point of this guide is just having a clear cut response to a common question, since most of the people that google "how to beat X" are new to the game, and don't wanna wade through 20 pages of a forum thread... that being said, the guy above me has the greatest user name I've ever seen. well played sir.
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i have 15-20 replays of successful 12 drone rushes in high plat/low diamond, if you need examples of how to micro workers/how NOT to micro workers.
a lot of people (myself included) over-micro, and that tiny error snowballs. just make sure he doesnt have a good concave on your workers and youre good.
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I've never had to deal with this, but I wonder as Terran if there is any benefit to utilizing the command center as part of defense strategy. SCV's on auto-repair will repair other units while inside the command center. I suppose if you're down to 5 SCV's it might make sense to try that. It would also let you jump the SCV's to the other side of the building (through the CC), perhaps to escape briefly from an attack? I don't know if SCV's entering the CC will "mineral walk" (passing through attacking enemy workers).
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Why doesn't A-moving win you the game?
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Blazinghand
United States25550 Posts
On February 08 2012 10:04 TheTurk wrote:
Why doesn't A-moving win you the game?
A-moving is a critical component of fighting worker rush, and as I have laboriously and explicitly pointed out several times in my guide, will alone win you 90% of worker rush games. I highly recommend you read the guide.
If you think about it, to a non-competitive player, defending worker rush is very counter-intuitive. Why are there enemy workers in your base? What are they doing? Your own worker units are workers-- you may not even be aware they can attack. Maybe you know they can attack, but you assume that, like literally every other unit with an autoattack in this game, they will use it automatically on nearby enemies. Maybe during the first few minutes of the game you're admiring the scenery of the map, the rain/wind effects, or planning out your strategy. This does not come naturally to people.
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well at least now the people featured in Gheed's blog can't complain about being stupid (if they don't bother looking up the information) :D keke
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On February 08 2012 14:34 Blazinghand wrote:Show nested quote +On February 08 2012 10:04 TheTurk wrote:
Why doesn't A-moving win you the game? A-moving is a critical component of fighting worker rush, and as I have laboriously and explicitly pointed out several times in my guide, will alone win you 90% of worker rush games. I highly recommend you read the guide. If you think about it, to a non-competitive player, defending worker rush is very counter-intuitive. Why are there enemy workers in your base? What are they doing? Your own worker units are workers-- you may not even be aware they can attack. Maybe you know they can attack, but you assume that, like literally every other unit with an autoattack in this game, they will use it automatically on nearby enemies. Maybe during the first few minutes of the game you're admiring the scenery of the map, the rain/wind effects, or planning out your strategy. This does not come naturally to people.
there are rain effects?!?! I need to turn my settings back up for a few days. T_T
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On February 08 2012 04:34 vaderseven wrote:Show nested quote +On February 08 2012 04:30 caradoc wrote:
Gheed might not be happy about this thread... but the people he plays probably don't live here anyways... Honestly what if he worker rushes someone and they google Worker Rush Defense and they eventually find this thread. They will now have found TL. A guide like this makes TL more accessible to the players that do not know about TL. With that in mind, this thread is amazing. In fact: https://www.google.com/search?q=how to defend worker rushCheck it out. Mission accomplished, some worker rushed bronzie will now not only find the solution but he will find the strat forum of TL which no matter your opinion on this forum will be of GREAT use to a bronze level player.
Haha, that is some serious forum metagaming going on. That's awesome actually...send some ambassadors like Gheed to worker rush the bronze league players. It might indirectly promote TL O.o. Imagine bronze as a whole getting better and improving the lower levels of play because of this and in turn improving everything else. If that isn't meta, I don't know what is.
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On February 08 2012 04:34 vaderseven wrote:Show nested quote +On February 08 2012 04:30 caradoc wrote:
Gheed might not be happy about this thread... but the people he plays probably don't live here anyways... Honestly what if he worker rushes someone and they google Worker Rush Defense and they eventually find this thread. They will now have found TL. A guide like this makes TL more accessible to the players that do not know about TL. With that in mind, this thread is amazing. In fact: https://www.google.com/search?q=how to defend worker rushCheck it out. Mission accomplished, some worker rushed bronzie will now not only find the solution but he will find the strat forum of TL which no matter your opinion on this forum will be of GREAT use to a bronze level player.
This! Now a link to gheed's blog so they understand who's the guy whose been worker rushing them for the last year xD
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I actually lost to a 12 drone rush on XNC before and I'm masters lol, I was so confused and just didn't cancel my barracks because I though I should have way more workers anyway, well turns out that you actually have about the same amount or 1 extra worker compared to the zerg. Now I know better. But then I checked this guy's match history and he always worker rushes on XNC against all races and wins most of the time.... in master league lol. I actually got matched up with him a second time then and was able to defend it quite easily. His name was Blackla or something like that.
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EPT
