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Australia2052 Posts
A particular game at the most recent DreamHack motivated me to figure out a good way to spread workers to negate Hellion harass (I'm sure a lot of people know which game I'm referring to). Blue flame Hellions have the ability to melt workers, particularly if they are lined or bunched up. It seems that, at least in the games I've seen, most peoples' response to blue flame Hellions is to run their workers around in circles in one big group, which unfortunately often leads to them lining up for lots of splash damage (especially if you click on a mineral patch, which causes them to stack). You can move them around in separate groups to attempt to limit this, but it's still not very optimal.
I didn't spend a whole lot of time on this, so there may be a faster and/or more effective way to accomplish the goal of separating workers to avoid the splash, but I have never seen it used so I thought it was worth posting (I apologise if it's already known). It is obviously inspired by the F1 worker split, and is fairly simple.
Here are the steps:
1) Select all of your workers (box them or ctrl-click)
2) Hit S (or whatever Stop is for your key setup)
3) Hold down F1 (select idle worker)
4) Right-click somewhere at the edge of your screen, but within your base
5) Right-click somewhere else at the edge of your screen (I think it's easiest to go around in a large circle on your screen. There may be better patterns)
Update: Shikyo has pointed out that you can perform all of the move commands while holding down F1; there's no need to press F1 repeatedly. This greatly simplifies things.
Keep clicking around your base until all of your workers have been moved. It can take a few seconds to do for a fully-saturated base, but the result is that your workers are all over the place and can't be splashed to death. It's also fairly hard to screw up as long as you hit S before hitting F1. Just keep holding down F1 and right-clicking around the screen.
Before:
![[image loading]](http://img201.imageshack.us/img201/9995/screenshot2010112723584.jpg)
After:
![[image loading]](http://img193.imageshack.us/img193/8756/screenshot2010112723594.jpg)
As you can see, a Hellion would really only be able to hit 2 or 3 Probes at a time even if it was perfectly positioned, and it's quite easy to micro those Probes around without having to worry about the rest. It took me 6 in-game seconds to perform this with 20 Probes (ignore the timer on the screenshots), and that includes moving the screen to the base via the minimap.
You may be able to improve it by alternating the distance that the workers move so that the pattern is less of a circle and more of a checkerboard, but that's more complicated.
There is a potential issue with this technique, though: any idle workers you have will be moved as well. This is probably a benefit if you just have idle workers lying around for no reason, but it'll move any that you've deliberately positioned unless they're on Hold Position or are holding a Xel'Naga Watchtower. Edit: Thanks to Clamps for the correction.
CherubDown has been kind enough to create a video demonstrating how to perform the technique:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHHw43GsnFM
Jedimonky uses the technique at 7:40 of this replay: http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/111208-1v1-terran-protoss-xelnaga-caverns
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from 19:31 to 20:20 real time tho ...  i hope it's faster but , gonna try it.
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lol.... does this work in game? any 1 tried it? xD
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Quite interesting, I may have to try this.
Kind of hard to remember things like this while its happening, but probably a decent technique to use.
Those Hellions were godly in that game.
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Australia2052 Posts
Like I said, ignore the timer on the screenshots. I took my time when taking them.
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I'm sure that Liquid'Tyler will appreciate other ways to move probes away from hellions.
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I would imagine this becomes a bit too messy and time/action consuming to perform with 30-40 Probes though, considering you still have to control your units to deal with harassment as well.
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On November 27 2010 22:26 Talin wrote:
I would imagine this becomes a bit too messy and time/action consuming to perform with 30-40 Probes though, considering you still have to control your units to deal with harassment as well.
This, should be pretty hard spamming F1 like a madman and still kill off the harassment properly.
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hmm can u try it in game and clip it?
Usually you're gonna have much more probes when hellions are dropped so it'll take longer. I am thinking from the time you hit 's', you give time for hellions to take a few pot shots. What you usually want to do is micro a few probes and try to block/surround the hellions (sacrificing these, while the others escape) Your army should clean up while you lose at most only those few probes.
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Imo would take too much time and effort. I think the best way is to just box and split them up quickly, similar to how marinekingprime splits his rines
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On November 27 2010 22:37 Invictus wrote:
Imo would take too much time and effort. I think the best way is to just box and split them up quickly, similar to how marinekingprime splits his rines
Or how he split his SCVs vs NesTea's banelings in the finals.
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the best way to stop yourself from losing 30 probes to blue flame hellions is not to move them at all. Yes ur garunteed to lose 3 or 4 but you wont lose anymore, thats what i do anyway.
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Jesus your first post is this? I been slacking...
You missed something very important:
how does severianing workers sound for the technique? severalaning? severing?
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Its much faster to just individually select and drag them away slightly from each others. No reason to pull them off so far, and this is way too APM requiring to be efficient.
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This is interesting, might become very useful in future games.
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very good technique. I suggest people try this ingame and only then try to dismantle it. It's a very good idea which doesn't take much of your APM and is practically AOE safe.
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One thing Day9 points out a lot is that you can sim city around mineral lines to block hellions (or any other unit) from moving into the workers. Sim city also would help with drops because it forces the drop to a small area which makes defending from the drop(s) much easier. This would be a lot easier to do than trying to micro 20+ workers, and also, if you spread out the workers around the nexus it really just gives the hellions more places to go to kill probes (even if it's only a few at a time).
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You can do this alot faster if you just hold down F1 and click around. Let me try how long it takes for a mineral line with 24 drones. About 5 seconds after stopping them on the first try... and I'm not even a good player.
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Sounds great for pros, but way too apm heavy for us mere mortals ^^
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Australia2052 Posts
On November 27 2010 22:43 Primadog wrote:
Jesus your first post is this? I been slacking...
You missed something very important:
how does severianing workers sound for the technique? severalaning? severing?
I don't think it even really needs a name.
On November 27 2010 22:53 Shikyo wrote:
You can do this alot faster if you just hold down F1 and click around. Let me try how long it takes for a mineral line with 24 drones. About 5 seconds after stopping them on the first try... and I'm not even a good player.
Wow, this is great. I had no idea you could hold down F1. Makes it a lot simpler. I'll add it to the OP; thankyou!
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yeah tried it and it's really usefull thanks.
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On November 27 2010 22:55 Skeyser wrote:
Sounds great for pros, but way too apm heavy for us mere mortals ^^
It's probably easier than most other ways to split workers. There's really not much to it.
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Sounds like it would be working pretty well with some practice. May be learning that shit now because as a Zerg there are also a lot of "Baneling running to your mineral line" situations where all you can do is reduce your losses by spreading your Drones. And in those Speedlings/Blings matches you usually don't have too many Drones anyways early on so this should work exceptional well :>
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Thanks it will help a lot <3
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On November 27 2010 22:55 Skeyser wrote:
Sounds great for pros, but way too apm heavy for us mere mortals ^^
huh? Its not APM heavy at all. It is simply selecting workers , telling to stop , then using the idle worker feature to send them to different places. Pretty much anyone can do that after a bit of practice.....
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Wow, this is really great! :D Will definitely be using that, and it's so easy to do. 
Thanks alot!
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This is surprisingly easy to do, nice.
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just tried it, the effect is pleasantly surprising.. thanks
i think ill use it for those oh shit situations when my army move out, and they drop helions in my base, good way to minimise probe losses if you have no immediate way to fend those helions off, a good way to spam apm rather than selecting my army and spamming move non stop back to my base while watching my probes get fried
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That's pretty witty. I'd like to see this happen on some screened games. I doubt I could pull this off efficiently enough... If anybody has replays of it being done, that'd be pretty neat.
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yea this is pretty nice. Thanks bluflame are annoying :[
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On November 27 2010 22:43 Primadog wrote:
Jesus your first post is this? I been slacking...
You missed something very important:
how does severianing workers sound for the technique? severalaning? severing?
I was thinking 'The Severian Split"
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ive done this to success in bling zvz wars not all that hard
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I also use this technique in ZvZ vs Banelings.
Edit: Ninja'd!
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On November 28 2010 01:02 Najda wrote:Show nested quote +On November 27 2010 22:43 Primadog wrote:
Jesus your first post is this? I been slacking...
You missed something very important:
how does severianing workers sound for the technique? severalaning? severing? I was thinking 'The Severian Split"
I vote we stop trying to name every single technique in the game. The humor in it has gotten rather stale.
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The counter to hellions is NOT..
NOT
NOTTTTTTT
moving your workers... EVER..
why?
Because in each mineral line, are only 3-4 workers..
would u rather have roasted 20 at once, or just 3 at a time? while u kill hellions?
I never anybody just let it be, because ppl panic.. OMGLUKLZZZ hellioonzz, I must move away !
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
This is a very effective technique. I think the best way to do this is
1) Select workers
2) Hit stop
3) Select Nexus
4) Hold F1
5) Spam click everywhere
The reason why you select your Nexus is that if there is any delay it will screw up how the F1 works (because the spamming click thing will cause all your workers to move making them no longer idle which screws up the F1). Pretty awesome really
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Right after boxing them you may want to bind them to 9 or 0 to make it easier to start mining again.
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I have been doing this against banelings in zvz, very useful
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x.x Had I known this yesterday I wouldn't have lost the games were I gotta blueflame hellion dropped and Banelings bombed ._.
Great tip, will keep this in mind.
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Millions of probes thank you for saving their lifes.
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On November 28 2010 01:11 MasterFischer wrote:
The counter to hellions is NOT..
NOT
NOTTTTTTT
moving your workers... EVER..
why?
Because in each mineral line, are only 3-4 workers..
would u rather have roasted 20 at once, or just 3 at a time? while u kill hellions?
I never anybody just let it be, because ppl panic.. OMGLUKLZZZ hellioonzz, I must move away !
How can you only have 3-4 workers in each mineral line when you start with 6?
What you don't want to do, is box all your workers and move them in one direction, making a nice line for the hellion's splash damage. But this technique makes the workers spread in every direction, which makes the hellions kill less units.
I like it a lot, but this + moving your units over to kill the hellions while, most likely, you have an army at your front will be very apm heavy. Atleast it will require some practice
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this is great, fairly easy to execute after practice =]
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Thanks for the trick, will use it in ZvZ for sure.
I wondered how some players split their workers so well.
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On November 28 2010 01:02 Najda wrote:Show nested quote +On November 27 2010 22:43 Primadog wrote:
Jesus your first post is this? I been slacking...
You missed something very important:
how does severianing workers sound for the technique? severalaning? severing? I was thinking 'The Severian Split"
Call it the "Panic Button"
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On November 28 2010 01:13 Spiffeh wrote:
Right after boxing them you may want to bind them to 9 or 0 to make it easier to start mining again.
you can also press crtl+f1 to select all the idle workers after the harass.
Does anyone know if its possible to cycle thru units in a control group in order to, say, split lings against helions in a similar manner?
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This is a very awesome find. What program is being used in that image to display APM? I've been hunting around for one for a long time.
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quality post. i'm surprised no one thought of this earlier since the f1 worker split to start the game has been around for ages.. i use that myself!
i've played a few games recently where i lost tons of workers to hellions. i always panic, box my workers, run them towards my army, and attack-move my army towards the hellions. i realise this makes the workers move in this perfect straight line from the hellions, absolutely terrible.
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It requires as much APMs as the amount of workers you have. Brilliant, but remove this post ASAP. Preignitor drops are what I use to cheese better players. No one must get a whiff of this.
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I'll turn this into a habit.
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On November 28 2010 02:10 Chronopolis wrote:Show nested quote +On November 28 2010 01:02 Najda wrote:On November 27 2010 22:43 Primadog wrote:
Jesus your first post is this? I been slacking...
You missed something very important:
how does severianing workers sound for the technique? severalaning? severing? I was thinking 'The Severian Split" Call it the "Panic Button"
Call it "Fire Extinguisher."
No more damn hellions burning my drones today.......
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the problem with sim city building is that when you do get dropped you find your stalkers getting stuck and spinning around bumping each other en-route to defend. At least until blink is ready vs mutas walling off at your natural completely can become tricky to defend too as toss.
I like this trick however, it works well. Although it can sometimes be difficult to hit F1 in the heat of the hellion flame moment at least for me anyway.
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On November 28 2010 01:23 Excludos wrote:Show nested quote +On November 28 2010 01:11 MasterFischer wrote:
The counter to hellions is NOT..
NOT
NOTTTTTTT
moving your workers... EVER..
why?
Because in each mineral line, are only 3-4 workers..
would u rather have roasted 20 at once, or just 3 at a time? while u kill hellions?
I never anybody just let it be, because ppl panic.. OMGLUKLZZZ hellioonzz, I must move away ! How can you only have 3-4 workers in each mineral line when you start with 6? What you don't want to do, is box all your workers and move them in one direction, making a nice line for the hellion's splash damage. But this technique makes the workers spread in every direction, which makes the hellions kill less units. I like it a lot, but this + moving your units over to kill the hellions while, most likely, you have an army at your front will be very apm heavy. Atleast it will require some practice
there are 8 or so minerals patches/lines..
ergo, it takes 3-4 workers to saturate each mineral patch/line. So, a hellion fires in a straight line, hence, only able to fire upon 1 mineral patch at a time.. circa.. so it kills 3-4 works each shot..
compared to 20 if they all stack in one direction.. e.g = 1 mineral patch.
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if you aren't fast enough the majority of the probes will get roasted in the mineral line ^_^
the best technique is to sim city well and have a SMALL unit space between 2 buildings that your probes can run through but hellions can't as your escape route. Build buildings diagonally like 2rax wall off to do this.
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This is baller, I'll have to remember this. As to if I actually manage to implement it in a positive way remains to be seen... :o
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Excellent idea! I'm off to practice it a little so I'll remember to use it in an actual game, I can definitely see a trick like this becoming the standard response to hellions.
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MaDfrog could have used it when i was cringing at all his workers being raped by blue flame...god im still having nightmares
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I'm also pretty sure you can use this method to bring your workers back to the mineral line after the harass is over, though man. That must be a lot of doing something you aren't doing elsewhere... o.o
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On November 28 2010 03:59 Zhou wrote:
I'm also pretty sure you can use this method to bring your workers back to the mineral line after the harass is over, though man. That must be a lot of doing something you aren't doing elsewhere... o.o
no, you just ctrl+click a worker to select all of them, and then click them back to the mineral line. it's almost instant!
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United States7166 Posts
also useful for saving vs banelings
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Sounds great. I will need to pratice that some times
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Could someone post which Dreamhack game this was demonstrated in (using a spoiler tag of course). I really want to see where this came from!
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Yeah... if you have the APM.
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On November 28 2010 04:29 sternie wrote:
Could someone post which Dreamhack game this was demonstrated in (using a spoiler tag of course). I really want to see where this came from!
As far as i can tell it wasnt demonstrated at dreamhack, he just saw a game where some probes got roasted and started thinking about the best way to split probes.
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the problem with sim city building is that when you do get dropped you find your stalkers getting stuck and spinning around bumping each other en-route to defend. At least until blink is ready vs mutas walling off at your natural completely can become tricky to defend too as toss.
If you place your buildings behind your mineral line and to the sides of it, then it is really easy to move around your base, but really hard for hellions to get a good angle on your mineral line. In addition, the terran cant drop behind your mineral line.
It is indeed less optimal against mutas, but since you never have to worry about mutas and hellions from the same player, that shouldnt be too much of a problem.
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as a terran player, this makes me sad 
nice post though
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hmm, seems awesome really. Seeing as this rewards fast playerse as well, faster you notice and start doing this and the faster you do it, less damage is taken. Pro tip and thank you for it
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Ooo, really nice trick. Thanks for this - though i feel like i will botch this in a game and lose every single drone ever. :/.
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On November 28 2010 04:06 pppppppppp wrote:Show nested quote +On November 28 2010 03:59 Zhou wrote:
I'm also pretty sure you can use this method to bring your workers back to the mineral line after the harass is over, though man. That must be a lot of doing something you aren't doing elsewhere... o.o no, you just ctrl+click a worker to select all of them, and then click them back to the mineral line. it's almost instant!
or you could ctrl + F1 to select all idle workers...
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On November 28 2010 03:43 MasterFischer wrote:Show nested quote +On November 28 2010 01:23 Excludos wrote:On November 28 2010 01:11 MasterFischer wrote:
The counter to hellions is NOT..
NOT
NOTTTTTTT
moving your workers... EVER..
why?
Because in each mineral line, are only 3-4 workers..
would u rather have roasted 20 at once, or just 3 at a time? while u kill hellions?
I never anybody just let it be, because ppl panic.. OMGLUKLZZZ hellioonzz, I must move away ! How can you only have 3-4 workers in each mineral line when you start with 6? What you don't want to do, is box all your workers and move them in one direction, making a nice line for the hellion's splash damage. But this technique makes the workers spread in every direction, which makes the hellions kill less units. I like it a lot, but this + moving your units over to kill the hellions while, most likely, you have an army at your front will be very apm heavy. Atleast it will require some practice there are 8 or so minerals patches/lines.. ergo, it takes 3-4 workers to saturate each mineral patch/line. So, a hellion fires in a straight line, hence, only able to fire upon 1 mineral patch at a time.. circa.. so it kills 3-4 works each shot.. compared to 20 if they all stack in one direction.. e.g = 1 mineral patch.
Did you read the OP? He isn't suggesting you move all your probes at once in the same direction, which is probably the worst thing to do.
Instead he's come up with a way to split your workers quickly so that the Hellions can only hit 1 at a time, which does seem to be a vast improvement over 3-4...
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this might be more useful vs banelings haha
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I know I've read this somewhere before, Now I've looked everywhere just can't find the thread, are you the same guy that posted this a while ago?
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nice post. I'm sure this will come in handy. Just yesterday I had nearly all my drones toasty by hellions. If i only knew this beforehand....
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hmm, this is an interesting way to do it, although looking at the time, it took you about 30 seconds to split workers, which is more than enough time for the hellions to rape face. I usually just split my SCVs the way you split marines vs banelings, by boxing half, and moving them, boxing half of that and moving, rinse and repeat.
It's also useful to note that hllions maximize their damage when 3 or 4 of them all fire in the same line, so if you take a small group of workers and attack the hellions, they will all fire in different directions, unless your opponent runs away. In either situation, you win.
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As a zerg I needed this lol. Thanks to OP
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Almisael
Austria235 Posts
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post a video of this being performed effectively pls
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Russian Federation4295 Posts
On November 28 2010 04:56 qxc wrote:
post a video of this being performed effectively pls
It's very effective, seriously. You don't have 10 minutes for test this? it's not that hard, lol
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I got the chance to try it recently and it work pretty well. It's not hard at all
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Your last F1+clicks should put a probe on each mineral patch; you spread probes just as effectively (if not more effectively because the mining probes will be moving targets), and you get an extra bit of income. Also, this method is not harder to execute, so why not get the extra mins?
Thanks for this guide, I'll start using this trick immediately!
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The Severian split. Sounds nice =) Gotta test it the next time i get hellion harrassed
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Great thread thanks... just tried this and it worked a charm.
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On November 27 2010 22:55 Skeyser wrote:
Sounds great for pros, but way too apm heavy for us mere mortals ^^
I don't expect anyone to get their workers in such a nice circle as OP illustrated. I think the fastest way to execute this would be to spam wildly in your base and hope for an effective spread.
Anyway, this is a cool idea. Maybe I'll try it out.
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oh man now the workers have a magic box. i don't know why it took like 9 months to figure this out but it's so obvious and probably really effective on low saturated bases.
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Here's a bit of a trick that I use. Whenever I get worker harassed, I select all my workers and hotkey them to an unused hotkey for the duration of the attack. That way I can control them faster, and when the attack is done I can send them back to work without accidentally selecting army units and having to pick them out of my mineral line.
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THIS WORKS AMAZINGLY FOR BANELINGS!!!!1!!
Sorry, but that had to be in caps, because it is THAT good.
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On November 28 2010 05:24 SharkSpider wrote:
Here's a bit of a trick that I use. Whenever I get worker harassed, I select all my workers and hotkey them to an unused hotkey for the duration of the attack. That way I can control them faster, and when the attack is done I can send them back to work without accidentally selecting army units and having to pick them out of my mineral line.
The point is to NOT control them by a hotkey, because when you do the workers clump up, making them easy fodder for the Hellions.
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On November 28 2010 05:24 SharkSpider wrote:
Here's a bit of a trick that I use. Whenever I get worker harassed, I select all my workers and hotkey them to an unused hotkey for the duration of the attack. That way I can control them faster, and when the attack is done I can send them back to work without accidentally selecting army units and having to pick them out of my mineral line. You don't want to hotkey all your workers to the same hotkey in a hellion attack because they'll mass together and you'll lose them all.
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whoa how is it that this thread gets so much attention but that thread is still on page 1? Its the exact same technique lol, except someone came up with it a month ago and it got no attention
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On November 28 2010 05:35 t3tsubo wrote:whoa how is it that this thread gets so much attention but that thread is still on page 1? Its the exact same technique lol, except someone came up with it a month ago and it got no attention
I like how the names are almost completely the same too lol
cool stuff
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On November 28 2010 05:33 HydroXy wrote:Show nested quote +On November 28 2010 05:24 SharkSpider wrote:
Here's a bit of a trick that I use. Whenever I get worker harassed, I select all my workers and hotkey them to an unused hotkey for the duration of the attack. That way I can control them faster, and when the attack is done I can send them back to work without accidentally selecting army units and having to pick them out of my mineral line. The point is to NOT control them by a hotkey, because when you do the workers clump up, making them easy fodder for the Hellions.
Yes, but after the hellions are dead, you want to easily send them back to mine.
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Very interesting, I lost 1 game b/c Hellions just killed almost all of my probes in early game.
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On November 28 2010 05:33 HydroXy wrote:Show nested quote +On November 28 2010 05:24 SharkSpider wrote:
Here's a bit of a trick that I use. Whenever I get worker harassed, I select all my workers and hotkey them to an unused hotkey for the duration of the attack. That way I can control them faster, and when the attack is done I can send them back to work without accidentally selecting army units and having to pick them out of my mineral line. The point is to NOT control them by a hotkey, because when you do the workers clump up, making them easy fodder for the Hellions.
Read a little further in to the post please. The point is that you want your workers to be all over the place, to avoid attackers, etc. Sometimes you will need to do this to two bases at once. Before I started using 9,0 for this, I would always have to go probe hunting after I got MM dropped or something. This was a big problem because I'd lose more mining time. Now, I just flip to each nexus, make some new probes to replace the ones I've lost, and return the respective probes to mining. Having to select each probe is a pain, and the idle workers button might not even be your best bet because some probes will still be on move commands after the harass is over. It's just a time saver, not something meant to be done -instead- of what the OP is suggesting.
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Amazing find mate, I think this will work it's way into a staple of SC2 micro
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I was thinking the same thing when I was watching hellions kill tyler's probes, but was not sure if it would work; guess it's time to find out!
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On November 28 2010 05:46 Gridlock wrote:
Amazing find mate, I think this will work it's way into a staple of SC2 micro
It's a shame there's no 'Idle Marine' key either for ezpz spread.
I know, I know, I'll get my coat...
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very interesting. i will have to try this soon
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This has been posted before Still awesome though!
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Awesome trick!
Now all we need is a "select idle marine" button to fight blings
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I just tried it and it requires 0 apm its really easy to perform and really useful thanks a lot!
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after your done spreading you can press ctrl + F1 to select all idle workers and get them all back to mining.
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Cool but I'm way too lazy to do that, rather just micro well with my stalkers, or if I'm zerg I just borrow if I see any type of 1/1/1 build coming.
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Nice trick, takes around 5 seconds to get 24 workers with a decent spread around. Boxing the workers so that around 6 are still mining will probably be even more effective and faster, both because they will be moving, you're still mining, and you have to click fewer times.
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On November 28 2010 05:45 SharkSpider wrote:Show nested quote +On November 28 2010 05:33 HydroXy wrote:On November 28 2010 05:24 SharkSpider wrote:
Here's a bit of a trick that I use. Whenever I get worker harassed, I select all my workers and hotkey them to an unused hotkey for the duration of the attack. That way I can control them faster, and when the attack is done I can send them back to work without accidentally selecting army units and having to pick them out of my mineral line. The point is to NOT control them by a hotkey, because when you do the workers clump up, making them easy fodder for the Hellions. Read a little further in to the post please.
My post was in response to your saying that you used the hotkey to "control them faster," which was followed by the conjoined sentence that begins "and when the attack is done." This implies that you control them as a hotkeyed group while the harass is going on, creating the exact scenario that the OP was trying to avoid.
On November 28 2010 05:24 SharkSpider wrote:
The point is that you want your workers to be all over the place, to avoid attackers, etc. Sometimes you will need to do this to two bases at once. Before I started using 9,0 for this, I would always have to go probe hunting after I got MM dropped or something. This was a big problem because I'd lose more mining time. Now, I just flip to each nexus, make some new probes to replace the ones I've lost, and return the respective probes to mining. Having to select each probe is a pain, and the idle workers button might not even be your best bet because some probes will still be on move commands after the harass is over. It's just a time saver, not something meant to be done -instead- of what the OP is suggesting.
Maybe you're fast with creating new control groups on the 0 and 9 keys, but I'd guess that for most people doing so would take precious seconds that you can't afford to not spend on splitting the workers. Then, assuming you're not wildly sending workers all over the map, you can simply go back to your base after the harass is over and control+click on the workers to select them all.
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This is brilliant!
It also shows you with 500-2000 APM in replays when you do this, WOW!
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On November 28 2010 05:45 SharkSpider wrote:Show nested quote +On November 28 2010 05:33 HydroXy wrote:On November 28 2010 05:24 SharkSpider wrote:
Here's a bit of a trick that I use. Whenever I get worker harassed, I select all my workers and hotkey them to an unused hotkey for the duration of the attack. That way I can control them faster, and when the attack is done I can send them back to work without accidentally selecting army units and having to pick them out of my mineral line. The point is to NOT control them by a hotkey, because when you do the workers clump up, making them easy fodder for the Hellions. Read a little further in to the post please. The point is that you want your workers to be all over the place, to avoid attackers, etc. Sometimes you will need to do this to two bases at once. Before I started using 9,0 for this, I would always have to go probe hunting after I got MM dropped or something. This was a big problem because I'd lose more mining time. Now, I just flip to each nexus, make some new probes to replace the ones I've lost, and return the respective probes to mining. Having to select each probe is a pain, and the idle workers button might not even be your best bet because some probes will still be on move commands after the harass is over. It's just a time saver, not something meant to be done -instead- of what the OP is suggesting.
Also ctrl+F1 selects all idle workers so you could just use that to select all the workers you moved away and have them return mining quickly.
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intrigue
Washington, D.C9934 Posts
hmmm, cool. i'll try this next time instead of just sitting there going "opmfg omfg fomg my workers are all gonna die|"
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I'm not sure if this has been said, but this works just as well vs banelings in zerg mirror. This move is why I don't bother with baneling wars in mirror anymore. The 13 baneling nest build can even be held off by fast roaches if you spread your drones.
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On November 28 2010 06:03 SoLuTioN. wrote:Now all we need is a "select idle marine" button to fight blings
ffffffffuuuuuuuuuuuu
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On November 28 2010 06:40 Gaius Baltar wrote:Show nested quote +On November 28 2010 06:03 SoLuTioN. wrote:Now all we need is a "select idle marine" button to fight blings ffffffffuuuuuuuuuuuu
oh i'm sure it will be quite useful when doing scv all ins TvZ. spread the scvs to tank the banelings splash ^^
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OMFG this trick is so epic XD It's revolutionary the game just like magic box for muta. TYVM dude
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Well, this post was better in my opinion, also it was timed because all zerg facepalmed at that 5 blueflame hellion game
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LOL when I clicked this topic I immediately had the same idea .. well roughly more or less .. haha . I believe this will help a lot .. from getting roasted drones
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United States527 Posts
This looks like it could be good
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Until I see this is a real pro game ...
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Australia2052 Posts
On November 28 2010 04:50 goldfishs wrote:
I know I've read this somewhere before, Now I've looked everywhere just can't find the thread, are you the same guy that posted this a while ago?
Ah, I was unaware this had already been discovered. It's not very complicated so I suppose it's not surprising. I literally decided to figure out something like this after seeing the DreamHack game + Show Spoiler +Tyler vs Fenix on Metalopolis
If anyone has a video or replay of them doing this in a real game, it'd be a great addition. I don't have any myself and unfortunately I can't get one right now.
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Damn, I thought clumping your probes so that 2 hellions kill 50 of them was the correct choice. This has blown my mind. Spreading the workers out?! :O
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On November 28 2010 03:43 MasterFischer wrote:Show nested quote +On November 28 2010 01:23 Excludos wrote:On November 28 2010 01:11 MasterFischer wrote:
The counter to hellions is NOT..
NOT
NOTTTTTTT
moving your workers... EVER..
why?
Because in each mineral line, are only 3-4 workers..
would u rather have roasted 20 at once, or just 3 at a time? while u kill hellions?
I never anybody just let it be, because ppl panic.. OMGLUKLZZZ hellioonzz, I must move away ! How can you only have 3-4 workers in each mineral line when you start with 6? What you don't want to do, is box all your workers and move them in one direction, making a nice line for the hellion's splash damage. But this technique makes the workers spread in every direction, which makes the hellions kill less units. I like it a lot, but this + moving your units over to kill the hellions while, most likely, you have an army at your front will be very apm heavy. Atleast it will require some practice there are 8 or so minerals patches/lines.. ergo, it takes 3-4 workers to saturate each mineral patch/line. So, a hellion fires in a straight line, hence, only able to fire upon 1 mineral patch at a time.. circa.. so it kills 3-4 works each shot.. compared to 20 if they all stack in one direction.. e.g = 1 mineral patch.
I think you are forgetting 1 major point here. Hellions dont line up with mineral patches and only shoot them individually. Terran players will bring their hellions in from the side of the mineral patch, which allows the spread damage to hit many workers across the mineral line. Why would you shoot downward onto single patches, when you can shoot sideways and hit like 3-4 mineral patches at once. Overall your argument is very wrong.
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ok this tips is great but actually you also have to kill the hellions wich requires many apm and focus on them since they are turning left and right to avoid your units.
So, doign this + trying to catch them with your army .... i guess any bonjwa can do it with his 300+ effective apm but for the verry vast majority of good players it seems verry hard to do. needs some test
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I did see an article that had this before and have been using it, works well.
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Pretty cool, going to try this out
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On November 28 2010 07:58 eXigent. wrote:Show nested quote +On November 28 2010 03:43 MasterFischer wrote:On November 28 2010 01:23 Excludos wrote:On November 28 2010 01:11 MasterFischer wrote:
The counter to hellions is NOT..
NOT
NOTTTTTTT
moving your workers... EVER..
why?
Because in each mineral line, are only 3-4 workers..
would u rather have roasted 20 at once, or just 3 at a time? while u kill hellions?
I never anybody just let it be, because ppl panic.. OMGLUKLZZZ hellioonzz, I must move away ! How can you only have 3-4 workers in each mineral line when you start with 6? What you don't want to do, is box all your workers and move them in one direction, making a nice line for the hellion's splash damage. But this technique makes the workers spread in every direction, which makes the hellions kill less units. I like it a lot, but this + moving your units over to kill the hellions while, most likely, you have an army at your front will be very apm heavy. Atleast it will require some practice there are 8 or so minerals patches/lines.. ergo, it takes 3-4 workers to saturate each mineral patch/line. So, a hellion fires in a straight line, hence, only able to fire upon 1 mineral patch at a time.. circa.. so it kills 3-4 works each shot.. compared to 20 if they all stack in one direction.. e.g = 1 mineral patch. I think you are forgetting 1 major point here. Hellions dont line up with mineral patches and only shoot them individually. Terran players will bring their hellions in from the side of the mineral patch, which allows the spread damage to hit many workers across the mineral line. Why would you shoot downward onto single patches, when you can shoot sideways and hit like 3-4 mineral patches at once. Overall your argument is very wrong.
sure, exept for the fact that the hellions range is not 20.
It can't shoot the entire side mineral line im quite sure. and beside, its not gaurenteed that it will hit anything from the side, any more than 3-4 workers, because they go back and forth...
so 3 workers going to each minerals line... say 3 lines side range.. thats still only 3-4 workers...
anyway u look at it, horizontal or vertical, it's still only max 4 workers per 3 hellions shoot u get, which isnt much
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I just used this in a game and it was really effective. The blue flame hellion drop did way less damage than it would have otherwise. Thanks for the tip.
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Why can't we just select all of the workers and patrol across half the base? Would take just all of 1 second, and doesn't require 10 steps. But I'm sure if you have the hand speed, this would be viable as well.
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On November 28 2010 08:38 vica wrote:
Why can't we just select all of the workers and patrol across half the base? Would take just all of 1 second, and doesn't require 10 steps. But I'm sure if you have the hand speed, this would be viable as well.
because then they all go in the same direction?
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This is a great idea, I will definitely try the Severian split whenever I get the chance.
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On November 28 2010 08:35 MasterFischer wrote:Show nested quote +On November 28 2010 07:58 eXigent. wrote:On November 28 2010 03:43 MasterFischer wrote:On November 28 2010 01:23 Excludos wrote:On November 28 2010 01:11 MasterFischer wrote:
The counter to hellions is NOT..
NOT
NOTTTTTTT
moving your workers... EVER..
why?
Because in each mineral line, are only 3-4 workers..
would u rather have roasted 20 at once, or just 3 at a time? while u kill hellions?
I never anybody just let it be, because ppl panic.. OMGLUKLZZZ hellioonzz, I must move away ! How can you only have 3-4 workers in each mineral line when you start with 6? What you don't want to do, is box all your workers and move them in one direction, making a nice line for the hellion's splash damage. But this technique makes the workers spread in every direction, which makes the hellions kill less units. I like it a lot, but this + moving your units over to kill the hellions while, most likely, you have an army at your front will be very apm heavy. Atleast it will require some practice there are 8 or so minerals patches/lines.. ergo, it takes 3-4 workers to saturate each mineral patch/line. So, a hellion fires in a straight line, hence, only able to fire upon 1 mineral patch at a time.. circa.. so it kills 3-4 works each shot.. compared to 20 if they all stack in one direction.. e.g = 1 mineral patch. I think you are forgetting 1 major point here. Hellions dont line up with mineral patches and only shoot them individually. Terran players will bring their hellions in from the side of the mineral patch, which allows the spread damage to hit many workers across the mineral line. Why would you shoot downward onto single patches, when you can shoot sideways and hit like 3-4 mineral patches at once. Overall your argument is very wrong. sure, exept for the fact that the hellions range is not 20. It can't shoot the entire side mineral line im quite sure. and beside, its not gaurenteed that it will hit anything from the side, any more than 3-4 workers, because they go back and forth... so 3 workers going to each minerals line... say 3 lines side range.. thats still only 3-4 workers... anyway u look at it, horizontal or vertical, it's still only max 4 workers per 3 hellions shoot u get, which isnt much
I believe you are correct that the amount of probes roasted in each shot would be around 2 to 5. But when you dont move your workers around the hellion can shoot again from its very position, or at least from a position close by, and thus maximizing it's rate of fire. If your probes were spread out over a larger area, the time between each hellion shot would most likely be longer and therefore less DPS.
I have however yet to try this out, so I am not certain how it would realy work in reality.
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True sc players still have their F1 key removed! So this doesn't work.
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On November 28 2010 08:55 Nightmarjoo wrote:
True sc players still have their F1 key removed! So this doesn't work.
You're implying the set up for BW is still relevant for SC2 or that to be at rue SC player you'll be playing BW. The first one is simply untrue and there are no hellions in BW.
On topic, thanks for posting this. I never thought about doing this. Since you can just 1a a part of your army to go after the hellions and then start doing the spread. of your workers.
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Wow that is very impressive just reading I was like "Huh? I should try this..." and then when I was trying it I was all "Wow thats amazing."
much much props
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What happens if you have more than one base? If he just keeps running around and you pull probes like this, won't your economy be screwed up just by hellions being around?
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On November 28 2010 09:05 GeeseHoward wrote:Show nested quote +On November 28 2010 08:55 Nightmarjoo wrote:
True sc players still have their F1 key removed! So this doesn't work. You're implying the set up for BW is still relevant for SC2 or that to be at rue SC player you'll be playing BW. The first one is simply untrue and there are no hellions in BW. On topic, thanks for posting this. I never thought about doing this. Since you can just 1a a part of your army to go after the hellions and then start doing the spread. of your workers.
Wow he was making a joke, don't crucify him for it.
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On November 28 2010 08:55 Nightmarjoo wrote:
True sc players still have their F1 key removed! So this doesn't work.
Pretty much i need to buy a new keyboard for this >.>''
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Looks like it's a good thing I swapped my F1 key back in using my F8 key :D!
Cool idea, I will definitely have to try this!
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To the OP: Sir I salute you! o7
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Hmmm interesting.
BUt damn my apm won't allow me 2 do it lol
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On November 27 2010 22:41 Zaros wrote:
the best way to stop yourself from losing 30 probes to blue flame hellions is not to move them at all. Yes ur garunteed to lose 3 or 4 but you wont lose anymore, thats what i do anyway.
I wish i had your Chuck Norris probes
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This might be applicable in ZvZ when banelings get in the mineral line and the chase begins. Holding down F1 should not be too difficult after a stop command and at least you can save some drones.
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Sweet! I now have a new technique to practice Innovative thinking OP, good work!
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Against hellions its best to just NOT move your workers at all, that way they only hit 2-3 workers at a time.
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this sounds really good but i feel like i wouldnt be able to both kill the hellions and split my workers
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lol this is so great, and doesnt take much apm at all
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Ooh, creative use of the idle worker function :>
Who said there would be no micro in SC2?
Wouldn't be surprised if this becomes a standard skill for dealing with baneling/hellion harass.
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This would be a much prefered method to sim city. If you sim city vs a T and he does like an 8-16 marine drop they can use ur buildings for cover vs melee units like lings/zealots and kill 100 supply of them without losing their drop and then continue killing workers.
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Thats very interesting, might have to try that sometime.
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This is a high impractical method; however, it's very intriguing and I hope that someone else develops this and optimizes it in order to reduce time needed to utilize it.
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I'm not really following how people think this is impractical or takes some wild amount of apm. You ctrl+click a probe, hit S, hold F1, and rightclick in a circle. That takes like a second.
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This seems like a really good idea. I might practice it in a custom game versus a computer. But then there's the problem of remembering to do it when it actually happens in a game. I'll probably panic and forget.
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nice idea, till now I thought the best thing against hellion harass was to leave your workers where they are but this might just do the trick 
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This is genius. *thumbs up*
EDIT: This is incredibly easy to do. Just open a game against a computer and try it with your initial 6 workers. It's very quick and simple.
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Well I for sure will be using this.
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already helped me a lot today! thanks op!
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Huh... good idea. Can't wait to try this out.
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I was playing around with this earlier today. I found it easier to just use the minimap to spread them. The jumping around of the screen really started to irritate me, and I found it a lot harder to make a good circle.
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On November 28 2010 12:17 cHaNg-sTa wrote:
This is genius. *thumbs up*
EDIT: This is incredibly easy to do. Just open a game against a computer and try it with your initial 6 workers. It's very quick and simple.
Actually it's one of the trick to split your workers to the mineral, some Korean pros used it before.
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it will be helpful to avoid banelings as well, especially in those nasty early game ZvZ's.... this doesnt even take that much apm besides mass clicking which anyone can do
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i tried it. i loved it. thumbs up, brah
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If tyler knew about this yesterday This is so easy, took me about 2 seconds to scatter my 30 workers around the map.
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sounds way to time consuming, depending on the situation I try to either run them away before the hellion gets close enough to shoot at them in a group, or I leave them be and remove the ones taking shots.
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On November 28 2010 15:23 arnold(soTa) wrote:
sounds way to time consuming, depending on the situation I try to either run them away before the hellion gets close enough to shoot at them in a group, or I leave them be and remove the ones taking shots.
What are you talking about? I just tried it (with the holding-F1-then-click-everywhere) took me about 2 seconds
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wouldn't it be helpful to add in a hotkey right after the first f1 press? that way you can retrieve your probes easily after scattering them.
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Australia2052 Posts
On November 28 2010 15:41 caelym wrote:
wouldn't it be helpful to add in a hotkey right after the first f1 press? that way you can retrieve your probes easily after scattering them.
You can press Ctrl-F1 to select all of your idle workers, or you can Ctrl-click to select all workers on the screen. A hotkey would work too, of course, but it's a little slower.
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Just practiced this for a few minutes. Man this works really well. Next time I see banelings coming for my mineral line I'll be doing this. Awesome post OP :D
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great technique, but i think the hardest part is pressing "stop" on all your probes. its like counter intuitive in my brain lol. see forces incoming? STOP! DONT RUN AWAY!
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i think even just pressing stop without doing anything else would be better then running all your probes in a line
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pretty awesome, thanks : )
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Would be cool to see this in some pro play sometime
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Isn't it great when people figure these tricks out they suddenly decrease the potential of hellions?
Amazing find, OP. I thank you
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fully support this, hellions just got nerfed by our hands
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holy shit do I love this community :D
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It will be good to look for this being used in the Ro32 of the GSL ^_^
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btw if not done so already go into keyboard properties and set key repeat and delay to the shortest time.
this makes it so that if you hold F1 it will cycle through all the workers the fastest with the least delay
also useful to queue units if required
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this is seriously amazing. GREAT OP!!!
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Awesome. Hopefully I can make this a habit at one point.
It's rather amazing with so many people figuring out little cool things to do to improve their play.
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@ all the people saying it's too micro/APM intensive. Seriously? Come on.
Really nice discovery. Good job!
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This is so amazingly good and useful.
It's astonishing to me how something like this has been in the game for so long and not been used or commonly known about.
What's worse is, this thread makes me feel like a *beepin* idiot, because.. Well, (I want to write the following in all caps but that's bad forum etiquette, so just imagine it in capital letters) I have been splitting my workers at the start of every game for the past 3 months using this method!! Yet, I never thought of using it to split my workers during harass... I'm astounded by my own stupidity.
I just went ingame and tried this out for a bit and you can really perfectly split a fully saturated base effectively in just a few seconds, and it's mindnumbingly easy to pull off.
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If this gets adopted, which it really should, it could entirely change harassment as we know it. Especially from Banelings and Hellions. This is one of the neatest tricks since mineral boosting
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Almisael
Austria235 Posts
On November 28 2010 05:35 t3tsubo wrote:whoa how is it that this thread gets so much attention but that thread is still on page 1? Its the exact same technique lol, except someone came up with it a month ago and it got no attention
as ayadew mentioned, this thread is timed better because right now a lot of people are facepalming at the thought of hellions killing 30+ workers.
i just wanted to point out that this method has been "known" for quite some time and never been used in competitive play yet (as far as i know).
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there was a way where you grab all probes and tell them to patroll really close to where they are, like when spassing them out, they will all disperse for some odd reason making it harder for that splash
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i got a nice anti-hellion tactic, too!
![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/aBHvF.png)
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if you're going to hold f1 down it will recenter your scvs so you will need to click the minimap
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On November 29 2010 02:48 mAgixWTF wrote:i got a nice anti-hellion tactic, too!
that's the dumbest thing I've heard.
+ Show Spoiler +
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On November 28 2010 02:42 L3gendary wrote:Show nested quote +On November 28 2010 01:13 Spiffeh wrote:
Right after boxing them you may want to bind them to 9 or 0 to make it easier to start mining again. you can also press crtl+f1 to select all the idle workers after the harass. Does anyone know if its possible to cycle thru units in a control group in order to, say, split lings against helions in a similar manner?
Not sure if this has been answered yet,..
You can cycle through units in a control group by pressing TAB.
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Awesome, love how people are still finding new ways to do even simple things like saving workers.
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1.6 diamond. Last night, 3-4hellions without blue flame running inside my base. I do this trick and lose 1-3 drones XD That terran should be amaze of my epic spreading skill. It's like watch foxer do marines splits
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I posted a quick tutorial on how to do this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHHw43GsnFM
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As a terran, I disapprove of this thread!
Nah, but seriously, awesome stuff
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I did this in a game earlier and it worked amazingly. Thanks bro ^_^
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On November 28 2010 15:43 Severian wrote:Show nested quote +On November 28 2010 15:41 caelym wrote:
wouldn't it be helpful to add in a hotkey right after the first f1 press? that way you can retrieve your probes easily after scattering them. You can press Ctrl-F1 to select all of your idle workers, or you can Ctrl-click to select all workers on the screen. A hotkey would work too, of course, but it's a little slower.
I've seen this a few times in the thread so far and its really starting to annoy me.
Control+F1 to select all the workers and start mining again WILL NOT WORK.
Wait, what? IT WILL NOT WORK
Why? Because while your doing the f1 spread, they will NOT be idle, because they will be doing what you want them to do, which is move. Therefore, if you want to be able to start mining again before you've lost so much time that losing your workers would be better (exaggeration), you SHOULD hotkey your workers.
So,
1. Box/control-click all workers and press S
2. Hotkey to anything you want, 9 and 0 are the most ideal but its still a pain to reach that far. Just replace your nexus/hatch/cc hotkey with the probes - you can always rehotkey that without any problems.
3. Click on your nexus (i forget who, but some TL admin posted this before, and its a good tip to not completely fuck up your spread)
4. Do the F1 thingy and click everywhere
5. Move your army back to your base
6. When the hellions are gone, click the hotkey for em and send em back to mine (don't forget gas xD)
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On November 29 2010 07:44 Warp wrote:Show nested quote +On November 28 2010 15:43 Severian wrote:On November 28 2010 15:41 caelym wrote:
wouldn't it be helpful to add in a hotkey right after the first f1 press? that way you can retrieve your probes easily after scattering them. You can press Ctrl-F1 to select all of your idle workers, or you can Ctrl-click to select all workers on the screen. A hotkey would work too, of course, but it's a little slower. I've seen this a few times in the thread so far and its really starting to annoy me. Control+F1 to select all the workers and start mining again WILL NOT WORK. Wait, what? IT WILL NOT WORKWhy? Because while your doing the f1 spread, they will NOT be idle, because they will be doing what you want them to do, which is move. Therefore, if you want to be able to start mining again before you've lost so much time that losing your workers would be better (exaggeration), you SHOULD hotkey your workers. So, 1. Box/control-click all workers and press S 2. Hotkey to anything you want, 9 and 0 are the most ideal but its still a pain to reach that far. Just replace your nexus/hatch/cc hotkey with the probes - you can always rehotkey that without any problems. 3. Click on your nexus (i forget who, but some TL admin posted this before, and its a good tip to not completely fuck up your spread) 4. Do the F1 thingy and click everywhere 5. Move your army back to your base 6. When the hellions are gone, click the hotkey for em and send em back to mine (don't forget gas xD)
F1 will definitely work.
Once you do the tactic your workers will idle again. You can then do the F1 mine combination to multi-select. It helps avoid grabbing things like lings, roaches, queens, or other workers already on gas. If you box the units you're going to get all of that. The best thing to do is to just do the shift select on one worker if you don't mind fussing around with getting workers back on gas.
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On November 29 2010 07:47 Amber[LighT] wrote:Show nested quote +On November 29 2010 07:44 Warp wrote:On November 28 2010 15:43 Severian wrote:On November 28 2010 15:41 caelym wrote:
wouldn't it be helpful to add in a hotkey right after the first f1 press? that way you can retrieve your probes easily after scattering them. You can press Ctrl-F1 to select all of your idle workers, or you can Ctrl-click to select all workers on the screen. A hotkey would work too, of course, but it's a little slower. I've seen this a few times in the thread so far and its really starting to annoy me. Control+F1 to select all the workers and start mining again WILL NOT WORK. Wait, what? IT WILL NOT WORKWhy? Because while your doing the f1 spread, they will NOT be idle, because they will be doing what you want them to do, which is move. Therefore, if you want to be able to start mining again before you've lost so much time that losing your workers would be better (exaggeration), you SHOULD hotkey your workers. So, 1. Box/control-click all workers and press S 2. Hotkey to anything you want, 9 and 0 are the most ideal but its still a pain to reach that far. Just replace your nexus/hatch/cc hotkey with the probes - you can always rehotkey that without any problems. 3. Click on your nexus (i forget who, but some TL admin posted this before, and its a good tip to not completely fuck up your spread) 4. Do the F1 thingy and click everywhere 5. Move your army back to your base 6. When the hellions are gone, click the hotkey for em and send em back to mine (don't forget gas xD) F1 will definitely work. Once you do the tactic your workers will idle again. You can then do the F1 mine combination to multi-select. It helps avoid grabbing things like lings, roaches, queens, or other workers already on gas. If you box the units you're going to get all of that. The best thing to do is to just do the shift select on one worker if you don't mind fussing around with getting workers back on gas.
Why use the hotkeys? Once the harass is over, just ctrl+f1 (select all idle workers) and send them back to mine, then peel off the ones you need on gas.
Yes it won't work while they're moving, but how far are you sending them? They should get there in just a couple seconds.
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I prefer using hotkeys. I mean, I use hotkeys for everything anyway
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On November 29 2010 08:17 CherubDown wrote:
I prefer using hotkeys. I mean, I use hotkeys for everything anyway
.....Please explain what you mean by using hotkeys, your post is not nonsensical and does not contribute to the thread. How do you hotkey them? How do you use the hotkeys when the harass begins? What technique do you use with the hotkeys that makes it more efficient than the F1 method? Please put at least some effort into your posts.
On another, more helpful note:
I believe this technique will really help against Banelings in every MU, in particular zvz. All zerg players have had the horror of watching slow banelings stroll into their mineral line, and since baneling splash works as a circular AoE, this technique could save a lot of workers from being killed. SInce you should already have all drones hotkeyed so that they are easy to grab IF lings get in the mineral line and you need to fight them, this combined with the F1 spread will make drone fighting or spreading and then returning them to mining that much more efficient/quicker.
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On November 29 2010 09:09 GhoSt[shield] wrote:Show nested quote +On November 29 2010 08:17 CherubDown wrote:
I prefer using hotkeys. I mean, I use hotkeys for everything anyway .....Please explain what you mean by using hotkeys, your post is not nonsensical and does not contribute to the thread. How do you hotkey them? How do you use the hotkeys when the harass begins? What technique do you use with the hotkeys that makes it more efficient than the F1 method? Please put at least some effort into your posts. On another, more helpful note: I believe this technique will really help against Banelings in every MU, in particular zvz. All zerg players have had the horror of watching slow banelings stroll into their mineral line, and since baneling splash works as a circular AoE, this technique could save a lot of workers from being killed. SInce you should already have all drones hotkeyed so that they are easy to grab IF lings get in the mineral line and you need to fight them, this combined with the F1 spread will make drone fighting or spreading and then returning them to mining that much more efficient/quicker.
I posted the YouTube video above. What more do I need to explain?
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On November 29 2010 09:36 CherubDown wrote:Show nested quote +On November 29 2010 09:09 GhoSt[shield] wrote:On November 29 2010 08:17 CherubDown wrote:
I prefer using hotkeys. I mean, I use hotkeys for everything anyway .....Please explain what you mean by using hotkeys, your post is not nonsensical and does not contribute to the thread. How do you hotkey them? How do you use the hotkeys when the harass begins? What technique do you use with the hotkeys that makes it more efficient than the F1 method? Please put at least some effort into your posts. On another, more helpful note: I believe this technique will really help against Banelings in every MU, in particular zvz. All zerg players have had the horror of watching slow banelings stroll into their mineral line, and since baneling splash works as a circular AoE, this technique could save a lot of workers from being killed. SInce you should already have all drones hotkeyed so that they are easy to grab IF lings get in the mineral line and you need to fight them, this combined with the F1 spread will make drone fighting or spreading and then returning them to mining that much more efficient/quicker. I posted the YouTube video above. What more do I need to explain?
Oh! All I was saying was have your workers hotkeyed to like 0 or whatever then you can use the technique described in the video above.
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This is brilliant, nice work.
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Australia2052 Posts
If anyone has a reply or video of them performing this in an actual game, it'd be great if you could post it and I'll add it to the OP. I've added CherubDown's tutorial video to it.
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In the video you should have made the drones go in a circle using the minimap. Its a lot nicer faster and easier. When I first read this I thought this was terrible but upon seeing the fact that you could hold down F1 it could be done pretty fast O__O
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On November 29 2010 14:16 Severian wrote:
If anyone has a reply or video of them performing this in an actual game, it'd be great if you could post it and I'll add it to the OP. I've added CherubDown's tutorial video to it.
Thought I did - Got 4 blue flame dropped, but I actually killed them before I could do this trick.. fail haha. Will take some time to get used to
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Wow looks sweet. Gonna start doing this.
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On November 29 2010 09:42 CherubDown wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On November 29 2010 09:36 CherubDown wrote:Show nested quote +On November 29 2010 09:09 GhoSt[shield] wrote:On November 29 2010 08:17 CherubDown wrote:
I prefer using hotkeys. I mean, I use hotkeys for everything anyway .....Please explain what you mean by using hotkeys, your post is not nonsensical and does not contribute to the thread. How do you hotkey them? How do you use the hotkeys when the harass begins? What technique do you use with the hotkeys that makes it more efficient than the F1 method? Please put at least some effort into your posts. On another, more helpful note: I believe this technique will really help against Banelings in every MU, in particular zvz. All zerg players have had the horror of watching slow banelings stroll into their mineral line, and since baneling splash works as a circular AoE, this technique could save a lot of workers from being killed. SInce you should already have all drones hotkeyed so that they are easy to grab IF lings get in the mineral line and you need to fight them, this combined with the F1 spread will make drone fighting or spreading and then returning them to mining that much more efficient/quicker. I posted the YouTube video above. What more do I need to explain? Oh! All I was saying was have your workers hotkeyed to like 0 or whatever then you can use the technique described in the video above.
Cool cool, question answered, thanks for clearing up my confusion and sorry for the condescending tone. Thought that post was another bad post explaining nothing. Whoops
Nice video btw
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This will be a standard technique for sure. The inventor now have a place in Starcraft history ^^
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Wow dude
Ret owes you a beer!
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Ret just pulled this off in game1 of his ro32 match in the GSL
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This looks really fancy, i'll try that out a few time on dry and will definetily give it a shot
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Who says Starcraft 2 doesn't have micro!
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I wonder how much I could streamline this process if I assigned all of the probes in either base to an unused control group.
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great technique, works really well, thanks
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If you are Zerg and belong to the minority which actually researches burrow, you could burrow and force at least one scan out of the Terran if you simply burrow your drones while they are between hatchery and minerals. Quite often Hellion harrass happens very early, when the Terran doesnt really have that many scans to spare and when the Hellions dont have the blue flame upgrade yet. That is probably the most useful time to burrow, but since you need a lair to get the upgrade it also only works with fast lair. Decisions, decisions ... but burrow is always good IMO.
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I. love. this.
Going to be annoyed when my opponents cotton on though =( I like my hellions and banelings. Just don't like theirs.
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On November 27 2010 22:28 smallerk wrote:Show nested quote +On November 27 2010 22:26 Talin wrote:
I would imagine this becomes a bit too messy and time/action consuming to perform with 30-40 Probes though, considering you still have to control your units to deal with harassment as well. This, should be pretty hard spamming F1 like a madman and still kill off the harassment properly.
If you're tyler i think it's safe to say that some extra spamming is worth it.
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How about using this against banelings when you bring scvs along 
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Canada13389 Posts
this saved me in a game yesteday. Thanks for the post very good tip I was kind of thrown off actually since I play protoss and had a blue flame drop lol doesn't really ever happen so it was a good thing I read this post. Assiging the probes/scvs/drones to hotkey that isnt used is a good thing with this as well. returning to the minerals is super easy as well with a hotkey set
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Definitely an awesome post and guide, there is actually a huge delay from when you "Stop" all your workers and immediatedly start spamming (Because you A moved your anti hellion units already right?) which can actually work for the hellion harasser's favor but depending on your reaction time it can be crucial. I actually tried it a few times and had my worker line wiped out by being a bit too slow with it compared to my usual move away and start spliting clumps method.
On the other hand, I've had so many successful hellion harasses I'm curious to see someone test this with me more extensively. So I'll refer some practice partners to this thread and see if we can produce some video examples of low-tiered players like myself trying to accomplish this micro task realistically.
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I'm still waiting to see other applications of the F1 key.
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On November 30 2010 02:08 Cerebrate.Monthly wrote:
Definitely an awesome post and guide, there is actually a huge delay from when you "Stop" all your workers and immediatedly start spamming (Because you A moved your anti hellion units already right?) which can actually work for the hellion harasser's favor but depending on your reaction time it can be crucial. I actually tried it a few times and had my worker line wiped out by being a bit too slow with it compared to my usual move away and start spliting clumps method.
On the other hand, I've had so many successful hellion harasses I'm curious to see someone test this with me more extensively. So I'll refer some practice partners to this thread and see if we can produce some video examples of low-tiered players like myself trying to accomplish this micro task realistically.
So your explaining to us in detail how you can't do this because you have low APM? Why? I'm sure anyone here who would care could pretty well guess that a noob can't do something like this.
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On November 30 2010 03:52 SilverPotato wrote:Show nested quote +On November 30 2010 02:08 Cerebrate.Monthly wrote:
Definitely an awesome post and guide, there is actually a huge delay from when you "Stop" all your workers and immediatedly start spamming (Because you A moved your anti hellion units already right?) which can actually work for the hellion harasser's favor but depending on your reaction time it can be crucial. I actually tried it a few times and had my worker line wiped out by being a bit too slow with it compared to my usual move away and start spliting clumps method.
On the other hand, I've had so many successful hellion harasses I'm curious to see someone test this with me more extensively. So I'll refer some practice partners to this thread and see if we can produce some video examples of low-tiered players like myself trying to accomplish this micro task realistically. So your explaining to us in detail how you can't do this because you have low APM? Why? I'm sure anyone here who would care could pretty well guess that a noob can't do something like this.
In all fairness, the technique does require quick thinking during stressful times. But iff it is executed properly, can be effective. If I can find a game where it is used, I'll post it.
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On November 30 2010 03:52 SilverPotato wrote:
So your explaining to us in detail how you can't do this because you have low APM? Why? I'm sure anyone here who would care could pretty well guess that a noob can't do something like this.
I was stating the 'danger' of trying this strategy even with better APM because there is a pause when your drones are pretty much stacked up and NOT moving at all where a triple or quad blue flame hellion drop (As you often see) can literally wipe the entire mineral line, which would take more than 1 good blast of attacks if you were just immediately pulling the whole line away and spliting em as they started moving.
That first "S" pause is what I was pointing at, which would happen no matter how good your APM is because the units have a certain amount of latency no matter how fast you do this method.
Thanks for attacking me though, that was 'that special constructive post' this thread was in dire need of.
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On November 30 2010 03:48 CherubDown wrote:
I'm still waiting to see other applications of the F1 key.
How often do you have idle workers (except for when they actually are idle, for example after building a building - in which case you already failed queueing something up)?
Well, I for one use it for splitting (I'm Zerg). Just before the game starts, I hold Ctrl+F1. This selects all my workers. Next I click a mineral patch, select my hatchery and go "S -> D", and then select 2-3 workers that are on their way to the mineral patch, and redirect them to another patch, as to make a 3+3 split.
The good thing about this is that it basically saves me a crucial keyclick as opposed to ctrl+click a worker, then click a patch. I like it, makes me feel at ease at the start of the game, also by "preparing" myself by holding the ctrl+f1.
Maybe many-workers-scouting could be slightly helped by the F1 key, but I doubt there are many more really useful uses such as the one in the original post.
OnT: We tried the F1-splitting trick out, and it's really great if performed well. I don't know if you have clarified this enough, but *holding* F1 is slightly easier than clicking it. It's also advisable to start your "splitting" early, if he's already in your mineral line it feels suboptimal somehow.
I also like to keybind the workers while I have them selected, and after I have clicked-away them, I queue them back to the mineral line.
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Did Ret do this in his matches last night?
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Seems somewhat easy to do compared to other stuff. I'll be sure to try this out sometime.
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Against 6 blue flame helions, Ret first box-split his drones, then used F1-click-click-click to spread them out around his base.
With only 2 queens, and a few lings for defense, he lost something like 8 drones.
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wow, this is very interesting. I think this could be quite useful in certain situations.
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Ret so did this in his game 1.
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nice!!
that'll save me from banelings in my drone line big time!
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Yeah Ret actually used this on metal, it worked well. This is new, he probably could have done it even faster with more practice.
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okey I admit that I dissed this idea to start with, then I was playing a zvz and my opponent went for a very fast gas and pool,making 4 banelings and somehow sneaked them by all my scouting overlords and into my base (past my lings I sent to his base). I instantly remembered this thread and went for the F1 split, it worked wonders..he didnt know what to do with his banelings as it takes two to kill a drone, he just kinda wandered about until my queen and lings dealt with them and he eventually sacrificed them all for nothing :-) ended up with a huge lead and won the game easily.
this is a great, thnx !
edit: although I should note that you do lose very much mining time when you do this..but I guess its prefered to losing them permanently, in zvz its death if you lose 3+ drones in the beginning
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Ye i did that yesterday with my probes the terran was like WTF 8D
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It's nice just wondering if it's gonna be fast enough.
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Wow this is really smart!
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On November 30 2010 12:36 Cadence wrote:
Ret so did this in his game 1.
I was thinking the same thing when i watched that game, it just made me smile, and it worked quite well i must say
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Sweet tactic could make a huge difference in some games (especially as im been blue flame hellion dropped a lot since dreamhack)
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On November 30 2010 20:24 pirates wrote:
Burrow :>
Actually, even if you burrow, the enemy can still swoop around the line and attack the hatchery or larvae and the splash will damage the drones.
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This actually worked surprisingly well for me. I hadn't even practiced it or tried it before. I was in the middle of a game and saw a drop coming and as soon as I saw the hellions I started to just grab my probes and run and then i remember this...so i hit s held down F1 and spammed around my base. I went and watched the replay later. I only lost 5 probes to 3 hellions. 250 minerals vs the 300 minerals for the hellions. Which I think is really good for deciding to do it on the spot. Great idea!
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Jedimonky, can you submit a replay? I'd love to see it in action.
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This sounds amazing i cant wait to use it hopefully i'll remember when the time comes! Thanks alot
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I feel like this is potentially metagame changing. Especially for ZvZ. Is this the change we have been looking for to end baneling wars? If this gains more speed it makes banelings only good for army comps and surprise drops.
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http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/111208-1v1-terran-protoss-xelnaga-caverns
Here is the rep CherubDown. I'll be honest I played terrible later in the game. I kept getting distracted because I was listening to the SotG podcast and apparently shockwave crashed and decided I needed to know twice. So twice starcraft was minimized and I was just not focused later in the game. Hope this shows the potential of this technique.
... How does "severing" your workers sound as a name....lol :D
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Niiiiiice. Holding down F1 definitely makes this easy to do with even mediocre APM. I'll be using this in ZvZ and ZvT for sure.
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I should have used this yesterday against my friend. Some blue flame hellions were in my base, and like the noob I am, I grabbed all my workers and moved them, thus resulting in many of them burning. He would have not known what to do if I did the split thing.
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On December 02 2010 03:54 Uranium wrote:
Niiiiiice. Holding down F1 definitely makes this easy to do with even mediocre APM. I'll be using this in ZvZ and ZvT for sure.
but, there're no hellions in zvz? o.O
Nice strat though, will use it.
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On December 02 2010 04:11 Liveon wrote:Show nested quote +On December 02 2010 03:54 Uranium wrote:
Niiiiiice. Holding down F1 definitely makes this easy to do with even mediocre APM. I'll be using this in ZvZ and ZvT for sure. but, there're no hellions in zvz? o.O Nice strat though, will use it.
This maneuver is great against banelings in your mineral line as well :D
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On November 28 2010 01:13 Spiffeh wrote:
Right after boxing them you may want to bind them to 9 or 0 to make it easier to start mining again.
There is no time to do this.
But a simple CTRL+F1 will select allt he Idle Probes once they stopped.
The issue I can see is with large groups of workers 20-26 perhaps.You will then have to click as amny times as probes, during that time they will be frozen by STOP and take hits.
I think
1. BOX
2. STOP
3. F1 spam in Mini-Map is the fastest way to perform this.
Depending on the situation it can be great or to much effort.
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On December 02 2010 03:59 MrMotionPicture wrote:
I should have used this yesterday against my friend. Some blue flame hellions were in my base, and like the noob I am, I grabbed all my workers and moved them, thus resulting in many of them burning. He would have not known what to do if I did the split thing.
That isn't a noob thing to do yet... This is still new. Most pros still just box and move. Maybe more efficiently but until this thread that was the best way to save workers.
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On December 02 2010 04:24 Kokkan wrote:Show nested quote +On November 28 2010 01:13 Spiffeh wrote:
Right after boxing them you may want to bind them to 9 or 0 to make it easier to start mining again. There is no time to do this. But a simple CTRL+F1 will select allt he Idle Probes once they stopped.
I did not know that. I will have to remember that next time I do this. Thanks for the tip. fyi I hadn't been hotkeying all my probes because I have only used this once. I just did it and the control clicked one of the probes and got them back to mining. (all the probes where still near my main nexus)
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I think this is fantastic and I am happy Terran player because so many fools fools are trying to poo poo it for being micro intensive. Very nice find. I am definitely going to be doing this. A little micro vs rebuilding miners?, that question requires no thought.
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And it shall be named "The Severian Maneuver!"
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This may have been mentioned already but just to correct a point in the OP. He worried that you might pull a worker holding a xel'naga tower open.
This actually wont happen, the game considers the act of holding a xel'naga open a valid and continuing action, so the worker isn't idle.
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Australia2052 Posts
I've added Jedimonky's replay to the OP. Thanks!
On December 02 2010 06:56 Clamps wrote:
This may have been mentioned already but just to correct a point in the OP. He worried that you might pull a worker holding a xel'naga tower open.
This actually wont happen, the game considers the act of holding a xel'naga open a valid and continuing action, so the worker isn't idle.
Thanks, I didn't know this. I've edited the OP with that correction.
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Wow,
Yesterday I got totally rolled over because of a well timed blue-flame hellion harass. This is so useful and I'll be using this in the future no doubt.
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I tried this the other day and with there being 30+ drones its VERY time consuming and it is insanely hard to get back on track or do anything beside spamming drone movement. You will lose all macro and any chance of even trying to micro vs hellions or banes.
2500~ diamond zerg
- you are better off manually selecting to try to get around splash damage units.
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CatZ just lost all his banelings without killing almost anything because of your technique. I hate it, i wanted to see a lot of workers turned to green goo :-/
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On December 03 2010 06:55 Morfildur wrote:
CatZ just lost all his banelings without killing almost anything because of your technique. I hate it, i wanted to see a lot of workers turned to green goo :-/
Got a replay?
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On December 03 2010 07:16 CherubDown wrote:Show nested quote +On December 03 2010 06:55 Morfildur wrote:
CatZ just lost all his banelings without killing almost anything because of your technique. I hate it, i wanted to see a lot of workers turned to green goo :-/ Got a replay?
Was on his live Stream, so i don't have a replay.
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On December 02 2010 06:56 Clamps wrote:He worried that you might pull a worker holding a xel'naga tower open. This actually wont happen, the game considers the act of holding a xel'naga open a valid and continuing action
Nice to know, but another little tip: sometimes I have drones scattered around (for ex. hidden in a corner of the enemy base or something) and what I do so that they don't come up on my "idle workers" list (so that if I actually do have an idle worker, I don't miss it...) is just make them patrol over half a millimiter. Counts as a continuous action too, and keeps them off the list ;p
(Sorry if this has been posted yet, couldn't bother read anything but the first 2 and last 2 pages)
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On November 27 2010 22:55 Skeyser wrote:
Sounds great for pros, but way too apm heavy for us mere mortals ^^
What are you talking about? I used to single click spread all of my workers in like 6 seconds with 120 apm. It's about precision, not click speed.
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On December 03 2010 15:39 Reasonable wrote:Show nested quote +On November 27 2010 22:55 Skeyser wrote:
Sounds great for pros, but way too apm heavy for us mere mortals ^^ What are you talking about? I used to single click spread all of my workers in like 6 seconds with 120 apm. It's about precision, not click speed.
Yes! Even though precision improves as APM does, this is somewhat true. The box and split is a more natural reaction to helion dropping, and this may take some time for the community to adapt to. I guess this would be best against helions once you get used to it, but again it's going to be hard to adapt to such a weird tactic.
Nonetheless, good find and keep it up!
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On December 03 2010 06:13 Phantasy wrote:
I tried this the other day and with there being 30+ drones its VERY time consuming and it is insanely hard to get back on track or do anything beside spamming drone movement. You will lose all macro and any chance of even trying to micro vs hellions or banes.
2500~ diamond zerg
- you are better off manually selecting to try to get around splash damage units.
Not to be rude but i don't think you are doing it correctly then. A guy posted early that if you click ctrl + F1 it selects all the idle workers that you just spread out. Also you dont necessarily have to spread them across the map. Just spread them out in your base the key is moving them away from the hellion without lining them up so that the hellion can get a large multi-kill on the hellions. Although I am ashamed of how I played later in the game(kept having distractions), I used this technique to great effect in a game without ever having tried it before. The OP actually added to the rep to the OP.
btw in the rep i didn't know about the ctrl+F1 trick and my econ took minimal damage... It is better to lose mining time rather than the miner.
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On December 03 2010 15:49 TriniMasta wrote:Show nested quote +On December 03 2010 15:39 Reasonable wrote:On November 27 2010 22:55 Skeyser wrote:
Sounds great for pros, but way too apm heavy for us mere mortals ^^ What are you talking about? I used to single click spread all of my workers in like 6 seconds with 120 apm. It's about precision, not click speed. Yes! Even though precision improves as APM does, this is somewhat true. The box and split is a more natural reaction to helion dropping, and this may take some time for the community to adapt to. I guess this would be best against helions once you get used to it, but again it's going to be hard to adapt to such a weird tactic. Nonetheless, good find and keep it up!
I would argue that "effective APM" improves as precision improves... just a side note to the actual discussion.
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This looks epic, i'll have to try it soon.
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Didn't we see Ret do this in one of his games? I swear that he avoided the hellions with almost zero loses doing it in the Meta map.
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If patch 1.2.0 goes live as is, you won't be able to hold down F1 to do this trick.
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Australia2052 Posts
On December 05 2010 13:10 Almania wrote:
If patch 1.2.0 goes live as is, you won't be able to hold down F1 to do this trick.
This does seem to be the case. Rats. Oh well, it's not too difficult to alternate the buttons.
edit: Nevermind, the change was reverted. Rejoice!
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I must say I hate the OP and love him at the same time.
My hellions are less useful while banelings on my scvs are less effective.
Sorry I play with a zerg practice partner a lot. Our workers did have a very high life expectancy.
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I felt like now would be a good time to necro this old thread. For all those currently watching MLG you may have an idea why
Severian splits, guys. Before you start calling blueflame hellions OP in the live report threads.
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Ye or else 37 drones goes GG SlayerS Fighting!
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this thread is golden. especially for those zergs in MLG right now xD
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It would be really handy if a Zerg from MLG saw this right now. Cmon Sheth!
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ZergSlayerS
I tried this technique before though I lacked in having the correct spread to the hellions
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While you are spamming f1 all over the place, your zerglings and queens are ding, you are not macroing, and when it's over your drones are all over the place >_>
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Heh, if I remember right this thread even got featured. Not too many micro tricks get featured. >_>
I guess now we see why this thing was really important.
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Tbh, the build used by Slayers is killing zergs because the zerglings and queens are dieing. Splitting your drones will do nothing if you don't have an army to kill the marines and hellions.
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Maybe they can feature the vid on the mainscreen @ MLG? Would be pretty hilarious
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Awesome, I wish I'd seen this before.
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No doubt that this works, it's the best way to split your workers vs hellions, but it takes soooo much apm, precious time that could be used trying to kill off the harass.
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I've been doing this for quite some time now. What I did was add the capsLock key to an idle worker alternative button. If you look its really easy to press S and CapsLock compared to f1.
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Just goes to show the skill ceiling is way far away from being reached in SC2. Still very few uses of stuff like this.
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Wow, this is such a great tip. Thank you so much for posting this.
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clutch bump to save the mlg zergs from certain doom
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I dont believe this works anymore. I'd be very happy to be proven wrong, but the last time I tried this it wasn't working anymore.
The key difference between what happens now and in the video is that the camera doesn't move.
Before, if you pressed F1, you would select an idle worker. If you pressed F1 again, you would select the next.
Now, if you press F1 a second time, it centers the camera on that worker (similar to double tapping a control group). This means that when u hold down your F1 key, your camera jumps around retardedly and makes this very difficult, although I guess theoretically still possible.
EDIT:
Just tested it again and it was working fine. O_o
I did just patch it, though...
I don't know. Certified working, though. Everyone @ MLG should read this thread =D
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Thou..cannot...save...workers..from..them...
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Russian Federation4295 Posts
On July 30 2011 16:32 Crazyeyes wrote:
I dont believe this works anymore. I'd be very happy to be proven wrong, but the last time I tried this it wasn't working anymore.
The key difference between what happens now and in the video is that the camera doesn't move.
Before, if you pressed F1, you would select an idle worker. If you pressed F1 again, you would select the next.
Now, if you press F1 a second time, it centers the camera on that worker (similar to double tapping a control group). This means that when u hold down your F1 key, your camera jumps around retardedly and makes this very difficult, although I guess theoretically still possible.
EDIT:
Just tested it again and it was working fine. O_o
I did just patch it, though...
I don't know. Certified working, though. Everyone @ MLG should read this thread =D
You dont know, that SC2 supports holding hotkeys?
Press ONE TIME hotkey and hold it. It will work with 100ms ratio. Not need to press it again. Just hold it.
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When I do this, I right click in a small circle in the minimap to send my Probes around; faster than clicking on the main screen.
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Why would you necro a thread about a micro trick that was known to every single bronze player for months now?
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Wow, this is really neat. Thanks.
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On July 30 2011 20:36 Philosophy wrote:
Why would you necro a thread about a micro trick that was known to every single bronze player for months now?
Bronze players don't do this trick...
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On July 30 2011 16:32 Crazyeyes wrote:
I dont believe this works anymore. I'd be very happy to be proven wrong, but the last time I tried this it wasn't working anymore.
The key difference between what happens now and in the video is that the camera doesn't move.
Before, if you pressed F1, you would select an idle worker. If you pressed F1 again, you would select the next.
Now, if you press F1 a second time, it centers the camera on that worker (similar to double tapping a control group). This means that when u hold down your F1 key, your camera jumps around retardedly and makes this very difficult, although I guess theoretically still possible.
EDIT:
Just tested it again and it was working fine. O_o
I did just patch it, though...
I don't know. Certified working, though. Everyone @ MLG should read this thread =D
I tried it this afternoon and got the same thing, it kept centreing on workers and hence made it harder.
As for this trick, even with a base with only 18 workers, I found it to take too long to split them all away from the minerals, the hellions would have killed them before that. Maybe it's just because the camera centres on your workers now if you hold down F1, but I found that tapping F1 and holding F1 is still just too slow to split your workers away from hellions.
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On July 30 2011 20:36 Philosophy wrote:
Why would you necro a thread about a micro trick that was known to every single bronze player for months now?
On July 30 2011 20:38 Leetley wrote:
Wow, this is really neat. Thanks.
Apparently not everyone. =) This has always been a pretty useful trick for zerg players splitting against early banelings and hellions, but with the recent blue flame hellion popularity among pro TvT players, I'm sure this will help out terrans of all skill levels as well.
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On July 30 2011 20:36 Philosophy wrote:
Why would you necro a thread about a micro trick that was known to every single bronze player for months now?
This, minus the bronze player part. It's been common knowledge for a long time. Also, I don't see why the OP fails to suggest that you control-group your workers before moving them all around your base. It only takes a few milliseconds and saves you the trouble of selecting all the workers again after the harrass is dealt with.
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This is a pretty easy technique, and it means one you have finished with it you can move on to your micro (you dont need to keep moving your workers around). It's a simple a-move (your units defending), select (workers), s, f1 + click spam. Not APM intensive at all
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On July 30 2011 20:40 nihlon wrote:Show nested quote +On July 30 2011 20:36 Philosophy wrote:
Why would you necro a thread about a micro trick that was known to every single bronze player for months now? Bronze players don't do this trick...
Bronze player doesn't do anything really D:
PS: GASP! people are not watching MLG...
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I've been doing this forever, really recommend you do it though
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Question is, why don't the korean pros do this considering every damned TvT and TvZ has BFH now?
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Cool technique, will definitely try to implement it into my own play, if possible
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On August 01 2011 10:42 Jombozeus wrote:
Question is, why don't the korean pros do this considering every damned TvT and TvZ has BFH now?
It's impossible to micro and macro while doing this, and isn't really that fast.
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On August 01 2011 10:42 Jombozeus wrote:
Question is, why don't the korean pros do this considering every damned TvT and TvZ has BFH now?
Because they either kill the helions before they're able to do enough damage or they spot them too late to be able to do this "trick". This is just silly theorycraft bullshit.
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In the time you select everything and hit "S", BFHs can get a ton of kills.
In actual gameplay, it's much easier/faster to just move and split in the way you might split marines against banelings. You also need time to respond with attacking units. It's just not ideal to take the steps that this technique requires IMO.
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I think it's more important to mobilize a force to kill the Helions. However, I do think just hitting Stop on the workers would be better than running them since that's when they line up.
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I wouldn't use the technique all of the time, but I think in emergency situations it could be good. If you don't have any nearby units (or far away units are making their way over) and scout the hellions late, you might as well do this since its too late to move the workers all to another place, and you're waiting for the clean up units.
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On July 30 2011 20:36 Philosophy wrote:
Why would you necro a thread about a micro trick that was known to every single bronze player for months now?
It's kind of funny that while every bronze player knows how to do this, hellions still continue to be so effective. Have you been watching MLG Anaheim? If DRG had better controlled his drones at his natural in Game 2 on Shakuras Plateau he might have won that game.
I'll be honest, I haven't actually seen this before, but it's definitely worth trying out, and I wonder if when this is done effectively if it would negate hellion damage.
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On August 01 2011 14:24 The Final Boss wrote:Show nested quote +On July 30 2011 20:36 Philosophy wrote:
Why would you necro a thread about a micro trick that was known to every single bronze player for months now? It's kind of funny that while every bronze player knows how to do this, hellions still continue to be so effective. Have you been watching MLG Anaheim? If DRG had better controlled his drones at his natural in Game 2 on Shakuras Plateau he might have won that game. I'll be honest, I haven't actually seen this before, but it's definitely worth trying out, and I wonder if when this is done effectively if it would negate hellion damage.
I suspect that it's not nearly as effective as it seems to be, although I've never tried this before since I have a mac and everything's a bit wonky.
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On July 30 2011 20:44 jnkw wrote:Show nested quote +On July 30 2011 20:36 Philosophy wrote:
Why would you necro a thread about a micro trick that was known to every single bronze player for months now? This, minus the bronze player part. It's been common knowledge for a long time. Also, I don't see why the OP fails to suggest that you control-group your workers before moving them all around your base. It only takes a few milliseconds and saves you the trouble of selecting all the workers again after the harrass is dealt with.
The OP fails to suggest it because you can simply ctrl+f1 once the harass is dealt with and send all your workers back to mining... no need for a control group.
And besides this technique is not how you should be splitting workers, you want to move the ones closest to the hellions first and 'stop' f1 spam doesn't allow you to do that, its random
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I was wondering why people weren't doing this at MLG, I'm glad someone posted! And yes for all the people who are asking if this works in game, it does.
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I've been playing against terrans that open with hellions in like 60% of the ZvT and TvT games I've played in for a month now in low masters as random, and honestly it's not really worth it to do this a lot of the time. At least with the amount of multitasking I am capable of, I kind of have to pick what I want to micro, it's more important to kill the hellions than it is to split my workers because the hellions will eventually kill all your workers regardless if you don't take them out ASAP. In most situations, if I just micro my army to take out the hellions and run all my workers away to my natural it works out just fine. Of course pro players might be able to do both with time to spare, but for regular gamers it isn't really that great. And, during the initial pull where most workers end up dying, there really isn't a lot of space for the workers to move to.
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Russian Federation4295 Posts
It's impossible to micro and macro while doing this, and isn't really that fast.
Believe me, it's easy to do, if know, how to do it. With korean APM around 200-400 it's easily possible, when I can spread them with APM 50-80
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On August 01 2011 15:31 Existor wrote:Show nested quote +It's impossible to micro and macro while doing this, and isn't really that fast. Believe me, it's easy to do, if know, how to do it. With korean APM around 200-400 it's easily possible, when I can spread them with APM 50-80
Yea the splitting is insanely easy to do, but keep in mind hellions are often faster than any of the units you have nearby so you sometimes have to trap them with some workers and run some away while bringing your army in to take them out. Imagine this happening in two of your bases at once, there's really no time to be splitting workers if you're a regular joe. That's not even taking macro into account. You're just not going to be macroing while you do this, unless you're Flash or something.
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Russian Federation4295 Posts
On August 01 2011 15:37 FeastOfThePoops wrote:Show nested quote +On August 01 2011 15:31 Existor wrote:It's impossible to micro and macro while doing this, and isn't really that fast. Believe me, it's easy to do, if know, how to do it. With korean APM around 200-400 it's easily possible, when I can spread them with APM 50-80 Yea the splitting is insanely easy to do, but keep in mind hellions are often faster than any of the units you have nearby so you sometimes have to trap them with some workers and run some away while bringing your army in to take them out. Imagine this happening in two of your bases at once, there's really no time to be splitting workers if you're a regular joe. That's not even taking macro into account. You're just not going to be macroing while you do this, unless you're Flash or something.
If you have overlords, you can react to them very fast.
And if they come by ground, you also have time to react fast. But really, why not place 2-3 spines at every base?? Or 3-4 roaches
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This only works if you can see the Hellions coming before they get near the mineral line :/ Not to mention it is stupidly annoying to pull off if you are getting attacked at two places at once
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Russian Federation4295 Posts
On August 01 2011 16:28 Dommk wrote:
This only works if you can see the Hellions coming before they get near the mineral line :/ Not to mention it is stupidly annoying to pull off if you are getting attacked at two places at once
What about burrowing drones? So terran will waste scan too and this rush will be more expensive.
So, 2 spines and burrowed helions will give you some time.
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This doesn't seem more effective than pulling your workers and splitting them in groups to me. The important thing is to keep away from the helions, but if you do this you'll have downtime where a majority of your workers aren't moving at all, so they'll still be able to get a lot of kills.
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United States33423 Posts
On November 27 2010 22:45 Liquid`Nazgul wrote:
This is interesting, might become very useful in future games.
good call :o
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On August 01 2011 16:49 Existor wrote:Show nested quote +On August 01 2011 16:28 Dommk wrote:
This only works if you can see the Hellions coming before they get near the mineral line :/ Not to mention it is stupidly annoying to pull off if you are getting attacked at two places at once What about burrowing drones? So terran will waste scan too and this rush will be more expensive. So, 2 spines and burrowed helions will give you some time.
I rue the day burrowed hellions get introduced to the game.
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Russian Federation4295 Posts
This doesn't seem more effective than pulling your workers and splitting them in groups to me. The important thing is to keep away from the helions, but if you do this you'll have downtime where a majority of your workers aren't moving at all, so they'll still be able to get a lot of kills.
It is more effective, than running in a group and dying all from one splash atack (from 2 blue-helions).
Imo, need to try use burrow more.
I rue the day burrowed hellions get introduced to the game.
Underground wars!
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On August 01 2011 16:53 Waxangel wrote:Show nested quote +On November 27 2010 22:45 Liquid`Nazgul wrote:
This is interesting, might become very useful in future games. good call :o
lol dw man this is just how people bump up their post numbers
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On August 01 2011 16:52 Itsmedudeman wrote:
This doesn't seem more effective than pulling your workers and splitting them in groups to me. The important thing is to keep away from the helions, but if you do this you'll have downtime where a majority of your workers aren't moving at all, so they'll still be able to get a lot of kills.
This takes a lot less precision and effort, so it's a superior method. Players could manually split, but what's the point when you can do this faster and use your own combat units to handle the hellions?
And regarding the idle downtime -- hellions will get almost no kills if they're only killing 1 at a time. The reason they're good is splash. In many situations, it's safe to separate all your workers and let hellions get 4 of them rather than run them in circles from the hellions and hope your opponent doesn't land a few good shots for 10 kills.
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United States176 Posts
I think manually splitting will be more effective because its faster if you're good at splitting which means you can get back to controlling units quicker
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People sure do have some stupid reasons for not liking this technique. Nobody ever said that this will save 100% of your workers. It's merely meant to limit them to 1-2 kills at a time. Given the cooldown of a Hellion's attack, that's going to buy you a TON of time to get your army in to clean them up.
Sure, if you just grab all of your workers and run away, you MIGHT get away with 0 casualties, but is it worth the risk? Especially when your opponent is just as good as you are and knows that you're gonna try to run them away? One thing I noticed a few of these Terrans do (and noted that a few of them COULD have done) was send a couple Hellions to the back to make them pull the workers and keep 2 in front to intercept them while they're lined up.
As for missing Macro time, they sacrifice more of that with Blink Micro, Marine Splitting, Baneling Micro (As easy as it is, you can't really stop at any point to do much else or you'll lose them all), and many more. This situation isn't any less important than the above. Games are lost on the worker line as often as on the battlefield.
I'm not faulting the players for not doing this every single time. Sometimes you just have too much going on (Defending a multi-pronged attack, for instance), but there were plenty of times when it was absolutely the best thing they could have done. Just imagine what Day[9] and djWheat's reactions would have been if this had occurred in even a single game that we saw.
I am of the opinion that this technique could single-handedly obsolete this mass Hellion build-of-the-week. Who would go for a Hellion-based opening when you aren't likely to get more than 2-3 worker kills with it (unless they didn't see it, but that goes back to Day[9]'s rant on "Hope based strategies").
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On August 01 2011 18:18 Sylvr wrote:
People sure do have some stupid reasons for not liking this technique. Nobody ever said that this will save 100% of your workers. It's merely meant to limit them to 1-2 kills at a time. Given the cooldown of a Hellion's attack, that's going to buy you a TON of time to get your army in to clean them up.
Sure, if you just grab all of your workers and run away, you MIGHT get away with 0 casualties, but is it worth the risk? Especially when your opponent is just as good as you are and knows that you're gonna try to run them away? One thing I noticed a few of these Terrans do (and noted that a few of them COULD have done) was send a couple Hellions to the back to make them pull the workers and keep 2 in front to intercept them while they're lined up.
As for missing Macro time, they sacrifice more of that with Blink Micro, Marine Splitting, Baneling Micro (As easy as it is, you can't really stop at any point to do much else or you'll lose them all), and many more. This situation isn't any less important than the above. Games are lost on the worker line as often as on the battlefield.
I'm not faulting the players for not doing this every single time. Sometimes you just have too much going on (Defending a multi-pronged attack, for instance), but there were plenty of times when it was absolutely the best thing they could have done. Just imagine what Day[9] and djWheat's reactions would have been if this had occurred in even a single game that we saw.
I am of the opinion that this technique could single-handedly obsolete this mass Hellion build-of-the-week. Who would go for a Hellion-based opening when you aren't likely to get more than 2-3 worker kills with it (unless they didn't see it, but that goes back to Day[9]'s rant on "Hope based strategies").
A well timed hellion harass will definitely kill more than 2-3 workers even if they split them just because of the movement speed, I think they will lose a lot of popularity at first and then suddenly make a bit of a comeback as players stop factoring hellion harass into their builds as much after it becomes less popular. Definitely don't see it becoming obsolete though.
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On August 01 2011 18:41 FeastOfThePoops wrote:Show nested quote +On August 01 2011 18:18 Sylvr wrote:
People sure do have some stupid reasons for not liking this technique. Nobody ever said that this will save 100% of your workers. It's merely meant to limit them to 1-2 kills at a time. Given the cooldown of a Hellion's attack, that's going to buy you a TON of time to get your army in to clean them up.
Sure, if you just grab all of your workers and run away, you MIGHT get away with 0 casualties, but is it worth the risk? Especially when your opponent is just as good as you are and knows that you're gonna try to run them away? One thing I noticed a few of these Terrans do (and noted that a few of them COULD have done) was send a couple Hellions to the back to make them pull the workers and keep 2 in front to intercept them while they're lined up.
As for missing Macro time, they sacrifice more of that with Blink Micro, Marine Splitting, Baneling Micro (As easy as it is, you can't really stop at any point to do much else or you'll lose them all), and many more. This situation isn't any less important than the above. Games are lost on the worker line as often as on the battlefield.
I'm not faulting the players for not doing this every single time. Sometimes you just have too much going on (Defending a multi-pronged attack, for instance), but there were plenty of times when it was absolutely the best thing they could have done. Just imagine what Day[9] and djWheat's reactions would have been if this had occurred in even a single game that we saw.
I am of the opinion that this technique could single-handedly obsolete this mass Hellion build-of-the-week. Who would go for a Hellion-based opening when you aren't likely to get more than 2-3 worker kills with it (unless they didn't see it, but that goes back to Day[9]'s rant on "Hope based strategies"). A well timed hellion harass will definitely kill more than 2-3 workers even if they split them just because of the movement speed, I think they will lose a lot of popularity at first and then suddenly make a bit of a comeback as players stop factoring hellion harass into their builds as much after it becomes less popular. Definitely don't see it becoming obsolete though.
Well, I may have exaggerated a little on that last part, but it definitely won't happen every single game anymore like GSL Season 3's 2-Rax all-in.
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EPT
