EPT
Guide: How to Defend Against Worker Rush
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Doom of Kings, Dirge of Hope, Devourer of Worlds: Worker Rush
Introduction
This is a compendium of everything I've read, seen, and experienced about Worker Rush, combined with several replays and VoDs generated by myself and my practice partner, Lucien. We are both in Master League, and knowledgeable enough about the game that we can adequately defend Worker Rush, so we made this guide. If you're an experienced member of the TL Strategy Board, you definitely know everything in this article, and are probably wondering why I've written it. Well, I've seen/heard of far too many people losing to Worker Rush. Fighting Worker Rush isn't something that intuitively comes to people, even if they've already lost to it. It's a frustrating strategy to lose to, and to a new player it can be very discouraging. This is here so that if someone searches "Worker Rush" on TL, they will find this guide, read it, and never lose to Worker Rush again.
What is Worker Rush?
A Worker Rush is a tactic in which a player uses only worker units (SCVs, Probes, or Drones) to attack very early in the game, before the defending player has any combat units. A Worker Rush comes in two varieties: vanilla Worker Rush, and 12 Drone Rush. In the vanilla Worker Rush, a player immediately moves out to attack with his first 6 workers (the worker that is being made will catch up sometime during the battle). The 12 Drone Rush is a Zerg-only strategy in which the Extractor Trick is used to let the zerg player quickly get 12 drones. He then uses these drones to attack.
How do I defend a vanilla Worker Rush?
Background: A vanilla Worker Rush will arrive at your base down several workers relative to you. Your workers have the ability to attack, just like zerglings, marines, or zealots, but they will not do this automatically. You workers by default will run away from anything attacking them, including other workers, unless you issue an attack-move command. If they are mining they will not even run away, so you need to attack-move to make them defend themselves. During an attack-move, your workers will proceed to a location, stopping to attack anything they meet, including enemy workers. Once they arrive at the location, you'll need to reissue an attack-move command to make them attack again if necessary. This is supremely important-- if they are mining or standing around, your workers will NOT defend themselves.
Basics: If you select all of your workers and attack-move, and your opponent does the same, you will win because you have more workers. You have more workers because you were able to produce workers with your income while he moved across the map. This is generally how you defend against Worker Rush, but there are a couple of tricks and caveats to watch out for, as you opponent might try to micro. The first order of business is to box all but one of your workers, and attack-move towards his workers. 90% of the time, this is ALL you will need to do. You will be attack-moving 10 workers against 6. You're done. Free win. However, if he micros really hard, they may be other things you need to do.
Pullback/stop Micro: After you tell you workers to attack-move, you'll notice that some of them get weakened before the others during the fights. In order to preserve your workers, you can pull these workers back by grabbing the weakened worker and right-clicking on a mineral to send him back through the battle to go mine. If you want him to keep fighting, you can give him a new order to fight, or alternatively you can select him, click or use your hotkey for Stop, then have him re-engage. When he stops fighting, the opponents workers AI will ignore him and go for the other workers, even after he starts fighting again, unless the opponent gives new commands.
Mining: It's usually a good idea to leave one or two workers mining during the fight, or sending weakened workers back to mine. Even if you do this, you will have more workers than your opponent, and the additional income will let you make more workers, further cementing your advantage. This is extremely important, as if you do not mine, your opponent could conceivably outmicro you-- if you do mine, you will gradually increase your worker count. If your opponent starts to bail or wants to retreat and heal, send your workers back to mine, and pull them to fight again when he comes back.
Buildings: Do not cancel any pylons or overlords that are morphing. It's worth it to halt a supply depot if you're going to lose the scv building it, but don't cancel it unless it's going to die or you really need the money. Cancel any vespene geysers you're taking if you get Worker Rushed, because you won't have time to benefit from the gas. If you are zerg, you can use Extractor Trick mid battle to make an extra worker if you don't have time/money for an overlord. Make sure your pylon/depot/overlord finishes, as getting above 10/11 food will give you an overwhelming advantage.
Mineral Walk: This is a foundational element of worker micro. If you pay attention, when they are mining, workers are able to walk through each other to carry minerals and return to the mineral line. This is called "Mineral Walking", and any worker returning resources or going to a mineral patch will gain this ability. Given the cramped situation when fighting, you should use mineral walking to maneuver your units. If you want to get all your workers into one spot near a mineral, tell them all to mine that mineral and they will stack up there. You can also use this to retreat weak workers through reinforcements or enemies, get out of surrounds or get into surrounds, or keep your workers close together enough to support each other. If you want to mineral walk away from your mineral line, you can tell your workers to mine at your natural, and they will mineral walk towards your ramp.
Racial differences between workers: Terran scvs have 45 hp, which is one more hit, but do not regenerate hp without repairs. Zerg drones have 40 hp, and will regenerate hp even during battle, making them take 9 hits like an scv. Protoss probes have 20 hp, 20 shields and only regenerate shields, and only regenerate it out of battle, which makes them the worst in a direct fight, taking only 8 hits, but the quickest-regenerating. If you are protoss or zerg, your workers will naturally heal if/when he starts running away. However, if you are Terran, your workers will not, but this won't really matter since he'll have fewer workers. If you're really worried about him wearing you down, you can have one of your scvs set to auto-repair (right-click the repair button) and this scv will repair your other scvs if it has no other orders or is on attack-move. Do not active this for more than 1 or maybe 2 scvs-- you need to have MORE attacking workers than he has, or he will win the fights. Remember that this will consume minerals.
Remember, A-move defends 90% of worker rushes. Everything else is just little frills you add onto your a-move.
How do I Defend 12 Drone Rush?
Background: 12 Drone Rush is the same as vanilla Worker Rush in terms of the types of micro and what the situation is, but the margin of error is much smaller. Whereas with the vanilla Worker Rush, your opponent has to guess where you are and may arrive late, and you will always have several more workers, the 12 Drone rush has time to scout and find you and engage you immediately. Because zerg can make workers slightly more quickly due to larvae, your worker advantage is going to be very small-- as small as 1 worker if you are playing on xel'naga caverns. In this situation, every principle of defending vanilla Worker Rush applies with the following changes:
If you are Terran: cancel your barracks at the top of your ramp. You won't be able to defend it and get it up, and that worker making the barracks needs to live. He is THE worker that you are up by when your opponent shows up. Mine 50 or 100 extra minerals before fighting, so that you can fight with all your workers (you will have 13 on Xel'Naga Caverns, more on other maps), and still make an scv and have mining. If he pulls back to heal or reposition, you can spend some more time mining and/or repairing. Hang on carefully to your worker lead.
If you are Protoss: do not cancel your Gateway, which you likely JUST started, unless he's focusing it and it's going to go down. If you can get a zealot out, you win. Your workers are slightly worse in a direct fight, but you still have an extra worker or two on him. Mine as much as possible, and chrono out more probes / a zealot and the game is yours. Send weak probes back to mine if you are worried about losing them in a fight, and bring them back to fight when they have more shields.
If you are Zerg: if you went for a quick gas, cancel it for the extra drone. You won't need the gas anyways. If you went for a quick pool, that's fine as long as you still have 13 or more drones. Make zerglings instead of drones when the pool finishes.
Closing Thoughts:
Remember, all you need to do is survive, and it's a fight between basically comparable units, and you have more of them. Your opponent has only two advantages: surprise and experience. He's likely done this more than you have, and you're probably not expecting it. Remain calm, attack-move your workers so they use combat AI, and relish in your free victory. In the professional scene, Worker Rush is considered the same as throwing a game because of how defendable it is.
Remember, A-move defends 90% of worker rushes. Everything else is just little frills you add onto your a-move.
Resources:
Replay Clinic: Examples of defending Worker Rush with every race!
Replay Pack: http://drop.sc/packs/507
In this replay pack, I defend as T, Z, and P the standard 6+1 Worker Rush, and defend as T against 12 drone rush.
Replay Clinic VoDs
Twitch.tv: http://www.twitch.tv/blazinghand/b/307802678
Embedded Video (Youtube):
+ Show Spoiler +
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yoc9ONz0ghI
Q&A -- your thread questions, summarized and answered here!
Q: Why doesn't A-moving win you the game?
A: A-moving is a critical component of fighting worker rush, and as I have laboriously and explicitly pointed out several times in my guide, will alone win you 90% of worker rush games. I highly recommend you read the guide.
Reddit Thread:
http://www.reddit.com/r/starcraft_strategy/comments/pekfv/guide_how_to_defend_against_worker_rush/
Special thanks to Lucien aka theshrabster for his help as a practice partner and worker rush opponent.
