Saving Your Workers From Hellions

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]

After:

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

Last edit: 2010-12-02 08:39:21

navara France. November 27 2010 22:23. Posts 93

Profile #

from 19:31 to 20:20 real time tho ...

i hope it's faster but , gonna try it.

terrOne Italy. November 27 2010 22:24. Posts 170

Profile #

lol.... does this work in game? any 1 tried it? xD

HeLL yeah!

DreamSailor Canada. November 27 2010 22:24. Posts 433

Profile #

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.

Where ever you go, there you are.

Severian Australia. November 27 2010 22:24. Posts 1887

Profile #

Like I said, ignore the timer on the screenshots. I took my time when taking them.

Cheeselicker United Kingdom. November 27 2010 22:25. Posts 76

Profile #

I'm sure that Liquid'Tyler will appreciate other ways to move probes away from hellions.

Talin Montenegro. November 27 2010 22:26. Posts 8187

Profile Blog #

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.

smallerk November 27 2010 22:28. Posts 859

Profile #

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.

Never Regret anything because at one time it was exactly what you wanted.

j4ck3d November 27 2010 22:28. Posts 93

Profile #

diggin it

"We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office."

wxwx November 27 2010 22:34. Posts 525

Profile #

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.

Invictus Singapore. November 27 2010 22:37. Posts 1689

Profile Blog #

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

Lee Jaedong Fighting!

Aldehyde Sweden. November 27 2010 22:40. Posts 536

Profile Blog #

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.

Yes, I am a chemical, what are you then?

Zaros United Kingdom. November 27 2010 22:41. Posts 1198

Profile Blog #

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.

Primadog United States. November 27 2010 22:43. Posts 4395

Profile Blog #

Jesus your first post is this? I been slacking...

You missed something very important:

how does severianing workers sound for the technique? severalaning? severing?

Thank God and gunrun.

LittLeD Sweden. November 27 2010 22:44. Posts 7411

Profile #

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.

Liquid`Nazgul Administrator November 27 2010 22:45.

Profile Blog #

This is interesting, might become very useful in future games.

MindRush Romania. November 27 2010 22:48. Posts 916

Profile #

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.

"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein

Tomer United States. November 27 2010 22:48. Posts 105

Profile #

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).

Shikyo Finland. November 27 2010 22:53. Posts 20178

Profile Blog #

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.

"I shall wait for you in death's halls, my Love (love love love love~)"