Defending against Protoss Photon Cannon rush

just a little question:

How the hell can i defend against this with Terran?

SCV-s are too slow to corner/kill the Probe, and they can't destroy the first Pilon because they have too little damage. I tried to start with Barracks after 10 SCV-s, but the enemy Protoss can build a Photon cannon before i got 1 or 2 marines. This problem is only on small 1v1 maps.

Any solutions for this annoying noobish tactic?

 

Get marines as fast as possible, but also attack with scvs. Then, once you kill the most dangerous cannons, attack immediately. One or two marines should be enough to kill a player who rushed cannons.

 

ok, thanks, i try

 

Well the first tactic is to prevent it at all. Walling off your ramp quickly is a good way to do this.

Secondly, if they manage to put up a pylon in your base, you need Marines as quickly as possible. And go for the pylon, not the cannons. 4 SCVs pulled from the mineral field is enough to kill the pylon before the cannon finishes.

 

one of your best bets is to counterattack. if he invested that heavily into photon cannons, it means he got a forge up early instead of a gateway, and cannons themselves are eating into his minerals. build up marines, kill his probe that's making cannons, kill the pylon, and charge into his base ASAP.

 

Well there's two ways to defend against it:

1) If you see a pylon being built, immediately build a bunker near it. It will be complete long before the cannons are, and you can stick marines in it to fight off the cannons. Even if the bunker starts taking heavy fire, you can still repair it, while the enemy probe can only watch as his cannons slowly get whittled down by the marines.

2) If you don't see the pylon in time (cannons already on the way), you can lift your command center and move to your natural expansion. Then just continue your standard game as if nothing happened, although you will want to get siege tanks quickly to outrange and destroy those cannons and pylons, or else the enemy will get tons of warp gates and build his entire army behind your new base.

Also, asdf is dead wrong. Do NOT expect a counterattack to work, as 99% of the time the cannon rusher will also have cannons in his main to stop such counterattacks dead.

 

Like Rush said you have to be getting your units up to stop the progression of the cannons, but Siege tanks are the best bet in this situation. Seeing as the siege tanks need a decent amount of gas along with the research, and building the factory itself (100 gas) they will not be out early to help you can throw a tech lab on one of your early barracks and swap the factory with the Barracks. Just keep the Marines coming to keep the cannons down a bit while you get those tanks out. If you defeat the cannon rush with minimal casualties then you will be way ahead of your opponent forcing him to expand. This is when you look for expo's and take them out. Out tech and win

 

So I've already seen what I would recommend contained in a combination of 2 separate replies.

1) Put a bunker between his cannon line and your stuff. Ideally you want the bunker to be in range to fire at anything he tries to build closer, but far enough away that SCVs can repair it from the rear. I'm not sure what the proper ranges are here though since I don't know terran figures that well.

2) Get tanks. 1 sieged tank will clear all that up, and you can tech from that to either a tank push or drop. Chances are he is relying on cannons for D too.

or

3) Tech to something else to finish the game. Again, the idea here is he made an investment in cannons which you then stopped without sacrificing much in the way of resources. Rather than focusing on pouring money into getting the cannons into your base, you just halt their progression and then pour all your resources into a well timed/executed counter on his base. GG.

 

If you see his pylon before any cannons are up send most of your scvs and kill the pylon. They should destroy it fast.

Otherwise go with bunker tactic and get tanks ASAP. If still able, wall in at the choke so he has no choice but to warp in units by the pylon to pressure you.

 

haha i love getting cannoned when im terran =) cause u can fly up ur command center to the high yeild ( be thankful haha ) and get a fsat reaper and own his main base ( he wont hav nothing and if he does ( ull have a better economy cause u get more minerals

 

Watch this TvP Crota shoutcast where he defends against a cannon rush:

Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/user/BlizShouter#p/u/7/KnDazCPzzNI
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/user/BlizShouter#p/u/6/6mhzUJwWDMQ

Generally the important things are: scout your own base (place buildings like supply depots in the "dark corners" of your base to keep an eye on them for free), and if you see a pylon go up, send SCVs over to try and block any further construction by standing inside the pylon fields. Once you have a single marine, it can take out the probe and take down the pylon. If any cannons or buildings start getting warped in, you have to throw everything you have at taking them down ASAP. The nice thing is that if you win against a cannon rush, your opponent is going to be seriously behind in economy and you've got a good shot at a win.

 

It's actually gateways being built in his base, not cannons. Same principle though.

Always good to see another Crota fan!

 

some players usually block choke points even at early stages with scvs if its small 1v1 maps. But if he manages to start building a pylon in your base, it might be a good idea to put a bunker and a reaper, that will quickly dispose of the cannons.

 

When he chased the probe out of his base he COULD of brought those scv's to the ramp and blocked.

 

I've had tossers (Protoss players) try this BULL**** tactic on me. A probe builds a pylon outside my base. Then a cannon. Then the probe comes a little closer (still inside cannon range) and builds another cannon. Then he comes a little closer to my buildings.... etc.

I have about 10 SCVs mining, and am getting my barracks and first supply depot up, and starting production of marines, and he's already got cannons in my base! 1-2 marines get pwned by a cannon, and the probe / pylons are still within cannon range so I can't touch any of them.

Very pistifying! Only good thing is that he's burning all his minerals on cannons, so his base probably doesn't have much in it yet, so if I lift my buildings and move and build somewhere else I could probably pwn him.

 

Best strat seems to be catching it early. When you scout if there's nothing in his base you know something's up. It's also why you'll see a lot of pro players scout around their base first before they send him out to the other spots they could be.

When you find the pylon, just kill it with your scvs. And if you get there too late, build a bunker. Then you can fend off the push, tech to tanks or marauders and own them. And even salvage the bunker to get your minerals back when you're done.

 

from my experience if it is in your base you know he doesnt have a stargate. send 1 marine to his base to demolish his mineral lines. if thats enough presure hel crack and disrupt his income. then you need to focus on takign out the pylons. another scenerio is if he walled u in your base. he does that to get an early expand so you need to get seige tanks pronto to push through and keep going because thats alot of resources put into his expansion/scv and turrets and his unit count wont be very high. truthfully i have not seen it done effectivly yet.

 

Dude that FAILS vsing Terran the Building can FLY and tanks are the counter to that all you do it lift off fly to your 2nd mining spot its like giving the middle finger to him. build barracks fly it to his base and start pumping out marines easy win.

 

It fails in theory but in practice so many terran players simply quit when the cannons start firing on them. It's kind of sad really. I know it's frusterating but there's no reason to just quit when you can fly. If you've noticed the cannons in time you should already be collecting gas and getting ready to go tanks. Just pick up and fly to an area where your base or collectors aren't being fired on and you can still collect gas, sometimes this just means moving a short distance. I repelled this attack just recently using this tactic, but sadly my partner thought the game was lost and just left on me. Very frusterating!

 

I've had this problem as terran but only for very, very quick photon rushes (otherwise I can stop them easily). The toss player builds a pylon and forge in his base, and meanwhile he's building his second pylon in my base (and he scouts very early to get in before my wall-in). As he drops the pylon, he often starts building another pylon, so my one or two marines and scvs cannot kill both, and then he builds a cannon, then another cannon, etc. At that point it seems all I can do is lift off. This all happens way before tanks are even in mind.