Hey all, occasionally when I play vs my friends, they tend to build a pylon at the start of the match in my base, and start building photon cannons. One would say spot him before he builds one, but even having one drone attack the warping in pylon isnt enough, and at that point I have no military units yet. After that he just starts building photon cannons and a few lings doesnt help. I play zerg btw. I cannot figure out a solution as of yet. Any help guys?
Spine crawler in front of his cannons, but in range in which he cant reach unless he builds a forward cannon which your spine will deny.
I just got cannon rushed in a 3v3. All I can say is don't let it happen - if you see a probe wandering around your base take one, maybe even two of your drones off the mineral line and chase him down. If he gets anything inside your base that early, it's all over.
does a spine crawler have a longer range than cannons? yeah cannon rush is really annoying :S especially when they start moving them closer to your base. really is ultimate cheese >.>
Wow! You got some nice friends there... i would never use cheese when playing with friends, that's just weird. And just to prevent that photon cannon thing from happening... i now go 10 pool against protoss. It's the lamest cheese ever.
Spine doesn't outrange cannons. But they do have the same range, so if you build a spine crawler, the protoss can no longer advance his cannons toward your base. At that point the cannon rush is contained to small corner of your base, and you can rush his base with 20 speedlings or something and wipe him out.
fight cheese with cheese, If they try to cannon rush do as the other guy said, build bunker/spine crawler/ cannon just a little bit out of range of there last one, so they cant advance anymore, Once this is done take 5 zealots to his main base and lol at his for having no units.
you really have to watch out for the sort of cannon rush where they try and contain you at the bottom of your ramp. I've found that some players alter their whole build order a bit against protoss to allow for an earlier pool and earlier zerglings. Then if you find the cannon rush in its early stages (not an unreasonable idea) you can either take out the pylon and let the single cannon sit or you can run by the whole setup and try to end the game there by overwhelming them with units. Taking out the pylon is safer, but only gives you a small advantage while going for the win has a huge upside with the potential to devastate their economy anyway
1 drone is not enough. just stop any drone from mining and micro them to destroy the probe and python. Don't worry about your economy because he is sacrificing more economy to rush the armory and python+tower. After killing his probe and python with your worker, just go for a few lings at regular pace and you will have no problem destroying his base. (he now have to play catch up for units) This cheese strategy will only work till gold league and will never work past platinum in 1v1. Its still a good strategy though to climb the lower ladder fast.
As stated, a spine crawler will prevent the cannons from expanding into your base. You can then focus on production, while they hopefully continue to waste resources on a pointless cannon rush. If it is a 1v1 you then kill his main after getting some units. If it is 2v2 you and your partner go kill his teammate, then mop him up later. If he seals you in with his cannon rush, then either plan on a baneling bust (for a faster exit) or convert to an air or drop based strategy to go rape him/his teammate. You can also just position an ovie for a Nydus out, or several Ovies to slow-drop (ala old school lurker elevator tactics) out and if you want, in to his base. Ultimately the goal is to spend as LITTLE as possible on defeating the cannons (completely ignoring them being the best option). That turns his 'rush' into a crippling resource advantage for you, and gg for him. If for some reason you DO feel it necessary to take workers off to fight it, I recommend 4 workers. At least that it is what I've found effective for dual spinecrawler into ling rushes when I 14 pool.
I agree with what Khayman is saying. The photon cannon rush strategy is limited by what gets put into the area in terms of defense. So spine crawlers will kill the cannons as they are building, making it more of a photon cannon sit in your base and annoy you, rather than a photon cannon rush. Either way, just don't waste a lot of time defending against it, or else it's gg as your minerals are going to suffer from this strategy.
If you have your queen out, then i would suggest just simple spreading creep to try to prevent him from building cannons in range of your buildings. Usually what their'll do is start from the back and work their way in so that by the time you see their cannons they have extras to fend off any attacks. try to catch it early and start spreading creep in front of your base to give yourself more room. Then just OL drop their base with Speedlings / roachs or whatever is cheapest to tech to. I did this in one match. Can't remember the map but I stopped his cannons from getting into my base by spreading creep and was able to fend off any attack with Spine Crawlers. By that time my OL's were ready to drop guys into his base.
Recently, in a 2v2 match, my friend and I (P and Z respectively) were facing a TP match-up and in the first couple seconds, they were like "Don't cheese us! We've been cheesed 3 times in a row " . They then proceeded to put down a pylon and barracks where our expansions normally would be (it was on that one lava 2v2 map...can't remember what it's called). Anywho, it wasn't necessarily a cannon rush, but it was still cheese (which is basically all the same). We just had a drone and probe out harassing the SCV building the racks and preventing the probe from laying down any buildings. Basically we just massed up zerglings and zealots (I put down a spine crawler in my base) and we thanked them for the easy win lol (they were total losers about it, calling us Bronzies and Scrubs...it was quite entertaining actually, my friend and I had a good laugh while on skype). But as it's been said before, DON'T LET IT HAPPEN. If you see a probe running into a darkened area around or inside your base, FOLLOW IT and keep up the harassment on whatever he's building and don't let up. If they're doing this outside your base (or even inside your base), throw down whatever static defence you can and mass up tier 1 units, kill his cheese, then proceed to rofl-stomp his poorly defended base and get a nice easy win
