What's the most efficient way to counter a rush with workers?

Question

Out of the manual, if you are rushed and have no units you need to counter with workers. Problem is selecting all of them and focus firing doesn't work since:

1. All your workers can hardly attack a single enemy unit.
2. After they kill one unit they stai idle and are massacred

Is it the only way to control the workers manually when attacking (pure micro) or is there a way to tell the workers to automatically attack units around or any other trick I should avail myself of?

Any help appreciated!

P.S. I play zerg, not sure if it makes a difference

Answer 1

Once again forgive me for the quality of my response I'm on the road till Monday.

I discussed in another question why I feel using drones to defend is a legitimate strategy. And I discussed how you need to use your drones to counter a rush. So I'm guessing you're looking for specific micro-ing techniques for using drones, and not a discussion for stopping rushes, as that's kind of been discussed to death.

Using Drones is a lot like using Zerglings they're both Melee units (a rare commodity in SC2), so they both rely on surrounding your opponent for victory. This means the standard sorts of rules: Don't engage near buildings, Move to surround before attacking, Don't focus fire, etc.

So let's focus on the Drone specific techniques:

• Attack Ground, not units (A then left click the ground). If you tell Drones to attack ground (instead of specific units) then they won't laze around after killing their target
• F1 will select any idle workers if you are microing. CtrlF1 will select all idle workers so you can Attack Ground again.
• Box all your units and add them to a control group. This will make it easier for you to send them all back to work when the battle is done.
• Micro the stragglers. Because Drones are Melee, it is possible that not all will be able to attack at a given time. If some are caught behind others, micro them around behind to help your surround (or back to work).

Answer 2

First of all - countering rush with workers is least thing You want to do because workers count is what defines Your economy.

1. Do not ever allow rush. Scout correctly and be ready for that.
2. If that fails - keep mining with workers as long as possible. Pump out lings, keep them in safety.
3. If drone gets attacked, try to micro away it from mineral patch while keeping others mining.
4. If army size of opponent is large enough that not only one drone is in danger - dance around with Your drones, trying to get back to work.
5. If mining is completely impossible - try to retreat to safety somewhere in corner.
6. If Your lings count atm is large enough - just defeat enemy.

If You can't get lings enough, choose right moment (when enemy army is moving) get good surround and engage enemy with Your lings+drones army.

One more tip - if You haven't been able to prevent enemy taking down Your tech building (spawning pool e.g.), attack right when it collapses because of broodlings.

Answer 3

Short Answer:

• Get used to quadricule keyboard, is much faster.

• Use Attack (t) to click behind of attackers, and use Shift+t to get more points of attack.

• After killed, press d to return some workers, then Ctrl+F1 to get the idle, send all to minerals and split after that on vespen.

You will minimize the time the workers don't work.