I don’t get this watching pro games.
They’ll lose 5 workers to 1 oracle but will refuse to build a single turret that can prevent those harass attacks.
Why?
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When do you see a stargate is scoutted and no turret is built in a pro game?
I don’t see Innovation not doing it, I don’t see Maru not doing it. Name a player?
OP is right, pro players in sc2 try to get by the entire game without building any defense, specially if you compare it to BW , where you will commonly see a protoss 4th base covered in cannons, or a terran main blanketed in turrets to fend off mutas.
At most you see a single turret and spore go up on in the early game, but after that they will consistently choose to lose several workers and try to micro their army into defense rather than put up base defense(zerg players are a bit better at this).
You will also always see them try to micro units even in cases where just letting it fight till it dies would yield more DPS.
Because SC2 turrets are kinda bad.
Even with a missile turret, a well microd oracle can still get easy SCV kills without dying.
You would need to put at least 2 turrets per mineral line (one on either end), which is 400 minerals on 2 base. And even still oracles might slip in a kill or two. It really isn’t worth it.
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The other part of this is, if they decide to just pull their oracle back on seeing 2 turrets per base; you just did all the damage to your econ the Oracle needed to do by spending minerals on turrets that now get no trade value. If a single oracle gets 400 minerals in damage that’s huge for cost:value.
Turrets (without hisec) are also not going to be able to shut down stasis traps freezing scvs on your mineral line.
Comparatively, a group of marines can take out the oracle, chase it if it moves, kill stasis traps, and give value in a straight up fight.
because turrets require an engie bay, a large investment in the early game despite what protoss will tell you
There are a lot of late game moments where two towers would have stopped a game ending harass. I think this is what the OP is referring to.
Was the extra two zealots/4 marines/8lings that important on a 4 base economy?
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Oh, that’s not what it sounded like to me, but understandable interpretation. For these situations, it more often comes down to can I find the time to build those turrets. It may be a small thing, but it’s small thing number 527 on the priority list by the 4-5 base period.
Because terran is already behind in economy, mule were nerfed from 240-270 to 225-250 and because less minerals per patches, every time you mule wrong patch you f2ck your economy and if you don’t pull every single mule you autolose, which takes 300 epm…… And protoss get one chronoboost free per nexus, also it last longer so you don’t have chronoboost that often, hots chornoboost was 4 longer, but splited to 2 times, and cost 25 energy, this last 50 and you get one free per nexus, but it last longer, so it is better for upgrades and normally when it cost 25, you would forget chrono during battle even pros, but now it is much easier.
Also warpgate automatically trasnsform and hotkeys for you, wow game play itself for protoss players…
You are already behind, on some maps protoss can even block reaper scout, but you need to know opening, if it is fast prism and you don’t make viking you autolose… It is so hard to hold, but you want make raven, because usually it is twilingt and you need 200 energy for raven later, which is incredibly important to get ravne asap… If you 3 minute scan, you lose basically, becaus you are already massively behind, protoss can all in with 30 chargelots before your stim even finishes, when taking 4:20 fast third with it. On pro level it is coinflipp even more, pros don’t even scv scout usually, for example if you fake proxy rax and it is proxy gate you autolose… and even pros can’t scout all proxy gate spots, you cant pull more than one reaper and scv and reaper has limited time, when second unit pops up for protoss you cant even reaper scout… You usually want 1 mine to cover one mineral line , but it can be 2 oracles late, everygame is pretty much coinflipp… Lotv so garbage, because protoss is ahead, if economy was fair terran could afford scan, also because mines are visible, you usually scouted with it, but this opening is now unviable, for example on maps wher you cant even reaper scout if it oracle or phoenix you autolose… There is so much broken sh1t, main problem is economy…
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Wow, you are salty… Mule micro is only a bit harder than Zerg injects. Just get your timing right and you are good to go. Cant automate it Zerg style tho which is shame.
TL;DR: unit and building value is different per skill level
edit: Also Pro gamers take risks to get an advantage.
You often see mines vs. oracles or built blindly and then used for a drop (after the usual oracle timing).
@SuperNinja: Would you please stop showing your lack of deductive brain power to everyone on the forums and do something useful?
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Look here, why put up photon cannons or even an army for the late game, when you can place a bunch of photon cannons in the enemy’s base and win within 5-7 minutes?
Why create spore crawlers in the mineral line, when you can send all your drones after doing a double or even triple extractor trick and win within 2-3 minutes? You want micro? Then do micro.
Why create turrets when you can build 3 proxy bunkers and flood your opponent with an obscene amount of marines? And I mean obscene
It is like what Bhudda said about wanting happiness. The problem is want. In this case, the problem is extending the game to the point where your opponent can send in Oracles, Mutas, MMM, BOracles, Vlavoracoles and whatnot to their base?
I say strike the enemy before they can even have a chance of striking you
I wrote about this topic in my book, as I was the first Terran to try to play without turrets (not even making them against mutas) in Broodwar. In my day, everyone massed turrets, but last time I played (a year or so ago), it caught on or something. Hardly anyone would make turrets in T vs P.
While I can’t speak for SC 2, making turrets and what not is usually always bad in the early game in Broodwar. 1) They’re not effective at stopping a skilled player to begin with. 2) It just makes your army size smaller, forcing you to concede the map to your opponent.
There’s numerous other reasons, but that’s why I wrote about it in the past 
Anytime you’re facing an opponent that doesn’t make static D, in Broodwar, you gulp… It’s much, much harder to face someone who devotes all of their resources into army and expansions.
That said, obviously you have to come up with solutions to defend what your were originally making turrets for. That’s where the fun is.
Given that cyclones have “500 range” and do 1k damage instantly… I’m surprised anyone ever makes a turret. Talk about making solving problems easy mode.
Mostly because in early game terran doesn’t have lots of mine investing on turrets just to counter oracle. 5-6 marines stand in main base and one cyclone on expo would be safe enough to deal with the harass. While actually pro T players make really good use of turrets as they always build two-three on the edge of main base to counter mid-game War Prism/medivac drops harass since their main force are spread across their third/fourth bases and would not be able to save their main in time. My idea is if you not confident with defending early game harass, it’s no big deal investing 100 on turrets /bunkers and most of time it’s effective.