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| MrLlama United States. June 09 2012 07:05. Posts 446 | Profile # |
So I have been doing my free coaching/replay analysis stream and I think a huge issue that needs to be addressed or put into perspective for people is finding the importance of every action they make in the game at their level.
About Me:
+ Show Spoiler +
To cut to the chase, people misuse their APM. The biggest REASON for this misuse is because people watch pro replays and streams, see the little details that win games for the pros, and then try to apply those same things to their gameplay.
Examples:
1. Microing the scout worker for harrassing mineral lines
2. Using burrowed infestors to drop infested terrans at expansions
3. banshee harrass
4. Stutter stepping units
5. Sniping creep tumors as they spawn
6. etc...
Now I know a lot of people are saying, "But a lot of those things are very good" and "I have won lots of games because of great banshee play/burrowed infestors/etc!"
If you are at a high level then I agree, those are the proper things to be doing, but if you are lower level then you have much greater things to focus your APM on.
Now of course every race is different and feel free to disagree with my uses of apm below, but I think if players keep their focus on the level of their league as I state, they will be able to improve more than if they watch pro replays and try to imitate.
I think every player should also start by looking at my bronze level suggestions then moving up 1 league at a time and making sure they have everything before continuing on. I know someone who made it to platinum because he is amazing at winning games with banshees, but he cannot move past plat because as soon as he started playing people who defended well against banshees, he still had the skills of a silver player in terms of macro and it crippled him.
Here is my list of where each league level player should focus their actions/attention:
Bronze/Silver
+ Show Spoiler +Basics:+ Show Spoiler +-There is no reason for scouting at this level (if you are a zerg player check your section on this). Strong macro should win out 90% of the time regardless of what your opponent is doing.
-Always build workers. Always.
-Keep your eyes in your base 95% of the time or more. If you ever watch a replay, you will see your macro fails when you are not looking at your base. Wait until you are a higher level before diverting your attention.
-You should be able to A-move any army if you have good macro and win the game at this level. Thus, do not worry about tiny attacks or drops or timing windows. Simply macro up a large army, and A move to his base. Terran:+ Show Spoiler +-Hotkey your whole army to 1 hotkey, your CCs to 1 hotkey, and your Barracks to 1 hotkey.
-Always make sure you have scvs and marines building.
-Take an expansion by 5:00 (you can start it in your base if you don't feel safe).
-Build additional supply depots (before you even really feel you need them, it's okay to have too much supply at this point).
-If you have any extra minerals, make more barracks (and orbitals in your base for mules/scvs!). Even if you are on 2 base and have 6 barracks already, if you are floating 2K minerals feel free to drop down 5-6 more!
-You do not need to tech. You honestly can do without gas even but if you must get it I'd suggest getting it delayed and then just using it for Reactors/tech labs to get additional marines and marauders.
TVT - 10 depot, 12 barracks, 14 depot, 15/16 orbital, 15 marine, 16 marine, 17 command center (can be inbase if you don't feel safe), 18 bunker at natural, add 2 more barracks after bunker complete.
TVZ - same as TVT
TVP - same as TVT -At this level if you have good macro you can win with purely queens and drones (many pros have done this to prove the point that I'm trying to make in this thread). I would like you to make units still but the point is that it is possible to win without them.
-When I said no scouting, that mostly referred to protoss and terran not needing to scout at all because they are more defensive and build units more constantly. Since zerg is different and reactionary, I think it's important to simply have a very basic scout of when they are moving out. Don't care if they are teching like crazy in their base or whatever, you should have safe builds to prepare for that stuff (evo chamber at 5:30, spore at each base, etc). Simply have a ling outside their ramp or at their tower to know when they are pushing out. This will be useful for when to transition into making more units/spines.
-Put all hatcheries on one hotkey. Whenever you are sitting there, be pressing the hatchery hotkey, then S. This selects your larvae so you can spend them immediately.
-For every wave of units that you build, make an overlord. EX: If I have 8 larvae, I hit "4" (My Hatcheries hotkey), "s" (Selects larvae), "V" (builds an overlord), then "d" 7 times (builds 7 drones). If you get in this habit you will find yourself getting supply blocked at least 50% less if not better.
-Make 4x queens or more (good anti air)
-Do not be afraid to drone. If you drone a lot, just make more queens and some spine crawlers to defend.
-Do not use infestors. Too much apm required and it will hurt you elsewhere.
-Your mineral dump will be additional hatcheries and queens. If you are on 2-3 base and have 3K minerals, make 3 more macro hatcheries inside your main. This will allow you to get more larva, make more queens, and spend all that extra money. Just make sure to add them to your hatcheries hotkey!
-Only send out your first overlord to scout. All other ones leave in your base or the airspace right around it.
-Make only lings and roaches.
ZVX - On 9 build your overlord, not 10.
ZVT - Open 15 hatch, 15 gas, 15 pool, 15 overlord. 2x queen when pool completes, speed at at next 100min/100gas.
ZVZ - Open 14 gas, 14 pool, 15 overlord. On pool finish get ling speed, a queen, and 4 lings. at 21 supply, take your natural hatchery.
ZVP - Same as ZvZ -Hotkey entire army to 1. Make only zealots and stalkers unless playing PvP in which case immortals are allowed. If you wish to make sentries to get used to them, only use them defensively. You do not want to be worrying about army micro and spellcasting yet outside of your base because your macro will slip.
-Always make sure you have probes building and have used your warp in cycles. Do not cut probes at this level, wait until you get higher up.
-Whenever you warp in units, grab a probe and throw down 1-2 pylons.
-Use chronoboost on anything, as long as it is being used.
-Your mineral dump is going to be gateways. Just make additional gateways whenever you have lots of extra resources.
-You do not need to tech to anything really. Large gateway armies are very strong. When you attack just A-move your massive army towards his base.
PVT - 9 pylon, 13 gateway, 15 assimilator, 16 pylon, 18 cyber, 19 zealot, 22 pylon, 23 stalker, warpgate when cyber done, 26 gateway, 30 pylon, 30 gateway
PVZ - Same as PVT
PVP - Same as PVT but add a 2nd assimilator at 25 and a Robotics facility at 31.
PVX - Expand with the next 400 minerals after you complete these builds. Your army should be strong enough to hold it.
Gold
+ Show Spoiler +Basics:+ Show Spoiler +-Once you reach gold I think it is acceptable to start basic scouting and moving into some tech. While you can still probably win with just a basic army, having a higher level unit in your army will benefit you here as long as you are still spending all of your resources.
-What I mean by basic scouting: Send a worker to find your opponents base (around 12-14 supply). Look to see if they have either gas in their main, and then hide your worker at their expansion to see if they expand (so the far side of the ramp). You will not really use the information too much right now, but it's a good habit to just check these basic things. Do not harrass the mineral line, don't keep running around inside the base, just get in to check gas and get out (then put your focus back on your base). The only time I'd say be alarmed is if you get in his base and don't see any barracks/gateways/pylons or see a 6 pool. Then I would recommend getting units out a little faster and/or walling off your ramp depending on the m/u. Other than that, just get in the habit of having that scout worker move out but that is it.
XVX - For match ups at this level I think it's okay for you to find a build that you like. I'd recommend it be more macro-oriented though as that is how you will improve faster. An example is opening Forge fast expand in Pvz instead of 3gate expand.
-You want to be hitting around 70+ workers by the later part of the game on 3 bases. If you watch replays and see yourself topping off at like 40-60 workers, you know what you need to work on.
-Keep your eyes in your base 90% of the time or more. You can start to look around a tiny bit but still do not worry about harrassing Terran:+ Show Spoiler +-Once you get down 3 racks and your expansion, start adding refineries. Build a factory and a starport to start adding more units to your army. Do not get any unit for harrass, just a unit to add to your army for more damage/tankability/versatility.
-Start adding tech labs and reactors to all your production facilities. You can get basic upgrades (stim, combat shields, conc shells) and possibly a +1/+1 on your engineering bay if you find yourself with extra money. Do not try and get early upgrades though as you may end up cutting workers/units for it. At this point you still want to have workers and units come first, followed by upgrades after.
-Notice you will start needing to grab a couple more refineries, but do not get them too early or you will be behind on minerals. Minerals are your #1 priority right now. -Adding a lair before 9:00 is something to think about now. However, do not use it for infestors or mutas yet. Both of those units require too much micro at this time and you will take away from your macro if you want to use them. Instead, upgrade to lair to start building the habit as well as for getting overseers incase of cloaked units.
-Since you're getting lair, you can also get +2/+2 here as the game goes on and you have resources.
-Start overlord spreading in this match up. Don't worry about covering everything or seeing everything with them ,just try to send them out along the outskirts of the map so they won't get sniped and it will be a good habit for later.
-I'd recommend still only making lings and roaches. If you have them in mass quickly, they are quite effective. The only time I'd say get anything else is if they have air (banshees, voids), in which case grab some hydras.
-Will need a couple more gas but not too much as minerals are still your priority (queens, lings, roaches (cheap on gas)) -Tech up to Collosus once you have your 2 bases. Once again, do not cut workers or units to get this tech, simply throw it in when you start to get extra resources.
-For the protoss army you are going to start to need more gas (more than the other races) so when you expand and have more probes, start to get up to 4 assimilators.
-Add forges on after you expand and start getting +1/+1 upgrades. If the game moves later, I'd say feel free to get a twilight so you can get +2/+2 and charge, but do not worry about getting blink. At this level we still want to avoid unit micro situations.
-Sentries would also be good to start using now. Get used to forcefields and guardian shield right now but be careful to not waste all of your gas on sentries right now.
Platinum
+ Show Spoiler +Basics:+ Show Spoiler +-At platinum level I think you still shouldn't focus on doing anything more in terms of scouting besides the basic scouting described before. The reason for this is from 1. experience and 2. there are better things to work on right now than identifying your opponents build. You still need to worry about yourself first.
-1 base all ins will start to hit a lot harder now so I'd suggest putting a little more notice on if your opponent expands or not. If he does not expand for a decent amount of time after you, start to get worried and play a little more defensively (since you are ahead now).
-I think platinum is the best place to start worrying about unit control. Anything below this league should focus on the production of units and workers but once you get those skills down you can start looking at your army.
-This league will also be a good time to start transitioning from always looking at your base, to learning how to really use hotkeys effectively when you are away from base.
-Keep your eyes on your base about 60% of the time here.
-Start using more than 1 hotkey for your army now. main army on one, spellcasters on another. Terran:+ Show Spoiler +-I think this is a great time to start thinking about drops as a terran player. You are now at the point where you want to add a couple of things to your opponents plate so he starts to slip in his macro. Drops is a great way to do this and it takes little effort on your part. NOTE: Do not micro these drops too much. Just send a dropship behind a mineral line and tell it to drop there (all in a shift command so you don't have to go back and watch to drop). Once units are dropped, you can push over to stim and attack move but I wouldn't worry too much more beyond that.
- In TvZ start pushing up to creep, then sieging and slowly pushing forward. This is going to take a lot of focus outside off your macro so you really have to watch for slips in scv/unit production here.
- Add vikings in TvP when you scout collosus. Don't worry about the exact number, just make vikings so you can be sure you will kill his collosus (generally 2:1 ratio of vikings to collosus)
-Adding more gases at this level is also a good idea since you are going to be adding more upgrades and more units like medivacs and vikings.
-I think this is also a good league to start using scans for scout information a little later on. Around the time they'd be getting a spire or templar tech or collosus, drop a scan and check out their base to see what's going on.
-Also adding ghosts around now could be a good idea to practice EMP and snipe. -I'd say platinum league should be the first time that you really touch infestors and mutalisks. They are both extremely fragile and time consuming so you want to make sure you are doing everything right elsewhere before you start using these units.
-For mutalisks, you are going to start wanting to worry about your gas timings more now. When you invest in a spire you are going to want to have 4 extractors or more going so you have to make sure you droned properly beforehand. You also are going to want to make sure you have enough overlord room (have 30-40 extra supply) and resources stockpiled so you can make 10-15 mutalisks right when your spire pops. They are best when they are a surprise. Use mutalisks to do a little harrass on worker lines but do not slip on your macro and be careful where you leave your mutas. They also do not engage the best against an open field army so usually you want to use them to just contain your opponent and pick off things like tanks.
-For infestors I don't think you should be offensive/harrassing with these units yet. Mostly because they do not have the best getaway and it's not worth the risk of losing them all right now (nor the focus they require). I'd say keep them with your army and just use them to fungal up in big battles.
-Think about positioning now for engagements. If you can get a swarm on an army from multiple sides you will do MUCH more damage.
-Some scouting for army composition is also going to start being important here as follows:
ZVT: Is he going bio or mech? bio you can get more ling bling, mech you want more roaches generally
ZVZ: Is he getting mutas? hydras and infestors + some spores
ZVP: does he have collosus? Get corrupters -I think platinum is when you should start looking at some more tech and units.
-Blink - I wouldn't recommend using blink on a stalker by stalker basis right now as you will spend all your time at your units and forget to macro/warp in, but I think blink as a whole is effective at this level as you can use it for blinking up/down cliffs and chasing units.
-HTs/storm - In earlier leagues I don't promote the idea of templar as much because they are fragile and require a little more unit micro.
-Start being proactive with your observer now to check out your opponents unit composition and how many expansions they have. Don't worry about moving it all around, just have it follow their army or sit at their next expo.
-Practice using Forcefields more when you're out engaging an army. This is good time to figure out the best ways to trap their armies.
Diamond
+ Show Spoiler +Basics:+ Show Spoiler +-In Diamond I think you should be at the point where you can make it to late game effectively (with decent macro) and thus you need to start working on getting a solid late game army.
-Consider adding multipronged attacks/counter attacks in on this level. This is now where we want to be spending more of our time out with our army and less time in our base.
-Start worrying about actually getting more information from scouting now. If you want to make it into masters, you are going to need to know what your opponent is doing so you can plan accordingly
-Start becoming really aware of map control. If you can keep good vision for yourself and your opponent in the dark you will be in an advantageous position and can react better. Terran:+ Show Spoiler +-Be more concrete with your timings of buildings because now you are going to want to hit certain windows. Scout a zerg building a spire? Probably a good time to hit because he is going to be saving up money + he just invested in tech. Hitting before a protoss can get X collosus can also be strong.
-Start to learn more stutter stepping and marine splitting techniques and practice these.
-Focus on your drops more. Try to pick off important tech and pick up when they come to defend so you can go back in for another drop after. -Creep spread is going to start becoming a bigger factor here. Make sure you are connecting all of your bases and vs terran/protoss make sure you can spread it out as far as possible for a nice surround.
-Make sure you are scouting in with an overlord at the appropriate time based on the match up. Look for a spire/lair/inf pit in zvz, mech or bio in zvt, and the tech path in zvp (double robo, collo, stargate, DT's, etc).
-Deny expansions. Whether it is from an overlord dropping creep, to a burrowed zergling, to simply having a pack of units to run in and snipe the expo when it goes down, make sure you don't just give away free expansions.
-Focus on where your units are out on the map. You need map control as a zerg player and having units ready to surround/counter an army will help move you up -Work on timing pushes. In PvZ alone there are so many good 2 base timings you can hit that either go all in for massive damage, or allow you to expand behind them.
-In pvp look for positioning. Your opponents will have better macro and thus your armies will be more equal in size. Make sure you get the good surround as opposed to getting caught trying to push up a ramp or in some other terrible position.
-Work on building placement as it is very critical. If you're against a zerg make sure you have good walls and cannons in tough to hit places. If you are playing terran be careful about leaving important tech in places that are easy to snipe with drops. Even things like pylons are important because they can provide base vision as well as key places for warp ins.
-Start to look for late game harrass options. DTs, Warp Prisms, etc are all good ideas and can catch a lot of players off guard due to the usual lack of harrassment from protoss players.
Masters
+ Show Spoiler +Basics:+ Show Spoiler +-Really focus on all of the small details now. Games at this level are won and lost from the small things such as pulling off/putting on gas, units popping out at the exactly right time to defend/attack, pushes hitting on time (20 seconds later and you may lose instead of win), pulling workers to help defend, etc..
-I don't think race specifics are necessary for this because if you're in masters you probably have a good idea of the game and just need to continue working on the smaller details that you DO see pros doing. Things like burrowed banes, infestors spewing infested terrans at expansions, triple drops, warp prism harass, tech transitions, and more are all things to think about and can be game changing. The biggest thing to remember though is to not forget everything from before. Focus on the little things but make sure you have the big things down or you may find yourself in trouble.
-My biggest advice for Masters players is to learn the other races. Learn what the other races HATE to deal with and abuse it. Also learn their timings and you can hit around them/counter them/defend them.
-I'd like to point out that I put down a lot more in every league besides masters. This is because I feel Masters League has way too many small details to cover and there are way too many builds that involve proper working cuts and such and it would simply take far too long to describe every tiny detail.
Additional Notes from comments:
+ Show Spoiler +Turtling Opponent:+ Show Spoiler +If you find your opponent is mega turtled, don't be afraid to just sit back a bit and macro up more. Start adding stationary defenses (cannons, turrets, spines/spores) all over your bases and continue to expand so that he can't just drop you and catch you panicking. Instead, you will start to really accumulate a lot more money off of more bases and with this you can continue to add on more production facilities and maybe start working in more upgrades/tech. Eventually he is going to have to come out and then you can trade armies with him and remax much faster and stronger than he can.
There's a nice saying in starcraft: Whenever you're ahead, get further ahead.
Sure it's nice to know exactly when you can push to win and etc, but there's really nothing wrong with simply furthering your lead to put you in an even better position.
Discussion is always welcome.Last edit: 2012-08-16 09:48:08 |
| | www.youtube.com/mrllamasc << Casting & Analysis Videos |
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| mskaa Denmark. June 09 2012 07:32. Posts 155 | Profile # |
| I agree that over micro-ing can hurt some players, but imo its far to complicated and differs too much to put do's and dont's on it. I.e. Sometimes stutter stepping your units will win you the game straight away, other times its better to focus on macro during that time. |
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| MrLlama United States. June 09 2012 07:44. Posts 446 | Profile # |
On June 09 2012 07:32 mskaa wrote:
I agree that over micro-ing can hurt some players, but imo its far to complicated and differs too much to put do's and dont's on it. I.e. Sometimes stutter stepping your units will win you the game straight away, other times its better to focus on macro during that time.
I'm not saying that stutter stepping won't win you a game. There are plenty of little things (like having great banshee harass) that can win you games. I'm saying there are bigger things to focus on though.
If I haven't mastered my macro before I start focusing on stutter stepping marines, I end up with situations like this:
Situation 1:
stutter stepping 20 marines and changing a losing engagement to a win
Situation 2:
having focused on macro all game and having 35 marines not stutter stepped to win easily.
Now pretend that neither of those engagements win and they both somehow do the same amount of damage. In situation 1 you will have been focusing on stutter stepping and let your macro slip some. In situation 2 you will have not let it slip and thus be ahead.
This continues for every engagement everywhere. So if you have 25 engagements throughout a game (big or small) and are focusing on the stutter, you will fall further and further behind the guy who didn't stutter (and thus can have more units in the next engagement). |
| | www.youtube.com/mrllamasc << Casting & Analysis Videos |
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| TheCupholder Canada. June 09 2012 08:01. Posts 58 | Profile # |
| As a high level player I agree that the first things you mention should not be done by low APM players. I will say that players at all skill levels should first and foremost ALWAYS BE BUILDING STUFF. you can easily get through plat that way and then branch off. Biggest tip I ever learned was not to look at your army, their are more important things to do like building $hit. That said, keep doing what you do if you win, and adjust if you start losing, this is how to get better... |
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| RehnFreemark Italy. June 09 2012 08:08. Posts 142 | Profile # |
I generally agree with what you said, it's a very realistic and well detailed post in my opinion. There are a couple of things I would add or I don't really agree with tho, as Protoss player.
First I think a P player should start to get comfortable with sentries and force fields at silver level. I say this from experience, I hit a very hard brick wall in Silver because I didn't use sentries at all, and before I started to learn how to use them and force myself to produce 2-3 in the early game I used to get totally devastated by Terrans. It also helps a lot making PvZ easier. You obviously don't need to focus too much on exploiting the surroundings to create choke points etc, since you won't have the experience nor the map knowledge, but knowing that you can use a couple of FF to thwart those very irritating T 1 base pushes is very important imho.
The second thing is more like something I would add: observers!!! If you need them, make them! You don't really get how important observers are by watching pro players vods, because you usually won't see how many he made and where he placed them. At low levels it's so very common to get annihilated because that enemy army just came out of nowhere while you were distracted for half a second. If you struggle to have map control or find yourself unable to identify where your enemy is... make OBSERVERS! As llama said, you don't need that robo facility to continually crank out colossi at low levels. Place one obs just outside your enemy's natural expansion, so you don't risk it getting spotted and you can see when his army moves out. Place one somewhere in the middle of the map, maybe on patrol, so you can see when the army is getting close. If you have trouble defending against drops, place one along the most obvious drop-route, far away from your base, so you can identify an incoming drop and warp in units to defend with ease.
Observers are vastly underrated, you don't need them just to hover on your enemy's base to identify his build (obviously it's still a great plus), you can very well use them to gain a lot more of information. Of course the ideal situation would be to use as few of them as possible, but if you are in a low league there's really nothing wrong with making one or two or even three observers more than usual, if that helps keeping you safe and sound. |
| | ... He leads me on light years away, through astral nights, galactic days... |
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| iTzSnypah United States. June 09 2012 08:12. Posts 1218 | Profile Blog # |
| One thing I think you should add to the Terran's section of diamond/platinum is to never hold down unit production keys. Soo many times in a battle I end up spamming D and not having any money for marines. Last edit: 2012-06-09 08:12:58 |
| | Team Liquid needs more Terrans. |
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| Dontkillme Korea (South). June 09 2012 08:26. Posts 620 | Profile # |
| GOOD write up! Although putting units on 2 different hotkeys should have started before platinum. High gold is where you shoul use two hotkeys. |
| | Boxer, MMA, MVP, MarineKing, Bomber, NaDa, PuMa, Thorzain, Polt, Taeja, KT.Flash, FOrGG, Fantasy, Leta |
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| PlacidPanda United States. June 09 2012 08:35. Posts 243 | Profile # |
This would be true if skill in Sc2 was a set thing, however to improve you have to push yourself, that is the basic rule in any sport, whether it is soccer, weightlifting or starcraft. Saying to a young soccer player, dont learn how to dribble well, at your level speed is all that matters, work on that, is simply bad advice. Doing this micro little tricks at first do hurt your overall game. However as you improve you learn how to do these things AND macro, and this is where repetition and practice to come in to improve your skill.
I see your point that you don't want the bronze player wasting their apm scouting with their probe while they have 5 probes sitting idle in their main, but thats just common sense, and not really anything revolutionary. |
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 CtrlShiftAltGrrrrrrr June 09 2012 08:54. Posts 544 | Profile # |
| Hmm i just want to make one comment about players stream on the whole i agree with you prioritising actions is a really important and hard skill to master but some players have such an effective apm that just watching, like literally just watching and then playing, u will build good habits in ur subconscient and then play better. Like its quite minimal but thats the way i feel when watching Mvp or MKP first person, so id recommend watching incredibly smooth and efficients players to understand what the op is about and just improve in general |
| | awaiting the return of the space cowboy |
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| CtrlShiftAltGrrrrrrr June 09 2012 09:00. Posts 544 | Profile # |
On June 09 2012 08:26 Dontkillme wrote:
GOOD write up! Although putting units on 2 different hotkeys should have started before platinum. High gold is where you shoul use two hotkeys.
Actually no its kinda up to your preferences, and id go as far as saying that in a lot of case u want to hotkeys everything on 1 hotkey. example: marine tank. put all on ctrl group 1 and u can move super fast on the map, change screens easily. and the way to not lose any micro ability is by having ur tanks on 2, so that if u see a blip on the minimap or want to target fire, u can instant siege without tabbing. great players who do that are kas and forgg, mkp and mvp dont even bother with that and just a lol...
So no less hotkey=easier game= easier actions to perform= more potential actions. now im not saying u should always just 1a, like i hate having air units with grounds, ghosts with rest of bio etc, but its something u should look into if u want to maximise efficiency |
| | awaiting the return of the space cowboy |
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| Chutoro New Zealand. June 09 2012 09:06. Posts 91 | Profile # |
Thanks, this is quite helpful (Platinum Zerg here).
One comment on your Platinum section:
-I think diamond is the best place to start worrying about unit control. Anything below this league should focus on the production of units and workers but once you get those skills down you can start looking at your army.
This suggests we should not be worrying about unit control in Platinum...
I'd say keep them with your army and just use them to fungal up in big battles <...>
-Think about positioning now for engagements. If you can get a swarm on an army from multiple sides you will do MUCH more damage.
...which seems to be contradicted by these sections. I find that fungals require quite a lot of attention to unit control on my part (I still suck at them and miss a lot). Flanks require even more attention, since I find it difficult to ensure everything arrives at the same time. If my flank groups arrive at different times I often lose my entire army for little return, especially against Terran who can wipe out an unsupported flank group in a matter of seconds. I more or less gave up doing this against Terran since it seemed like the margin for error was so small and any mistake would lose me the game outright, and my macro usually goes to crap while I am attempting it. Having said that my ZvT record right now is awful, so perhaps I do need to figure this out. I'm just not sure how to do it without worrying about unit control. 
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| shaun3h United Kingdom. June 09 2012 09:38. Posts 23 | Profile # |
i dont know if maybe the gold/plat zerg advice is wierd because usa is diff to eu server but i find the advice strange.. (only gold top8 EU atm)
adversity to mutas: yes they are micro intensive but for the apm i put in a protoss needs to use some to defend them. The pressure of them helps discourage the protoss moving out helping you further your tech/upgrades. if they cant deal with it well.. or weren't going stalkers you can do really nice damage easily (punish immo sentry heavy pushes)
adversity to infestors: obviously they cant attack making them a bit risky to rely on but consider this.. run 1/2 lings at an expo.. see no cannon.. run 1-4 burrowed infestors in and hold shift, press T and spam click then still holding shift right click back to mid/yourbase.. you have easy damage forcing a reaction from them. Once practised you can set this up in like 2 seconds and do it just after a round of injects or something so im barely losing anything and if the protoss is out of position or doesnt react well they could lose the expo let alone a lot of workers for just energy.
Only ling roach: unless you're planning on allin every game i dont understand this. infestors are superb at aoe damage useful in every matchup (perhaps most zvzs this level dont reach that). If a protoss sees only roachling and builds right or a terran doesnt get caught unsieged it just seems unlikely you can trade with these past 10minutes. (also without muta/inf how you deal with drops?)
scouting P seems light: does he have colly... i would replace with 9scout on the 1v1maps. pylon highground = gateopening expect pressure. See pylon lowground = FFE can go more eco (3base no gas anyone?:D ) , watch for natural gas, expect 2base push usually.
some other more general thoughts:
-idea of shift clicking to allow you to do more things easier (obviously dangerous in some situations but in most it can help LOADS.. shiftclicking drones, sorting drops, focusing prio targets, pathing a scout early when you have less to do anyway, etc
- A-moving is all well and good but sometimes micro'ing/focus firing is necessary.. banes through a group of marines instead of amove.. mutas picking tanks... picking off either sentries/immortals in zvp.. lingbane v lingbane in zvz  control can't wait til diamond imo. I understand i dont have the apm to do everything but there comes a time when making stuff 5seconds later is worth it if you lose 30 less supply in a fight because of the micro
TL;DR = i think you underestimate what people are capable of. I understand the "don't run before you can walk" but i think even gold nubs like me could surprise you playing against plats and diamonds with macro builds and the more relaxed ladder now. Sometimes i think you gotta push the babybird outa the nest to see it can fly
This is from a *much* lower skilled player's perspective so im open to the idea i'll get slated and people may disagree but i feel if i played along the guidelines provided i would be a lot worse and some of my greatest games wouldn't have been possible if i wasn't trying to stretch myself. |
| | Big fan of Incontrol, Maximus Black, IGN team, FTek |
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| RaZeKai Canada. June 09 2012 10:11. Posts 7 | Profile # |
I believe you have captured the essence of each league, well done  |
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| BoondockSnake United States. June 09 2012 10:35. Posts 26 | Profile # |
Been stagnating in Plat for a while now. I know I'm bad, but forget just how bad I am, and guides like these help me remember what to prioritize.
It's funny, I was looking at some of my replays and I'm now usually somewhere around 100 apm, and I think of how the pros are doing literally at least twice as much as me. This helps to focus on what to improve on, I think just solid, macro play is my weakest skill as a player. Thanks for taking the time to write this.Last edit: 2012-06-09 11:15:07 |
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| -Exalt- United States. June 09 2012 10:53. Posts 966 | Profile Blog # |
What I've noticed about pros vs highish master players, is that the pro will do ANYTHING to get ahead of you because they have the insane micro/multitasking capability. Yes high master players will do stuff like micro a stalker for 30 seconds against slow zerglings targetting down the hurt ones.. but he will probably not execute his build's timings perfectly back at home. a korean pro however, will execute his build timings perfectly while microing.
And about lower level players, it's so true that they bank way too much money cause their trying to do micro/though intensive things that they watch pros do. When I play on my off race account (diamond-lowmid master) my opponent will always start banking 1000-3000+ minerals when stuff starts getting crazy. Part of that is having the game sense to make sure you have the right amount of production to keep up with new econ tho.Last edit: 2012-06-09 10:55:29 |
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| MrLlama United States. June 09 2012 15:07. Posts 446 | Profile # |
On June 09 2012 08:08 RehnFreemark wrote:
I generally agree with what you said, it's a very realistic and well detailed post in my opinion. There are a couple of things I would add or I don't really agree with tho, as Protoss player.
First I think a P player should start to get comfortable with sentries and force fields at silver level. I say this from experience, I hit a very hard brick wall in Silver because I didn't use sentries at all, and before I started to learn how to use them and force myself to produce 2-3 in the early game I used to get totally devastated by Terrans. It also helps a lot making PvZ easier. You obviously don't need to focus too much on exploiting the surroundings to create choke points etc, since you won't have the experience nor the map knowledge, but knowing that you can use a couple of FF to thwart those very irritating T 1 base pushes is very important imho.
I think I'll add this to Silver and just make a note to use them defensively so you can at least get used to using them. The big point that I want to make though at that level is that you shouldn't have to watch your army 1 bit. You can literally just a-move and this is important because you can focus back home. The second you start trying to drop down forcefields and micro units, your macro slips and there goes all that we're working towards.
On June 09 2012 08:26 Dontkillme wrote:
GOOD write up! Although putting units on 2 different hotkeys should have started before platinum. High gold is where you shoul use two hotkeys.
High gold -> platinum is very similar so if you feel comfortable using the 2 hotkeys than you can. The point of keeping them on one hotkey though at that time is because I don't want you to focus on your army still very much. The second that you add all these army hotkeys, you are going to be looking at your army more and focusing more on them which is less on macro.
On June 09 2012 08:35 PlacidPanda wrote:
This would be true if skill in Sc2 was a set thing, however to improve you have to push yourself, that is the basic rule in any sport, whether it is soccer, weightlifting or starcraft. Saying to a young soccer player, dont learn how to dribble well, at your level speed is all that matters, work on that, is simply bad advice. Doing this micro little tricks at first do hurt your overall game. However as you improve you learn how to do these things AND macro, and this is where repetition and practice to come in to improve your skill.
I see your point that you don't want the bronze player wasting their apm scouting with their probe while they have 5 probes sitting idle in their main, but thats just common sense, and not really anything revolutionary.
I don't think this is revolutionary, but I think it is a good reminder to the players. You can't really compare it with soccer because they're too different. If you wanted to compare it, compare it with chess. You should learn openers before you try and learn some late game move that will checkmate your opponent 1/100 games when the pieces fall into the right spots.
Even that example is poor because I'm trying to say where to focus your apm. My apm is around 150+ while a typical bronze player is probably around 20-30. Thus while I have extra apm to spare for my army, they don't and so they should focus on the main stuff, get the muscle memory/mind memory down which allows them to do it faster, then start to focus on the less important things like stutter steps and such.
On June 09 2012 08:54 CtrlShiftAltGrrrrrrr wrote:
Hmm i just want to make one comment about players stream on the whole i agree with you prioritising actions is a really important and hard skill to master but some players have such an effective apm that just watching, like literally just watching and then playing, u will build good habits in ur subconscient and then play better. Like its quite minimal but thats the way i feel when watching Mvp or MKP first person, so id recommend watching incredibly smooth and efficients players to understand what the op is about and just improve in general
Sure I think this can be good too, but I think it's unrealistic to think we can understand their process. If I watch an international chess player everyday, I'm not going to be as good as a kid who never watches and instead just practices openers and such from a basic chess guide book. Professionals are thinking so many steps ahead and of so many various factors (maps, metagaming, etc) that we may pick up bad habits because we assume too many things. Still, it can be good to watch streams somewhat but I think trying to imitate them is what really hurts.
On June 09 2012 09:06 Chutoro wrote:Thanks, this is quite helpful (Platinum Zerg here). One comment on your Platinum section: + Show Spoiler +
-I think diamond is the best place to start worrying about unit control. Anything below this league should focus on the production of units and workers but once you get those skills down you can start looking at your army.
This suggests we should not be worrying about unit control in Platinum...
I'd say keep them with your army and just use them to fungal up in big battles <...>
-Think about positioning now for engagements. If you can get a swarm on an army from multiple sides you will do MUCH more damage.
...which seems to be contradicted by these sections. I find that fungals require quite a lot of attention to unit control on my part (I still suck at them and miss a lot). Flanks require even more attention, since I find it difficult to ensure everything arrives at the same time. If my flank groups arrive at different times I often lose my entire army for little return, especially against Terran who can wipe out an unsupported flank group in a matter of seconds. I more or less gave up doing this against Terran since it seemed like the margin for error was so small and any mistake would lose me the game outright, and my macro usually goes to crap while I am attempting it. Having said that my ZvT record right now is awful, so perhaps I do need to figure this out. I'm just not sure how to do it without worrying about unit control.
1. I'll make that change. Accidentally had a typo in there. I think for the infestors I'm going to simply put having them there for fungal growth in an engagement. Just so you can get used to casting it. I think it's important to start looking at your army a bit now and so if you have 1 spellcaster with 1 spell that you are going to use, it is a good start.
2. In ZvT you are going to want to figure out how to engage. A big thing I'd suggest for you is to have better map control so you can flank his army when it's en route BEFORE it's seiged up and at your creep. If you do this, you will win a lot more of the battles.
On June 09 2012 10:11 RaZeKai wrote:I believe you have captured the essence of each league, well done
Thank you
On June 09 2012 10:35 BoondockSnake wrote:
Been stagnating in Plat for a while now. I know I'm bad, but forget just how bad I am, and guides like these help me remember what to prioritize.
It's funny, I was looking at some of my replays and I'm now usually somewhere around 100 apm, and I think of how the pros are doing literally at least twice as much as me. This helps to focus on what to improve on, I think just solid, macro play is my weakest skill as a player. Thanks for taking the time to write this.
Glad I could help. Prioritizing is definitely a big key and if we just keep it in mind I think we can improve a lot.
On June 09 2012 10:53 -Exalt- wrote:
What I've noticed about pros vs highish master players, is that the pro will do ANYTHING to get ahead of you because they have the insane micro/multitasking capability. Yes high master players will do stuff like micro a stalker for 30 seconds against slow zerglings targetting down the hurt ones.. but he will probably not execute his build's timings perfectly back at home. a korean pro however, will execute his build timings perfectly while microing.
And about lower level players, it's so true that they bank way too much money cause their trying to do micro/though intensive things that they watch pros do. When I play on my off race account (diamond-lowmid master) my opponent will always start banking 1000-3000+ minerals when stuff starts getting crazy. Part of that is having the game sense to make sure you have the right amount of production to keep up with new econ tho.
Exactly my point. If that pro is going to mineral harass, he won't miss a beat back home. Yet I've seen even masters players who spend time trying to harass me and wind up throwing down their nexus 150 minerals late. All they've done is put themselves behind at that point.
On June 09 2012 09:38 shaun3h wrote:+ Show Spoiler +i dont know if maybe the gold/plat zerg advice is wierd because usa is diff to eu server but i find the advice strange.. (only gold top8 EU atm) adversity to mutas: yes they are micro intensive but for the apm i put in a protoss needs to use some to defend them. The pressure of them helps discourage the protoss moving out helping you further your tech/upgrades. if they cant deal with it well.. or weren't going stalkers you can do really nice damage easily (punish immo sentry heavy pushes) adversity to infestors: obviously they cant attack making them a bit risky to rely on but consider this.. run 1/2 lings at an expo.. see no cannon.. run 1-4 burrowed infestors in and hold shift, press T and spam click then still holding shift right click back to mid/yourbase.. you have easy damage forcing a reaction from them. Once practised you can set this up in like 2 seconds and do it just after a round of injects or something so im barely losing anything and if the protoss is out of position or doesnt react well they could lose the expo let alone a lot of workers for just energy. Only ling roach: unless you're planning on allin every game i dont understand this. infestors are superb at aoe damage useful in every matchup (perhaps most zvzs this level dont reach that). If a protoss sees only roachling and builds right or a terran doesnt get caught unsieged it just seems unlikely you can trade with these past 10minutes. (also without muta/inf how you deal with drops?) scouting P seems light: does he have colly... i would replace with 9scout on the 1v1maps. pylon highground = gateopening expect pressure. See pylon lowground = FFE can go more eco (3base no gas anyone?:D ) , watch for natural gas, expect 2base push usually. some other more general thoughts: -idea of shift clicking to allow you to do more things easier (obviously dangerous in some situations but in most it can help LOADS.. shiftclicking drones, sorting drops, focusing prio targets, pathing a scout early when you have less to do anyway, etc - A-moving is all well and good but sometimes micro'ing/focus firing is necessary.. banes through a group of marines instead of amove.. mutas picking tanks... picking off either sentries/immortals in zvp.. lingbane v lingbane in zvz control can't wait til diamond imo. I understand i dont have the apm to do everything but there comes a time when making stuff 5seconds later is worth it if you lose 30 less supply in a fight because of the micro TL;DR = i think you underestimate what people are capable of. I understand the "don't run before you can walk" but i think even gold nubs like me could surprise you playing against plats and diamonds with macro builds and the more relaxed ladder now. Sometimes i think you gotta push the babybird outa the nest to see it can fly This is from a *much* lower skilled player's perspective so im open to the idea i'll get slated and people may disagree but i feel if i played along the guidelines provided i would be a lot worse and some of my greatest games wouldn't have been possible if i wasn't trying to stretch myself.
To your points: You are looking beyond your current level. "adversity to mutas: yes they are micro intensive but for the apm i put in a protoss needs to use some to defend them." This is true, but this is exactly the point of the banshees I was making. You are not helping yourself anywhere but in that specific game by sacrificing APM to make your opponent sacrifice his APM. Eventually you run into players who don't slip in their macro when defending against your mutas, and then you're left in a position where your macro capabilities are below that of your league and it becomes ever harder to move up.
You also talk about scouting on 9 to look for gate expand or FFE, watching natural gas, managing 3 bases, expecting 2 base pushes, using ling runbys, using burrowed infestors, etc etc etc...
You are talking like you are a Masters player and if you honestly could do all of this then why are you only gold? The most likely reason is because if you are trying to do all of this, then you aren't hitting any real macro benchmarks. If you watch a game that I play and then compare it to a game that you play (assuming you do all of these things), you'll see that while we both have that unit micro, I have twice as much stuff as you do and twice the APM so I can afford to move on to more advanced techniques.
If you're going to use running as an example, think of it like this.
bronze - walk
silver - light jog
gold - jog
platinum - run
diamond - highschool team
masters - college team
grandmasters - olympic team
You don't make a person who goes out for a 1 mile jog every morning do a college athletes track work out. It's unreasonable and they will fail. College athletes have trained for years and their bodies are conditioned for those workouts.
Same idea, you have to condition your mind and that doesn't happen by killing yourself with workouts you can't finish, it happens by slowly improving and building it up.Last edit: 2012-06-09 15:09:42 |
| | www.youtube.com/mrllamasc << Casting & Analysis Videos |
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| CtrlShiftAltGrrrrrrr June 09 2012 15:18. Posts 544 | Profile # |
| I was talking from a mechanical standpoint. and if ur around gm level u should be able to understand whats going on, and understand what u dont understand, and try to figure it out. but ofc it doesnt replace practice |
| | awaiting the return of the space cowboy |
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| Cortza South Africa. June 09 2012 16:24. Posts 254 | Profile Blog # |
| One of these days, I want people to see me and say, "that guy represents the essence of diamond league." |
| | Prioritize, prioritize, prioritize. |
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| philln12 United States. June 09 2012 17:09. Posts 23 | Profile # |
| u bring up something great. I think this is something higher players always look back and realize dam i wasted so many games trying to micro. Agressive microing and tactics ect. should come after u have stabilized and are on the same economy as your opponent. |
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| Cracy Poland. June 09 2012 17:14. Posts 156 | Profile # |
As a silver level player I must say this is a single most useful thread I have seen in this forum ever and I read most of them
Despite the discussion which is welcomed, it shows something which I didn't figure out myself until recently (and not without a huge help of someone else, Hi Lennox
People tend to forget that you have to learn waking before you run and thank you for reminding us this. I agree it is very detrimental to try to do all the fancy things you see pros do. And you try...
Back to basics... |
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