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Unlike most people I pride myself on having a low apm rather than a higher one. It just brings me great satisfaction to look at a game afterwords and see that I beat someone with a much higher apm than me.
Anyways, I recently I switched from zerg to protoss, and I got around to watching one of my replays. When I clicked the APM counter I was extremely amused. So I decided to show the game with some images.
At this point in the game you may notice my opponent has a slight lead on me, he has assigned all of his hotkeys and is around 10x my APM.
Ok, 9 minutes into the game and things are still looking bleak for me, my apm has caught up slightly but I am still feeling a large hockey deficit. It seems impossible that my lone nexus hockey can stand up to his veritably army of hotkeys.
Against all odds I managed to pull a victory, I was able to pull the apm difference down to 2x as well as utilize two hotkeys at the same time.
I wasn't sure this was ok to post in the sc2 main forums so I put it in blogs.
 
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Glad you posted this, we need more discussion of APM on this site, I fear we are losing sight of our priorities.
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This is just bizarre, why not use more hotkeys? Seems like you're just hamstringing yourself with a strange desire to prove you can win without them. Also The Importance of Being Earnest.
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You have higher APM than me, you noob.
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High APM does not mean better player or should win from someone with lower APM.
So I can't really see the point of this blog. But still gratz that you win though.
The reason most people have high apm is because their muscle memory has allowed them to do so or the newbies who spam keys.
I used to micro alot early game but I've spent since a few weeks considerably more time focussing on macro and forget micro to improve my macro mechanics although I haven't played a week or so.
As a result my APM improved from 100 to 170 because I keep holding my macro the same while thinking more/doing more micro/harassment play. I don't have to watch my base alot anymore on keeping my production going on because my muscle memory allowed me to do this. Still need to figure out a way to force myself on watching minimap.
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Priding yourself on low APM is detrimental to improving. Taking pride in something means you are happy with it. Being happy with low APM leads to a mental block against trying to play faster. With that mental block in place it is harder to start assigning more things to hotkeys and cycling through them to check on the progress of things. It will seem like "useless apm that only spammers do" in your head, where it is actually extremely helpful and essential to improving.
Just something to think about.
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not impressive... i have much lower apm and use no hotkeys
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I think high legitimate APM is important, but artificially high APM via spamming is not. To the point where it warms you up and keeps you at a tempo, sure, but the player you're playing against went from 250 to 140. His legitimate APM didn't slow down, he simply returned to his normal ~100apm that averaged against his initial spamming. Similarly, because you didn't do even a slight amount of spamming, your average of ~100 legitimate actions were averaged against your early-game 20.
Pride yourself all you want, but all you've accomplished is the art of not spamming.
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You make not spamming sound like such a terrible thing....
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On November 05 2010 18:00 Hurricane wrote:
Priding yourself on low APM is detrimental to improving. Taking pride in something means you are happy with it. Being happy with low APM leads to a mental block against trying to play faster. With that mental block in place it is harder to start assigning more things to hotkeys and cycling through them to check on the progress of things. It will seem like "useless apm that only spammers do" in your head, where it is actually extremely helpful and essential to improving.
Just something to think about.
100% agree. OP you should get off your high horse and stop thinking that high apm is obnoxious and showing off.
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I don't know how many APM threads there has to be. Who cares who has however APM. Just get the job done and try to "win". Some people feel the need they need to spam because of adrenaline.
Look at Stork for example in BW. He had APM in the 200's... While Jaedong had like 400APM lol. It all just depends on the player and how they feel comfortable playing.
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writer22816 sc2 just takes less apm than bw. can't you just admit that and move on?
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I don't get why people with low APM feel so insecure about it. If it's not a big deal, why do you have to justify yourself with threads like these?
(my APM is awful, fyi)
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APM is a meassurement of how many actions you do. Having a low average might not be so bad, but if you are unable to have it spike in critical situations, it probably means you could be hotkeying things and using your hotkeys better. Maybe you're using the minimap too much compared to double tapping hotkeys etc. With more "APM" you will actually be able to slow down your play quite a lot.
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On November 05 2010 18:46 writer22816 wrote:Show nested quote +On November 05 2010 18:00 Hurricane wrote:
Priding yourself on low APM is detrimental to improving. Taking pride in something means you are happy with it. Being happy with low APM leads to a mental block against trying to play faster. With that mental block in place it is harder to start assigning more things to hotkeys and cycling through them to check on the progress of things. It will seem like "useless apm that only spammers do" in your head, where it is actually extremely helpful and essential to improving.
Just something to think about. 100% agree. OP you should get off your high horse and stop thinking that high apm is obnoxious and showing off.
If you can be a top starcraft pro with ~250 APM, I dont think how high apm is not showing off at those amateur levels
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i would love to harass you. two banshees or two dropships or a hellion drop, mmm juicy. it would be 2 seconds before you even moved your probes, not to mention the ones at your nat. thats to say that you noticed it immediately, but i think it would be a good 5 seconds of probes before you clicked on the minimap, clicked on your probes and moved away.
sure, some people will hand you wins because they're bad. doesnt mean that having low apm is some sort of advantage.
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Well it´s not like protoss have ever needed anything more than 1 hotkey in sc2.
In the golden BW days there was atleast the need for 1a2a3a but now it´s just: make colossus => 1a
Yes, he lost.
But does he get more things done than you in an average match? yes.
Has he more room for improvement? yes.
would he beat you in a bo5? most likely
is this really that amusing? not really
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Apm only really starts to matter if the person with APM actually knows what he is doing.
Otherwise, the apm means nothing. (my 150 apm really doesn't help me, because I don't practice enough and don't have my builds down to an art yet :[ )
Note: nearly everyone I lose to has worse apm than me - but that doesn't mean i'm better overall. I might have better mechanics, but i am unable to apply them due to my sketchiness.
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Excepting micro, the game can be played optimally with something like 100 APM is my guess.
Reasonably good micro can bring this up to maybe 150 APM (seeing bots with 4000+ APM doing insane things with mutas tells you what more micro can do).
400 APM players are definitely clicking more than they need to, but it doesn't detract from their play if they aren't doing useless things with 90% of their clicks.
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I saw the first few words of the title and my first thought was "the Importance of Being Idle". And then I noticed the name of the poster a second later.
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You're happy to beat someone that didn't expand 9 minutes into the game?
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My apm seems to stay at 80-> >100 can't seem to get it above that as zerg atm.
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My APM averages at 60, so I'm proud when I beat 100+. But it doesn't mean I don't want to be faster.
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can you tell me one GOOD thing about having low apm?
its like priding yourself of winning without ever building stargate, or robo, or dt shrine. or even never getting forge. or never chrono boosting.
why?
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Perhaps what the OP was happy about... the ability of low APMers to beat high APMers includes:
1. Obvious increase in confidence, considering so many pro-gamers and "good" players have high APM
2. The recognition that APM isn't everything
3. The understanding that spamming isn't everything
4. The realization that every action per minute that a low APMer did *was more important* than every action of a high APMer. Being able to win with only one action per second (vs. 2 or 3) means that each one needs to be as necessary as possible. More focus on doing the most important ones. (Obviously, as your game sense and awareness of everything you need to account for increases, your APM should eventually increase as well, but still.)
Obviously, higher APM let's you get more stuff done, but it's kind of a moral victory when you beat someone who BMs you for having low APM- even though you just finished wiping the floor with them.
Just sayin'.
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There was no BM in this game. nor have I ever seen BM about low APM
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why would you pride yourself on low apm?
it's like an athlete happy that he can't jump high, run fast, or bench much
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On November 05 2010 22:57 kainzero wrote:
why would you pride yourself on low apm?
it's like an athlete happy that he can't jump high, run fast, or bench much
No it's not, because APM isn't a one-way ticket to winning.
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I sit at around 100 apm, anything higher makes me tired of playing. I beat my friend who has like 270-300 apm, with harassment and drops. I don't like to spam too much except at the beginning, when things are boring. I end up messing up my simcity or units I want to build if my APM goes too high.
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On November 05 2010 23:01 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On November 05 2010 22:57 kainzero wrote:
why would you pride yourself on low apm?
it's like an athlete happy that he can't jump high, run fast, or bench much No it's not, because APM isn't a one-way ticket to winning.
Neither is being able to jump high, run fast, or bench much (in most sports, obviously running fast can win you the 100m dash).
To OP, it's kind of a dead horse topic. You can beat someone with higher APM if you make better game decisions. But what happens when you play someone who makes equally as good game decisions AND is able to do more stuff like better macro, multi-tasking harass, flanks, better creep spread, or all of the tiny stuff that gives a player .5%-1% better chance of winning? A good player with 300 APM is using all 300 of those APM to make sure they are playing as close to optimally as they can. While a mediocre player at 300 APM is still mediocre, when it's a good player their superior APM is going to give them a compounding amount of small advantages they can use to win the game.
About his hotkeys... if he's protoss he probably really has 2 hotkeys W for warpgates and nexus.
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Good players tend to have high apm.It doesn't work the other way.Most people with that high apm just spam and aren't really using it effectively otherwise you wouldn't win.
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These APM discussion numbers are 2-3x higher in BW X_X
Just saying, 160 in bw isn't high at all... actually anything under 200 is pretty noob (Generally speaking, you get the 90apm B- Toss from time to time, but most C players are 200+).
But then again, when I play SC2 my apm is like 150 down from 250 in bw :O
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The point that all knowledgable players can agree on is that it isn't about spamming a hotkey or any other key.
It's about what you do with all the actions. A progamer will make better use of his actions on the keyboard compared to a beginner.
Most beginners assume that high apm = higher skill and in turn spam their hotkeys so they think they get a higher skill or something similar.
While a progamer will try to use as less actions as possible to reach to victory. The result is however that because they are so efficient with each action that they are doing more stuff than a beginner would do like keeping macro up and micro'ing units that eventually leads to a higher APM.
An example to the OP:
- worker A (you) walks to the office inefficiently that takes 30 min to reach and has a normal work pace
- worker B (the guy who lost from you) runs to the office within 15 min but will be exhausted the rest of the day thus his work pace will be slower than the rest
- worker C (progamer) walks to office efficiently that takes 15 min and has more time to work and also has a normal work pace
Do this for a month and Worker C will have more work done than A and B
But worker A will have better results than B most of the times.
It's the exact same thing. Everyone wants to be C because he can either do as much as A with less time or do more with the same time spent.
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I was somewhat confused at first about all the hockey in this thread rather than "hotkey" lol
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France2061 Posts
On November 05 2010 18:54 spoolinoveryou wrote:
Look at Stork for example in BW. He had APM in the 200's... While Jaedong had like 400APM lol. It all just depends on the player and how they feel comfortable playing.
More like Stork is Protoss, and the only toss who consistently has mechanics comparable to Terrans/Zergs is Bisu.
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On November 05 2010 23:18 conroe wrote:
These APM discussion numbers are 2-3x higher in BW X_X
Just saying, 160 in bw isn't high at all... actually anything under 200 is pretty noob (Generally speaking, you get the 90apm B- Toss from time to time, but most C players are 200+).
But then again, when I play SC2 my apm is like 150 down from 250 in bw :O
Well APM is measured differently in SC2.
150APM in SC2 is ~207 actual APM since SC2's APM is measured using in game seconds which aren't in a 1:1 relationship to real time.
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On November 05 2010 18:54 spoolinoveryou wrote:
I don't know how many APM threads there has to be. Who cares who has however APM. Just get the job done and try to "win". Some people feel the need they need to spam because of adrenaline.
Look at Stork for example in BW. He had APM in the 200's... While Jaedong had like 400APM lol. It all just depends on the player and how they feel comfortable playing.
And he kept getting his templars sniped! So theres a lesson to learn!
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I know some higher level players that don't have really good apm or hotkeys and trust me, their multitasking suffers greatly. When multiple harass or attacks happen they start to fall apart.
It is not something to be proud of to have low apm, you should be trying to improve your hand speed and control just as much as any other thing in sc if you want to get better.
When BWchart first came out 5000 years ago, I remember looking at all my reps and having 80-140 apm. I immediately started to push for <150 apm and I definitely saw improvement. Then I tried for 170 and then 200 etc. It is very good, and not only is it good, it looks good.
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I have more faith in your opponent being better than you in the long run.
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APM shouldn't draw anything like "pride" to it. APM is just APM. It's how a players likes to play. We're all still human so we have to adapt to accommodate our skills and playstyles. Some players need high APM to play a certain way, for some its a necessity in order to compete on a high level.
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I like this :D
It's not the quantity, but the quality of the actions!
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Congrats, you beat up on a spammer, but you still have shit mechanics. I'm not sure what else you want people to say??
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I appreciate the humor, OP, even if most others don't. Nice. 
ceci n'est pas un APM thread
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Like Hurricane said, being satisfied with your low APM is not something to be proud about. It's like achieving gold league top 10 and not want to go further in the ladder.
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Use fucking hotkeys bro, it will make you better, I guarantee it.
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The way you look at it is silly, a pro-tier player good probably beat more than half the people playing sc with this apm or even less.
When you know what to do when, you get a much more effective use of your actions.
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Forgoing many of these things which are innate of SC is like one day waking up and deciding you'll play golf with your wife's broom.
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This thing is like that enrique iglesia's incident were he is proud that his penis is small.. APM is the measurement of your e-penis, like you might out perform a guy with a bigger dick,you make it up for performance while the other player that has higher apm looks like fake dicks that can't perform the desired function.. all show no hoe..
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On November 05 2010 18:46 writer22816 wrote:
100% agree. OP you should get off your high horse and stop thinking that high apm is obnoxious and showing off.
I think high APM is obnoxious if you're not actually doing anything. In a way.
My boyfriend and his friend just spam highlighting groups when they're not doing anything to have high APM. I don't honestly see a point.
If you're spamming making workers even though no minerals or things like that, I see the reason behind that, but I don't see a reason in spamming when all you're doing is highlighting groups. They don't even go to the group, just highlight it. If you're going back and forth between units it's completely different and I see a point to that too, haha.
Maybe I just haven't grasped the NEED FOR HIGH APM OH EM GEE thing yet. ;~;
My APM is probably incredibly low(I don't watch my replays that often because i'm embarrassed by how poorly I play sometimes XD), but I use all my hot keys.. -shrug-
I don't think having low APM is something to be proud of, though. I would like it if I played a bit quicker and had a bit higher APM. Practice makes perfect though. :< Maybe I should start spamming keys too.
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Raeleigh, do you stretch be for a run?
Do you warm up before a workout?
Do you spam at the start of an sc2 game?
These 3 questions are equivalent.
Edit: To clarify, my 'spam' at the start of the game is me 5sd'ing to make drones (even if I don't have enough minerals) and then going back to my overlord to give move commands. At the start of the game this does nothing, but being able to make units quickly and get back to microing a battle can be the difference between a win and a loss later on in the game, and practicing this at the start of each game will make me better/faster at it. Also I try to keep the mentality of playing quickly throughout the game so that I don't slip on my macro because I'm not pushing myself.
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Lemonwalrus, did you read my post completely or just selectively read what you wanted? I'd appreciate it if you re-read it and got what I meant, because you got it wrong.
I did say, my boyfriend and his friend just spam highlighting units. They don't even go to the units, just highlight them. This, I don't see a point of.
I see the point of spam making workers and going to your overlords. I even said that.
I see a point of spamming APM when you're making workers or units, even without enough minerals or vespene, and I see the point of moving around units, and going back and forth between units, buildings, but if you're just sitting there spamming (4, 5, 4, 5, so control groups) and not even going to them, then, what is the point? All you're doing is spamming them so your APM is going up, and not really doing anything.
I mean, I've seen games where people I know who are really good stop for a second, then keep going. They don't needlessly spam highlighting groups just because.
I spam making SCVs to a degree, maybe not as much as other people, but I still do it.
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Oh wait when you said spam highlighting groups i read it as assigning workers to control groups and cycling through them...because i guess I do read selectively.
Even so I still feel that the mentality of playing fast throughout the game is helpful...but yeah, throw out everything in my post except for the last line I guess.
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Haha, that's okay. Admitting your mistakes is one step towards not making them again ;3
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The kind of spam wherein you switch between different hotkey groups to spring back and forth across the map is useful. That kind of idle spam helps keep your focus split and fixes your awareness on all your relevant assets, ensuring that you don't tunnel vision at whatever you were doing last and miss something that you should've seen.
Boxing is useful only if you actually attend to its shape and accuracy, in which case you're essentially practicing mouse control.
Switching between hotkey groups without looking or without gaining any information per switch (it can be fine if you're switching across pending construction or research) is entirely useless.
In BW when I first learned of APM my play improved dramatically simply because after spamming, my brain got fucking bored of doing idle actions, so I was forced to fill that empty APM with useful APM. The simple rhythm of maintaining 200-300 APM also helped keep time intuitively, so I would never ever zone out or get hung up on a thought.
I find APM vastly less beneficial in SC2 simply because I personally am not aware of everything I should leverage it on.
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On November 06 2010 06:55 EchOne wrote:
The kind of spam wherein you switch between different hotkey groups to spring back and forth across the map is useful. That kind of idle spam helps keep your focus split and fixes your awareness on all your relevant assets, ensuring that you don't tunnel vision at whatever you were doing last and miss something that you should've seen.
Switching between hotkey groups without looking or without gaining any information per switch (it can be fine if you're switching across pending construction or research) is entirely useless.
Yeah, the first point is something I do. Not as frequently as I should, but I do it.
The second one there.. I know lots of people who do it. :r
I don't understand. I guess it'll help you get the feeling of moving fast with your hands across the keyboard and such but still, seems a bit useless IMO.
And by a bit I meant incredibly.
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Nobody called this out for being a brag blog yet? HEY LOOK GUYS. I WON.
Play however you want, I don't care what your APM is.
However, it's been shown time and time again that pros generally have high APM as a side effect of their constant checking of production and multitasking.
... This kind of thread pops up like, every other day.
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JIJIyO
Canada1957 Posts
Lol people shitting on the OP. I feel the same way when I beat a 300apm guy with my 190 in BW. Good times. Haven't played in so long though T_T
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I don't see any good reason not to hotkey your production buildings in sc2. You may as well, it'll only free up your attention to be able to micro/expand/make more buildings instead of clicking on individual structures to produce units.
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After reading all the responses I must admit I get the feeling that people are getting the wrong ideas about this thread, so I'm going to clear up some of those misconceptions. First of all I never said APM wasn't important people, the title is the importance of APM, but I never say what it is, I ask any person who posted here to find any line where I directly say APM isn't important. Next of all I say I pride myself in having a low APM, but the next sentence says how I enjoy beating people with high APM. It's not so much having a low APM I love but beating people with a higher one. Finally I never intended for my post to be a discussion of APM, I actually intended for my post to be funny. I just found it really funny that I beat someone with 10x my APM and a gazillion more hotkeys used. Also even if you count the endgame, his APM was twice as high as mine, SO MY ACTIONS WERE TWICE AS GOOD, BOO YA I ROCK.
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