EPTWhile I agree macro is the most important tool for Zerg (and arguably for any race), I disagree with those claiming that Zerg requires no micro, or even, the least micro. True, our units shine in large numbers, which would seem to mean macroing up those units is the most important, but say you macro'd that army up, then micro can make or break a key engagement. Too many times I've sent my 15 or so infestors, congo-lineing straight into the enemy's ball (with detection to see them), after shift queing a massive IT bomb on their mineral line, and I've several times gone back home for a larvae vomit cycle just to go back to my army and find they've blundered hard. Or sending mutas cross-map just to fly over a derp-camp of marines mid-map. So, first and foremost, the real key is to learn how to play without exactly looking at your base, but rather macroing from afar, while focusing on the battle in order to issue your micro commands. If you cant do this, macroing back home is arguably more important, especially making sure you dont get supply blocked and always vomit. Day9 recently made a 3 part series, i think a week ago, about tips on how to do exactly this. First, I'd reccomend learning the larvae vomit from the minimap trick, where you add all your queens to hotkey(s) and <shift> v-click,click,click,... etc. while keeping the game camera on your engagements. This way, you can make micro changes on the fly, etc. In any case, after learning how to macro while not looking at your base, here's a few tips I've been able to think of:
Micro Tips:
1) Concave: If you're Zerg, you likely are outranged in most engagements. Imagine your ball of doom bugs versus their ball of stuff, chances are they outrange you, and at best, you're even. In either of these cases, balling up is terribad. However, if your ball has greater range, balling up is reasonable, especially versus zerglings. Reason being, your guys in the back can still shoot, while theirs can't hit your back line, and balling up reduces surface area for the surround. As zerg, think about what direction the engagement is coming from, and start a concave arc facing in that direction. (this also applies to lings, blings, infestors, not just roach/hydra. Infestors especially need to be able to cast their fungals simultaneously, rather than one at a time, getting sniped one at a time as each gets close enough... If they were concave a few at least wouldhave landed.
2) Flanking: Always consider setting up a flank, i.e., have agroup of units (usually lings/blings) out on the field to the side, able to hit their army from the side or back while your main army engages the front, hoping to knock out those key support units not on the front lines. Also, there's always the ling surround-bling penetration move to detstroy many balls.
3)Roach burrow micro: You think blink back micro is annoying? This is a great way to even the odds, though better if their obs/detection is knocked out.
4) Move back micro: Remember, as with any unit, a 1hp unit deals just as much damage as a full health unit, except that they die and then no more damage. However, the goal is to distribute the damage across your units with hopefully few units going beyond the death threshold. After a fight its always better to have an entire 200 food army at 1 hp, than half the army dead. Move back your orange/red units, till the AI stops targeting them, and then send them back to the front line, hoping the AI doesn't notice them for a while longer, giving your overall dps of your army a boost.
5) Anti-move back micro: This is done to trick the dumb AI, and good opponents are going to do this. Consider target firing the red/orange units in order to compensate for this tactic.
6) Magic boxing: Mutas, especially, benefit from this, amongst some other situations. Great way to reduce spalsh aoe, from thors, infestor fungals, archons, and in the future, the tempest air unit.
7) Drone (worker) mineral-walk tricks: all workers have the ability to occcupy the same space while moving to a mineralpatch, allowing for them to stack really well, capable of dealing high burst damage to a single unit (or the pylon break for wallins.
8) Manual bling detonation: True, unburrow can be autocast, but this is suboptimal, as they unburrow, then detonate upon melee range. If you see the enemy walking over your blings, selecthem and click x. unburrow autocast genraly climbs out of the gound in time to kill only the units in back.
(Some disputes on strategical advantage of the above to consider
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SnetteL wrote:
I actually like to unburrow instead of detonate since it is 'cheaper' on the banelings.
Another micro trick in ZvZ is to let banelings follow and overlord so they don't get detonated by stray scouting lings.
Or you can block a protoss FFE with an evo chamber by making a hatch and quickly cancelling it, I saw someone do it vs whitera on his stream. I have no idea if it's cost effective or not but it might be a good idea in some case.
Before thors are out it is also advisable to stack your mutas so turrets have a harder time hitting them while harrassing, the trick is to issue move commands 5866874 times a second.
When engaging certain AOE compositions it is often beneficial to let your lings stream/filter through your roach group when using roach/ling. E.g. marauder/hellion, thor/hellion.
I actually like to unburrow instead of detonate since it is 'cheaper' on the banelings.
Another micro trick in ZvZ is to let banelings follow and overlord so they don't get detonated by stray scouting lings.
Or you can block a protoss FFE with an evo chamber by making a hatch and quickly cancelling it, I saw someone do it vs whitera on his stream. I have no idea if it's cost effective or not but it might be a good idea in some case.
Before thors are out it is also advisable to stack your mutas so turrets have a harder time hitting them while harrassing, the trick is to issue move commands 5866874 times a second.
When engaging certain AOE compositions it is often beneficial to let your lings stream/filter through your roach group when using roach/ling. E.g. marauder/hellion, thor/hellion.
9) Premature bling detonation prevention: Let banelings follow and overlord so they don't get detonated by stray scouting lings. + Show Spoiler +
By SnetteL
10) Overlord drops: Smart casting with the overlord moving allows for a nice arc placement, and bling bombing the min line with this technique (especially with +2 melee versus protoss probes) deals maximal damage to workers.
11) Changelings: send them to a group of units, and rightclick on a unit of similar type. This way, they'll follow their "buddies", making it much harder to discern their movements.
12) Anti Changeling: select the lings you suspect may be infiltrated, issue /dance in chat. The changelings won't dance!
13) Transfuse micro: Turn on healthbars, or have them always on (I prefer the latter), and be hitting the T button, once per dying queen, like mad on the low HP queens. Also, can be useful to cast on high HP units such as roaches, mutas, ultras, blords, infestors (and to a lesser extent, hydras).
14) Drone Shield: Melee units in your mineral line? grab those drones, right click them onlt your queen. The dumb AI will cause their zealots/lings to run in circles while your queen ticks them down, assuming the player doesnt notice. Obviously, the trick against this is to simply target fire the drones first b4 the queen sniping.
15) Expo blocking, pre-lair: Worth considering, build a hatch at their expo, cancel, build an evo chamber on residual creep. Potentially useful versus builds such as a protoss FFE. However, canceling a hatch costs 75minerals, and the evo is 75, and the drone is 50, thus costing you 200minerals for a temporary block that will likely bleed out after a few minutes, although this may present a reasonable econ advantage, more testing required, though. Consider letting hatch almost complete before cancel and replace with evo to prolong.+ Show Spoiler +
By SnetteL
16) Expo blocking, post-lair: Much more cost effective than the above, you can simply burrow a ling, have an olord peeing creep there, pee creep and plant a queen's tumor (likely need olord speed and drops upgraded to avoid a long and treacherous queen trek off-creep), or some combination of the 3. Furthermore, this is an excellent way to see expo timings.
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Costs:
Burrowed ling: 25minerals (125/100 if burrow cost considered, though this research opens other useful opportunities and I wouldn't consider it as part of the investment, really...)
Olord pee: 100minerals
Olord pee and ling: 125 minerals
(All of these are cheaper than pre-lair blocking, and adding a tumor in addition to the above is arguably free)
These are just a few tips I can think of, and the goal of this blog post is to compose more, collect some stuff from you guys, in order to eventually post these Zerg micro tricks in an eventual strategy forum thread. Eventually, I'd like a mostly exhaustive list, with pictures/drawings &/or videos, set into mutually exclusive categories (open to suggestions, though I'm leaning towards the sets below), and then make a nice strategy forum post with table of contents, etc.
I'm thinking of putting them into three sections:
1) Main-engagements (for both support casters and anythin for the numerous meat-and-potatoes units)
2) Harrass
3) Defensive (stuff to do in a crisis e.g. drone micro, a la mineral walk)
So, have a micro trick?
Post it here, and if I like it, I'll ammend the OP and give you credit in an attached spoiler to your trick. Eventually, I'll add them all to a Strat forum post. True, there have been similar posts, But I believe I have some ideas of ways to make the presentation and beginning arguments in such a way that this becomes a unique post.
Thank you!
~Duncan Idaho
