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I've been playing some more SC2, trying to overlook the massive glaring flaws and just enjoy it as a casual game to unwind. I don't practice any strategies, don't know any of the modern builds, don't really even go into games with a game plan. It really feels like I'm winning/losing at random too.
I've racked up quite a few games over the last couple weeks, and I still am just as lost as when I started. I look at games, and have absolutely no clue why I win or lose them most of the time. Hell, the vast majority of games seem to end with armies smashing into each other and one player magically winning. The rest seem to just be build order losses and cheese.
I'm so used to just steamrolling people in BW through sheer mechanics (and losing to better players from mechanics as well). The better player almost always wins. It's just not a game where you can lose to random players who a-move their armies. I always feel like there's more I can do, because... there is.
In SC2 I cannot for the life of me figure out a way to make my mechanics count for anything. The only matchup where that micro seems to matter at all is PvP, ironically, because at least gateway on gateway fights early on are micro-centric. Of course, once it hits midgame micro becomes almost meaningless because colossus/chargelots punish you for microing.
So seriously, what the heck am I supposed to do with my apm besides scout more?
I guess I can see why all the best koreans play terran right now. At least you can spend more APM stutter-stepping. Protoss is just... afk until 200/200 and hope for a good engage. I also see why Blizzard seems intent to nerf the hell out of terran at every opportunity, because they have to compensate for it actually rewarding better play. Why give Z and P even more tools that reward mechanics when you can just reward them a-moving? /rage
I hope that I'm not the only person who feels so exasperated. I just feel like there should be no way in hell outside of crazy cheese that I'd ever lose to a 50 apm player. Yet, it happens, all the time. God forbid I can find some use for 250 apm in this game...
  
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Harrass more w blink stalkers and an obs, or pheonix :D
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Maybe you just aren't good at figuring stuff out?
Cause you know, I can tell in pretty much every game why I win or lose ... and most pro games as well that I watch.
And if you are just doing random shit without any plan, then you'll win or lose randomly too ... what did you expect?
... the game won't make sense to you if you aren't trying to figure it out.
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You can abuse low APM players' weakness by forcing them to multitask. Also, you cannot macro properly with 50 APM, even as Protoss, so you should always get ahead of those players. I agree with some of your points though.
I don't have problems figuring out why I lost, so idk how to help you there. What league are you in btw?
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Actually i think hes totally right. I sucked really hard at Broodwar but it was crazy how much more units a good player had at 10 minutes than i did. In sc2 this isnt much of a problem. Hotkeying all Structures and then spamming or just holding down a key is making this pretty easy. Microing has become less meaningful as well and actually is bad at some points. At Broodwar i got rolled because i couldnt move my 4-6 control groups fast enough.
But then again everyone knows that sc2 is alot easier mechanical wise its more about mind games and reading strategies since alot of the game is about hard countering whatever your opponent does.
I hope that if you switch you will have a good time and find a good way to use your skill.
Respect the broodwar players!
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XTikka is right, I think your strengths lie in mechanics and not so much in strategy (you said you can't figure out why you lost, that's why I say this). What's your SC2Gears EAPM? If it isn't around 200, there is definitely more that you could be doing (unless you play Protoss lol).
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On February 17 2012 03:06 Demonhunter04 wrote:
XTikka is right, I think your strengths lie in mechanics and not so much in strategy (you said you can't figure out why you lost, that's why I say this). What's your SC2Gears EAPM? If it isn't around 200, there is definitely more that you could be doing (unless you play Protoss lol).
Actually blink micro, blink stalker harrass, pheonix harrass, and dropping at your opponents mqin with 4 sentries then warping in zlots while ffing the ramp are all micro intensive. Lategame apm as p seems to only help if you have blink stalkers
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rofl, in BW, it didn't matter if you had 100 or 300 apm if your builds are just flat out bad and your gameplan non existant (obviously, the game was harder mechanically because of the AI, no auto mining, etc), the same thing happens in sc2, as long as your build is solid and you have a nice gameplan to follow you are going to win more than the guy who just does w/e he feels like doing while having faster apm.
I think people don't understand properly that higher apm doesn't necessarely means better mechanics, if you do in 5 clicks what someone else does in 1 that doesn't make you better than him, once you start understanding the game and learning better builds and strategies you will find better ways to make use of your superior mechanics (ie harassing with a probe early game, warp prism harass, scouting the map for hidden pylons, taking the xel'naga towers, poking at the ramp to see which/how many units he has, etc).
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On February 17 2012 03:06 Demonhunter04 wrote:
XTikka is right, I think your strengths lie in mechanics and not so much in strategy (you said you can't figure out why you lost, that's why I say this). What's your SC2Gears EAPM? If it isn't around 200, there is definitely more that you could be doing (unless you play Protoss lol).
Yah I play protoss, trololol. Maybe I should finally switch to zerg now that the map pool isn't full of imbalanced abusable maps (lol, steppes of war/kulas ravine).
I guess I used bad language... when I say I can't figure out why I lost, I mean that from a control standpoint. Especially when it comes to large engagements, it seems like half the time I lose at random, and the other half of the time I win handily. Control doesn't seem to factor in, at all.
When it comes to higher level strategy, I usually can pinpoint my mistake. Unfortunately, it's usually just one blunder that costs the entire game, and there is no way to use superior control to make up for it. That's what's so frustrating, because it means I just have to fill in the "flowchart" for SC2 games in order to win more. It's the exact opposite of what I remember Day[9] saying in his "eliminating assumptions" episode (one of the few recent dailies I've seen.)
On February 17 2012 03:21 Darkness2k11 wrote:
rofl, in BW, it didn't matter if you had 100 or 300 apm if your builds are just flat out bad and your gameplan non existant (obviously, the game was harder mechanically because of the AI, no auto mining, etc), the same thing happens in sc2, as long as your build is solid and you have a nice gameplan to follow you are going to win more than the guy who just does w/e he feels like doing while having faster apm.
I think people don't understand properly that higher apm doesn't necessarely means better mechanics, if you do in 5 clicks what someone else does in 1 that doesn't make you better than him, once you start understanding the game and learning better builds and strategies you will find better ways to make use of your superior mechanics (ie harassing with a probe early game, warp prism harass, scouting the map for hidden pylons, taking the xel'naga towers, poking at the ramp to see which/how many units he has, etc).
I'm still following builds. I just haven't worked out perfecting them. There's a difference between drilling builds (practicing vs a variety of openings and planning reactions for all of them) and just doing things that seem sensible. And yes, if you have bad builds in BW you can lose, but if you have 300 apm and are good at controlling your army you'll win even with terrible builds vs worse players. I've seen it time and time again.
You just listed a ton of things I already do. I'm not a noob. I've been playing this game since early beta and played at extremely high level then.
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On February 17 2012 03:02 Sated wrote:
APM =/= Skill.
you are so smart.
Edit On Topic: Do what bisu did, multitask the shit out of any opponnent... make so many clever harrass and cute shit that your opponent can't keep up the pressure.
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The funny thing about apm is people that don't know the limitations of their apm will often lose to people who are much slower. If you have 200 apm and think that's enough to always look after your blink stalkers then you'll do some blink stalker harass. However, if it's not actually enough and all your blink stalkers die to a 100 apm a-move, it has nothing to do with balance, it's just that 200 wasn't actually enough to do the strategy you wanted.
That being said, yeah Blizz does cater to none mechanical players and it looks like they will continue to with the new expansion. It's why a lot of mechanical players like early aggressive or mid game aggressive plays. This forces their opponents to micro their units, not get supply blocked, keep building scvs, pull scvs if they're getting attacked etc. If they aren't mechanically sound then they get supply blocked and won't have enough units to hold off the aggression. If they don't make scvs then if the aggression doesn't kill them they can't carry on to the mid game. etc.
Basically, do aggressive builds that give you an advantage if you can micro and macro at the same time.
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On February 17 2012 03:24 XenOsky- wrote:you are so smart. Edit On Topic: Do what bisu did, multitask the shit out of any opponnent... make so many clever harrass and cute shit that your opponent can't keep up the pressure.
Yah, I'd like to do more of that, but there's very few ways to harass as a protoss player to begin with, not to mention that most players just allin you if you actually are successful and all that money devoted to harass gets you killed in the ball on ball fight, again, because control doesn't make up for just having a worse army. =/
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you can try to make it count in early game... cute zealot harrass, into dts... idk try to be creative.
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On February 17 2012 03:28 EternaLLegacy wrote:Show nested quote +On February 17 2012 03:24 XenOsky- wrote:On February 17 2012 03:02 Sated wrote:
APM =/= Skill. you are so smart. Edit On Topic: Do what bisu did, multitask the shit out of any opponnent... make so many clever harrass and cute shit that your opponent can't keep up the pressure. Yah, I'd like to do more of that, but there's very few ways to harass as a protoss player to begin with, not to mention that most players just allin you if you actually are successful and all that money devoted to harass gets you killed in the ball on ball fight, again, because control doesn't make up for just having a worse army. =/
Have you watched HerO play? The man is godly at multi-pronged attacks.
I would argue with the warp in mechanics Toss has one of the most harass style capabilities that can be utilized, its just that many people don't. you can make pylons anywhere in the map, warp in 4 zealots go to town on an expansion
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you should check ot how grubby plays. he is very harass oriented and a lot of his games especially PvZ have a BW kind of feel to them.
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If you are actually macroing well, you'll be top masters/grand masters. I dunno if it answers your questions about APM but SC2 just is not about super micro management in the later stages of the game... Protoss is kind of the "lowest APM" race also, there isnt a lot extra for them to get. Zerg on the otherhand is an APM black hole - there's always more to do. I guess if you want to be challenged mechanically, roll some zerg up to master's league. Try to do muta/ling stuff in all the matchups, for example, and I think you'll find a sufficient number of tasks you can complete for advantages.
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Play terran, it's the only race that will reward you for your skill.
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watching a stream and seeing what pro level players do is probably the best way for you to learn right now
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On February 17 2012 03:28 EternaLLegacy wrote:Show nested quote +On February 17 2012 03:24 XenOsky- wrote:On February 17 2012 03:02 Sated wrote:
APM =/= Skill. you are so smart. Edit On Topic: Do what bisu did, multitask the shit out of any opponnent... make so many clever harrass and cute shit that your opponent can't keep up the pressure. Yah, I'd like to do more of that, but there's very few ways to harass as a protoss player to begin with, not to mention that most players just allin you if you actually are successful and all that money devoted to harass gets you killed in the ball on ball fight, again, because control doesn't make up for just having a worse army. =/
Eh, that is really not true at all, harassing with speed WPs works great in PvT and PvP. The harassing units are army as well, it's not a separate investment unless you actually lose them, and in most cases you can get the units back home fast enough.
Be mindful harassment timings. If you want to keep the opponent's army away from you, harass him as soon as he moves out (so he is encouraged to walk back the small distance to save his infrastructure and economy rather than walk the long distance to your base), NOT when his army is in the middle or already knocking at your front door (or he will say fuck it, and just go for an attack / base trade).
Also be mindful of your positioning. A Protoss army that fights in a good position can easily overcome a 10 or so supply deficiency that is invested in harassment just by virtue of Forcefields and splash damage. Make him go through chokes and up ramps if he is so desperate to engage your army.
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EPT
