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Micromanagement:
[***--]
Mass drop micro (maybe there's a map for it?), remembering to fast burrow lurkers with stop, defiler micro, etc. not sure if it should be a separate category for each of the important ones
Some misc stuff: rallying and re-rallying army (I lose units to wrong rallies all the time)
Then the big category is game knowledge and strategy, but those I am not as clear on how to improve. I have a notebook with some notes, but I don't really look at the notes so I'm not sure how useful they are. Maybe I need to write a guide so I can remember what I'm supposed to be doing.
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So I explored why pros do 9/7/3 with those drone numbers
for one, I discovered the optimal gas timing has to be 2:30 (overpool ideal timing) or 2:45 (hatch first ideal timing) for the non-speed version
so for overpool, you would do
9 overlord
9 pool
11 hatch
13 gas @ 2:30
12 hatch
14 den
16 speed
16 overlord
23 overlord
speed before 5 minutes, range before 6
but what's the smallest number of drones you can make when making lings?
I found with 18 drones you can STILL make hydras and lings and spend your larva/get the upgrades, with 17 drones you cut it a bit too close, but maybe possible with good boosting and larva/overlord management.
The difference is that you don't get to make a fourth hatchery for when the Protoss defends. You need extra 4 drones mining for a minute to save the 300 minerals.
Now I'm actually very curious to go for a much more aggressive hydra bust vs. forge expand, it will put a lot more pressure on the Protoss to rush out cannons
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If you want to improve your muta micro vs terran the best method i have found is doing 2 hatch muta into the third and then go muta all in over and over. Forget about winning. You are basically learning real muta vs marine human interaction. Micro maps can be useful to practise vs scourge but vs terran you truly gain a lot of experience just playing muta all in. Then when you mastered it you can basically apply normal strategies with strong muta support.
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On October 27 2025 00:26 [sc1f]eonzerg wrote:
If you want to improve your muta micro vs terran the best method i have found is doing 2 hatch muta into the third and then go muta all in over and over. Forget about winning. You are basically learning real muta vs marine human interaction. Micro maps can be useful to practise vs scourge but vs terran you truly gain a lot of experience just playing muta all in. Then when you mastered it you can basically apply normal strategies with strong muta support.
Thanks, I'll try it today. I've considered it before, but then I'll get a laggy opponent, go into a macro game and forget about my plan. I'll try it right now
EDIT: mission failed successfully, I beat a lot of Terrans with nothing but muta and got A rank again
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the updated mining on apocalypse
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new PB at 275 BPM
I bought a glass mousepad and it's paying off on day 1
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There was a problem with matching sensitivity between aimlabs and desktop so I started to mess with it
So I needed to lower the DPI, which is offset by the better glide from the mouse and now I'm at 800 dpi on my mouse at 1080p
then I increased the sensitivity in game to 13cm/360
so my desktop more matches my aimlabs feeling
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One of the things I did not actually quantify is army movement. After watching replays I saw that if I moved my mutalisks to the correct spot it would expose the enemy weakness.
Of course I also need mutalisks which I sometimes forget to mass at the correct timing vs. Protoss. I can always switch earlier and have a lot more map control. I can easily fix the timing of my droning/hydras/mutas, but knowing when and where to strike is what separates me from an S rank player.
Almost every game I lost I could fix by better timings and army movement. I don't actually need to improve my mechanics to win at this level.
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One of the things that I struggled with is a healthy mindset. When I actually started playing the micro test map on difficult mode I had to challenge myself to find the best way to approach each level. The mindset of exploring every angle and every setup is the healthy learning mindset. The mindset of doing everything perfectly is an unhealthy mindset since you can only fail.
This is the cause of frustration for a lot of players since things you have practiced for a long time can only go wrong, as you expect them to go well due to the hours you put in. You don't celebrate your successes, but get angry at your fails.
If you adopt an experimental, curious mindset about the game you don't just learn things, you perform what you already know much better as you don't place the pressure on yourself to perform, you just do the things you already know.
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this is close to the ideal ling hold position with the amount of lings here
if there are more lings you should set up the right side a bit further back so you can have 3 lings in a line
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I timed out the overpool build, Lair starting at 3:15 is basically perfect since the larva pops out at 4:17, but I guess you could give yourself a tiny bit of wiggle room and start at 3:16 so you don't miss it
the best possible time to mine 100 gas from starting the extractor is 48 seconds if the drones are waiting to get into it when it pops so the perfect time to make it is 2:27 (and the extra cushion from a slight delay over perfect)
I don't know why people are waiting for 2:29 or later
https://repmastered.icza.net/game/AMZPux9tFYufEsGFVjYxP7BdX9dlWqr4wJPhdLqQvQc
I should send the drone for the 3rd 5 seconds earlier for the closer 3rd base or 15 seconds earlier for the farther
so a 2:15-2:25 drone for a 2:40ish 3rd
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If I go hatch first (I tried my 9 hatch build), then I should go for a 2:42 gas and time out a 3:30 Lair at 16 supply
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Explanation of larva timing:
1. You start with 3 larva and larva production is shut off.
2. The moment you make a unit your larva drops less than 3 and a timer starts from 0.
3. When the timer hits roughly 14.5 a larva is popped out, the timer is set to 0.
4. When you complete Lair or Hive, a larva is popped and the timer is set to 0.
So you want the FEWEST seconds possible to be on the timer when you get to Lair. If a larva just popped out and your timer is 0, that's the optimal timing to complete Lair or Hive
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Two more things I hadn't practiced, but I now realize might be slowing me down
1. When I box I always go from top left to bottom right, which means I have to move my mouse first before I start if it is below the units in question
2. My accuracy on moving units is horrible given my good accuracy on stationary targets
medics and templars give me a very rough time in real games, so for medics I didn't care that much because they often stop to heal
but moving templars really hurts my ZvP win rate, since misclicking on a dragoon usually means I kill one less templar when I try to snipe them as my mutalisks die to dragoons and storms
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Here's a chart I made of Zerg builds
for reference, 11 hatch is 1:31
![[image loading]](https://i.ibb.co/4sP8f67/flowchart-drawio.png)
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On June 07 2026 19:49 iopq wrote:
Explanation of larva timing:
1. You start with 3 larva and larva production is shut off.
2. The moment you make a unit your larva drops less than 3 and a timer starts from 0.
3. When the timer hits roughly 14.5 a larva is popped out, the timer is set to 0.
4. When you complete Lair or Hive, a larva is popped and the timer is set to 0.
So you want the FEWEST seconds possible to be on the timer when you get to Lair. If a larva just popped out and your timer is 0, that's the optimal timing to complete Lair or Hive
Let's break it down to exact timings
 Larva (Unit)
Larva spawns every 342 frames, and each frame is 42ms, so the timer that counts down is 14.364 seconds
You usually first send the drones and then make a drone, so add 300-500 ms to the first one (and thus every larva after the first), in my experience I still get the next larva before 15 seconds in-game time. But let's just assume perfect execution by an AI and see what their timings would be.
14.364
28.728
43.092
57.456
1:11.82
1:26.184
1:40.548
1:54.912
2:09.276
2:23.64
2:38.004
2:52.368
3:06.732
3:21.096
3:35.46
3:49.824
4:04.188
so if we had perfect execution, what's the Lair timing vs. Terran that gives us a free larva a split second before a free larva pops? At 63 seconds for Lair we can subtract 63 seconds from the above timings and get
before 2:46.824 Lair start no larva block (you can start Lair at 2:47 if you're close to perfect)
before 3:01.188 Lair start no larva block (start Lair 3:01.5 to be sure)
against Protoss we can further extend it to
3:15.552
3:29.916
3:44.28
3:58.644
with absolutely perfect mining the gas timing you need 48 seconds after starting extractor to get 100 gas, but vs. Protoss you'll be dealing with probe or zealot harass possibly so round it up to 50 seconds
gas timing vs. Protoss
2:26 (overpool vs. forge FE)
2:40
2:54
3:09
you should also put your gas down at this timing vs. probe scout even if you want to 973 to prevent Protoss from being able to tell if they know you optimize your timings
if you want to speed first, subtract 20 seconds
so for a 3:59 Lair you would 2:49 gas 3:39 speed upgrade and then Lair
you'll still start your spire a little over 5 minutes and won't lose too many overlords if you hide them well
took me a while to get a perfect 3:30-ish lair with no delays of droning (except for one whole larva which sets me back one cycle exactly) when I go hatch first
https://repmastered.icza.net/game/78yT0q6Cgg3hVyh4ou2m6NBZauWS6YkRGHTGdOZnapU
so I suggest a 2:54 gas when going hatch first to relax the requirements a tiny bit (like letting you make a few more lings)
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ZvP walls on Attitude are a bit ridiculous because in some spawns there's literally only ONE way to make them zealot tight
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the fastest ZvP 3 hatch spire vs. forge fe build goes like this
9 over
9 pool
11 hatch
2:26 gas (we're aiming for 3:16 lair)
13 hatch
13 lair
take one off gas and you can build more lings
16 overlord
speed when you can afford it
21 spire (so basically save up money for it)
you can't make too many lings or you won't have enough money for spire
most of the time pros do a 2:40-ish gas timing to relax it a bit more and be able to afford more lings, though
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what pros do consistently and I don't do enough is temporary hotkeying
a lot of times you can't afford a very key upgrade when you check, but you're busy doing something else
pros will hotkey it to something like 4 and just do something else until it's time to hit the upgrade, and then rebind it to something more useful later
I've learned to do this with lurker upgrade in ZvT, but it could be done with almost anything, like +1 carapace and so forth
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EPT![[image loading]](https://i.ibb.co/Qys80vp/apocalypse-top-minerals.png)
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