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On May 11 2017 02:14 ihcob wrote:
Beginner here! As a Terran, what basic conclusions can I come to scouting 2 hatch Zerg vs. 3 hatch? Am I correct in assuming that 3 hatch is a long term investment, eventually giving better production and a strong mid/late game, but that 3 hatch sacrifices some possibilities for fast tech & very quick muta/ling pressure?
Basically yes, but Z can play lategame oriented or all-in oriented with both openings. With 3 hatch the timings are later but stronger. You shouldn't automatically assume an all-in just because you scouted a 2 hatch build. You have to keep a look on how many units he builds and his tech to react correctly.
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TvZ when a few zerglings get into your base (2-4), how do you micro your SCVs against them? Whenever I tell them to attack move, they end up not doing anything (they'll get to a spot and then just stand there). It's quite frustrating.
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It's definitely one of the things not to get mad about, it happens rarely and then hurts if you mess up. Over time this will be easy though in most cases.
I'd say the trick is to
a) not run after the lings, but bait the lings closer into the mineral-line by mineral-walking the single SCVs on the outer mineral patches (those which the lings are trying to snipe) to the middle mineral patches
b) then get the SCVs stacked (by selecting a few and ordering them to move to a mineral-patch or geyser, repeat quickly a few times back and forth until they're stacked if necessary)
c) then to mineral/gas-walk the stacked SCVs right over the zerglings (or move the stacked bunch with move-command, they'll stay close together for a short distance)
d) then spamm attack-move on the ground.
This way the SCVs will all get a few 'shots' off immediatelly. You don't want to overdo this though. If you can, just bring 3-4 fresh marines from your barracks and mineral-walk the attacked SCVs to the center of your mineral line for a few secs. That makes it easier and you don't lose too much mining time. Against really good zergs with great multi-tasking and control, you will need marines actually, because their goal is not only or not primarily to kill SCVs, but to keep the lings alive and occupy you constantly, force your attention to this little defense game instead of doing useful stuff like attacking or macroing.
SCVs react a little stupid if you tell them to a-move. If you watch Flash closely, his SCVs rock so much because he brings them into the right position manually, even clicking on individual targets when the SCVs are close enough. Learning to block the lings from reaching your marines by using bare movement- or stop-command is important, too, to defend ling-pressure in the natural.
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What's the best way to get faster- just mass games? I feel like I'm going as fast as I possibly can when I play, but when I watch my replays there's all this stupid stuff I'm missing. Drones not mining, larva idling, units not engaging in a fight, that sort of stuff that could get fixed if I was just faster all around. Is there any value in playing against an AI for a while just to focus on macro and speed?
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On May 12 2017 11:05 Luddite wrote:
What's the best way to get faster- just mass games? I feel like I'm going as fast as I possibly can when I play, but when I watch my replays there's all this stupid stuff I'm missing. Drones not mining, larva idling, units not engaging in a fight, that sort of stuff that could get fixed if I was just faster all around. Is there any value in playing against an AI for a while just to focus on macro and speed?
Speaking only from personal experience, I think that what makes you faster might be slightly different for everyone, because I have asked this question of many people before and it seems like nearly everyone has a different reason. Here is how I progressed past my plateaus, despite not by any means being a very fast player (I rarely average over 220 apm, 140 eapm average in a long game).
1) I simply force myself to play faster, even if it is slightly uncomfortable/makes me slightly less accurate. Press more buttons, do the next thing, faster faster everything. I simply push myself. This made me suck hard when I first started pushing, but slowly I became more confident and comfortable with the speed until I reached the next plateau.
2) To get over my later plateaus (moving from sub 150 apm to around 180) I used the multi-task trainer maps to get me in the habit of rapidly switching my focus while maintaining a game plan and consistent building of units/workers.
3) Playing macro races against myself or other players. Basically I load up a game vs. a null slot (start game with computer, remove computer during countdown, then continue playing without triggers) and try to max out while controlling my army and following a build order as fast as possible. This helped me practice 2 base macro, using f keys, etc.
Some things to keep in mind:
1) Good posture/hand position/mouse grip.
2) "What next? What next? What next? Check the minimap! What next?"
3) Check that resource count. Check the supply count and the amount of space you have left before you need the next supply building. Nowadays you can also check timer.
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On May 12 2017 11:05 Luddite wrote:
What's the best way to get faster- just mass games? I feel like I'm going as fast as I possibly can when I play, but when I watch my replays there's all this stupid stuff I'm missing. Drones not mining, larva idling, units not engaging in a fight, that sort of stuff that could get fixed if I was just faster all around. Is there any value in playing against an AI for a while just to focus on macro and speed?
Just keep playing vs humans. A players see the same things in their reps.
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Focus on match-up and specific gameplay that ask you lots of APM. For protoss : PvZ or pvt/pvp with lots of harras (reaver/speedshuttle is an overall good training for apm/eapm).
i went from 200/140 apm/eapm average to 260-280/180. I'm still not good a the game D=
Edit : Also, if your arms hurts or feel dizzy, stop playing and take a rest it's not worth forcing it.
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On May 12 2017 11:05 Luddite wrote:
What's the best way to get faster- just mass games? I feel like I'm going as fast as I possibly can when I play, but when I watch my replays there's all this stupid stuff I'm missing. Drones not mining, larva idling, units not engaging in a fight, that sort of stuff that could get fixed if I was just faster all around. Is there any value in playing against an AI for a while just to focus on macro and speed?
'Playing fast' is a bit vague.
Do you use all possible hotkeys? (unit-shortcuts, F2-F4, ctrl, alt, shift)
Do you have a proper hotkey-setup?
Do you not try to "play fast", but "play precise", aka only making controlled clicks and boxes as small as possible?
BW consists of thousands of micro-actions, and if you can safe 1/10th or 1/5th of the time you need to perform each one of these, you will get much 'faster' overall, even though the speed of your mouse and keyboard-clicking doesn't change much.
Maybe check out this thread by GeckoVOD
Especially this passage: + Show Spoiler +On November 03 2009 02:10 GeckoVOD wrote:Control – they key to StarCraft A Hotkeysystem So much for our theorycrafting. Reading guides alone won't help you to win games. You need to learn how to macro, micro and multitask during the actual game. We discussed a long time what a beginner needs to learn first. I think we covered all the important things you need to know. If you read the guides, picked two or three Build Orders, you can start to improve your control. It isn't so important to fully understand StarCraft in detail. Well it's quite impossible to fully understand it since its strategic level is so deep. Most lower level players are better than a beginner due to their multitasking „skill“. They don't know so much about the game as it seems. They can simply do a lot more than you. They train much more units than a beginner due to their advanced control, not because of their StarCraft wisdom. You can gain a lot of information only by reading guides, watching replays and playing. If you improve the very basic mechanisms – meaning your control / multitasking – you will win a lot more. If you're up to a D+/C-/C level on iccup strategies and strategic analysis become more important if you want to advance. But this guide aims for D-/D players. So read the following part and try to follow it as best as you can, and you will reach the D+/C- barrier pretty fast. If you watched First Person VODs before you should have recognized, that the players don't play mouse-only. They use their keyboard a lot. The following text explains how you can pimp your macro system a lot. We're trying to speed you up. Hotkeys, Shortcuts and WaypointsIt's important for you to understand the different little helps that StarCraft offers. We're start with the shortcuts. When you played the singleplayer you should have seen that you can train units in production buildings via keyboard. If you select a gateway for example you can press „D“ to train a dragoon. This function is called „shortcut“. When you move the mousecursor over any given unit in the building frame at the bottom of your screen the name and a short description of the unit should pop up. The bold printed latter is a symbol for this shortcut. You must learn each of those Shortcuts. They work for buildings and commands too. If you select a fighting unit and press the „a“-key and rightclick somewhere on the map the unit moves with attack-order towards this point. The same works for move, patrol and mine. If you select a worker you can raise buildings via shortcuts. The next thing that makes gaming easier for you is the „waypoint“ function. There are two different types of waypoints, the actual waypoints and the rallypoints. If you select a unit production facility and rightclick somewhere on the map you're setting up a rally point. If a unit leaves this „rallied“ building it walks to this rallypoint. Note: this unit moves there, which means it won't attack even it is going to be attacked by your opponent. So be aware. Setting rallypoints in your opponents base isn't the best idea if you don't intend to do a rush Build Order. The actual waypoints work on your units. If you select a worker or a fighting unit you can press the shift-key and give them more orders. An example: if you select a probe and press shift, give it the order to build a pylon and give it an order to mine again while you still press the shift key. The probe now moves and builds the pylon and goes back to mining shortly after. This waypoints are very helpful. You can give more patrol-points to a fighting unit, stop SCVs and probes from being idle after warping in / constructing a building or giving a flightroute to your Shuttle/Overlord/Dropship. You can even mixe different orders: like move to point a, attack-move from point a to point b, and patrol from point b to point c. Hotkeys are the last and maybe the most important thing to pimp your control. You can either bind 12 Units or a single building to one hotkey. If you select 12 Dragoons and presst CTRL+1 you group them together and bind them to the hotkey 1. If you press the key „1“ one time you automatically select those 12 Dragoons. If you press the key „1“ twice the screen will jump to those dragoons and put them into the center of your screen. You can „hotkey“ units/buildings to the keys „1“ - „0“. If you press Shift+F2 you save the screen you're looking at the moment. Let's assume you saved your main hatchery on F2 and scrolled somewhere else. If you press F2 now you'll jump back to your main hatchery. You can save screens with this method to the keys F2, F3 and F4. Note: you can't save units/buildings to those F-keys, only screens! Last thing to be explained: your minimap. The minimap helps you a lot. It helps you to keep an overview over your army, your base and the whole map. If you select a unit, you can give it an order either on the main screen or on the minimap. If you want to move a single dragoon across the map you can either select the goon, scroll down the entire map and right click when you see the target position. Or you can rightclick on the target position on the minimap. But: be carefull, since the orders that are given via the minimap are kinda sloppy. If you're clicking 2 pixels too far on the left it can be the difference between standing close to a minefield and standing in the minefield. It's ok to move your army over large distances that are „close“ to a dangerous area. If you're planning to attack, you should use the main screen to micro. If you put the hotkeys, the shortcuts, the minimap and the waypoints together you can improve your control a lot. Here is an example why you should use your keyboard a lot, and how a hotkeysystem works. We're comparing a fictional Protoss vs. Terran game, you being the Protoss. One time with a hotkey system and one time without. You have two groups of dragoons grouped on two different hotkeys. They're standing outside the Terrans base, ready to fight back any attack. You have your main base and your natural (the expansionspot that is next to your main). You want to train more units and you want to expand one more time. Without hotkeysystem0:00 You're looking at the choke of the Terrans base. Your army is there, the Terran is not moving. 0:05 You scrolled back to your main nexus and built a probe with mouse only. 0:09 You scrolled to your natural nexus and bilt a probe with mouse only. 0:25 You scrolled to your gates and built 4 dragoons in your four gateways. Mouse only. 0:26 You selected a lone probe 0:40 You scrolled to an expansion spot 1:01 You built a nexus there with mouse only. 1:10 You scroll back to the Terrans choke. You see: nothing but blue soup group. What has happened? In Second 35 the Terran decided to push 20 meters in your direction and finished all of your dragoons. Too bad. You reacted too slow, and now you pretty much lost the game. With hotkeysystem0:00 you switch trough our two dragoon groups by pressing their hotkeys twice. No movement. Good. 0:01 you press your hotkey for the main nexus one time and train a probe with a shortcut. Note: you're not jumping to it, since we only press the hotkey one time. 0:02 same with the nexus at the natural 0:09 you're jumping with a F-Hotkey to our gateways, select them with the mouse one by one, and train dragoons with shortcuts 0:10 you select a lone probe 0:11 you gave the probe order to move to the expansion spot (via minimap!) 0:14 you left-clicked on the minimap, and you now see the expansion spot 0:18 you placed down the nexus with shortcuts 0:22 you switch back to our dragoons via pressing their hotkeys two times. You're seeing the Terrans Tanks unsieging. Time to attack? I hope this example underlines the importance of using a hotkeysystem / your keyboard. I can't possibly tell you how you should use your hotkeys. Which units/buildings you bind to a hotkey depends on your gamestyle, your race and much more factors. The most important thing here is that you are fast when you use it. The longer a game lasts, the more hotkeys you need for your army. The less hotkeys you use for single production facilities. A Zerg may need less hotkeys for hatcheries, the more he needs for his army. He can impossibly group all his army since he has a lot of zerglings. Just experimentate. Your main goal is to keep your minerals on a low level. You shouldn't have too much minerals. If you can keep your ressources on a low level and if you can keep your army out of dangerous situations well enough, you're doing it right. A few things to make life easier Using a hotkeysystem is a huge step forward. If you're using it you're definatly on the right way towards becoming a better player. But this alone doesn't guarantee you a gosu macro. You can still make a few things better. Since i obsed a lot of rookies i recognized one thing: most of them have a really strange building placement. A gateway in the north of the base, a second one somewhere in the south, the next two grouped along the natural expansion. It's smart to group unit production facilities together. They should be placed somewhere between your main nexus/hatchery/command center and your natural expansion. If you hotkey one of those buildings you can jump there and manually select the other buildings one by one. You'll still be fast, and have enough spare hotkeys for expansions or your army / buildings like a comsat. Try to rally your unit production facilities towards your chokepoint. That is the point your natural expansion ends, and the „normal“ open map starts. Your reinforcements arrive there, which is an advantage since you don't need to send them one by one to your choke point. If you press shift+CTRL+Hotkey 1-0 you can group the trained units to your already existing army. This makes life really easier on maps like Blue Storm where you have difficult choke points. You may want to group similar units on one hotkey. Zealots on Hotkey 1, dragoons on Hotkey 2 for example. This is an advantage, since the units in the same hotkeys have the same moving speed, the same attack speed, same damage and so on. It's way easier to handle such armies when the hotkey groups are not mixed. Unit AI fuck ups can be prevented in that way. This won't be possible in the late stages of the game, but you can handle the first initial fights better. If your army is too big to group them on hotkeys, focus on the most expansive and most important units. And try to manually command the rest of your army with your mouse. It's possible, but it needs a lot of training.
This is one part of playing 'faster' overall, playing more precise and with a more complex mechanical setup.
The other part can only be acquired by playing a lot: Over time, if you keep reflecting on your game and learning from your mistakes, you will learn to set priorities and your understanding of the perfect order in which all of the micro actions have to be arranged to line up nicely will improve. E.g.: a newer player will lose lots of time because he realizes all kinds of things too late - or does too much at once. So he will rush from one delayed/hasty action to the other, playing very "fast", but not efficient.
A typical mistake of this kind is to start too many processes at once, like building scvs, building units, building depots AND starting 2 factories and an upgrade and 2 turrets. 10 seconds later, it shows that the last three things were done too early, because additional resources are needed to repeat the SCV/Units/Depot-cycle, first. So some things get delayed, some things get stuck, some things are forgotten, and in the end it becomes a very hasty, messy game.
Another mistake is to move out with your army for an attack even though you yourself are not yet ready to surveillance it properly. So you try to army-control and do all sorts of macro-stuff at the same time, when both should better be separated as much as possible. Here again, over time you will learn to shuffle these things properly, e.g. jump back home from the battle once to send a worker, then back to battle - 10 secs later back to the worker to give him a command to build a new base - 1-2 minutes later to transfer workers there.
Playing vs humans asap is better here, because humans do and abuse stuff the PC never would, humans follow the current meta-game etc. Only the core mechanics and build-order should be practiced against a PC.
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Two quick questions:
Would it be common practice for players to use the F keys to screen capture their armies downrange? Or is it better technique to hotkey the army and double click that hotkey to move the screen to them?
And secondly, are their any rough and ready rules for how many production facilities T can support on a healthy two base economy? For example, 2 base mech v Protoss, how many factories roughly should I be aiming for? And for 2 base bio+tank+vessel vs. Z what proportion of buildings should I aim for? Thank you.
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I don't understand your first question. You mean re-setting over and over your Fkey to follow your army ?
A classic way of using Fkey is : F2/3/4 => main/natural/3rd in early-mid game.
late game depent on taste, i do : production/rally/next-expand.
2 bases mech, from a protoss point of view :
2 facts => fast 3rd
4 facts => pressure then 3rd
5 facts=> strong push
6 facts => all in
The number of facts and the timing you get them depent a lot on what protoss is doing. (Your facts would be delay if you have to invest in early turret/ more marines to defend drop/dt or early goons pressure).
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Yes, hotkey army instead of using F keys. About 3 factories per base, with 1 machine shop per gas.
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1. no it's not common, but if you feel comfortable doing it just do it. i would recommend having F keys over bases though so you can transfer workers quickly if you get harassed
2. i've been doing some research into this. off 1 base, full saturation (3x scvs each min patch) you get 140 minerals per mineral patch per minute, 300 gas per geyser
+ Show Spoiler +on a per minute basis:
1gas: 300
9min: 1260 (main base)
8min: 1120 (some 3rd)
7min: 980 (nat, some 3rds)
6min: 840 (some minonlys)
on a per minute basis from 1 production facility:
scv: 225
marine: 200
firebat: 200/100
medic: 150/75
vulture: 225
tank: 300/200
goliath: 200/100
wraith: 225/150
dropship: 200/200
valk: 500/250
vessel: 125/275
this means per gas base (apx 1100/300) you can support (with no scvs/depots, pick one):
4 fact, 1.5 addon vult/tank
5 rax, 1 port vessel
4 rax, 1 fact tank
4 fact, 1 port vessel
4 fact, 1 addon 2vult/tank/gol
TvX has evolved to favor 3base play due to the structure of modern maps. i'm terrible at tvt so i won't try:
2base tvz (before 3rd, obviously more rax is more aggressive):
4~8 rax, 1fact, 1port
2base tvp (before 3rd, obviously more facts is more aggressive):
2~6 fact, 1~2 addon
3base 3gas tvz:
12~14rax, 1fact2port or 2fact1port or 3port
3base 2gas tvz:
12~14rax, 1fact1port or 2port or 2fact.5port
3base 3gas tvp:
11~12 fact, 3~4 addon, .5~1port
3base 2gas tvp:
11~12 fact, 2~3 addon, 0~1port
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Why doesn't Protoss pro players get disruption web against sim city zerg during mid/late game attacks? I mean yeah they have to invest in fleet beacon and the research upgrade but I think they could save a lot of money and units by disrupting the sunkens/spore def for a number of seconds!
Protoss already invests in corsairs so it's not like it's too much out of their way. I'm not talking about mid game speedlot rushes to attack zerg when they are macroing up, which wouldn't work anyways since they are melee but after they are established and have plenty of extra resources to do this and protoss tries to snipe some expos with goon heavy army esp when they have a natural base that also guards a main up top.
Do you guys think the fleet beacon and disruption web is worth investing later stages of the game when protoss has corsairs running around to complement the storms and disruption webs to nullify the hydras?
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On May 13 2017 07:53 Moopower wrote:
Why doesn't Protoss pro players get disruption web against sim city zerg during mid/late game attacks? I mean yeah they have to invest in fleet beacon and the research upgrade but I think they could save a lot of money and units by disrupting the sunkens/spore def for a number of seconds!
Protoss already invests in corsairs so it's not like it's too much out of their way. I'm not talking about mid game speedlot rushes to attack zerg when they are macroing up, which wouldn't work anyways since they are melee but after they are established and have plenty of extra resources to do this and protoss tries to snipe some expos with goon heavy army esp when they have a natural base that also guards a main up top.
Do you guys think the fleet beacon and disruption web is worth investing later stages of the game when protoss has corsairs running around to complement the storms and disruption webs to nullify the hydras?
Midgame its not really efficent at all. To get D-web,you need an additional 200 gas for the fleet beacon, 200 for D-web and possibly another 100 for the energy upgrade (probably needed as it allows 1 corsair to cast 2 webs); thats 400-500 gas needed. You also need more dragoons to actually do damage to the buildings which further strains your gas and you likely wont have many high templars to complement your army.
Reavers are much better if you want to go for a bust type play because 1) you need a robo for observers to see lurkers anyway 2) they actually do damage vs lings and hydras too, and 3) you can use them for defense to set up an expansion if you find that you cant bust them.
Late game corsairs tend to have died before you can spare money to afford the upgrades. Say you somehow kept your 5-7 corsairs from midgame somehow and you're on 4-5 bases somehow, its still probably more effective to spend the 600 minerals and 500 gas to get the upgrade instead on reavers, HTs and DTs to harass and defend, or even just more corsairs to harass and defend against drops.
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On May 12 2017 12:58 Jealous wrote:Show nested quote +On May 12 2017 11:05 Luddite wrote:
What's the best way to get faster- just mass games? I feel like I'm going as fast as I possibly can when I play, but when I watch my replays there's all this stupid stuff I'm missing. Drones not mining, larva idling, units not engaging in a fight, that sort of stuff that could get fixed if I was just faster all around. Is there any value in playing against an AI for a while just to focus on macro and speed? Speaking only from personal experience, I think that what makes you faster might be slightly different for everyone, because I have asked this question of many people before and it seems like nearly everyone has a different reason. Here is how I progressed past my plateaus, despite not by any means being a very fast player (I rarely average over 220 apm, 140 eapm average in a long game). 1) I simply force myself to play faster, even if it is slightly uncomfortable/makes me slightly less accurate. Press more buttons, do the next thing, faster faster everything. I simply push myself. This made me suck hard when I first started pushing, but slowly I became more confident and comfortable with the speed until I reached the next plateau. 2) To get over my later plateaus (moving from sub 150 apm to around 180) I used the multi-task trainer maps to get me in the habit of rapidly switching my focus while maintaining a game plan and consistent building of units/workers. 3) Playing macro races against myself or other players. Basically I load up a game vs. a null slot (start game with computer, remove computer during countdown, then continue playing without triggers) and try to max out while controlling my army and following a build order as fast as possible. This helped me practice 2 base macro, using f keys, etc. Some things to keep in mind: 1) Good posture/hand position/mouse grip. 2) "What next? What next? What next? Check the minimap! What next?" 3) Check that resource count. Check the supply count and the amount of space you have left before you need the next supply building. Nowadays you can also check timer.
Thanks for the thoughtful response. I have had a bit of success with your first suggestion, just concentrating the whole game on playing as fast as possible (i ended with about 130 apm instead of my usual ~100, to give you a sense of how slow I am). I do make more misclicks that way but it seems like I was a bit better overall. Exhausting though!
What multi-task trainer maps are you referring to? Don't think I've seen those.
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On May 12 2017 19:33 Highgamer wrote:Show nested quote +On May 12 2017 11:05 Luddite wrote:
What's the best way to get faster- just mass games? I feel like I'm going as fast as I possibly can when I play, but when I watch my replays there's all this stupid stuff I'm missing. Drones not mining, larva idling, units not engaging in a fight, that sort of stuff that could get fixed if I was just faster all around. Is there any value in playing against an AI for a while just to focus on macro and speed? 'Playing fast' is a bit vague. Do you use all possible hotkeys? (unit-shortcuts, F2-F4, ctrl, alt, shift) Do you have a proper hotkey-setup? Do you not try to "play fast", but "play precise", aka only making controlled clicks and boxes as small as possible? BW consists of thousands of micro-actions, and if you can safe 1/10th or 1/5th of the time you need to perform each one of these, you will get much 'faster' overall, even though the speed of your mouse and keyboard-clicking doesn't change much. Maybe check out this thread by GeckoVODEspecially this passage: + Show Spoiler +On November 03 2009 02:10 GeckoVOD wrote:Control – they key to StarCraft A Hotkeysystem So much for our theorycrafting. Reading guides alone won't help you to win games. You need to learn how to macro, micro and multitask during the actual game. We discussed a long time what a beginner needs to learn first. I think we covered all the important things you need to know. If you read the guides, picked two or three Build Orders, you can start to improve your control. It isn't so important to fully understand StarCraft in detail. Well it's quite impossible to fully understand it since its strategic level is so deep. Most lower level players are better than a beginner due to their multitasking „skill“. They don't know so much about the game as it seems. They can simply do a lot more than you. They train much more units than a beginner due to their advanced control, not because of their StarCraft wisdom. You can gain a lot of information only by reading guides, watching replays and playing. If you improve the very basic mechanisms – meaning your control / multitasking – you will win a lot more. If you're up to a D+/C-/C level on iccup strategies and strategic analysis become more important if you want to advance. But this guide aims for D-/D players. So read the following part and try to follow it as best as you can, and you will reach the D+/C- barrier pretty fast. If you watched First Person VODs before you should have recognized, that the players don't play mouse-only. They use their keyboard a lot. The following text explains how you can pimp your macro system a lot. We're trying to speed you up. Hotkeys, Shortcuts and WaypointsIt's important for you to understand the different little helps that StarCraft offers. We're start with the shortcuts. When you played the singleplayer you should have seen that you can train units in production buildings via keyboard. If you select a gateway for example you can press „D“ to train a dragoon. This function is called „shortcut“. When you move the mousecursor over any given unit in the building frame at the bottom of your screen the name and a short description of the unit should pop up. The bold printed latter is a symbol for this shortcut. You must learn each of those Shortcuts. They work for buildings and commands too. If you select a fighting unit and press the „a“-key and rightclick somewhere on the map the unit moves with attack-order towards this point. The same works for move, patrol and mine. If you select a worker you can raise buildings via shortcuts. The next thing that makes gaming easier for you is the „waypoint“ function. There are two different types of waypoints, the actual waypoints and the rallypoints. If you select a unit production facility and rightclick somewhere on the map you're setting up a rally point. If a unit leaves this „rallied“ building it walks to this rallypoint. Note: this unit moves there, which means it won't attack even it is going to be attacked by your opponent. So be aware. Setting rallypoints in your opponents base isn't the best idea if you don't intend to do a rush Build Order. The actual waypoints work on your units. If you select a worker or a fighting unit you can press the shift-key and give them more orders. An example: if you select a probe and press shift, give it the order to build a pylon and give it an order to mine again while you still press the shift key. The probe now moves and builds the pylon and goes back to mining shortly after. This waypoints are very helpful. You can give more patrol-points to a fighting unit, stop SCVs and probes from being idle after warping in / constructing a building or giving a flightroute to your Shuttle/Overlord/Dropship. You can even mixe different orders: like move to point a, attack-move from point a to point b, and patrol from point b to point c. Hotkeys are the last and maybe the most important thing to pimp your control. You can either bind 12 Units or a single building to one hotkey. If you select 12 Dragoons and presst CTRL+1 you group them together and bind them to the hotkey 1. If you press the key „1“ one time you automatically select those 12 Dragoons. If you press the key „1“ twice the screen will jump to those dragoons and put them into the center of your screen. You can „hotkey“ units/buildings to the keys „1“ - „0“. If you press Shift+F2 you save the screen you're looking at the moment. Let's assume you saved your main hatchery on F2 and scrolled somewhere else. If you press F2 now you'll jump back to your main hatchery. You can save screens with this method to the keys F2, F3 and F4. Note: you can't save units/buildings to those F-keys, only screens! Last thing to be explained: your minimap. The minimap helps you a lot. It helps you to keep an overview over your army, your base and the whole map. If you select a unit, you can give it an order either on the main screen or on the minimap. If you want to move a single dragoon across the map you can either select the goon, scroll down the entire map and right click when you see the target position. Or you can rightclick on the target position on the minimap. But: be carefull, since the orders that are given via the minimap are kinda sloppy. If you're clicking 2 pixels too far on the left it can be the difference between standing close to a minefield and standing in the minefield. It's ok to move your army over large distances that are „close“ to a dangerous area. If you're planning to attack, you should use the main screen to micro. If you put the hotkeys, the shortcuts, the minimap and the waypoints together you can improve your control a lot. Here is an example why you should use your keyboard a lot, and how a hotkeysystem works. We're comparing a fictional Protoss vs. Terran game, you being the Protoss. One time with a hotkey system and one time without. You have two groups of dragoons grouped on two different hotkeys. They're standing outside the Terrans base, ready to fight back any attack. You have your main base and your natural (the expansionspot that is next to your main). You want to train more units and you want to expand one more time. Without hotkeysystem0:00 You're looking at the choke of the Terrans base. Your army is there, the Terran is not moving. 0:05 You scrolled back to your main nexus and built a probe with mouse only. 0:09 You scrolled to your natural nexus and bilt a probe with mouse only. 0:25 You scrolled to your gates and built 4 dragoons in your four gateways. Mouse only. 0:26 You selected a lone probe 0:40 You scrolled to an expansion spot 1:01 You built a nexus there with mouse only. 1:10 You scroll back to the Terrans choke. You see: nothing but blue soup group. What has happened? In Second 35 the Terran decided to push 20 meters in your direction and finished all of your dragoons. Too bad. You reacted too slow, and now you pretty much lost the game. With hotkeysystem0:00 you switch trough our two dragoon groups by pressing their hotkeys twice. No movement. Good. 0:01 you press your hotkey for the main nexus one time and train a probe with a shortcut. Note: you're not jumping to it, since we only press the hotkey one time. 0:02 same with the nexus at the natural 0:09 you're jumping with a F-Hotkey to our gateways, select them with the mouse one by one, and train dragoons with shortcuts 0:10 you select a lone probe 0:11 you gave the probe order to move to the expansion spot (via minimap!) 0:14 you left-clicked on the minimap, and you now see the expansion spot 0:18 you placed down the nexus with shortcuts 0:22 you switch back to our dragoons via pressing their hotkeys two times. You're seeing the Terrans Tanks unsieging. Time to attack? I hope this example underlines the importance of using a hotkeysystem / your keyboard. I can't possibly tell you how you should use your hotkeys. Which units/buildings you bind to a hotkey depends on your gamestyle, your race and much more factors. The most important thing here is that you are fast when you use it. The longer a game lasts, the more hotkeys you need for your army. The less hotkeys you use for single production facilities. A Zerg may need less hotkeys for hatcheries, the more he needs for his army. He can impossibly group all his army since he has a lot of zerglings. Just experimentate. Your main goal is to keep your minerals on a low level. You shouldn't have too much minerals. If you can keep your ressources on a low level and if you can keep your army out of dangerous situations well enough, you're doing it right. A few things to make life easier Using a hotkeysystem is a huge step forward. If you're using it you're definatly on the right way towards becoming a better player. But this alone doesn't guarantee you a gosu macro. You can still make a few things better. Since i obsed a lot of rookies i recognized one thing: most of them have a really strange building placement. A gateway in the north of the base, a second one somewhere in the south, the next two grouped along the natural expansion. It's smart to group unit production facilities together. They should be placed somewhere between your main nexus/hatchery/command center and your natural expansion. If you hotkey one of those buildings you can jump there and manually select the other buildings one by one. You'll still be fast, and have enough spare hotkeys for expansions or your army / buildings like a comsat. Try to rally your unit production facilities towards your chokepoint. That is the point your natural expansion ends, and the „normal“ open map starts. Your reinforcements arrive there, which is an advantage since you don't need to send them one by one to your choke point. If you press shift+CTRL+Hotkey 1-0 you can group the trained units to your already existing army. This makes life really easier on maps like Blue Storm where you have difficult choke points. You may want to group similar units on one hotkey. Zealots on Hotkey 1, dragoons on Hotkey 2 for example. This is an advantage, since the units in the same hotkeys have the same moving speed, the same attack speed, same damage and so on. It's way easier to handle such armies when the hotkey groups are not mixed. Unit AI fuck ups can be prevented in that way. This won't be possible in the late stages of the game, but you can handle the first initial fights better. If your army is too big to group them on hotkeys, focus on the most expansive and most important units. And try to manually command the rest of your army with your mouse. It's possible, but it needs a lot of training. This is one part of playing 'faster' overall, playing more precise and with a more complex mechanical setup. The other part can only be acquired by playing a lot: Over time, if you keep reflecting on your game and learning from your mistakes, you will learn to set priorities and your understanding of the perfect order in which all of the micro actions have to be arranged to line up nicely will improve. E.g.: a newer player will lose lots of time because he realizes all kinds of things too late - or does too much at once. So he will rush from one delayed/hasty action to the other, playing very "fast", but not efficient. A typical mistake of this kind is to start too many processes at once, like building scvs, building units, building depots AND starting 2 factories and an upgrade and 2 turrets. 10 seconds later, it shows that the last three things were done too early, because additional resources are needed to repeat the SCV/Units/Depot-cycle, first. So some things get delayed, some things get stuck, some things are forgotten, and in the end it becomes a very hasty, messy game. Another mistake is to move out with your army for an attack even though you yourself are not yet ready to surveillance it properly. So you try to army-control and do all sorts of macro-stuff at the same time, when both should better be separated as much as possible. Here again, over time you will learn to shuffle these things properly, e.g. jump back home from the battle once to send a worker, then back to battle - 10 secs later back to the worker to give him a command to build a new base - 1-2 minutes later to transfer workers there. Playing vs humans asap is better here, because humans do and abuse stuff the PC never would, humans follow the current meta-game etc. Only the core mechanics and build-order should be practiced against a PC.
Thanks for the link.
I *try* to use all the hotkeys, but It's still cumbersome for me. Usually by the time i've thought to use an f-key i've already gotten there by double-pressing my hotkey for that hatchery, for example. Or I have trouble remembering some of the upgrade hotkeys since I'm only using those at most once per game. And I've never really used alt-clicks. Other than that though, i feel like I do ok at using hotkeys.
I feel like my "default" is to play precise. Like I said in my reply above, I have had more success just forcing myself to play faster, at the expense of some precision.
I use a hotkey system (1-4 units, 5-9 hatcheries, 0 special units), and feel comfortable with my base setup (which seems less important for zerg anyway). Mostly I just feel like I can't click fast enough. Like in a zvt game today, my first wave of units died before I could get dark swarm off, then he simply moved back before i could get the rest of my army to engage. Admittedly that's as much bad timing as it is slow mouse speed though. I definitely do a lot better in battles where I know where the enemy is ahead of time and have time to set everything up, vs reacting while he's attacking me.
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Norway28695 Posts
On May 13 2017 07:53 Moopower wrote:
Why doesn't Protoss pro players get disruption web against sim city zerg during mid/late game attacks? I mean yeah they have to invest in fleet beacon and the research upgrade but I think they could save a lot of money and units by disrupting the sunkens/spore def for a number of seconds!
Protoss already invests in corsairs so it's not like it's too much out of their way. I'm not talking about mid game speedlot rushes to attack zerg when they are macroing up, which wouldn't work anyways since they are melee but after they are established and have plenty of extra resources to do this and protoss tries to snipe some expos with goon heavy army esp when they have a natural base that also guards a main up top.
Do you guys think the fleet beacon and disruption web is worth investing later stages of the game when protoss has corsairs running around to complement the storms and disruption webs to nullify the hydras?
Same reasons zerg's don't get queens for ensnare pretty much every game. It's really difficult to properly control one more set of units that have abilities, and it's not necessary to win. In terms of spells, people really tend to only use the ones they need to use, because otherwise, spending your time macroing and harassing is usually better.
I have done like a mid game fast dweb against zergs who do the whole turtle up on 4 bases where they have way fewer units than me but where I can't attack their bases because lurker sunkens are so cost efficient against me. It works great sometimes. But sometimes, it leads to me controlling my sairs when I needed to throw down a storm on the units flanking me. I've probably lost about equally many games as I've won because I decided to go dweb when having a ground army with corsair support.
Still, it's a good question. And I legitimately do think that for top protoss players, implementing dweb as a standard part of pvz could be good - although, top zergs tend to not turtle in the way that makes dweb shine. But I am a good player, and for me, I feel that my ability to control and multitask is slightly too bad to really manage to utilize dweb mid-combat when I also have to control a ground army. There are definitely situations where you'd rather pressure a zerg's second natural with a 20 unit ground army and 6 corsairs with dweb rather than 24 unit ground army and 6 sairs without dweb, but it's usually hard to identify those situations at the time where you make the decision to make the investment, so getting it while you are on 2 gas is normally bad. I think getting it when you have 4+ gas, if you still insist on having a corsair army, is potentially very good, but it is difficult to use properly.
Edit: When you are on 4+ gas, the resource cost is much more negligible. Frankly, most people tend to float resources during that stage anyway. But your attention similarly becomes even more valuable, and if you're choosing between throwing down a storm or a disruption web, throwing down a storm is usually a better choice.
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On May 13 2017 07:53 Moopower wrote:
Why doesn't Protoss pro players get disruption web against sim city zerg during mid/late game attacks? I mean yeah they have to invest in fleet beacon and the research upgrade but I think they could save a lot of money and units by disrupting the sunkens/spore def for a number of seconds!
Protoss already invests in corsairs so it's not like it's too much out of their way. I'm not talking about mid game speedlot rushes to attack zerg when they are macroing up, which wouldn't work anyways since they are melee but after they are established and have plenty of extra resources to do this and protoss tries to snipe some expos with goon heavy army esp when they have a natural base that also guards a main up top.
Do you guys think the fleet beacon and disruption web is worth investing later stages of the game when protoss has corsairs running around to complement the storms and disruption webs to nullify the hydras?
Many things in BW sound good in theory but few players including the pros have the spare apm to pull it off. Once you reach mid late game there's so much going on you barely have time to micro, macro, cast storms etc.
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On May 13 2017 12:03 Liquid`Drone wrote:Show nested quote +On May 13 2017 07:53 Moopower wrote:
Why doesn't Protoss pro players get disruption web against sim city zerg during mid/late game attacks? I mean yeah they have to invest in fleet beacon and the research upgrade but I think they could save a lot of money and units by disrupting the sunkens/spore def for a number of seconds!
Protoss already invests in corsairs so it's not like it's too much out of their way. I'm not talking about mid game speedlot rushes to attack zerg when they are macroing up, which wouldn't work anyways since they are melee but after they are established and have plenty of extra resources to do this and protoss tries to snipe some expos with goon heavy army esp when they have a natural base that also guards a main up top.
Do you guys think the fleet beacon and disruption web is worth investing later stages of the game when protoss has corsairs running around to complement the storms and disruption webs to nullify the hydras? Same reasons zerg's don't get queens for ensnare pretty much every game. It's really difficult to properly control one more set of units that have abilities, and it's not necessary to win. In terms of spells, people really tend to only use the ones they need to use, because otherwise, spending your time macroing and harassing is usually better. I have done like a mid game fast dweb against zergs who do the whole turtle up on 4 bases where they have way fewer units than me but where I can't attack their bases because lurker sunkens are so cost efficient against me. It works great sometimes. But sometimes, it leads to me controlling my sairs when I needed to throw down a storm on the units flanking me. I've probably lost about equally many games as I've won because I decided to go dweb when having a ground army with corsair support. Still, it's a good question. And I legitimately do think that for top protoss players, implementing dweb as a standard part of pvz could be good - although, top zergs tend to not turtle in the way that makes dweb shine. But I am a good player, and for me, I feel that my ability to control and multitask is slightly too bad to really manage to utilize dweb mid-combat when I also have to control a ground army. There are definitely situations where you'd rather pressure a zerg's second natural with a 20 unit ground army and 6 corsairs with dweb rather than 24 unit ground army and 6 sairs without dweb, but it's usually hard to identify those situations at the time where you make the decision to make the investment, so getting it while you are on 2 gas is normally bad. I think getting it when you have 4+ gas, if you still insist on having a corsair army, is potentially very good, but it is difficult to use properly. Edit: When you are on 4+ gas, the resource cost is much more negligible. Frankly, most people tend to float resources during that stage anyway. But your attention similarly becomes even more valuable, and if you're choosing between throwing down a storm or a disruption web, throwing down a storm is usually a better choice.
Thanks for the responses guys, this questions is geared towards mid/late game when you do have multiple expos up and P and Z are trying to gain map control all over. A lot of the responses seem to be though based on not enough apm for protoss players when they are known for being the slowest apm players generally. I feel there is a lot of room for improvement if Protoss players adopted a high fast play like the other races if we were to talk about lack of apm in order to do a certain strategy. I mean if Zerg has to control scourge with overlord to snipe obs,, lurkers, lings, hydras, defilers to combat protoss, shouldn't protoss have the same opportunity to use a variety mix of units? Protoss has zealots, goons, hts, sairs, reaver/shuttle. Sairs with the dweb just makes it 5 units to 5 units the both races use pretty often at certain stages in the game.
I will concede to the point though that I do believe that Protoss pro gamers have to micro a lot better than zerg in more stages in the game than Zerg. JD even stated in one video where he explains his hotkeys, that he doesn't hotkey more than 3 groups of units and just select and attack move with them while just grabbing w/e unit is nearby to attack, since there are too many units for them.
I mean if it isn't viable because of lack of skill/apm, then I don't think that would be a strong argument, it just points back to the player's skill. Unless you can somehow prove that there is a ceiling in which you cannot pass, this sounds like how many people said initially no one could run faster than a 4 minute mile until Roger Bannister proved them wrong.
Reaver shuttle is very fragile and against a swarm of units without a good support from units surrounding the reaver, it gets picked off quick easily. I'm not a good player yet but in theory, so take with a grain of salt, corsairs with the dweb support makes busting the sunken/spore line defense much easier so that when you get flanked from reinforcing troops, you can concentrate on either side, not both at the same time.
So to address someone's point about this tech being too costly, in the pro games, they still have many instances where they are stacked with resources like 3k+ minerals AND gas while MAXED which was my original point to where it'd be in the later stages in the game where zerg has a solid defense sim city so you either bust with reaver/shuttle and deal with surrounding flanks when you attack their natural expo or get demolished and rebuild your army from like 30+ gateways, but the time it takes to reinforce could be faster for zerg with their nydus canal and their units spawn quicker, so if Dweb can help preserve the protoss army, wouldn't that be a good thing?. So cost really doesn't matter at this point of the game, what makes sense is if they can use it efficiently with the time it takes to reinforce new troops,survive, and attack again,etc.
I'd also argue that having corsairs support with dwebs nullifies the spores so you can potentially have less micro or
not have to babysit your observers as much to not go over the spore range while still seeing the lurkers, all you have to do is make sure they don't get scourged.
To me it just seems like if you already have corsairs and you have the money... why not? You have an extra spell to use to get your advantage. I don't think a few more seconds to click a sair to dweb is gonna break them mechanically to where their macro sucks, because first of all when you dweb you are doing that likely before the fight happens so it's not really taking your focus away from the battle, it is more prep work I'd argue, and if anything I think an extra spell would help them in their battle in PvZ
We still see some innovation even after 19 years! Terran goes mech again in TvZ and some actually use Valkyries instead of sci vessels. We saw some queen play for a short stint around 2008-2009 i think with ensnare with JD. I mean after Bisu pioneered the bisu build, why hasn't protoss innovated much? Zerg evolved with their 5-6 hatchery macro style with sim city. I mean I see some variations on Fast expand builds vs Zerg like the 1 gate into FE pressure, but not much of a difference.
Btw, if in ZvT many zergs did not want to use queens against a bio army was there any other reason besides too apm intensive? JD did use that strategy for a little bit, so what was the reason for not continuing with that trend? Progamers just believe that it's not worth the time of their focus and that their time would be better utilized in just their standard play?
I mean of course defilers are always going to be much better but is it possible for progamers to reach new heights and add queens to the mix? Do you think that progamers did not want to practice outside their comfort zone due to competition to not try anything new that could hurt their game until they completely mastered it? I mean what is 1 larvae to a zerg player? 1 larvae could be 2 lings, or could be a queen that does a nice ensnare that gets you more kills than 2 extra lings couldve gotten you. Also Queens are being used in ZvT against mech because of broodlings sniping tanks. A tank line is really cost efficient for terran while Zerg has to suicide many lings just to get to the tank line. Even with Dark swarm unless Zerg whittles down the tank force considerably and attacks before he reinforces his tanks.
I've read the 80/20 rule, where 80% of your results come from 20% of what you do. So to be as efficient as possible you focus your efforts on that 20% that produces 80% of the results. So if this was viable and achievable, would it be possible to achieve 80% of the results by winning a crucial battle, vs choosing to speed your way a standard game? Just putting this out there. I am not saying I'm more of an expert than progamers, but to think critically and question the status quo is what I think BW and in any other area in life needs.
I can think of one major reason why this might not be effective is the amount of focus on dragoons, could prove to be exploitable for zerg. Obviously to make good use of dweb you need a good amount of goons dealing dmg to buildings otherwise there is not much point for dweb except maybe to buy some time, because those sunkens aren't hitting you and any units underneath. But then again, just because a unit can get countered doesn't automatically mean it's not being made, goons suck vs tanks unless they overwhelm with numbers. And also who says you have to commit to building even majority of goons, and pro gamers regularly attack zerg expos with goons so it's not like making goons vs zerg sucks. Maybe you could have a dedicated group of goons to take out his buildings under dweb while you protect goons with zealots and hts/archons,etc? If we figured out a way to make mutas not suck vs marines, and never experimented with the stacking feature, then what is different about this case? There are plenty of units that we thought would obviously be countered by another when we first started until we saw how korean progamers utilized them.
And again, I'm not saying go out of your way to build corsairs after you lost your army, obviously do what makes sense in the game at the time, but if you have the opportunity because you had to rebuild sairs vs his switching to mutas, why not just get the tech when you have excess resources?
And another thing that I came up with is corsairs could potentially be a great defensive unit, cracklings are the bane to every protoss expo that they frantically try to defend even with cannons they may have dark swarm,etc but if you have a corsair that can just fly over there you dweb around the nexus? Idk maybe that's a stretch, but it's just a thought. Not as a big point but just a bonus.
If someone can reason on why this would be ineffective other than too apm intensive, I'd really like to hear your opinions.
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Norway28695 Posts
I've argued, for years, that everyone should use queens all the time in both zvt and zvp.  Ensnare is legitimately a great spell. But implementing queens into your play really takes quite some adjustment - you can't hotkey them together with the rest of your army, so you somehow need to make room for them. Personally, I hotkey queens and overlords for dropping to 9 and 0, but sacrificing a hotkey actually is kind of a big deal.
As for the sairs; firstly, asking for an argument for why something is ineffective other than too apm intensive is kinda weird, because something being too apm intensive is a really valid argument against it. You need to weight what you do against what you sacrifice. The thing most protoss players do too little of in pvz is dropping in conjunction with corsairs; sairs clear out overlords and scourge so shuttles have a clear path, shuttles drop zealots and dts in main and expansions to pick off tech and hatches, and templars drop to storm mineral lines. But aside from that, I'll address a couple of your points.
Dweb is not really effective as a defense against cracklings. It's great with reavers against hydras, but it doesn't last very long, doesn't cover that large of an area (if you could just throw one above a nexus like you can with a dark swarm, that'd totally work, but you need at least 4), and the unit fighting against the cracklings becomes equally unable to shoot. If you already have templars in the expansion, you're much, much better off just throwing down storm immediately than you are throwing down dweb.
Secondly, the point about dweb working best in conjunction with goons is a very valid argument against them, because goons become somewhat obsolete once dark swarm is in play. So, for the offensive dweb strat to work, it largely has to be a mid-game strategy, before defiler crackling becomes the zerg army of choice. Like I've said though, I do genuinely think that against some zergs, on a map like fighting spirit, where the zerg takes 4 bases fast, turtles up and temporarily disregards army for tech and economy, and where protoss normally counters by expanding themselves, getting dweb and a big goon+templar army is good. I have had success with that. But those perfect scenarios where it all lines up don't really happen that often. Game is chaotic as hell.
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