This is a topic, that I wanted to start a long time ago. Here we go.
Obviously, most of us stand no chance when facing a Brood War progamer. Yet, sometimes, I see them do things that could be done in a more better/efficient way. And these things are easy to execute, so easy, that even I am able to do so. Why don't they care more?
Here are my two examples.
1) Protoss pushing into terran with buildings floating around. Dragoons stay behind for a while attacking the building, while zealots quickly die in the front. When I play, I always use the move command and have dragoons rejoin zealots, targetting terran units instead of buildings. It's automatic for me. But I've seen Stork too many times throwing his army to a single floating barrack. Even in Best games this can be seen sometimes.
2) Chasing first overlord with first corsair. Many players start attacking the overlord when corsair comes into range and do not move closer. As overlord runs away, corsair stops attacking once in a while to move back to the range again. With scourge being an imminent danger, I wonder, why they simply do not move the corsair as close as possible and kill it few seconds faster. I always do it automatically.
Please share your thoughts. Are these little things really so insignificant? Did you spot similar inefficiencies in programer games?
On may 20 2025 20:40 jtkirk wrote: Did you spot similar inefficiencies in programer games?
Yes! OK so I always see progamers using the mouse to move the screen over the main geyser to build refinery/extractor/assimilator. Sometimes it takes 2-3 mouse flicks to get the building centered properly especially if they over/under-shoot the screen with that initial screen movement.
Instead I use an Fkey (F2-F3-F4, whichever you use for main/nat) because in its default (unchanged) location, it is always slightly "above" the town hall. So, this allows for instant placement of the building on the gas, with no mouse movement required!
For harassment, why not shift attack spam on a worker line? Even at the very highest level you’ll see Zealots or vultures or whatever get in, kill a few and get aggroed off the second an army unit shows up
When I play, I always use the move command and have dragoons rejoin zealots
Congratulations! Now your dragoons rejoined with zealots and blew up on mines together <3
I think he meant when there are no mines and you can bring your goons in. It is fine and true in that situation. And I do see pros goons wasting their time like this, but goons are hard to control and they've gotten much better with this in current play.
Not shift clicking shuttles away after dropping on tanks in pvt, or moving the shuttle a bit later. Very common having 3-4 shuttles micro-ed for the drop, then they loiter over there until a Goliath comes over 2mins later.
Though i understand this is the start of battle so there are a lot of things to do but maybe a hotkey for the shuttle and press it after the battle fully starts?
For things i do as well as pros, I am an expert at storming my own obs in pvz, if i do say so myself. On par with the pros
On May 21 2025 21:24 WGT-Baal wrote: Not shift clicking shuttles away after dropping on tanks in pvt, or moving the shuttle a bit later. Very common having 3-4 shuttles micro-ed for the drop, then they loiter over there until a Goliath comes over 2mins later.
Though i understand this is the start of battle so there are a lot of things to do but maybe a hotkey for the shuttle and press it after the battle fully starts?
For things i do as well as pros, I am an expert at storming my own obs in pvz, if i do say so myself. On par with the pros
Shift clicking with corsairs after targeting overlords. Corsairs attack cooldown is so fast they can almost immediately move after the last shot and this gives them some extra speed for sneaking in last hits and dodging attacks. Makes multi with them a little easier as well.
Sunken placement zvt - when built close to the hatch sunkens provide coverage behind the mineral line and for most of the back side of the natural expansion. On some modern maps like Dominator all of the area in the back is covered.
But also general building placement in zvt - a common layout you'll see lategame Zerg end up with in their main is something like this + Show Spoiler +
, which is very disadvantageous for defense with lings and lurks vs MM drops due to chokes between the buildings.
consuming lings with a defiler by moving the defiler towards the clump of lings, then consuming the front ones and then either waiting for the animation to finish to get to the lings further behind or by moving the defiler again
it's quicker to bring the lings to the defiler instead. move command a bit behind the defiler so the lings surround the defiler and are in range for consume
On May 20 2025 20:40 jtkirk wrote: This is a topic, that I wanted to start a long time ago. Here we go.
Obviously, most of us stand no chance when facing a Brood War progamer. Yet, sometimes, I see them do things that could be done in a more better/efficient way. And these things are easy to execute, so easy, that even I am able to do so. Why don't they care more?
Here are my two examples.
1) Protoss pushing into terran with buildings floating around. Dragoons stay behind for a while attacking the building, while zealots quickly die in the front. When I play, I always use the move command and have dragoons rejoin zealots, targetting terran units instead of buildings. It's automatic for me. But I've seen Stork too many times throwing his army to a single floating barrack. Even in Best games this can be seen sometimes.
2) Chasing first overlord with first corsair. Many players start attacking the overlord when corsair comes into range and do not move closer. As overlord runs away, corsair stops attacking once in a while to move back to the range again. With scourge being an imminent danger, I wonder, why they simply do not move the corsair as close as possible and kill it few seconds faster. I always do it automatically.
Please share your thoughts. Are these little things really so insignificant? Did you spot similar inefficiencies in programer games?
You are not doing in better, you are doing it different. SC is a game of priorities, while you micro your goons or corsair, pros make a macro round or so. And they found it more important to prioritise. It is also a matter of individual styles, some people prefer to micro one screen, some go macro, others jump to another place to harras at the same time.
On May 23 2025 07:06 Kraekkling wrote: Sunken placement zvt - when built close to the hatch sunkens provide coverage behind the mineral line and for most of the back side of the natural expansion. On some modern maps like Dominator all of the area in the back is covered.
But also general building placement in zvt - a common layout you'll see lategame Zerg end up with in their main is something like this + Show Spoiler +
, which is very disadvantageous for defense with lings and lurks vs MM drops due to chokes between the buildings.
On May 21 2025 21:24 WGT-Baal wrote: Not shift clicking shuttles away after dropping on tanks in pvt, or moving the shuttle a bit later. Very common having 3-4 shuttles micro-ed for the drop, then they loiter over there until a Goliath comes over 2mins later.
Though i understand this is the start of battle so there are a lot of things to do but maybe a hotkey for the shuttle and press it after the battle fully starts?
For things i do as well as pros, I am an expert at storming my own obs in pvz, if i do say so myself. On par with the pros
I'm convinced SKT1 players never learned this in the team house, and that to this day Bisu still doesn't know about this lmao
I guess this is old knowledge but there's literally no reason to not always do this
this is mostly relevant for whenever T or P get a scouting worker into the base of Zerg or try to keep the scout alive for some time - it is always better to mine a mineral chunk with your scouting worker. The return cargo command is like an additional ability which allows to instantly head home while ignoring unit collision; and it doesn't require to switch screens.
its really not that uncommon to see a Probe get stuck somewhere for a moment while being micro'ed and instantly die to lings, which could have been an easy escape if return cargo was available
On May 28 2025 02:32 Kraekkling wrote: I guess this is old knowledge but there's literally no reason to not always do this
this is mostly relevant for whenever T or P get a scouting worker into the base of Zerg or try to keep the scout alive for some time - it is always better to mine a mineral chunk with your scouting worker. The return cargo command is like an additional ability which allows to instantly head home while ignoring unit collision; and it doesn't require to switch screens.
its really not that uncommon to see a Probe get stuck somewhere for a moment while being micro'ed and instantly die to lings, which could have been an easy escape if return cargo was available
Except you lose the ability to prevent drones from mining a patch
On May 28 2025 02:32 Kraekkling wrote: I guess this is old knowledge but there's literally no reason to not always do this
this is mostly relevant for whenever T or P get a scouting worker into the base of Zerg or try to keep the scout alive for some time - it is always better to mine a mineral chunk with your scouting worker. The return cargo command is like an additional ability which allows to instantly head home while ignoring unit collision; and it doesn't require to switch screens.
its really not that uncommon to see a Probe get stuck somewhere for a moment while being micro'ed and instantly die to lings, which could have been an easy escape if return cargo was available
Except you lose the ability to prevent drones from mining a patch
true!! which means there's an optimal timing to mine
On May 23 2025 07:06 Kraekkling wrote: Sunken placement zvt - when built close to the hatch sunkens provide coverage behind the mineral line and for most of the back side of the natural expansion. On some modern maps like Dominator all of the area in the back is covered.
But also general building placement in zvt - a common layout you'll see lategame Zerg end up with in their main is something like this + Show Spoiler +
, which is very disadvantageous for defense with lings and lurks vs MM drops due to chokes between the buildings.
are at least somewhat protected by the sunks and there is no potential for terran units to kite backwards.
Could be wrong since i dont main zvt but i think pros are placing sunkens that way because drops are not a priority early game, defending vs the first group of mnm is. And if you place the sunkens touching the hatchery like that then you give them an opportunity to potentially just stim and runby into your main in some situations. Also its more difficult to place additional sunkens behind if youre doing stuff like muta+ling counter base trade there, and also theres less space to have a nydus behind the sunkens.
The main tech buildings are placed tightly together around the main hatchery so you can more easily defend with fewer dark swarms, having chokes between the buildings isnt the biggest issue there.
If all pros are using similar building placements theres probably a good reason for it, as goes for any of their other habits. I dont think they are infallible but they will be doing stuff that works best for them, after optimizing over many thousands of games.
edit: forgot also that vs tank pushes, having the sunkens placed forward is important as well because you dont want terran to be able to siege down your main hatchery or hit spawning defilers withou first killing all the sunkens in the way, so its essential the sunkens be placed at least somewhat forward. Thats probably more important that the other stuff i mentioned even
- If I see a flock of scourge, I try to attack them instead of running away with all corsairs and end up losing them to scourge connects anyway. I see progamers do this a lot.
- Focus down buildings.
- Not retreat your army and lose the entire army. Even if its a losing battle, at least I get -something- out of it. I often see protoss pro-gamers just run away and end up losing it without doing any dmg, which I never understood why.
EPT
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