[Q] Learning to Micro Ghosts

On November 08 2011 13:54 theBOOCH wrote:
I'm a diamond Terran (have a feeling I'll be in Plat soon if I don't improve ...) Anyway, I also have an awful time with ghosts. I've just been messing around with them vs AI, and I've found that,

First) of course, you MUST have them on a different hotkey. They're toxic to your army, because you can't stim quickly. I always keep my army on 1 and the ghosts on 2. Pick a consistent key and stick to it. Luckily, 2-E is a really easy maneuver for me, with the fingers I use and such. Also, you need to treat them as a separate army in a way. You need to be able to pull back after you get EMPs down so you don't lose them, but you don't want them behind your army because they might not get the EMPs off on time.

Second) you CANNOT shift-queue EMPs or Snipes. It's risky and enefficient. If you give them a shift command before you EMP, you the risk of them following through with their move or attack command. This could mean they run right up to your opponents army before they EMP. Of course you could be really careful and make sure you hit shift AFTER you command them to cast their first EMP, but this seems to slow them down. I'm pretty sure this is because they won't cast their next EMPs until after the one preceding it has been fully cast because they are all commanded to cast the full queue of EMPs as a unit. So what you have to do is quickly hit E-click, E-click, E-click, etc. this gives each individual ghost a separate EMP command and they're move within rage and cast their EMPs individually. I might be wrong on this next part, but I think if you shift command and your first (closest) ghost is killed before it casts it's EMP, the next closest ghost will cast the first EMP where you told it to be cast and the whole queue will reset meaning you might miss your first mark (because it comes later) and any subsequent marks, but you are more guaranteed that that particular spot will be EMPd even if you lose a ghost or so (and any subsequent spots until your queue runs out or you are out of energy). Again, this last bit might be wrong, but I think that's how it works. Anyway, the point is, don't hold shift while you cast EMP or Snipe.

Third) Plan your attacks. Keep your army in a position that will be good for you to engage, like spread at the bottom of a ramp, with your ghost ready in range of your opponent or where your opponent will be, and fire your EMPs right when he gets into range (if you aim for the edge of his army, you'll get more if he's moving toward you). If you're attacking him, move just forward enough so that you're on the edge of your EMP range before casting (so that they'll cast with the least delay) and if you get them off well, stim in your army (and if they don't go down, don't run in!). (If you're caught off guard, I think it's best to stim and get you army in a good position before you EMP, but that's crisis management that's hard to plan. Either way, pull your ghosts back asap so you don't lose them.

Finally) Practice and get familiar with the ghosts. Know their range and how they respond. Open up a custom game and just spam EMPs. Get an idea of their radius (which is about to get smaller) and their range and how they act when queued and not queued.

Hope any of that helped! At least these are the rules that I'm following as I try to get better at using ghosts!

Cheers,
_theBOOCH

On November 08 2011 14:59 phiinix wrote:
However, a skill that a very very small proportion of sc2 players have is the ability to ladder and practice on something other than winning, and accept loses as a part of the learning experience. It's always best to practice in real situations rather than a simulation.

On November 09 2011 03:16 Hashmeister wrote:
On a side note i would recommend: on ur level its WAY more important to learn to macro properly. Will get you at LEAST to plat. Day 9 also has a lot of dailies on that. In silver u can actually just a click ur army and ull still win with zero micro. So really do try to just work pn ur macro.

On ur problem: seperate hotkey for ghosts and HOLD ur spell button while u left klick 1000 times :D (e.g. With snipe) use the unit test map to train glhf

Also, what do you mean by "HOLD ur spell button while u left klick 1000 times"? Do you mean put the units on hold or something else?

On November 09 2011 04:09 driftme wrote:


He means LITERALLY hold E while youre clicking. Its like issuing thousands of E commands with the occasional click. It basically makes it easier instead of E-Click E-Click, just E(held) click click click. Make sense?

On November 09 2011 04:09 driftme wrote:


He means LITERALLY hold E while youre clicking. Its like issuing thousands of E commands with the occasional click. It basically makes it easier instead of E-Click E-Click, just E(held) click click click. Make sense?

On November 09 2011 04:36 Skyro wrote:


The only thing to be careful about when using this way to cast spells is there is a slight delay before you can start spam clicking, just like how when you are typing and hold down a key there is a slight delay before the key is continually repeated. While this is not as big an issue with a spell like emp it does become a problem with spells like force field, in which case I would recommend doing F-click-F-click way of casting.

On November 09 2011 04:36 Skyro wrote:


The only thing to be careful about when using this way to cast spells is there is a slight delay before you can start spam clicking, just like how when you are typing and hold down a key there is a slight delay before the key is continually repeated. While this is not as big an issue with a spell like emp it does become a problem with spells like force field, in which case I would recommend doing F-click-F-click way of casting.

On November 09 2011 05:51 NaturalHacks wrote:


yup or you can go into control panel>keyboard. turn your keyboard repeatdelay speed right down and your repeatspeed right up

On November 08 2011 13:54 theBOOCH wrote:
I'm a diamond Terran (have a feeling I'll be in Plat soon if I don't improve ...) Anyway, I also have an awful time with ghosts. I've just been messing around with them vs AI, and I've found that,

First) of course, you MUST have them on a different hotkey. They're toxic to your army, because you can't stim quickly. I always keep my army on 1 and the ghosts on 2. Pick a consistent key and stick to it. Luckily, 2-E is a really easy maneuver for me, with the fingers I use and such. Also, you need to treat them as a separate army in a way. You need to be able to pull back after you get EMPs down so you don't lose them, but you don't want them behind your army because they might not get the EMPs off on time.

Second) you CANNOT shift-queue EMPs or Snipes. It's risky and enefficient. If you give them a shift command before you EMP, you the risk of them following through with their move or attack command. This could mean they run right up to your opponents army before they EMP. Of course you could be really careful and make sure you hit shift AFTER you command them to cast their first EMP, but this seems to slow them down. I'm pretty sure this is because they won't cast their next EMPs until after the one preceding it has been fully cast because they are all commanded to cast the full queue of EMPs as a unit. So what you have to do is quickly hit E-click, E-click, E-click, etc. this gives each individual ghost a separate EMP command and they're move within rage and cast their EMPs individually. I might be wrong on this next part, but I think if you shift command and your first (closest) ghost is killed before it casts it's EMP, the next closest ghost will cast the first EMP where you told it to be cast and the whole queue will reset meaning you might miss your first mark (because it comes later) and any subsequent marks, but you are more guaranteed that that particular spot will be EMPd even if you lose a ghost or so (and any subsequent spots until your queue runs out or you are out of energy). Again, this last bit might be wrong, but I think that's how it works. Anyway, the point is, don't hold shift while you cast EMP or Snipe.

Third) Plan your attacks. Keep your army in a position that will be good for you to engage, like spread at the bottom of a ramp, with your ghost ready in range of your opponent or where your opponent will be, and fire your EMPs right when he gets into range (if you aim for the edge of his army, you'll get more if he's moving toward you). If you're attacking him, move just forward enough so that you're on the edge of your EMP range before casting (so that they'll cast with the least delay) and if you get them off well, stim in your army (and if they don't go down, don't run in!). (If you're caught off guard, I think it's best to stim and get you army in a good position before you EMP, but that's crisis management that's hard to plan. Either way, pull your ghosts back asap so you don't lose them.

Finally) Practice and get familiar with the ghosts. Know their range and how they respond. Open up a custom game and just spam EMPs. Get an idea of their radius (which is about to get smaller) and their range and how they act when queued and not queued.

Hope any of that helped! At least these are the rules that I'm following as I try to get better at using ghosts!

Cheers,
_theBOOCH