|
I'm a rank ~15 gold Protoss player and I've noticed that I'm having problems with micro. In particular, I run into certain situations that I'm not entirely sure how best to handle. Specifically:
1) When out in the open, I tend to just create a big jumbled ball of mixed units. I think this is pretty standard, though when attacked (or even when attacking), I run into problems where units with longer range will stop to engage while units with shorter range will be stuck behind, walking back and forth in an attempt to get within range. What is the best way to deal with this issue? Make sure short range units are always sitting at the front of the ball from the expected direction of attack? Group select during battle and manually move the longer range units forward during combat? I find this problem is particularly bad when you have Zealots or Immortals that happen to start behind Stalkers.
2) Related to the point above. When attack up a ramp or similar choke, if you attack-move with your army, the units in front will stop to engage, which blocks all the units behind. Again, what is the best thing to do here? Make sure that all your units are arranged in order of attack range before trying to move up the ramp?
3) Regarding Sentry micro: if you attack-move with a Sentry, and then shift-click spam a bunch of Forcefields, the Forcefields won't get cast until the Sentry "completes" its attack-move order. Do you just need to get in the habit of hitting ESC or 'S' to clear all orders before shift-F-click spamming Forcefields? Or do you not shift-click spam, and simply hit F-click, F-click, F-click, etc. for every Forcefield you want to put down?
4) This one is kind of a broad question. I tend to rely on attack-move 95% of the time, which I know is lazy and causes problems sometimes. About the only time I manually target units is if there's an obviously dangerous threat that needs to be removed immediately (e.g.: Mutas attacking my Colossi, Infestors NP'ing my Immortals). When is it appropriate to use attack-move, and when should I just be using right-click move, or issue other manual commands?
Any other tips for micro'ing (either general or Protoss-specific) would be appreciated.
|
On May 07 2010 00:24 suckerfish wrote:
[...]
3) Regarding Sentry micro: if you attack-move with a Sentry, and then shift-click spam a bunch of Forcefields, the Forcefields won't get cast until the Sentry "completes" its attack-move order. Do you just need to get in the habit of hitting ESC or 'S' to clear all orders before shift-F-click spamming Forcefields? Or do you not shift-click spam, and simply hit F-click, F-click, F-click, etc. for every Forcefield you want to put down?
[..].
Very interesting topic for me as I suck at micro also  On the Sentry stuff though i guess that if you first F click the first forcefield THEN shift-F click the next ones, it should work ok.
-Kerm
|
1) Yes, in general you want to position melee units in the direction you expect an attack to come from.
2) You could try attacking, then move up the ramp, attack again when attack cooldown ends, repeat. Pretty standard micro tactic to move, e.g., dragoons up a ramp in BW.
3) Don't both shift clicking, you have autocast. So, if you have like 5 sentries and you click 5 times for forcefild, it will cast all of them without having to hold shift. Obviously if you have 2 sentries each with 200 energy and want to cast 5-8 force fields you may want to use shift, but that's rare.
4) Focusing fire is almost always better if you are capable of doing it. In a 150+ supply battle, it's not possible for most players to do anything other than a-move maybe with some flanks and to micro spellcasters, especially if you are also macroing. If, on the other hand, you're fighting 8 stalkers against 12 roaches, you need to dance and focus fire effectively if you want to be most efficient with your units.
Also any time you have mostly gateway units against colossi or something you clearly need to deal with the colossi. If your stalkers/sentries all focus on their zealots, you're just going to get owned.
|
Really, you can answer all of these questions with common sense.
1) First group all unit types into separate groups. Move melee-range units forward and keep ranged units behind unless it's a tank. If ranged units seem to be blocking the way for melee units, just move them back. Just get used to the unit ranges and try to time and space your attack right. You'll learn eventually.
2) Move your whole army forward and then attack move. Repeat the process if there's still a few units out of range. Units that are within melee-range of the enemy can keep attacking while you move units out of range closer.
Obviously, if you are attacking up a ramp you'll most likely want short-range units to be first in line.
3) uh, I don't really shift-order Sentries. Shift-ordering Sentries to a-move and then forcefield doesn't make sense. You won't get the FF timed correctly if you do it like this.
tl;dr just use F, you don't need to queue orders with Sentries
4) There's tons of small micro you can do in battle to increase your odds greatly. Move wounded units back, focus-fire wounded units or just focus-firing in general, moving units around to avoid getting surrounded, splitting units to avoid splash... etc
|
1. Flanking with 2 groups will solve this problem. Flanking is difficult to do but very important in large battles. It allows you to get all your units attacking without having the problem of some stalkers firing and others not.
2. @PJA and also lings - if their ramp isn't tight you need to run up the ramp past their units for a surround and kill just like sc1.
3. I just spam force fields like FFFFFFFFFFFFFF pew pew in their army to split everything up so my units can chomp on the things left behind. Or if I know I have a superior force, I ff behind all their units and try to block them
4. Nothing to add
I'd say micro important battles but I think you can just a-move if you are chasing or doing clean up. Also, make sure your macro doesn't slip during your micro...that's really hard to do I think.
|
1. Just have your entire army on 1, so you can move around the map easier and make some additional groups for the battle. Like, if I have zealots, stalkers, sentries, immortals and colossi, I will have them all on 1, zealots, sentries and immortals on 2 and the rest on 3. This was you have immortals and zealots at the front, the sentries ready to cast and the colossi protected by the stalkers.
2. Just inch forward inbetween attacks.
3. Do not use shift. Just F-click-Fclick etc.
4. Attack move is actually enough most of the time in SC2. A few things that need individual control you already have mentioned. Other than those I only select the targets for my colossi manually. Like when fighting hydras and roaches, make sure you shoot the hydras first, preferably those standing in big clusters.
In general try not to waste damage like immortals shooting lings instead of roaches etc.
|
General advice. I'm about 1400 plat - these are the major things I use to control my army.
You can't hotkey your "ball" to one key. That is bad and lazy.
A better way to do it is hotkey melee to one key, ranged to another, and whatever else to a third. If I have colossus for example, it is extremely important they have their own hotkey so you can micro them back to avoid focus fire, etc.
Sentry micro - alot of times you don't want to be splitting their army. If you have significant amounts of zealots and you are fighting in the open, you need the force fields BEHIND their ranged, so that they can't micro them back. Trying to split armies usually results in blocking my zealot's path to the target.
At chokes, etc, this is a different story of course. Splitting can win you games.
Also, splitting your army into multiple fronts as you charge in is good, espeically for ranged units. You want them all attacking as soon as possible. every second a unit is out of range is lost dps.
|
On May 07 2010 00:24 suckerfish wrote:
3) Regarding Sentry micro: if you attack-move with a Sentry, and then shift-click spam a bunch of Forcefields, the Forcefields won't get cast until the Sentry "completes" its attack-move order. Do you just need to get in the habit of hitting ESC or 'S' to clear all orders before shift-F-click spamming Forcefields? Or do you not shift-click spam, and simply hit F-click, F-click, F-click, etc. for every Forcefield you want to put down?
Just use F-click. SC2 has smartcasting, so you don't need to shift-click any abilities (unless you want one unit to chain multiple abilities together)
On May 07 2010 00:24 suckerfish wrote:
4) This one is kind of a broad question. I tend to rely on attack-move 95% of the time, which I know is lazy and causes problems sometimes. About the only time I manually target units is if there's an obviously dangerous threat that needs to be removed immediately (e.g.: Mutas attacking my Colossi, Infestors NP'ing my Immortals). When is it appropriate to use attack-move, and when should I just be using right-click move, or issue other manual commands?
Always focus fire. Focus fire kills units faster, which reduces the DPS of the enemy army faster. You will win more battles if you focus fire. The problem of course is that this requires more APM/micro, so you may need to practice your mechanics to be able to do this effectively.
|
you generally want to fix any range issues before you start the fight. get all your melee in front, immortals in the middle and stalkers in the back.
once you start moving, the ball should be zeals in front, immortals in middle, stalkers in the back.
Now if you're in the open, once you engage, you want to start moving your army so that it becomes a concave. I generally select half of my units and just move them to the left or right. once you get into the concave formation, all your range units should be attacking at the same time. From here, you can pull back whatever units are getting hit, and micro around. The important part is to get a big enough concave so that none of your units are sitting around doing nothing.
sentries usually don't stay up for too long so I generally bust out guardian shield on 2 then forcefield spam the rest behind the enemy army so they cant kite my zealots. If you're attacking a choke, splitting their army is key. Always have an observer so you can fire above cliffs, and stay patient. Trying to bust in all at once usually leaves half your army just stuck in limbo not attacking anything.
|
There is no cooldown on dropping FFs. Just hit F and click as fast as you can/want.
|
Calgary25996 Posts
Seriously, these are all basic common sense answers.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
