EPT[H] How can I deal with low APM? - Page 3
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Touch
Canada475 Posts
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rodriques
Norway13 Posts
Gotta love the replies to this thread. I take it as proof that this is a truely amazingly kind and helping community. Also, Good luck with your improvement. For myself, I've learned most things by 1. Playing with a really skilled friend of mine in 2v2 2. Watching loads of Vods, replays and reading forums! | ||
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vnlegend
United States1389 Posts
Play more games and get more experience. Analyze the replays and look for areas to improve. Watch games from the pros to learn strategies. In BW, I had trouble multi-tasking while pushing out as Terran. This is because you have to lay mines, siege/unsiege, scout for expos, reinforce with vultures, etc so the mineral piles up, macro falls behind and you may get broken by Toss's army. So to adjust for this, I have to make more factories and leave 2 scvs to build depots before I move out. You will need your own adjustments. | ||
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Bumblebees
United States328 Posts
On September 13 2010 07:58 freestalker wrote: That brings me to my old idea... I wish there was an icon similar to what warpgates have, just telling you how many larvae in total you have. You know if you put all your hatcheries on one hotkey then click it, it tells you how much larva at each hatchery. | ||
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Bumblebees
United States328 Posts
On September 13 2010 08:00 Touch wrote: Caffeine. Seriously. Green tea = tremors so bad I can't play (I do drink it when I get sleep attacks though). Rockstar = hospital. (last 2 times I tried it I ended up staying until I stopped randomly having syncopal episodes) I am trying to get on provigil though. It seems to be a viable option. I am pretty glad to see there's other people who manage OK with lower APM though. That makes me hopeful to make it into at least mid-diamond one day. | ||
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BigFatRoAcH
Japan90 Posts
Take a SCV, press B first then press S and select a position will allow you to make a depot, holding SHIFT and press S then clikc another ground position will queue you up for another depot, then holding SHIFT and left click a mineral or gas. Your SCV will make the second depot after the first one is finished then goes back to mine mineral/gas AUTOMATICALLY after the building tasks are complete. What I usually do is control group my CC to 0, all rax/fac/port to 9. before I head out for harrass say I'm 35/51, so I take a SCV and queue up 3 depots then heads back for mineral. I can harrass while just click on 0 or 9(you have to press TAB to switch from rax to fac to port then to rax) to make SCVs and units. the SCV keeps making 3 depots which will make my supply max to 75 so I don't have to go back to look at my base until I'm around 70/75. I can use all my concentration on micro managing the units for that span and not fall behing in macra. | ||
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skirmisheR
Sweden451 Posts
Or if you are continuing using Zerg, don't go for mutas :S | ||
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Almania
145 Posts
Actually, you have me thinking here. Most of my APM issue is that I have a lot of difficulty controlling the mouse. Hmm, I think it may help forcing yourself to primarily move the screen using hotkeys. Need to focus on your scout? 11. Your Hatchery, 66. This may help if your mousework isn't great - really try to force yourself to use hotkeys, even if sometimes you'd rather not. It'll likely pay off. Similarly find which injection technique (minimap, backspace etc) works for you best and practice it. Practice it against the computer whilst attacking, and try to not do it another way, even if it's convenient at the time. Just so it becomes more routine for you.. Other then that, I think you can do well as Zerg without going insane micro. Zerglings (compared to Roaches) and Hydralisks (Mutalisks) are the lower micro units, probably worth investing in those if the situation doesn't call for the other. Just master your macro, your injections, your scouting, and your unit composition (in spite of what I just said) and I'm sure you can continue to improve your game =). | ||
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BadWolf0
United States300 Posts
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Wartortle
Australia504 Posts
on topic- ive seen topics were people say "my apm is so low with terran", and i think thats because the rotation of tasks is quite easy. there's no creep spreading or overlord positioning. most of the macro is just cycling through your building hotkeys and pumping units till you need to expand/fight/whatever. however i hate the thought of switching from a race you enjoy for any reason! either way, good luck with it and good to see the commitment! | ||
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freestalker
469 Posts
On September 13 2010 09:51 Bumblebees wrote: You know if you put all your hatcheries on one hotkey then click it, it tells you how much larva at each hatchery. I do know. and that makes me wonder why toss has it easy mode  | ||
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OnA
Canada43 Posts
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kaisr
Canada715 Posts
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iSTime
1579 Posts
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laonda
Netherlands44 Posts
Not sure if SC2 is the game for you. I think it is the most stressfull game i have ever played but hell if you can make it work, well done! For the low APM question. - As stated before zerg is the hardest race apm wise. So my advice would be to play another race. - Be clean BO wise, you can win or lose most games with the perfect executed BO. Know your exact BO timing and execute them as perfect if your APM let you. - When in battle, focus on the macro instead of the micro(just leave the battle alone and 1a your army and foxus on getting more stuff). Mirco wil win you the battle, Macro wil win you the war. - Try to find a 1 base BO (like mentioned before protoss/terran would be better). When you get to 2+ base APM will have a bigger impact. Overall i am also a very very low APM player around 30-35. I am currently nr1 plat in my division with around 900 points. I could be higher if i sticked to 3WG robo of 4 gates. But i tried the FE builds (to every race) but that builds gives me hard times with my current APM  | ||
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BigFatRoAcH
Japan90 Posts
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s4m222
United States272 Posts
Toss and terran you dont need to worry about hatcheries and injecting. Although there is chrono boost and mules. But i dont think your punished as hard if you miss a few chronos or mules vs queen. | ||
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mololu
Switzerland64 Posts
Personally, I'm an APM minimalist. If I don't have to do it, I won't. Not because I can't but because it's something I picked up long ago and now can't un-learn. Now, not knowing your specific situation it's hard to say so I'm relating this to my own experiences. Maybe you can glean something useful from my ramblings: For a moment I'd like to look away from the ingame issues. It sounds to me like stress is the greatest influence on your game (and SC2 is without a doubt a very stressful game). I think getting comfortable with the situations at hand could help out a lot. This is something I want to work on for myself - basically to work past the mental block and just know "oh, this situation... okay, do that". What often happens to me is pressure builds up (say reaper/helion harrass) and I get ever so slightly panicked. Even if I can fight down the panic, it will affect my gameplay to an extent where I'm so out of whack that everything falls apart. The problem is basically: Focusing on multiple things at once. I'd wager a guess this is very much what you suffer from too. Out of experience I've found I can maybe track 3-4 things at once. More than that and I start forgetting. I would also say that Zerg is not the most APM intensive race there is. It is however definitly the race that requires you to track the most number of things at once. This in return requires a multitasking ability which I personally think you can learn by repetition. You don't actually have to DO very much. But you do have to remember to spit/creep at the right moments (which is maybe 1-2 clicks per action). This I personally still fail at. But again, I think this is a mental thing and nothing APM related. It also ties into the stressed/panicked issue though. If your mind gets sidetracked you'll start losing track of your mental counters. So, we're looking for ways to get around APM. The obvious one which has been stated several times here is moving APM work to mental work i.e. thinking ahead and working out what to do so when it comes around to actually doing it you know just what to do and don't flail around the way I do currently. Something that just occured to me: Building placement. I often find myself spending a long time fiddling around to figure out how to best fit a building. Maybe learning some basic building placement scemes (hiding tech, blocking harrass or whatever) could help? Ofc. large attacks you can also coordinate with a fairly low ammount of APM, generally by working with terrain etc. I play silver so this may not say much but many of my lategame attacks consist of two to three unit groups moved with simple waypoints (zerglings flank, main body of ultras tank etc.). Then add infestor micro (which in your case would probably be asking too much). I'm guessing even on a smaller scale, 2-3 actions can constitute an effective attack without much on-the-spot micro. I'm finding waypoints very useful for this especially when I need to focus on say base building (which is again - very few actions) but together they just add up. Guess I'll stop rambling about now. Maybe some of this will be useful. And I'm glad you found something to occupy your mind with! I've no doubt this is something very important for you so all the best - for the swarm! | ||
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kme
Serbia176 Posts
Getting rid of creep tumors is not that difficult. It will hurt you, but not severely. Spawn larvae is more difficult tough. My suggestion is to only use it on the beginning and later just put more hatcheries. You also need to work on your hotkeys. Don't just randomly assign them during a game, you have to plan them before. Use all your hatcheries on 4 for example, and you can have 123 for your army. Also you should simply not build units that require a lot of attention or micro (mutalisk, infestor). The best strategy for you will most likely be sitting in your base and macroing carefully and at some time doing a timing attack. This playstyle is actually very strong as many people screw their macro even in diamond. As soon as you move to attack, put down like 2 more hatcheries so you can keep macroing easily with just using one hotkey. It will be less efficient than using queens but it may just be more efficient for you. By playing like this, you will usually have to outsmart your opponent. Try to get as much advantage as possible from correct army composition and tech switching. Also a-moving 10 lings on their expansion and then forgetting about them requires basically no APM but if timed correctly can win you the game. | ||
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Sztur
Canada1 Post
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