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Work on making the APM you DO have -EFFECTIVE-
Your APM will probably naturally go up through this anyway.
Use your hotkeys, they can SAVE you a lot of APM - it's a lot easier to press 4,4 than to click on the minimap where your hatchery is, then click on the hatchery. Don't be afraid to make some of your hotkeys redundant - hotkeying your queens 456 and your hatches 7890 - it's unlikely you're going to use all of them anyway. I realized the korean pros who do this were on to something - it's al ot less annoying if you accidentally hit the wrong key or hotkey over something because you pressed ctrl+4 instead of just 4.
With army too, redundancy can be useful. All mutas + lings on 1, mutas on 2, lings on 3 is what I like to do as zerg for example.
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On September 13 2010 02:30 Bumblebees wrote:Show nested quote +On September 13 2010 02:25 tackklee wrote:
As many others would say, APM is not everything. This holds especially true in SC2. Macro, economy, unit composition and strategic thinking will definitely trump micro or higher apm any day.
I'd love to believe this, and would readily do so if there was a 1500+ diamond player who averaged 30-40apm. Hell, even 800+ would seriously convince me it's possible. That doesn't mean I don't think I couldn't be the first (triple negative, hooray!). It'd be awesome if there was someone to learn from though 
FYI, I am a 1200 Diamond Protoss and my average APM is about 45.
I agree 100% with the eprson who said hand speed is not as important as knowing what you should be doing. Anyone can run a probe around someones base, it does not take speed. Can you run a probe around someones base while at the same time thinking what the next building you are going to build is? That is what allows you to be efficient without being fast.
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Major kudos to Bumblebees. I'm glad that lowering your mouse sensitivity helped. It's always great to see people fighting their circumstances and marching on regardless. 
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From playing a couple months now i think its rather trying to be more proactive in the game than to spam whenever you can. I guess alot of pros do it to warm up and stuff but ive improved my APM by just trying to focus on doing more important things macro/micro wise throughout the game. Scouting, building more buildings, expanding, hit and runs etc. By watching your own replays and seeing where you can improve and just focusing on that. The more things you do the higher your apm will become in a more effective way.
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I know how its like when trying to have fun in a competitive game while being at a disadvantage... Strategy is key! As many people have stated, practicing routines and hot keys will make huge differences. Also eat cheese (Seriously, cheese helps your brain generate chemicals which make you happy (Seratonin is it?), and having more abundance of it will cause your body to adapt). Consult your doctor and ask him about it (Wouldn't want you to go into a seizure from happy overdose or something =/)).
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Honestly guys...FruitDealer himself has like 200apm...so in SC2 you don't need to pull a by.hero and 500apm it up. Just look around the map frequently, check your resource stockpiles frequently, and always look at the minimap. That's all it takes IMO.
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On September 13 2010 02:46 Kwaa wrote:Show nested quote +On September 13 2010 02:25 sourbiscuits wrote:Almost all units pretty much are a-movable except for HT, pheonix and sentries. Unfortunatly you won't be able to beat a a-moving Terran, unless you've got a far supperior army.
Am I misunderstanding you or are you saying Terran only requires a-moving? Because especially during battles my apm averages over 300.. and average overall game my apm is 100+ o.O
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On October 12 2010 19:44 izoli wrote:Show nested quote +On September 13 2010 02:46 Kwaa wrote:On September 13 2010 02:25 sourbiscuits wrote:Almost all units pretty much are a-movable except for HT, pheonix and sentries. Unfortunatly you won't be able to beat a a-moving Terran, unless you've got a far supperior army. Am I misunderstanding you or are you saying Terran only requires a-moving? Because especially during battles my apm averages over 300.. and average overall game my apm is 100+ o.O
He's just trolling and complaining about Terran being OverPowered. Ignore him.
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I watched a replay from a zerg player, I think his name was Darkforce? He did a cute little hotkey trick where he had his queens and all his hatches bound to one key. Then when he hit that key he cound inject larva by clicking the hatch in the bototm centre panel, instead of the minimap.
Not sure if this makes much difference to the pros since they can probably click any pixel they want instantly any time, but for a normal humans it's a lot easier to click the hatch in the panel (large area to click) than to click the minimap (small area -- and on large maps it's even smaller).
Just one little tip that might help ...
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You could make a starcraft keyboard. As in pull out all the unused keys. This might help with "fat fingering" of keys.
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Just an update for this interested in the 'saga', or perhaps just in the efficacy of my statements in progress:
I'm 1300 diamond now (recently promoted). Sc2 gears has me averaging around 25 apm after discounting the first 90 seconds (where I do spam hotkeys, and by spam I mean about 75-80 apm lol)
I've worked all the way from bronze, having never played the beta and only playing UMS in BW.
I'll be making another 'update' post with things I've learned sometime tomorrow, as I feel I've made some very major leaps in the last 2 weeks that are worth writing about.
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mods, if there's any issue with me 'updating' the thread like this, please let me know and I'll gladly cease. I'm primarily updating the thread because I receive fairly frequent PMs here and on reddit with advice and "how's it going" messages. I sorta wish there was a way to post without bumping the thread 
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I really liked Day[9]'s suggest of minesweeper. He just mentioned it in passing once, and I went, "Oh yeah, minesweeper is a game that's entirely about mouse speed and accuracy once you're good enough to remember just a few simple things. Mouse speed, accuracy, and a few simple things to remember... that kind of sounds like starcraft!"
So, I started playing minesweeper again, got my intermediate time back into the 40s, and my starcraft APM rose 10 apm as zerg, and 20-30 as protoss and terran.
This doesn't necessarily mean I got better mind you. I am only a silver leaguer after going 3-2 in my placement matches after all, but if you're really worried about APM and think you might enjoy minesweeper, give it a shot. They've even got new versions now that won't spawn any unsolvable minefields!
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I'm currently a Terran, 1500 Diamond in SEA server (1300 NA so far). When I was a couple hundred points lower, my APM averaged 40-50 a game. However, with practice, I've been able to push my APM further up 10-15 points, which I feel has actually made me a better player. However, bear in mind that this is my avg APM, mine can spike to 100+ during key points of the game.
But to the OP: yes, it's possible to hit the Diamond league with lowish APM. How I cope is to play timing based attacks and to predict what my opponent is doing.
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If you're having trouble microing those queens effectively, then there might be a radical alternative you haven't considered.
A few weeks ago, Day9 did a Funday Monday series where Zerg players were not allowed to get any queens. It actually worked out better than many people expected because they would wind up getting another hatchery, and it allowed for some new builds.
http://day9tv.blip.tv/file/4149200/
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On October 21 2010 03:04 Azzur wrote:
I'm currently a Terran, 1500 Diamond in SEA server (1300 NA so far). When I was a couple hundred points lower, my APM averaged 40-50 a game. However, with practice, I've been able to push my APM further up 10-15 points, which I feel has actually made me a better player. However, bear in mind that this is my avg APM, mine can spike to 100+ during key points of the game.
But to the OP: yes, it's possible to hit the Diamond league with lowish APM. How I cope is to play timing based attacks and to predict what my opponent is doing.
I'm the OP and I'm 1300 diamond now, and my APM has actually gone down. I'm averaging 25 or so now.
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On October 13 2010 07:04 ziggurat wrote:
I watched a replay from a zerg player, I think his name was Darkforce? He did a cute little hotkey trick where he had his queens and all his hatches bound to one key. Then when he hit that key he cound inject larva by clicking the hatch in the bototm centre panel, instead of the minimap.
Not sure if this makes much difference to the pros since they can probably click any pixel they want instantly any time, but for a normal humans it's a lot easier to click the hatch in the panel (large area to click) than to click the minimap (small area -- and on large maps it's even smaller).
Just one little tip that might help ...
Unfortunately, this one was patched out quite a while ago. You in fact used to be able to chrono boost through the same method. My macro has never quite recovered from losing this lol :[
Also, congratulations to the OP, I like seeing the update and that you are making progress (in terms of skill advancement).
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This is a really interesting thread: your disorder really forces you to focus on effective actions, rather than spamming actions quickly (and hoping a few productive ones come out of it). I think your experience is something we can all benefit from, because it reinforces the notion that effective apm, and game-sense, is more important than simply having fast (yet inefficient) hands.
One thing i can recommend, that I don't think has been brought up yet, is that you get a mouse with thumb buttons (at least 2). You mentioned having a big problem using the control key to manage hotkeys, and it's many other useful functions (like ctrl+f1 selects all your idle workers, a great way to start the game). Ctrl=f1 is nearly impossible to hit with one hand, but with ctrl mapped to one of my thumb buttons it's easy, and making hotkeys is incredibly easy (hold thumb button, hit # key...to select just release thumb button). This one change improved my control (and comfort) immensely...with it setting up, and changing hot-keys, is a breeze. For example, I now hotkey my creep tumors so I can quickly spread creep...I can then hotkey the next set while they're building so I'm always on the forward most ones, now that it's so easy to change the group (if you add this into your queen rotation you'll be amazed at how fast you can get 2-4 tumors across the map).
The reason I recommend 2 buttons is so that you can use the other one for shift commands: sure, shift clicking is not a problem, but did you know you can use shift+# (with units selected) to add a group of units to an already established ctrl group? It's slightly less critical, but great for quickly reinforcing. Two buttons is especially useful for ctrl+shift commands, like ctrl+shift+lc which removes all units of that type from a control group (in case you have some stray drones, or want to split your army), and ctrl+shift+f which centers your view on and follows whatever you have selected (rather than having the camera free move). This is great for managing multiple armies, in your case, since you can easily issue move and attack orders without moving the screen or mouse very much; though you'll probably want to turn it off and on (which you can do easily with the thumb buttons) it may allow you to micro and kite more effectively (marauder kite, for example, is as easy as alternating lc and a+lc once your mouse is positioned behind them). Moving two armies is simply a matter of switching between them, no matter how far apart, and clicking in the direction you want them to move (you can do the same with double clicking the hotkey, but it won't stay centered).
I use a Razor Death Adder, which is around $50: I know you mentioned trying a mouse before, but this is not for sensitivity reasons. The thumb buttons are well placed, and respond to an upward grip, rather than a press (so don't worry about accidentally hitting them). It's very easy to hit one or both buttons at a time, without misclicking. Alternately, Razor has the Naga, which has 12 thumb buttons laid out in a grid: that may sound excessive, but with those extra keys you can quickly use things like the f2-f8 buttons which save camera positions on the map (which eliminates a lot of scrolling, even if you're just going over to the mini map) or map the attack key to a thumb button for easier control. The other advantage to this, is that if you end up playing an mmo (or some other genre that requires a lot of different buttons) the Naga is excellent: you can then keep your keyboard hand in a comfortable position. That said, if you think you might be accidentally hitting buttons, 2 is more than enough.
It seems like you're doing much better (a lot better than me, but then I watch sc2 far more than I play it :-P), and I think effective micro is going to become increasingly necessary to continue. Again, I can't recommend a programmable mouse enough: the thumb buttons are HUGE since you can't compensate by having fast/dexterous hands. It makes the critical key combinations a breeze to pull off, and I think it will really open up your game (like making it efficient to hotkey creep tumors and add them to your rotation). It's also easy, at least with my mouse, to switch between different layouts for different games (or general use).
Finding those key combinations in the first place is also huge, because you can't utilize what you don't know. I've listed a few, but there are certainly more: some threads I found useful:
http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/832173254?page=1
http://faqs.ign.com/articles/110/1109259p1.html
It's hard to find anything comprehensive, so it's easy to miss some of those really good (less obvious) ones; if you find anything better do link them. The one other thing I'd mention is being able to map-scroll by holding down the middle mouse button: you can leave side scroll on a slow speed and turn the button scroll up. That way you can vary your scroll speed on the fly, keeping the accuracy but upping the speed when you need it. And since you have issues moving the mouse all over the screen, you can keep the mouse centered and still scroll the screen with the mouse.
As, a side note, I've definitely found Zerg less micro intensive as well, it simply requires more preparation. You don't have to organize multiple unit producing structures, you can have 1 hotkey for your hatcheries and have access to every unit: yes, you have to stay on top of your queen injections, but that's less a micro issue than it is an awareness one (which is why talking to yourself is so effective as zerg :-P). The units are also more focused on good positioning than micro tricks. Best of luck moving up the ladder.
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I was going to post an update thread today, but I've decided to spend most of the day writing a guide to playing with constricted APM, or using your current APM more effectively.
I'll update the main post in this thread with a link once I'm finished.
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On October 22 2010 00:01 Bumblebees wrote:
I was going to post an update thread today, but I've decided to spend most of the day writing a guide to playing with constricted APM, or using your current APM more effectively.
I'll update the main post in this thread with a link once I'm finished.
have you tried wearing compression gloves/stockings? It should increase your BP. I'm going to assume you are already medicated. All of these might be able to delay the onset of your symptoms. It could allow you to increase your APM cap. I'm really impressed that you were able to get to 1300 diamond with 25-30 apm. Great Job! keep it up.
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Just want to add that I'm a 1300 diamond toss and my APM is somewhere ~20-30. Haven't checked it in a while but I doubt its much higher.
If you think strategically and don't slip on your macro (besides during battles) you will do fine in diamond. You're not going to win tournaments but you can certainly get to a decent rank.
I recommend playing Protoss and stearing towards the Collosi path (away from High Templars) and you will do just fine
<edit> Sorry I missed your update. Good job sticking it out with Zerg, which is certainly the more APM intensive race!
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EPT
