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Hello again,
You may remember me from such newbie threads as [H] Pick apart my bronze play! and [D] Cannon contain PvZ! Or not. Either way, I'd love to get some feedback from my now-Silver play (though I feel a graduation coming along soon -- lots of wins against Gold players recently) regarding the balance in one ZvP between macro and micro.
I do a LOT of shoot n scoot against the Protoss's stalker/sentry heavy army, and delay a few injects because of it (I believe I missed one completely). My focus fire picked off several more Stalkers than I ought've, however, and certainly kept ground when I would have lost it. I would absolutely adore some higher-ranked players taking a look at the replay and gauge my micro. Switch it over to the Rowen-Cam(tm) and watch my camera and clicks, see when I pop back to macro, eyeroll at my supply block not once, not twice, but five times (I believe. If I can kick that bad habit I'd be platinum within a week).
The replay can be found here, or if clicking a long unwieldy URL is more to your taste, then it could also be found: http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/99581-1v1-protoss-zerg-shakuras-plateau
Clearly becoming supply blocked is a Bad Bad Thing, so gloss over that for the time being -- that's something I'll need to work on on my own -- but I'd love some thoughts about time spent micro vs macro during the game. Thoughts?
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Getting supply blocked is an obvious indicator that you're not paying enough attention to macro.
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I can't watch the replay at the moment, but for the question about time spent on macro vs micro, the answer should always be more macro at your level.
At gold level, simply having "more stuff" (to quote Day[9]), you will most likely win. So prioritize keeping your macro solid and use the remaining time to perform micro-moves. This means that you'll regularly move away from the actual battle to do something in your base. But your units are typically effective enough when left alone so they will still lay on the hurting while you're looking elsewhere.
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everyone has their own preferences and their own balance between micro/macro. Keep playing and you'll naturally improve in both categories.
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Zurich15327 Posts
If you want to get better at the game it is very simple: Always always always favor macro over micro. Any time you are microing and because of that you forget inject or supply or making workers you are doing something wrong. Only ever spend time on micro if you can not 100% do anything macro wise that second.
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Up until maybe high platinum, work on macro. Don't worry about micro.
As day9 would say, just build probes and pylons. Constantly producing probes and not getting supply blocked sounds simple, but even the best players jack it up every once in a while. And the consequences are catastrophic.
If your money gets too high, expand or throw down more unit producing structures.
At bronze through high plat you can win every game by simply building more stuff than your opponent.
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I've also been having the problem of "too much micro"... I've noticed that I'm spending too much time trying to save my 4 Roaches from the pack of Marines... where it gets to the point where I get late on my larvae injections. Or I spend too much effort scouting with my 9th drone, where I miss my 14 pool, 13 gas timings, which makes my everything late, and leaves me with minerals in the bank (in a negative way).
Basically, I've stopped really focusing on following units. Instead, I hotkey my scouting drone to 1... then follow it until I make my 14th drone. While it's building, I just queue up a ton of waypoints for the scout (avoiding bunkers/barracks)... then I build my pool/gas, then back to scouting, then do my stuff accordingly.
Essentially, I just mean I'm not paying as much attention to little battles, and focusing on keeping my injections on time, spreading creep, and building macro. (Adding all hatches to 5 and queens to 6 does this, AND allows the "higher-up" number keys to be used for upgrading structures, such as Evo chambers and Spires)
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The points above are 100% true.
If your APM is low, make sure you're macroing (spending your money, making an army at your base, building probes/pylons, extra gateways if you have extra money ect ect)
With time your APM will increase, if your sure you've got your macro taken care of, pop back and micro a bit more.
Too many players see pros microing in battle and thing that's what they need to do, but honestly they are macroing efficiently (APM) that they can micro too. At a gold level neither player should be capable of this, just make sure you're making more stuff, then sending it to reinforce, then micro a bit, and repeat.
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Hey Rowen I just skimmed through the replay. Mostly through your first person camera. I make a quick list of things that I would look on:
1. You look at the right places most of the time. That means your army. You where allways aware of whats going on in the battle which is a good thing.
2. As far as micro goes, you have solid basics like dancing with your roaches. your decision making was ok. Most of the time you knew when to attack and when to retreat which is the biggest factor in battles. But on the first attack you defended against that zealot sentry army you lost too much because of several reasons. First of all you decided to fight near your natural which was a positional mistake. Shakuras plateau provides wide areas in the center where you have advantage over sentrys so he cannot cut you off that easy. you should also work on baiting forcefields. Your lings got cut off quite a few times. you dont have to commit to an attack if your forces are cut off. especialy lings are very fast so you can dodge an attack and wait for better times.
3. Macro wise it didnt look that bad actually. ofc you made mistakes but I saw how you constantly produced stuff infight. You had decent control of your minerals (around 1k at most as far as I remember) but lackluster control of your gas. You should allways keep both resources low. You can either simply not mine that much gas and free up minerals or you could change your composition and mix in a gas heavy unit. Hydras would be the obvious choice in this particular game. Another way to sink gas is to research upgrades which you had none. Upgrades are especialy effective on zerg units because they cost no larvae!
4. The weakest link wasnt either micro or macro. It was scouting. You did not have any Idea what the P was doing in his main, which is ok if you keep track of his army size and composition which you did well. But you didnt know for a far too long time if he expanded or not. Ok you controlled the watchtowers but if you dont know how the P plays economy wise then you can only guess when to make units. One major skill good Zergs have to have is to decide when to make army units and this is only possible if you scout.
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Micro means nothing if you can't macro. In lower leagues, it is all about the macro. Just macro better and you can a-move your army and still win the majority of the time. At lower levels, and even at higher levels, micro can't make for a decent supply deficit so if you can just focus on getting a strong economy and then making shit tons of stuff, you'll do fine. The only possible problem would be throwing stuff into like 20 tanks or HT or Collossus or Banelings, but in that case, it is fairly easy to find a counter
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On November 04 2010 00:01 dave333 wrote:
Micro means nothing if you can't macro. In lower leagues, it is all about the macro. Just macro better and you can a-move your army and still win the majority of the time. At lower levels, and even at higher levels, micro can't make for a decent supply deficit so if you can just focus on getting a strong economy and then making shit tons of stuff, you'll do fine. The only possible problem would be throwing stuff into like 20 tanks or HT or Collossus or Banelings, but in that case, it is fairly easy to find a counter
I dont find this very general advice usefull at all. for example roaches are considered to be a counter to zealots. But if you do not micro them they are not even costeffective in small/medium numbers. same goes with zealots vs lings, stalkers vs marines. And sentrys, HT, siege tanks, phoenixes, banelings, mutas (and more) in general are not usefull if you 1a them into death. another example is terran bio vs a midgame protoss army.
micro, positioning and basic tactical decisions are very crucial even at lower levels because you can make up for alot of supply in alot of cases. What does a 5-10s faster warpgate round help if you a-move a sentry zealot army into decently controlled roaches? yes, nothing.
the replay OP uploaded shows alot of this. this is why I gave him some specific advice. I'am really not a fan of the general "macro is more important in every way"-assumption.
edit: especially considering the sheer dominance of 1base builds at bronze-low diamond micro comes heavily into play. what if you screw a forcefield against X-rax pressure while your heading for tech? gg!
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day[9] helped me really well on this matter with his daily where he coached DjWheat! You should clearly watch that episode because there he tells you where your camera should be and how your macro should be controlled via keyboard. As I said ... That episode helped me reeeeaally much 
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It seems when I upload a replay, I get nine posters talking about general concepts (macro is better than micro at lower leagues, don't worry about losing two roaches if it means delaying making ten more, keep money low, etc) and one or two posters who actually watched the replay and comments on the specific game I asked about. @Clickrush: THANK YOU! For those that can't watch the replay, I'm not the newest zergling in the control group, I know that macro > micro, and I know that getting supply blocked is a bad thing (please read such in my OP. That wasn't caused by microing too much, it was caused by completely ignoring my supply because I'm a silver-league dumbass sometimes ;-D). I appreciate your comments but I really do know this information from reading any number of threads on basic play and watching day[9]. My question was about the balance of micro vs macro in this PARTICULAR game.
Zatic's post that forgetting an inject means too much micro is a good barometer for my play, and I'll keep that in mind. Clickrush gave me some GREAT thoughts (though I disagree with the scouting point since I knew when he expanded immediately from scouting the front and knew his army comp at all times. I suppose a tech switch would have screwed me) as well. Keeping gas low is usually not a problem, heh, and I think I even made a hydra den to transition into roach/hydra from roach/ling and capitalize on my excess gas, but the game ended too soon to do so. I might be mistaken about that, tbh, the last two games I played were ZvP on Shakuras, and I may be confounding them. I definitely thought about it though, after looking up and seeing TWO THOUSAND GAS and knowing I needed to dump it.
Thanks all for the analysis. If anyone has something to add, please do!
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Macro>Micro
Proof:
iloveoov
NaDa
Flash
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There is zero need to watch silver level replay to say that you problem is macro. NONE zip nada. Untill mid diamond you can easily win with pure macro and A move to oponents base without ever looking a your army ever (aka zero micro).
never look outside your base besides scouting, then hotkey your army and use mini map to attack. So what was said before that micro means nothing is 100% correct.
That said there are a FEW cases where micro is very important and that is mostly early game as 3-4 roaches vs 5-7 zelots. But other then that trust me 15 unmicroed roaches walk over 7 zelots alot better then 5 microed ones.
Best thing you can do right now is this. Take any pro zerg replay, pretty much any that has no some sort of all in. Write down his food at points in time 2,4,6,10 min w/e and then watch your replay and see WHY your food is half that. You will be blown away by how much more stuff they have.
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On November 04 2010 05:02 Deathfairy wrote:
There is zero need to watch silver level replay to say that you problem is macro.
Not to be snarky, but what problem..? I never listed a problem. In fact I won my match fairly convincingly. I was asking about a balance of macro versus micro, not "WHY DIDN'T MY FOUR PERFECTLY MICROED ROACHES NOT BEAT THEIR ENTIRE ZEALOT ARMY!?!?"
I will go ahead and check those pro replays for comparative purposes, but no one could be so bull-headed as to believe that 1a2a3a is an acceptable teaching method for high silver or gold leaguers whose macro did not suffer terrifically. I noted the problems I had (supply block, missing one inject) and even mentioned that I supply block myself ALL THE TIME because I'm a horrible player. Missing the inject is a good metric for microing too much, as already pointed out by zatic, so although I appreciate your input I don't think you're really addressing the point at hand (which is specific to this replay, which it seems you never watched)
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Sorry but it is you who is missing the point that people are trying to bring to you, and that is your micro is IRRELEVANT. But go ahead and think otherwise. it looks like you are fairly determined and will get pretty high at some point at which point you will look back and tell bronze-gold leagers this: MACRO!
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On November 04 2010 05:17 Deathfairy wrote:
Sorry but it is you who is missing the point that people are trying to bring to you, and that is your micro is IRRELEVANT. But go ahead and think otherwise. it looks like you are fairly determined and will get pretty high at some point at which point you will look back and tell bronze-gold leagers this: MACRO!
Well I'm not arguing that macro is MORE important than micro. I'm not even arguing that macro alone will win 90% of gold-and-under games, if only because that's what I've been told so many times and when my macro started improving, my win rate SHOT up. What I'm arguing is that learning to micro IS important when your macro improves. Pros don't just "make more stuff" to win, they have to outmaneuver their opponent. How do you expect anyone to learn the beginnings of micro when they're just told to 1a2a3a?
If you'll watch the replay, my macro doesn't suffer terribly. A small ding to my macro is worth the learning exercise, imo, especially when that 10 second delayed injection meant that I saved 10 roaches from dying. My gas goes astronomical, which is a problem. My supply gets blocked, which is an (unrelated) problem. Do I micro too much? I understand your reasoning that microing AT ALL is too much, but I feel it's a logical fallacy. Saying that someone in silver cannot have the game state awareness and hand speed to macro and micro effectively is kind of selling the league short, is it not?
For the record, my food was:
2min: 15
4min: 21
6min: 34
10min: 68
And in IdrA v SelecT (Xel'Naga Caverns played oct 14th) IdrA has:
2min: 14
4min: 23
6min: 31
10min:58
Certainly I'm not comparing myself to IdrA, but if you tell me to do an exercise I'm gonna do it. IdrA opened 15 hatch into muta/ling against Select's fast hellion harass, which explains the low food count, but even after he starts his muta harass and gains map control he skyrockets into 800+ gas as he micros.
Perfect macro wins games, but good micro helps -- surely there's no argument there?
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I actually watched the replay, and even if he is in silver league, he play damm well to be there (Im 1900 diamond so mid diamond only talking). Im zerg too and i just need to say, macroing harder will give you more benefits than microing roaches so much time. You are good at it, kiting zealots and stuff, but every time he retreats, try to not micro your units too shoot more or something, just a-move chassing while injecting-doing-stuff, and then get back to your units.
As you said, supply blocking your self is very bad, and you know so its ok, just keep training (i get supply block so much too, its harder than it may seems).
Also when you are microing units, get used to spam hatch-hotkey+units/drones a lot. It may seem a waste of apm, but it dont require a lot of attention to pull it off (its more of a mindless spamming), so you will keep your money low and keep producing units/drones. That also helps too remember you that you need to inject, if you are spamming producing units commands, and you see no larva/money to high, then its you usually need to inject again.
Thats all i can say dont trust me blindly, im new to RTS too so my advice could not be the best, so pick up what you think is good and leave the rest 
P.S: as someone above said, watch the day9+dj wheat coaching sesion, it give a very good picture of how you are supposed to play
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The micro on ladder isn't nearly good enough to justify slippage in macro. You can get to diamond by just a-moving. Trust me on this one. You know all those jokes about a-moving Terrans? Well, there's an ounce of truth in that. But those players have relatively solid mechanics to support their a-moving ball. Protoss is doable too. Zerg has a harder macro mechanic but once you've mastered it, their micro is the least demanding so a-move away!
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The only micro you should worry about is spellcasting. Other than that just macro macro macro.
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I'm going against the flow here because if your committed to getting good and if your making so many posts with replays i'm assuming you are then you need to practice doing both at the same time. Work on being faster so through entire games starting with your overlord in the beginning hotkey your overlord to your army groups switch between them and your hatchery thinking of what you need to make and constantly moving your overlord. Most people consider this spamming but if you pretend your micro'ing/macroing its actually really beneficial.
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On November 04 2010 05:02 Deathfairy wrote:
There is zero need to watch silver level replay to say that you problem is macro. NONE zip nada. Untill mid diamond you can easily win with pure macro and A move to oponents base without ever looking a your army ever (aka zero micro).
never look outside your base besides scouting, then hotkey your army and use mini map to attack. So what was said before that micro means nothing is 100% correct.
Totally agree.
I have a friend who is mid-level diamond, and I was pretty shocked to see that he never watched battles, and just kept macro'ing 100% of the time. Bioball, tank push, mass-thors (he's mainly mech and bio) just make the units, rally, hot-key, a-move using mini-map, and keep making more stuff. Sometimes checks battles afterward, re-rallys, re-hotkeys, and sends more stuff.
His APM is relatively high, and he uses NO micro. That's enough to win a lot and get into the top 1% of N. American players.
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Macro > Micro. You can get to diamond with pure macro only. Macro is the low hanging fruit of improving for players below mid-high diamond.
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On November 03 2010 23:16 Champ24 wrote:
Up until maybe high platinum, work on macro. Don't worry about micro.
As day9 would say, just build probes and pylons. Constantly producing probes and not getting supply blocked sounds simple, but even the best players jack it up every once in a while. And the consequences are catastrophic.
If your money gets too high, expand or throw down more unit producing structures.
At bronze through high plat you can win every game by simply building more stuff than your opponent.
This.
You can win some diamond games by doing this.
1.)Just find out what your opponent is building,
2.)build the counter to it and just keep spamming those units,
3.)when you think you have enough, a-move to his natural.
4.) No base there? A-move into his main.
4a.)"OH SHIT SIEGE TANKS AND 74 BUNKERS!" Move home, expand.
-See anything you didn't have a counter for? Counter it.
4b.) "Oh, I have more stuff than him... sweet!"
- Win
Rinse repeat.
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On November 04 2010 06:23 FrostedMiniWeet wrote:
Macro > Micro. You can get to diamond with pure macro only. Macro is the low hanging fruit of improving for players below mid-high diamond.
As I've stated many times before, this is OT. Nobody on the whole thread is debating which is better, macro or micro, the thread is about in this PARTICULAR game, should I have laid off the micro to macro a bit more efficiently. As has been said by the responders who watched the replay, my macro was not bad, my micro was efficient, but I made some basic errors that hurt my chances (though I still won convincingly).
I really hate posting "silver league wanting help" and getting what's essentially a form letter in reply. "You can get to mid-diamond just by macroing." I'm not debating that, but how can you get to HIGH diamond? I'm silver, I acknowledge that, but why should I settle for learning skills that won't get me to the 2200+ level?
by the by, I've won 8 of my last 10 and my win/loss is 5:4, and if you exclude the games I played before I knew two shakes about proper mechanical play, it's closer to 2:1. I'm not one of those low-leaguers who comes in and says "wai my 6pool no werk?" I'm doing the work and improving and dominating my league thus far. I think the point I'm trying to express is below:
Please give me information I can use! Several posters have done just that, and I thank you: Zatic, clickrush, Nobu, Whomp.
Posting for the 10th time this thread that micro is unnecessary at my level does not make you insightful or witty, it makes you off-topic since my topic isn't "How do I win more in Silver league" or "What's better, macro or micro," it's "Did I micro too much in this particular game?" Replying to that without watching the posted replay is like doing a book report on Green Mile without reading it, because you've read 40 other Steven King books.
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i could ONLY use 1a and get to at least 1500 diamond convincingly. And I am not shitting or bragging or anything, just adding this point to the discussion that you can 1a your way into mid diamond with all 3 races.
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well I think there are two ways of answering your question.
1. Yes, you were microing too much, you should lay off the micro and instead make your macro as good as possible.
2. If you increase your mutitasking ability/apm/hotkey proficiency you could still micro that much and still maintain as perfect macro as possible.
which answer you take depends on how serious you are at getting better. If you are like me and only play about 2 hours on the weekends, and none at all during the week because school takes up too much time, then you should take the first approach. However, if you play a decent amount every day, then you should take the second answer because ideally, you should always compare yourself to perfection in order to play as good as possible.
Edit: Looking at the other responses, I'm pretty sure you already know most of that stuff and that you weren't really asking that but since I seem to be outnumbered, I'm sorry if I misunderstood your question. Also, I wouldn't say that micro is irrelevant always because one should at least micro to the point that all their units are firing and that the majority of their units aren't stuck in the back turning in circles like idiots. Anything beyond that, I could see holding off until mid-diamond.
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On November 04 2010 05:56 Whomp wrote:
I'm going against the flow here because if your committed to getting good and if your making so many posts with replays i'm assuming you are then you need to practice doing both at the same time. Work on being faster so through entire games starting with your overlord in the beginning hotkey your overlord to your army groups switch between them and your hatchery thinking of what you need to make and constantly moving your overlord. Most people consider this spamming but if you pretend your micro'ing/macroing its actually really beneficial.
I'm going to disagree with this. Macro is so much more important, and trying to focus on too many things at once, wont make you improve in any. Have specific goals, and work on them. And macro should always always be top priority.
On November 04 2010 05:10 Rowen wrote:Show nested quote +On November 04 2010 05:02 Deathfairy wrote:
There is zero need to watch silver level replay to say that you problem is macro. I noted the problems I had (supply block, missing one inject) and even mentioned that I supply block myself ALL THE TIME because I'm a horrible player. Missing the inject is a good metric for microing too much, as already pointed out by zatic, so although I appreciate your input I don't think you're really addressing the point at hand (which is specific to this replay, which it seems you never watched)
See, you answered your own question. Practice macro so much that you wont get constantly supply blocked, so your gas amount doesn't skyrocket, so you don't miss larva injects. And after you can do that pretty regulary, then you focus on something besides a-moving. It sounds strange, and it might actually cost you games on ladder, but in the big picture you will improve more. Stop looking at the short-term wins, and rather on the long distance goal.
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One general micro trick you might try, assuming you have queens on 5 and army on 1, with a fight somewhere midfield requiring a bit of kiting:
<time for macro comes up>
55 to pull up the queen
1 move home (just click somewhere in your base to pull your army back)
5v inject
continue with your injections/unit production/creep spread
11 take a look at your army, possibly grab and re-hotkey your reinforcements
With a brief retreat like this you can make your army relatively safe without even having to look at them. With constant focus on macro, you should have reinforcements streaming out steadily, so baiting your opponent a little further into midfield is a great idea too. Once your injections are ticking away, you can jump back and continue harassing.
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You have to prioritize your actions, you have two roaches being chased by rines, fine, right click your expo to run, and forget about them, you have baneling/infestor against a clump of marines, yeah, take the time to fungal growth and annihilate them, your larva inject can wait 5 seconds, don't worry about getting the most out of each individual unit, only take the time to micro when you are sure you can gain significant ground by doing so (enough so that it makes up for the slips in macro) over time your apm will improve, and your slips when microing will be smaller, meaning it it more advantageous to micro more often
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Chances are areas where you *think* you only only would have won because of micro, could have been MASSIVELY one-sided if you were macroing better.
The more stuff you actually have, the less *micro* you need to do, if you really want to stylistically learn managing units, then you want to be focusing on *control* which is significantly different than micro.
Control is easily being able to mobilize large armies, and have units do specific things- where spell casting comes into play. This isn't necessarily "micro" where you are trying to save every little unit you have.
Also, there is a HUGE misconception than "Scute shooting" is always good micro. attack, run back a little, attack... You need to be decisive- do I want to engage, or should I retreat.
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People who haven't watched the replay and have made comments probably should. I would say you actually played fine and that your balance between macro & micro was decent. I really didn't see that much scoot and shooting (so I don't know where you got that from) and generally your minerals were pretty low.
There was one point when he had you contained early on and you had 1k in the bank and you kept poking him despite having the smaller army/being contained. There your focus should have merely been to pull your units back, get them into a nice position (maybe build a spinecrawler) and pump out more units. That was the only point that I thought "c'mon dude, make more units". Otherwise I would say your play was generally pretty solid in terms of macro & adding on expos/tech etc.. You'd be in a higher league if you had started out with either of the other races, trust me.
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APM and handspeed are two different things, most people could increase their APM alot more by just making sure that they are constantly doing something, APM increases to a point just when you are always aware of what needs to be done.
After that point yeah it because practical to "Increase your APM (handspeed)" so you can do more things in the same amount of time, but I would say that if you are missing injections while microing while still under like 50 APM what your really need to do is come up with a way to remind yourself to do the injections and watch your apm go up.
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On November 04 2010 06:36 Rowen wrote:
Posting for the 10th time this thread that micro is unnecessary at my level does not make you insightful or witty, it makes you off-topic since my topic isn't "How do I win more in Silver league" or "What's better, macro or micro," it's "Did I micro too much in this particular game?" Replying to that without watching the posted replay is like doing a book report on Green Mile without reading it, because you've read 40 other Steven King books.
I'm sorry to not have watched your replay, but I think the point they are trying to make is if you aren't able to macro well, keep pumping drones, not getting supply blocked, etc. you are microing too much.
High level players can have great micro because they can already macro solidely, since they know macro gives the larger advantage. I'd go with if you can't macro hard, you're microing to much, but it's always nice to look at your army while you larva inject.I think someone said to check out Day9 DjWheat help for zerg macro but he does talk about micro and says look at your army while they fight and control your larva from hotkeys micro when you are not near getting supplied blocked or high on minerals.
He also teaches DjWheat to sometimes ignore attacks on his own base to be able to make overlords to not get supply blocked.
Basically micro is the last thing you should be doing. Really that video will give you all the feedback you need. Hope you find this helpful to understand why people are just saying macro and a-move lol.
Edit: Your ability to micro is a great skill and will surely place you ahead of the competition when you have enough time to do all your macro and then have time to micro
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On November 04 2010 08:48 NPF wrote:Show nested quote +On November 04 2010 06:36 Rowen wrote:
Posting for the 10th time this thread that micro is unnecessary at my level does not make you insightful or witty, it makes you off-topic since my topic isn't "How do I win more in Silver league" or "What's better, macro or micro," it's "Did I micro too much in this particular game?" Replying to that without watching the posted replay is like doing a book report on Green Mile without reading it, because you've read 40 other Steven King books. I'm sorry to not have watched your replay, but I think the point they are trying to make is if you aren't able to macro well, keep pumping drones, not getting supply blocked, etc. you are microing too much.High level players can have great micro because they can already macro solidely, since they know macro gives the larger advantage. I'd go with if you can't macro hard, you're microing to much, but it's always nice to look at your army while you larva inject.I think someone said to check out Day9 DjWheat help for zerg macro but he does talk about micro and says look at your army while they fight and control your larva from hotkeys micro when you are not near getting supplied blocked or high on minerals. He also teaches DjWheat to sometimes ignore attacks on his own base to be able to make overlords to not get supply blocked. Basically micro is the last thing you should be doing. Really that video will give you all the feedback you need. Hope you find this helpful to understand why people are just saying macro and a-move lol. Edit: Your ability to micro is a great skill and will surely place you ahead of the competition when you have enough time to do all your macro and then have time to micro
If you watched the replay you would see that his play is, on the whole, fine. His balance between macro and micro is absolutely fine for someone at his level. In fact, it's astounding that he's still in silver league. I know you're trying to help, but if you watch the replay you'll see that there is nothing wrong with his play.
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On November 04 2010 09:00 Panoptic wrote:Show nested quote +On November 04 2010 08:48 NPF wrote:On November 04 2010 06:36 Rowen wrote:
Posting for the 10th time this thread that micro is unnecessary at my level does not make you insightful or witty, it makes you off-topic since my topic isn't "How do I win more in Silver league" or "What's better, macro or micro," it's "Did I micro too much in this particular game?" Replying to that without watching the posted replay is like doing a book report on Green Mile without reading it, because you've read 40 other Steven King books. I'm sorry to not have watched your replay, but I think the point they are trying to make is if you aren't able to macro well, keep pumping drones, not getting supply blocked, etc. you are microing too much.High level players can have great micro because they can already macro solidely, since they know macro gives the larger advantage. I'd go with if you can't macro hard, you're microing to much, but it's always nice to look at your army while you larva inject.I think someone said to check out Day9 DjWheat help for zerg macro but he does talk about micro and says look at your army while they fight and control your larva from hotkeys micro when you are not near getting supplied blocked or high on minerals. He also teaches DjWheat to sometimes ignore attacks on his own base to be able to make overlords to not get supply blocked. Basically micro is the last thing you should be doing. Really that video will give you all the feedback you need. Hope you find this helpful to understand why people are just saying macro and a-move lol. Edit: Your ability to micro is a great skill and will surely place you ahead of the competition when you have enough time to do all your macro and then have time to micro If you watched the replay you would see that his play is, on the whole, fine. His balance between macro and micro is absolutely fine for someone at his level. In fact, it's astounding that he's still in silver league. I know you're trying to help, but if you watch the replay you'll see that there is nothing wrong with his play.
Yes his play is fine for his level, but he obviously wants to be better then the silver level he plays at. I quit watching at 11 minutes. he had over 700 minerals and 700 gas for over 2 minutes straight while being pressured. I don't care how good your micro is, when you have 6 roaches instead of 17.
Yes he probably held this 4 gate push off, considering the game lasted another 10 minutes, but the guy he played was awful. Awful build order, bad usage of chronoboost, bad resource management. The guy had 6 gateways on one base. You can talk about how "good it is for the level he plays at", but that shouldn't matter. He should compare himself to the step he wants to reach. And unfortunatly his macro is clearly lacking.
I really really like your drone production, but that's about it.
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On November 04 2010 09:41 kaztah wrote:
he had over 700 minerals and 700 gas for over 2 minutes straight while being pressured. I don't care how good your micro is, when you have 6 roaches instead of 17.
I appreciate your comments, especially comparing myself to where I want to be, not where I am, but would like to point out that the ONLY time I was floating minerals in this match was when I was 18 oversupply because they sniped three overlords. I WAS a bit slow in replacing the overlords, so I can't hardly say "I did the best I could," but writing it off because of mineral count without checking the game state makes you hardly better than me....
That said, I think I've derived exactly what I needed from this thread! Thank you for your encouragement, everyone who marveled at me still being stuck in silver (I'm a bit surprised myself), and I now have some very specific things to look for in my macro -- especially my awful habit of finding myself supply blocked -- that can help me establish a benchmark for my own play.
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On November 04 2010 13:12 Rowen wrote:Show nested quote +On November 04 2010 09:41 kaztah wrote:
he had over 700 minerals and 700 gas for over 2 minutes straight while being pressured. I don't care how good your micro is, when you have 6 roaches instead of 17. I appreciate your comments, especially comparing myself to where I want to be, not where I am, but would like to point out that the ONLY time I was floating minerals in this match was when I was 18 oversupply because they sniped three overlords. I WAS a bit slow in replacing the overlords, so I can't hardly say "I did the best I could," but writing it off because of mineral count without checking the game state makes you hardly better than me.... That said, I think I've derived exactly what I needed from this thread! Thank you for your encouragement, everyone who marveled at me still being stuck in silver (I'm a bit surprised myself), and I now have some very specific things to look for in my macro -- especially my awful habit of finding myself supply blocked -- that can help me establish a benchmark for my own play.
I watched the game state, and I know you lost 3 overlords. I'm not blind. But building 3 overlords takes 25 seconds if you're fast and focusing on macroing, which you should've been doing! so in the 2 minutes where you're floating a ton of minerals, you shouldn't have floated so many minerals. That's the point. You held of his push only because the guy was bad at production at the same time. A proper 4 gateing protoss would have more then 20 supply more then that guy at the same time. And you wouldn't have held that off with your production. You also had over 2000 gas the rest of the game, while having researched +1 range attack and the range upgrade on Hydras. So why didn't you build any?
Yes you kept your minerals low, but there are other resources in the game aswell.
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I was actually thinking, I've been having a very hard time not getting supply blocked myself as T in the 120+ supply range, this is usually when I'm on 3 base plus, harassing and taking losses while building depots, but I just don't have a good feel for how many scvs I need building depots when I am on 6-10 production buildings...
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I think your macro/micro is decent. I'm just going to give my reasoning for execution between your personal micro/macro issues.
For example say your attack moving. You should definitely be trying to macro between moves ( I use move stop for micro). So in the case of missing injects/not building while microing, where you want to keep your decent micro, just remember that you would MUCH rather move, do your macro hotkey back to units, micro. Than just micro and let your macro slip up. If you watched the Day[9] back to basics vid, near the end when you see him moving around all his zealots while building is kind of what im talking about (it's long into the video though).
I guess what I'm trying to say (that you probably already know, figured out from this thread) is that you would much rather have your slip ups in the micro than macro. So between the choice of retreating too far with micro and missing a couple of roach shots or missing an inject. It should always be making sure to get the inject/drone/building more units/supply.
It's much easier to have your micro be delayed (since it's easier to retreat/engage) as opposed to having your macro delayed in any way shape or form (macro delays mean your options for production/upgrades are based on a point in the past, as opposed to present time).
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Taken your folks' suggestions to heart seems to have helped somewhat, as I was just promoted to Gold and am now beating platinum-rated players fairly consistently so another promotion may be in my near future.
Looking forward to joining the majority of you in Diamond within the next month!
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EPT
