Just posted my experiences going from silver to diamond and master league via learning how to macro:
http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=189804

bqzg

64 Posts

February 02 2011 20:42 GMT

#222

unfortunately this isn't true for zergs

. I'm high diamond and 80%-90% of my losses come from cheese/rush builds, not macro games.

fant0m

964 Posts

February 03 2011 10:05 GMT

#223

On February 02 2011 09:43 YaySC42 wrote:
Heh ... I find I often know the result (3000 minerals, no base) is not ideal but even after watching the replay I'm not always not quite sure when I should have built a macro hatch, expanded, or built troops rather than drones.

Hatches are simple... do you have more than 300 minerals and no larva? Put down a Hatch, doesn't matter where.

Or if you have no gas and a lot of minerals and don't want to make lings, put down a hatch. You should never have 3k minerals, especially as Z, considering an extra Hatch is useful for you even in base.

pandaBee

United States251 Posts

February 03 2011 18:23 GMT

#224

On January 24 2011 13:56 Tomo009 wrote:
I dunno, he didn't play many games and was playing high leaguers pretty quickly. Also, I want to see him try again as zerg. As zerg, you must adapt or you will die, at any level. You would have to have ridiculously good macro to beat for example a deathball protoss or biomech terran. As with no micro, you will get crushed in one battle and lose it all.

Of course macro is the main skill that will increase one's rank, but simply saying "only macro and you will be in diamond" is plain wrong. I'm in gold now, playing sivelr-platinum level players and there are a lot of timing pushes and aggressive plays that I just wouldn't be able to handle at all if I didn't scout and react.

EDIT: And ZvZ, it just won't work there period. Such a volatile match-up, being beaten in a paper, scissors rock without scouting your opponent you don't have a hope.

"Only macro and you will be in diamond" is not plain wrong. To me there are three aspects in starcraft : macro, micro, and strategy (also there is luck but lets count that one out).

most people already have decent micro and decent strategy (they know how to move their units around, how to shoot, fire, stop, run, etc. etc. and also they know what basic "builds" units and whatnot to be using/getting)

but what just about all copper/silver players suffer the most from is the macro. Sure they can focus on improving micro/strategy before macro, but macro will give them a huge boost in performance whereas micro/strategy will give them small gains to their already weak gameplay.

TNine

United States46 Posts

February 03 2011 20:02 GMT

#225

I think one of the reasons people don't have good macro is because macro isn't really that much fun. To put it simply, some people prefer winning micro battles in gold to winning macro battles in diamond.

Bommes

Germany1226 Posts

February 03 2011 20:25 GMT

#226

On February 03 2011 05:42 bqzg wrote:
unfortunately this isn't true for zergs

. I'm high diamond and 80%-90% of my losses come from cheese/rush builds, not macro games.

"macro games" is not equal to "I'm pumping out 60 drones without any combat units, screw it if he attacks me he is a cheeser/rusher".

Efficient macro is not only using your minerals, but also being safe while doing that (which is the hardest part about it). I can say for sure that macro at 2,9k Masters is still pretty bad often times and I'm pretty sure that you can make it into high diamond or even Masters without doing fancy micro stuff or map specialized BOs or something like that.

Fateless

United States99 Posts

February 04 2011 15:47 GMT

#227

On February 01 2011 11:55 Gantz.z wrote:
IMHO Macro>Scouting>Decision Making>Micro

I think it's funny that "Decision-Making" is 3/4 on this list.

"because of my excellent macro, I had 200 supply worth of Speedlngs at the 10 minute mark, I knew he was on one base from my awesome scouting. Noting that he had siege tanks and marines in bunkers with blue flame hellions behind them. I decided to attack, but I lack confidence in controlling my units so I just a-moved into his base."

Honestly, I'm just being an ass here. I felt like your points were very valid, with the exception that making good decisions is the most important part of the game, because it extends to every aspect of your play.

Klystron

United States99 Posts

February 04 2011 20:11 GMT

#228

Macro is the single most important part of the game. Using a good macro build, and just building units and expanding will win you a lot of games. I have played games where my natural has been killed of many times. I have played games where I only survived by pulling all my drones in order to fight off a 4gate.

Despite being "behind" in these games and barely holding on I have ended up coming out 5-6, or even 7 bases against my opponents 2. At that point there is nothing they can do. You can just send waves and waves of units on attack move. Eventually you will just starve them out / overrun them.

I'm only a gold level zerg, but I have found that by just focusing heavily on my macro I have been winning more and more of my games.

What I did to improve my macro a lot was 2v2. Get a partner to play a bunch of games with. Share control, and don't touch a single combat unit the entire game. Focus entirely on keeping your money low, expanding, and getting your worker count up. Eventually macro will become second nature and you can devote more attention to what you are doing with your combat units.

iChau

United States1210 Posts

February 05 2011 00:25 GMT

#229

On February 05 2011 00:47 Fateless wrote:

Show nested quote +

I think he's saying that you scout and then make decisions based on that. Unless you have great game sense and you're able to make decisions based on that, it's better to rely on scouting.

It's hard to tell what he's saying because decision making is very broad, such as from scouting or just doing what you're doing.