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Today I created two videos on some various micro topics I've been meaning to share lately. The topics are:
- Blink Micro
- Force Field Usage
- Flanking
- 2 Unit Combo (Ling + Roach/Hydra)
- Concave vs Convex
- Zealot Conservation (in use of Force Field)
- Multi-Box (Spread Fire)
A good number of these topics went rather undocumented, as far as I know, until now; I'm glad to share them with you all!
Definitely the most interesting topic is Multi-Boxing. In Age of Empires it's extremely important to select small groups of units and specifically order your different groups to attack different units. This is because a lot of units in Age games fire slowish projectiles, allowing a poor player to overkill enemy units with a lot of wasted shots. oGsMC has been dominating 4 Gate battles for a long time, simply because he's utilizing Multi-Boxing, that is, he's making sure that each unit his army fires at doesn't receive any fire that will miss.
For example, a Stalker takes 12 shots from another Stalker before death. In a Stalker vs Stalker war the player who kills off enemy Stalkers the fastest, without firing more than 12 shots at any enemy Stalker, will be the one who comes out victorious. I've won many PvP games simply because I realize an enemy Stalker will die in around (for example) 4 shots, though I have 7 Stalkers. So I quickly box 3 of those Stalkers and order them to change targets. This way I still kill the first enemy Stalker at the same speed as if I didn't Multi-Box, but a new enemy Stalker also took an extra 3 hits!
Another topic that I haven't seen discussed is the Zealot Conservation. Whenever a Protoss Force Fields, most of the time they will let their Zealots take shots from enemies behind the force fields. This is a waste! The goal of Force Fields is to get as many enemies out of the battle as possible. Knowing this, it's often times best to get your Zealots out of a battle until FFs dissipate -this is shown in the videos.
There's also another lesson to be learned from my time spent playing Age of Empires. In Age games, especially Age of Empires Online, it's extremely important to have good unit compositions in order to kill your opponent's army. If you think this is important in SC2, multiply that importance by like 17, and you have Age of Empires Online. This is relevant because I realized a long time ago that on the Korean server Zergs were very aggressive towards Protoss on close positions Metalopolis. Very aggressive! They were like "You will die NOW" and then 2 base allin me every game. It was a very strong aggression as well. My old teammate Bad always complained about his armies felt weak against Protoss... I actually thought that this was because he wasn't playing like Koreans. Simply put, the Koreans were attacking me with a two unit composition of Ling/Roach, and often times in GSL you'll see Nestea or some other Zerg do a Hydra/Ling push. Hydras and Roaches benefit greatly from having simple ling support agianst Protoss armies, and I don't think many NA players realize this. I go over with an example in the videos detailing this idea of having a 2 unit composition very useful for early/midgame compositions ZvP.
And lastly... I listened to this song which pumped me up for a spendature of a few hours to create these things! Listen to it! You'll win your next ladder match if you do. I dare you.
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nice vids cecil 
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i only got to watch part 1 and so far it's great! I loved the chargelot/blink strategy you had at the end of the first game. the only thing was the brightness could use some up-age. looked dark to me.
i'll be sure to check out your other videos too 
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Cecil I think you're my favourite semi-pro.
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good videos can you make a video showing how to apply pressure to a zerg?
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Hats off to you. Those are some very well made videos, and though I knew alot of the zerg stuff beforehand I was happily oblivious to a lot of the protoss stuff (guess what I play  )
Alot of players can definately learn alot from watching this. One thing is reading about it, another is actually seeing it explained.
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i really like your video i watched you 3 stalker video already and i havn;t had time to try it but it is a build that i am going to put into my pvp build. keep making the videos man they are really informative!(blinking a small group to pick off weak stalkers never crossed my mind for some reason, this should make my stalkers fights easier)
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some nice stuff in there, thumbs up
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you post the best guides for protoss that I've seen. I think all of my standardized builds have been ones that you have posted guides for. Now you want to help teach micro as well? You're the man. Thanks for the guide!
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that multi boxing is intense! good luck to you sir
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On August 02 2011 18:56 youngminii wrote:
Cecil I think you're my favourite semi-pro.
Awe thank you sweetheart <3
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oh can you please please upload this unit tester map?
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Thank you but what you're calling a convex isn't a convex but just a ball. A convex is the opposite of a concave. A convex is a half circle with the enemy outside the circle, instead of having a half circle with the enemy inside the half circle
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On August 02 2011 19:35 Olsson wrote:
Thank you but what you're calling a convex isn't a convex but just a ball. A convex is the opposite of a concave. A convex is a half circle with the enemy outside the circle, instead of having a half circle with the enemy inside the half circle
Well yeah it's a ball, but the units that fire on the Red team were in a convex, thusly pushing their own hydra buddies around the sides and resulting in a loss. In BW whenever an army engaged into a concave, that army position was "a convex". At least that's what I was always told. But yeah you are right anyways
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A great video. Its funny because a lot of what you've gone over here is relatively basic, but easily overlooked in the midst of an actual game. For instance sometimes I throw everything I know about concave/convexes out the window. Which is weird considering I'd consider myself a decent masters zerg.
I especially appreciated the last segment with the roach, and roach/ling army vs protoss. Even though your examples were done on a small scale they did a brilliant job at stressing the importance of composition. Once again using zerg as an example, It can be easy to max out on roaches, only to be decimated by a smaller protoss force. I'm going to put an emphasis on a healthy army with diversity in the mid game from now on. Instead of simply having units.
The only sort of criticism I have, for the next time you make a video is consistency. Maybe its my OCD but whenever I test things I want to be as accurate as possible. Like when you did the overview on force field use vs terran it doesnt hurt to have the exact same number of units as opposed to a rough estimate. Maybe consider setting up the groups of units before filming? Just a thought. Otherwise great job.
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Awesome! But you need to tell us the name of the song, because in some regions (mine included) youtube doesn't show the video :S
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My god Cecil, you are so awesome! You're putting out so much content I can't even keep up haha
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I love you. Videos are in HD this time!~
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On August 02 2011 18:40 CecilSunkure wrote:
For example, a Stalker takes 12 shots from another Stalker before death. In a Stalker vs Stalker war the player who kills off enemy Stalkers the fastest, without firing more than 12 shots at any enemy Stalker, will be the one who comes out victorious. I've won many PvP games simply because I realize an enemy Stalker will die in around (for example) 4 shots, though I have 7 Stalkers. So I quickly box 3 of those Stalkers and order them to change targets. This way I still kill the first enemy Stalker at the same speed as if I didn't Multi-Box, but a new enemy Stalker also took an extra 3 hits!
I understand that the new AI does this for you. If it only takes 4 shots and you request 7 stalkers to attack that target only 4 will attack.
I read about this in Docs Definitive TvZ guide
Note: Your tanks do NOT overkill even when focus firing. I actually did not know that and was wary of focus firing after I had 3+ tanks. WHY DIDNT ANYONE TELL ME? Basically, the problem in BW was that if you selected used your hotkey for your tanks to focus fire goons, ALL 12 tanks will kill 1 goon. If 1 zealot dropped on to your tanks, ALL tanks will fire and kill that zealot. In SC2, if a marine is dropped on a clump of tanks, 2 tanks will fire. If you focus fire a bane with 10 tanks, only 1 will fire. If you focus fire 10 banes, all 10 will fire and kill those 10 banes (while splashing the surrounding area).
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Why would you add color correction in post production. SC2 looks fine as it is, adding contrast doesn't add anything, it just makes it harder to see.
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all your videos are excellent cecil!
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On August 03 2011 02:02 Adrenaline Seed wrote:Show nested quote +On August 02 2011 18:40 CecilSunkure wrote:
For example, a Stalker takes 12 shots from another Stalker before death. In a Stalker vs Stalker war the player who kills off enemy Stalkers the fastest, without firing more than 12 shots at any enemy Stalker, will be the one who comes out victorious. I've won many PvP games simply because I realize an enemy Stalker will die in around (for example) 4 shots, though I have 7 Stalkers. So I quickly box 3 of those Stalkers and order them to change targets. This way I still kill the first enemy Stalker at the same speed as if I didn't Multi-Box, but a new enemy Stalker also took an extra 3 hits!
I understand that the new AI does this for you. If it only takes 4 shots and you request 7 stalkers to attack that target only 4 will attack. I read about this in Docs Definitive TvZ guide Show nested quote +
Note: Your tanks do NOT overkill even when focus firing. I actually did not know that and was wary of focus firing after I had 3+ tanks. WHY DIDNT ANYONE TELL ME? Basically, the problem in BW was that if you selected used your hotkey for your tanks to focus fire goons, ALL 12 tanks will kill 1 goon. If 1 zealot dropped on to your tanks, ALL tanks will fire and kill that zealot. In SC2, if a marine is dropped on a clump of tanks, 2 tanks will fire. If you focus fire a bane with 10 tanks, only 1 will fire. If you focus fire 10 banes, all 10 will fire and kill those 10 banes (while splashing the surrounding area).
akaik that's only siege tanks. I remember people complaining about this smart fire when the siege tanks did 50 damage to light units. However, this isn't the case with other units. It's so easy to see this in action when you siege a lot of tanks up an they all fire and lay down a carpet of flames. Compare this to BW where every siege tank fires at like one or two units creating a couple fireballs.
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I understand that the new AI does this for you. If it only takes 4 shots and you request 7 stalkers to attack that target only 4 will attack.
Tanks have smart targeting or whatever however other units do not. Units such as marines overkill less often (but still do) because they have no projectile travel time (so for example a red viking can fire the last shot to finish off another blue viking, but if another viking on team red is ready to fire before the projectile hits the blue viking and kills it, the second viking will also fire which results in overkill). Faster fire rates and projectiles reduce this. My guess is that since tanks in seige mode fire so slowly they decided to give them smart targeting.
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On August 03 2011 02:28 CecilSunkure wrote:
akaik that's only siege tanks. I remember people complaining about this smart fire when the siege tanks did 50 damage to light units. However, this isn't the case with other units. It's so easy to see this in action when you siege a lot of tanks up an they all fire and lay down a carpet of flames. Compare this to BW where every siege tank fires at like one or two units creating a couple fireballs.
Thanks for the clarification. Good to know. I am going to check out your vids at lunch.
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On August 03 2011 02:02 Adrenaline Seed wrote:Show nested quote +On August 02 2011 18:40 CecilSunkure wrote:
For example, a Stalker takes 12 shots from another Stalker before death. In a Stalker vs Stalker war the player who kills off enemy Stalkers the fastest, without firing more than 12 shots at any enemy Stalker, will be the one who comes out victorious. I've won many PvP games simply because I realize an enemy Stalker will die in around (for example) 4 shots, though I have 7 Stalkers. So I quickly box 3 of those Stalkers and order them to change targets. This way I still kill the first enemy Stalker at the same speed as if I didn't Multi-Box, but a new enemy Stalker also took an extra 3 hits!
I understand that the new AI does this for you. If it only takes 4 shots and you request 7 stalkers to attack that target only 4 will attack. I read about this in Docs Definitive TvZ guide Show nested quote +
Note: Your tanks do NOT overkill even when focus firing. I actually did not know that and was wary of focus firing after I had 3+ tanks. WHY DIDNT ANYONE TELL ME? Basically, the problem in BW was that if you selected used your hotkey for your tanks to focus fire goons, ALL 12 tanks will kill 1 goon. If 1 zealot dropped on to your tanks, ALL tanks will fire and kill that zealot. In SC2, if a marine is dropped on a clump of tanks, 2 tanks will fire. If you focus fire a bane with 10 tanks, only 1 will fire. If you focus fire 10 banes, all 10 will fire and kill those 10 banes (while splashing the surrounding area).
Not exactly. There are 2 types of ranged Units in SC2. The ones with projectile animations and the ones without. Simply spoken Units without projectiles (Marines, Immortals, Sentries etc) dont overkill because the moment they shoot is the moment their shots arrive and at that moment their target is either dead or alive, if its dead the fireanimation is reseted immediatly and it shoots another target. Units _with_ projectile animations (Stalkers, Marauders, Roaches, Vikings etc) on the other hand cant distinguish if their target is dead or alive as their shots will arrive because there is a period of that projectile traveling. Therefore these Units overkill.
Tanks are kind of an exception because they have kind of a projectile animation but the SC2-Engine forces a small delay between several tank-shots to prevent Lagspikes (explained by Browder during Beta) which leads them to dont produce overkill aswell and create the assumption that they have some kind of smartfire AI.
Sometimes programming is a bi*** ^^
Therefore in PvP you could Shift-Attack-Command all your Immortals to the same Order of Stalkertargets and they would not waste a single shot without you doing anything additional (assuming that they are in range all the time).
Edit: Btw nice Videos CecilSunkure. You are for sure a blessing for this Community.
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Thanks for the videos. I wasn't aware how much a round of lings can really change that battle. It's probably worth building a macro hatch and spending its larvae on lings in ZvP, which is something I really hadn't done before.
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awesome vids cecil, I learned a lot
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good tips and good explaining methods now make more!! ^^
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cecil, you are a god among men, i dont see anyone who deserves the blue posting more than you :D
edit: the "this song" link just leads me to youtube T.T what song was it?
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Great videos for beginners, great micro strats which everyone should know.
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Watched the videos and they were....alright.
I'm not even trying to troll or anything, but isn't the micro part of the game just something that you do via common sense and mouse control? Like the concepts of micro are not difficult: Move your hurt units to where they won't get hurt, target the enemy's hurt units, make it so that most of your units are hitting as much as possible, try to prevent the enemy's units from hitting etc. It's just executing them that is hard, and learning how to execute them you just do by playing the damn game and not watching youtube videos. HuK didn't get his "top 3 control" by watching BoxeR highlight reels on youtube...
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On August 03 2011 03:22 Jonas wrote:Watched the videos and they were....alright. I'm not even trying to troll or anything, but isn't the micro part of the game just something that you do via common sense and mouse control? Like the concepts of micro are not difficult: Move your hurt units to where they won't get hurt, target the enemy's hurt units, make it so that most of your units are hitting as much as possible, try to prevent the enemy's units from hitting etc. It's just executing them that is hard, and learning how to execute them you just do by playing the damn game and not watching youtube videos. HuK didn't get his "top 3 control" by watching BoxeR highlight reels on youtube...
Maybe. I know as a beginner, it would have been really nice to know some of these things. It's sort of like this: Sure everyone can understand that you want your army to fire more shots than the enemy's, but it's a whole different story on actually seeing it happen properly in-game. That was a big issue for me in BW. I'd hear a lot of things like "You need to do this properly!", but I was never able to see a good player actually do it, and as such lacked a frame of reference in which to compare to my own play.
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awsome videos!<3 Could you make another one about microing in big battles?
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The link to 'this song' isn't working, it just leads to youtube.
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On August 03 2011 03:32 solidbebe wrote:
The link to 'this song' isn't working, it just leads to youtube.
Works for me O.o ??
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Jonas, it's true that playing many, many games will inevitably get you to notice most improvements, but some people have the apm and control to do more than they know to do because it just never crosses their mind in the midst of the bigger picture. Also, higher level players put a lot of time into thinking about the game, and discuss how to better play with other players, too. It isn't so obvious to all players, at least not as quickly for everyone.
In my opininion videos are a great way to teach Starcraft concepts. I would expect a vast portion of players to learn better visually than through text instructions pn hpw to accomplish different things in Starcraft. Thanks Cecil!
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On August 03 2011 03:34 CecilSunkure wrote:Show nested quote +On August 03 2011 03:32 solidbebe wrote:
The link to 'this song' isn't working, it just leads to youtube. Works for me O.o ??
odd, it stopped randomly redirecting to youtube's frontpage working now
makes no sense why it didnt
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Great job Cecil. I've often been wondering why more top players don't do videos like this. (Or maybe they do and I'm just not sure where to find them? I mean, other than them just grinding games out on the ladder/streaming).
For example, in Brood War Ahzz would post Youtube videos of his games where he would execute a specific strategy and talk about the pros/cons of the build. I really loved those vids.
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On August 03 2011 03:50 Rayzorblade wrote:
Great job Cecil. I've often been wondering why more top players don't do videos like this. (Or maybe they do and I'm just not sure where to find them? I mean, other than them just grinding games out on the ladder/streaming).
For example, in Brood War Ahzz would post Youtube videos of his games where he would execute a specific strategy and talk about the pros/cons of the build. I really loved those vids.
I don't know, but expect me to do a lot more of the similar in the near future!
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On August 03 2011 03:56 CecilSunkure wrote:Show nested quote +On August 03 2011 03:50 Rayzorblade wrote:
Great job Cecil. I've often been wondering why more top players don't do videos like this. (Or maybe they do and I'm just not sure where to find them? I mean, other than them just grinding games out on the ladder/streaming).
For example, in Brood War Ahzz would post Youtube videos of his games where he would execute a specific strategy and talk about the pros/cons of the build. I really loved those vids. I don't know, but expect me to do a lot more of the similar in the near future!
good to know, i look forward to it there is always a good deal to learn even from other players :D especially the higher level ones for instance despite being midmasters NA i didnt realize just how useful pulling the zealots back in PvP was when defending 4gate with a 3gate lol
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Like all things that require skill, micro techniques can benefit from discussion and thought. Huk has certainly talked to other pros about micro to help him keep improving.
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Do guardian shields reduce damage for attacks originating from within the radius of the shield?
Also do they stack?
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On August 03 2011 04:31 Adrenaline Seed wrote:
Do guardian shields reduce damage for attacks originating from within the radius of the shield?
Also do they stack?
Yes and no
The animation of the shield is mere fluff, it basically only increases the armor against ranged attack of every unit thats within the radius by two - its not altering the shots in any way ^^
And luckily they don't stack ^^
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On August 03 2011 04:34 Felo wrote:Show nested quote +On August 03 2011 04:31 Adrenaline Seed wrote:
Do guardian shields reduce damage for attacks originating from within the radius of the shield?
Also do they stack? Yes and no The animation of the shield is mere fluff, it basically only increases the armor against ranged attack of every unit thats within the radius by two - its not altering the shots in any way ^^ And luckily they don't stack ^^
That seems like a pretty good buff, I play T so I wonder if I should be running from shield every time it pops. Especially if stutter step into shield does nothing.
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On August 03 2011 03:28 CecilSunkure wrote:Show nested quote +On August 03 2011 03:22 Jonas wrote:Watched the videos and they were....alright. I'm not even trying to troll or anything, but isn't the micro part of the game just something that you do via common sense and mouse control? Like the concepts of micro are not difficult: Move your hurt units to where they won't get hurt, target the enemy's hurt units, make it so that most of your units are hitting as much as possible, try to prevent the enemy's units from hitting etc. It's just executing them that is hard, and learning how to execute them you just do by playing the damn game and not watching youtube videos. HuK didn't get his "top 3 control" by watching BoxeR highlight reels on youtube... Maybe. I know as a beginner, it would have been really nice to know some of these things. It's sort of like this: Sure everyone can understand that you want your army to fire more shots than the enemy's, but it's a whole different story on actually seeing it happen properly in-game. That was a big issue for me in BW. I'd hear a lot of things like "You need to do this properly!", but I was never able to see a good player actually do it, and as such lacked a frame of reference in which to compare to my own play.
Fair enough. Your videos were definitely a lot more insightful per unit time than watching the Day9 dailies (I love Day9, but brevity is not his strong suit) . Keep it up
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On August 03 2011 05:58 Jonas wrote:Show nested quote +On August 03 2011 03:28 CecilSunkure wrote:On August 03 2011 03:22 Jonas wrote:Watched the videos and they were....alright. I'm not even trying to troll or anything, but isn't the micro part of the game just something that you do via common sense and mouse control? Like the concepts of micro are not difficult: Move your hurt units to where they won't get hurt, target the enemy's hurt units, make it so that most of your units are hitting as much as possible, try to prevent the enemy's units from hitting etc. It's just executing them that is hard, and learning how to execute them you just do by playing the damn game and not watching youtube videos. HuK didn't get his "top 3 control" by watching BoxeR highlight reels on youtube... Maybe. I know as a beginner, it would have been really nice to know some of these things. It's sort of like this: Sure everyone can understand that you want your army to fire more shots than the enemy's, but it's a whole different story on actually seeing it happen properly in-game. That was a big issue for me in BW. I'd hear a lot of things like "You need to do this properly!", but I was never able to see a good player actually do it, and as such lacked a frame of reference in which to compare to my own play. Fair enough. Your videos were definitely a lot more insightful per unit time than watching the Day9 dailies (I love Day9, but brevity is not his strong suit) . Keep it up
I actually agree. I used to watch a lot of Day9, but it was just taking too long to get to the good stuff. Too many jokes and casual chatter. I love Day9, but I'm just too busy to watch all that.
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[B]On August 03 2011 06:07 CecilSunkure wrote:
I actually agree. I used to watch a lot of Day9, but it was just taking too long to get to the good stuff. Too many jokes and casual chatter. I love Day9, but I'm just too busy to watch all that.
Your going about it all wrong. You need to switch on Day9 right around Beer:30 and relax for awhile.
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On August 03 2011 06:19 Adrenaline Seed wrote:Show nested quote +[B]On August 03 2011 06:07 CecilSunkure wrote:
I actually agree. I used to watch a lot of Day9, but it was just taking too long to get to the good stuff. Too many jokes and casual chatter. I love Day9, but I'm just too busy to watch all that. Your going about it all wrong. You need to switch on Day9 right around Beer:30 and relax for awhile.
Haha... That's not my style
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Adding lings to any zerg composition is really, really good. Particularly in ZvP. I think its great you are presenting this. A lot of people try going pure roach, particularly in ZvP, and it just isnt as good.
Not only does it add that extra layer of attack like you say, it forces extra forcefields! They need to forcefield the lings off two, particularly +1 lings, or else watch their little sentries get shredded by the lings. Then they need to FF the roaches too. That's a lot of forcefields, even if they are in decent positions. They can also eat up some damage too, like against stalkers. With +1 on your lings, your ling/roach attacks are incredibly strong and can deny protoss thirds with their speed, and threaten truly deadly backstabs. Also your micro is a lot easier the protoss when just lings/roaches, vs him needing to forcefield and get good positioning.
Lings are also better for reinforcing because of their speed and build time; because lings get better as the enemy's numbers get smaller, it only makes sense that reinforcing with lings=good.
Lings are also "efficient" at eating Collossus shots. Collossus will basically "overkill" them by quite a bit, particularly when there are a bunch of them. The lings fry instantly, but the shot that it takes to kill them lets your roaches live a little longer and get in a bit closer as well.
Adding lings to roaches can really help fight blink stalkers; against pure lings, blink stalkers can avoid the surround by blinking everything at once. Against roaches, they can just blink and blink and blink and never lose a stalker. But against ling/roach, they cant do that; it takes a lot more control and much smarter use of blink to really fight roach ling, particularly +1 lings. The stalkers also can't just attack the roaches (especially considering the DPS of +1 roaches), and you can keep reinforcing with lings while keeping your roaches alive
Ling roach, ling hydra roach, hydra ling, are all fantastic compositions. Nestea and Losira in particular love going roach/ling/corruptor, kill collossus, into hydra/ling. Idra did this as well against cruncher, and it looked fantastic. Once collossi are down the hydra deathball slowly moves around and controls territory, while lings can quickly dash behind and provide meatshield/extra DPS, and also attack different bases.
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Thanks for your contribution.
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Great videos.
I'm a zerg player and I have found that adding more zerglings always helps (to the point of not making roaches except when absolutely necessary), and with zergling based compositions flanks are important.
As a zerg player, I think unit positioning is more important than unit composition, and because zerglings let you choose your engagements the best, they have become my preferred unit.
Zerglings can destroy marine tank. If you run in from one side you lose everything and do no damage. If you flank, you crush him and have a ton of lings left over.
One nitpick about your roach/ling demo.
I think the reinforcement round of units had a bigger impact than the unit choice for the initial engagement. If you brought in the ling reinforcements in the fight that started with only roach, you'd still dominate.
Another thing is that when you incorporate the cost of overlords in your roach to zergling comparison, you end up with a lot more zerglings in your first engagement.
Zerglings are also great for drawing overkill. You talk a lot about the importance of overkill, and that's one of the great things about lings. A 35 hp ling can take a full stalker volley, or take two hits from a zealot and still take 3 stalker shots, wasting a ton of damage. This even comes into play against colossus.
Another important point in favour of zerglings is how they effect forcefield usage. melee units and ranged units require different forcefields, and having both really reduces the forcefield's effectiveness.
(I guess I am basically +1ing dave3333)
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Your videos are nice and clear and although most of that was fairly obvious to me it was great to watch. You've got a very clear voice.
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Awesome video!! Very helpful to know all these things.
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NIce work Cecil, very informative video. Keep up the great posting and content
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On August 03 2011 08:08 Oboeman wrote:
Great videos.
I'm a zerg player and I have found that adding more zerglings always helps (to the point of not making roaches except when absolutely necessary), and with zergling based compositions flanks are important.
As a zerg player, I think unit positioning is more important than unit composition, and because zerglings let you choose your engagements the best, they have become my preferred unit.
Zerglings can destroy marine tank. If you run in from one side you lose everything and do no damage. If you flank, you crush him and have a ton of lings left over.
One nitpick about your roach/ling demo.
I think the reinforcement round of units had a bigger impact than the unit choice for the initial engagement. If you brought in the ling reinforcements in the fight that started with only roach, you'd still dominate.
Another thing is that when you incorporate the cost of overlords in your roach to zergling comparison, you end up with a lot more zerglings in your first engagement.
Zerglings are also great for drawing overkill. You talk a lot about the importance of overkill, and that's one of the great things about lings. A 35 hp ling can take a full stalker volley, or take two hits from a zealot and still take 3 stalker shots, wasting a ton of damage. This even comes into play against colossus.
Another important point in favour of zerglings is how they effect forcefield usage. melee units and ranged units require different forcefields, and having both really reduces the forcefield's effectiveness.
(I guess I am basically +1ing dave3333)
Yeah I'm realizing that the higher I go on the ladder the better ling usage is by Zergs. Zerglings run into your base the moment you move out, every time. Zerglings are always thrown into battle and flank around back to cut mobility of my army. Zerglings just have a lot of utility a lot of players don't (or don't know how to) take advantage of.
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One thing that you could mention in the force field discussion is pulling zealots back after the units in front of the forcefields have died/are very close to dying.
Lower level players will cut a T army in half, kill off the front half, but then let their zealots just dance around in front of the FF wall taking free shots. It's better to pull them back similarly to your 3gate vs 4gate example and then engage with them again when the 2nd round of FF happens (or the front ones vanish if you've trapped units in a FF prison).
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the stuff with lings / roaches has some minor errors. like, in the first battle, there were 4 zealots, but in the subsequent battles, only 3 zealots. and then, with the pure roach battle, you have 10 roaches vs 6 stalkers+3zealots, the protoss wins. but if the zerg were to get 11 roaches, the zerg comes out with like 7 roaches to spare without any micro.
6 roaches and 20 lings costs 950 minerals 150 gas
9 roaches costs 675 mins 225 gas
10 roaches costs 750 mins 250 gas
11 roaches costs 825 mins 275 gas
Possibly you have to factor in the ling speed upgrade, maybe not cause most players get this anyway, but 11roaches is cheaper than 6roaches+20lings+speedupgrade
consider the same battle, if you just spent the 950 minerals on pure ling, you would have 24 lings left over (so instead of 950/150 turning into 450/150, you would have 600/150),
then you have to consider if you spent 100 of that gas on an early +1 atk for your zerglings and forewent 4 lings (making 850 minerals worth of lings, and +1 atk) now you still end up with 24 lings after the battle, but you also have an upgrade. for the same price. better yet, get +1 armor and transition to roaches after the battle when he is going zealot heavy to counter your lings.
basically, i don't get the cost effectiveness argument unless you want to put the actual costs to equal numbers. especially when just 1 roach extra changes that battle by so much, it is arguable that 11 roaches is similar in cost to 6roaches + 20 speedlings given larva and upgrade concerns
i think pure units are better either way you look at it in a straight up fight, because zerg upgrades only affect either their ranged or melee units. not to say the composition of roach ling isnt better than pure roach, but i think the reasons behind it being better are not simply cost effectiveness in the battle. on of the reasons behind the composition being more effective is that they cant scout your army and just build the countering units, others are counterattack opportunity / punishing early move outs etc etc.
otherwise it was a pretty cool video,
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Also, you explained multiselect in first video, then unnecessary in second.
btw. in second video you supplement Zerg army with more Zerglings - then it's not cheaper or the same army it's much stronger force then Protoss one. You could reinforce in case 1 when Zerg lost.
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On August 12 2011 11:00 ReiKo wrote:
Also, you explained multiselect in first video, then unnecessary in second.
btw. in second video you supplement Zerg army with more Zerglings - then it's not cheaper or the same army it's much stronger force then Protoss one. You could reinforce in case 1 when Zerg lost.
I actually only meant to mention that it was underused in the first video, and didn't explain or portray it until the second one.
As for the ling thing, I'm not sure I understand what you mean. Thanks for the feedback!
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And another note - Zerg wins also because Roaches won't get damaged, not because only Zerglings > Stalkers but Stalkers
does not hit Roaches 80% of times (too much micro for most of people to traget Roaches + Zerglings rush into Stalkers)
and as Roaches lives on = they kick ass.
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On August 12 2011 11:11 ReiKo wrote:
And another note - Zerg wins also because Roaches won't get damaged, not because only Zerglings > Stalkers but Stalkers
does not hit Roaches 80% of times (too much micro for most of people to traget Roaches + Zerglings rush into Stalkers)
and as Roaches lives on = they kick ass.
I didn't say zerglings are > Stalkers... I said Roach/Ling is often a better composition than just Roach.
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Cecil, you my good sir are a god among TL men
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It is actually only 27 minutes. I demand my money back for false advertising!
jk jk, awesome vids! I don't play protoss or zerg but i still learned a whole lot! :D
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Absolutely excellent videos, personally i've been practicing a lot of blink micro (basically I make my stalkers fight a very unfair fight, 15 roach vs 10 stalker for example and try to see how one-sidedly i can win)
I forgot completely about overkill in PvP too ^^
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What is the name of the map used in this video?
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EPT
