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Hi everyone. I've been following Macro-oriented mass stalkers play that many high level players tell low leaguers ( like myself, I'm bronze) to use,
Basically, I focus primarily on good macro, while building only stalkers (and upgrades) until 200 food, then a-moving to the opponent's base for the win. I linked two replays for reference.
I feel its the opponent's unit comp that's killing me. I'd would have 200 worth of stalkers, when my opponent would be at 150. With that difference in food, I should be winning these battles but I'm not.
Am I not macroing fast enough? My APM is double my opponent's in both these reps.
Any advice or constructive criticism is welcome
http://www.gamereplays.org/starcraft2/replays.php?game=33&show=details&id=224628
http://www.gamereplays.org/starcraft2/replays.php?game=33&show=details&id=224627
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Making ONLY stalkers absolutely wont win you battles. They are too fat, too fragile and dont do that much dps. If you dont want to go into heavy tech yet and want to keep practicing gateway macro, i suggest u mix in 2-3 sentries for guardian shield, and probably 10+ zealots for little bit of tanking.
Do you get blink and try to blink micro?
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Northern Ireland24782 Posts
Firstly I think it's good that you are focusing on your general mechanics, but I think you might have misinterpreted a post. I do recall somebody claiming you could get to masters by macroing perfectly and making on stalkers, but personally I don't buy it, they are pretty fragile and have low DPS when it comes to late game as they don't scale particularly well with upgrades
What you really want to focus on is playing a more standard macro-orientated game and get the unit compositions a bit more solid to counter what your opponent is doing. You can still really focus on your macro doing standard expo openings. For example the 3 gate expand vs Terran or Zerg, or a 2 gate robo build vs Terran (early scouting with obs helps a lot in determining your compositions going into late-game.
I will watch the replay as well and offer my thoughts on that, thought I'd reply first to remind me to come back
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Whenever an army goes up against an army that has 5-6 collosi in it, your gonna be in a huge disadvantage. In the battle, you moved your stalkers around wayyyy too much, so it turned out that you were only actually attacking 60% of the battle. That was your main problem. Also blink is a great upgrade, but even if you did get it for some reason i dont think you would have used it  .
But mass stalker isn't a great strategy. It can win you games, but it won't help you improve. At your level, just focus on macro and making workers, not what unit composition you want to use. Just do whatever, if it doesn't work don't do it again.
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Two big problems:
1) YOUR RESOURCES. Always your resources. You were floating so many resources long before that first big battle. If your macro fails, then a gameplan which says, "Forget strategy, just macro" is not going to work.
2) Army Control/Blink. Only half your stalkers were actually fighting - the rest were just dancing in the back. Move in, or research Blink. I sat there and stared at your Twilight Council doing nothing for 10 minutes. Why build a Twilight Council and then do nothing with it? If you'd had blink, you could have done a single blink into his army and all of your army would have been fighting, and some of your stalkers would have auto-targetted the Colossus.
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On August 04 2011 06:13 Ubertron wrote:
Firstly I think it's good that you are focusing on your general mechanics, but I think you might have misinterpreted a post. I do recall somebody claiming you could get to masters by macroing perfectly and making on stalkers, but personally I don't buy it, they are pretty fragile and have low DPS when it comes to late game as they don't scale particularly well with upgrades
There have been several experiments attempting to prove that macro is the only necessary resource to climb out of a higher league. One of which is this one: http://www.reddit.com/r/starcraft/comments/f7qw9/followup_to_macrostomping_with_mass_stalkers_more/ (this is the mass stalker approach), and Destiny did one where he only made queens (there's a whole series on youtube).
These experiments prove two points: (1) focusing on macro CAN win you games in lower leagues simply because you outmacro'd your opponent. (2) no player won 100% of their games, so clearly macro alone will not give you a 100% win rate in lower leagues.
I think it's important to put these experiments in perspective. A bronze league player is not going to magically gain the macro senses of a higher level player. These skills develop over time. Yeah, Destiny made it to plat with only making queens and this toss guy was taking on diamond opponents with JUST stalkers, but I guarantee you their skills were already developed to the point that such an experiment was easy for them. They also played a small number of games (less than 50) when there are tens of thousands of possible opponents. Saying it worked against the margin doesn't necessarily mean it will work for the whole.
I do, however, agree with the spirit of these tests, which are to show that macro is a tremendous asset and best learned early. I'm glad OP is taking this approach.
 ownloading reps now, will edit with observations within the hour as I watch them.
EDIT: Posted advice in separate comment
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high APM doesn't mean good macro, I wouldn't focus on APM right now.
Priority for macro imo is:
1. Constant probes until you staturate all your bases
2. Not getting supply blocked
3. Keeping money low as much as possible
If you can do these 3 things you can probably use any strategy you want and get out of bronze, definitely into gold.
As for mass stalkers, I did hear casters saying its good lately, but it was only in reference to PvZ
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+ Show Spoiler +On August 04 2011 06:44 Grr Arr Rawr wrote:
Two big problems:
1) YOUR RESOURCES. Always your resources. You were floating so many resources long before that first big battle. If your macro fails, then a gameplan which says, "Forget strategy, just macro" is not going to work.
2) Army Control/Blink. Only half your stalkers were actually fighting - the rest were just dancing in the back. Move in, or research Blink. I sat there and stared at your Twilight Council doing nothing for 10 minutes. Why build a Twilight Council and then do nothing with it? If you'd had blink, you could have done a single blink into his army and all of your army would have been fighting, and some of your stalkers would have auto-targetted the Colossus.
My resources didn't hit 1k until the 15 minute mark when I got the gold expo, and it never went past 1500. Considering I'm in bronze league, that's pretty damn good. Most players would be sitting at 4k+ with a gold expo. Did you want me to never hit 500? You can't expect me to macro at a master's level.
The sole reason my the TC was for upgrades. I didn't get blink because I a-moved my army the whole time. I didn't really even watch the battle. Also, to be honest, I don't know to use blink efficiently. The time spent awfully microing with blink could be better spent doing something else.
That's why taking this approach.(The exact article too, :D)
+ Show Spoiler +On August 04 2011 06:59 megaBICEPS wrote:
high APM doesn't mean good macro, I wouldn't focus on APM right now.
Priority for macro imo is:
1. Constant probes until you staturate all your bases
2. Not getting supply blocked
3. Keeping money low as much as possible
If you can do these 3 things you can probably use any strategy you want and get out of bronze, definitely into gold.
I try to keep about 24 workers per expo. You'll see that I stop probe production when the nodes are saturated
Also, I'm pretty content about how high my unspent rescources were during these games. Of course, I'll keep improving and stride for lower numbers, but considering my skill level, It's not so bad.
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Ah, well not only is mass stalkers more for PvZ, but blink is ESSENTIAL. blink micro isn't really hard, just blink injured stalkers back. it is hard to blink micro and macro though. mass stalker definitely isn't an A-move army, they are good because of their mobility. If you want to a-move i'd defintely recommend gateway/collosus
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On August 04 2011 07:02 Hyp3 wrote:
Did you want me to never hit 500? You can't expect me to macro at a master's level.
If you want to win with only-stalkers then you better have great macro. I don't understand why you would want to do that at all - focussing on macro doesn't mean you should go for stupid unit-compositions on purpose.
Build something more useful and it will work even with "mediocre" macro.
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On August 04 2011 07:07 sleepingdog wrote:If you want to win with only-stalkers then you better have great macro. I don't understand why you would want to do that at all - focussing on macro doesn't mean you should go for stupid unit-compositions on purpose. Build something more useful and it will work even with "mediocre" macro.
I'm just mirroring This. I 'd be better off with a gateway mix, I'll try that. It's just as easy to hit w>e or w>z as it is to hit w>s =P
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I've never heard anyone ever recommend that strategy. Making only stalkers to 200 is a horrible way to play. There are stalker centric builds, but none of them wait till 200 to attack.
If you feel like stalkers are the unit you want to play with right now try doing a build along these lines.
3 gate expand (forge fe on maps where thats possible, tal darim and shakuras namely)
Work on getting +1, throw down 3-4 more gateways
Get a twilight council while making stalkers
Upgrade +2, and Blink at the same time.
As those upgrades finish attack with your stalkers. The attack wont come so late that any sort of fast tech will be stomped by your numbers, and the timing of +2/blink timing will give you enough muscle to at least keep your opponent in a defensive posture. If you dont win the game outright you can expand again and diversify your tech as needed.
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As promised, here is the advice!
One thing jumped out at me during both games that you should definitely do as part of macro training - make units before, during, and after every battle. In the second game you lost your army and started warping in more stalkers. Those five were your only ones. If you were reinforcing during the battle you would have had it, no problem!
In general, though, you were outmacroing your opponents AND had an upgrade advantage.
It's generally not good to just a-move your army into your opponent's. Here is a simple micro tip:
When you attacked, the front line formed a concave while the stalkers in the back were out of range and aimlessly wandered back and forth until the front line died. From your game:
![[image loading]](http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z310/j5bruno/micro1.jpg)
Your EFFECTIVE army size was this:
![[image loading]](http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z310/j5bruno/micro2.jpg)
What I do with roaches (since I play zerg) is attack move and the front line fires a shot, right click them forward during the cool down period, and attack move again (this time more units fire increasing the dps on the opposing army). If that's too much micro then you could always just blink the back into the front and the same effect will be gained.
One more thing, this is from the second game:
![[image loading]](http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z310/j5bruno/micro3.jpg)
Once more, you had idle units, but more importantly, you needed to grab about 10 stalkers and focus down the colossus. Your units had a HUGE upgrade advantage and you only lost because you let the three colossus hammer your front lines into oblivion.
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On August 04 2011 08:15 Servius_Fulvius wrote:As promised, here is the advice! + Show Spoiler +One thing jumped out at me during both games that you should definitely do as part of macro training - make units before, during, and after every battle. In the second game you lost your army and started warping in more stalkers. Those five were your only ones. If you were reinforcing during the battle you would have had it, no problem! In general, though, you were outmacroing your opponents AND had an upgrade advantage. It's generally not good to just a-move your army into your opponent's. Here is a simple micro tip: When you attacked, the front line formed a concave while the stalkers in the back were out of range and aimlessly wandered back and forth until the front line died. From your game: Your EFFECTIVE army size was this: What I do with roaches (since I play zerg) is attack move and the front line fires a shot, right click them forward during the cool down period, and attack move again (this time more units fire increasing the dps on the opposing army). If that's too much micro then you could always just blink the back into the front and the same effect will be gained. One more thing, this is from the second game: Once more, you had idle units, but more importantly, you needed to grab about 10 stalkers and focus down the colossus. Your units had a HUGE upgrade advantage and you only lost because you let the three colossus hammer your front lines into oblivion.
Thanks for the advice! I'll definitely keep that in mind. I'm glad to hear the macro was ok (for my level) and the reason I lost was just the micro. I'll try to be more attentive during my battles and definitely constantly warp on units
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On August 04 2011 07:22 Hyp3 wrote:Show nested quote +On August 04 2011 07:07 sleepingdog wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On August 04 2011 07:02 Hyp3 wrote:
Did you want me to never hit 500? You can't expect me to macro at a master's level. If you want to win with only-stalkers then you better have great macro. I don't understand why you would want to do that at all - focussing on macro doesn't mean you should go for stupid unit-compositions on purpose. Build something more useful and it will work even with "mediocre" macro. I'm just mirroring This. I 'd be better off with a gateway mix, I'll try that. It's just as easy to hit w>e or w>z as it is to hit w>s =P
Did you even read the post? It's saying that even playing crappy in every area, if you have "perfect" macro you can get to diamond. What this means is that you need perfect macro or this is just a crappy strat.
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Yeah, that strategy was made by a player who beat far worse players with it. He had Masters-level macro, and beat Plat-Diamond players with it. Destiny is a lot better than that, so he could do it with Mass Queen. Focus on a macro-oriented opening, look up "[G] Standard Play" on the Search function if you normally play Protoss for excellent PvT and PvZ strategy. The stalker-only approach was an experiment, what you should be doing is focusing MOSTLY on macro, but also on doing things correctly.
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Hm, mass pure stalkers? Let me get mass +3 immortals, and then we'll talk in the middle of the map.
I know making only one unit can be fun, but you aren't in a monobattle. Use that freedom to make a better overall army! I don't go for JUST roaches... I get Infestors and/or Mutas as well. Units like Mutas and Marines get more effective when in larger numbers, afaik. Stalkers do too, however they have limitations. Colossus will wreck you. So will mass roaches + infestors, along with... Marauders.
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On August 04 2011 06:59 megaBICEPS wrote:
high APM doesn't mean good macro, I wouldn't focus on APM right now.
Priority for macro imo is:
1. Constant probes until you staturate all your bases
2. Not getting supply blocked
3. Keeping money low as much as possible
If you can do these 3 things you can probably use any strategy you want and get out of bronze, definitely into gold.
As for mass stalkers, I did hear casters saying its good lately, but it was only in reference to PvZ
Agreed about APM. Don't be deceived about APM.
Players can always spam to inflate their APM.
High APM does not lead to better micro and/or macro.
However better macro and micro leads to higher APM.
I'd say don't worry about your APM amount ever and don't use it as a measuring tool.
If you want to improve APM "and" improve your gameplay:
*Scout often (very important). If you can spare one probe or two to go look everywhere, do it often. Sometimes people may taken hidden expansions, etc. More Scouting Info + Show Spoiler + Though don't worry about scouting too much until at 9 or 13 supply (depends on the map. If it's a 4 player map with short rush distances and you're worried about rush, scout on 9. If a random player, scout on 9). If you're not sure what your opponent is doing, feel free to move your probe away from their base and hide it somewhere near it (then after a while, bring the probe back in to scout).
Later in the game (10+ minute mark), feel free to scout to see if they took any extra bases.
*Keep everything in production. 30 probes is approx amount to saturate a base (24 on minerals, 3 on gas each). 3 probes can saturate one mineral field.
About mining and amount of probes it takes + Show Spoiler +
Take note that from 2 > 3 probes, the difference isn't as huge as 1 > 2 probes (includes both gas and minerals). So that means if you have 24 probes on minerals and an expansion with only 8 probes - It's more efficient to move 8 probes (maybe 12 if you're going to produce from both Nexus) to your expansion.
*If you need to micro (like moving a stalker with low HP behind the army), do it but otherwise there's no need to micro stalkers if there is no need to (just a-moving works for the most part). If you're trying to get a better position, micro the stalkers which need to move. If one is low HP, micro it behind your other stalkers if you can. Otherwise feel free to a-move all your stalkers.
So overall, APM is very deceiving and doesn't really mean anything by itself. Most pros do inflate their APM by clicking randomly. Generally they do that to try to keep busy and keep themselves from forgetting that they're supposed to be doing anything .
However that's not really needed and probably hurts play at lower levels because you'll most likely focus on it more than you need to and may forget to do other stuff. Just focus on keeping everything in production, focus on your strategy, focus on scouting, etc and your APM will improve by itself.
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So in order to macro effectively, you need to use your hotkeys to check the status of your upgrades, probes and units. Just tap each hotkey every few seconds and look at the production window to see the cooldowns of your gateways, how many probes you have qued up, and the cooldowns on your upgrades. Use this to gain a feel for the timings of your hand movements.
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To reply to the above poster without quoting his wall of text and adding only a small observation...
I noticed that I got an APM increase when I decided on Zerg as my race, simply becuase there was more I was doing, like larvae injects and such. The more you need to do, and the more you need to think about, the higher your APM will go. I believe that APM isn't really that important unless you're Diamond or above, or doing a complicated strategy that requires lots of macro and micro at the same time.
Just to give you another bit of information... I'm in bronze league, and actually have hit a max of 400~425 APM, for a period of one or two seconds, while spamming Infested Terrans. That may seem like a gigantic deal, but it isnt. Not all of those actions were useful actions, which is one thing that is used for APM inflation.
One other bit of info... After deciding on Zerg and playing as Z for a week, my high average apm went from 40 to 60, mainly becuase of all of the things I needed to do, along with getting more serious about the game.
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EPT
