I looked around at the other marine split techniques posted on the forum and didn't find any mention of this one, so sorry if it's been posted before.
The premise of this technique is to accomplish a very simple marine split with relatively low effort/apm compared to similar tricks (manually separating groups, patrol trick, etc). It's a bit less effective than the other methods may be but it requires very little skill to execute so it may be more suitable to some players/situations.
The basic execution of the technique is to attack-move away from the chasing banelings first, then arc your marines at a very shallow angle while continuing to attack move away. Depending on the speed differences caused by creep, stim, speed upgrades and the like, your angle may need to be steeper to compensate.
In a-moving your marines away at a slight angle, a small portion of your marines will get within range and begin attacking while the remainder continue on. This effectively does all of the splitting work for you. When combined with siege tanks within the arcing area you can use this as a very effective means of overwhelming a zerg attacks.
The first half of the video shows just the splitting part in the marine splitting challenge map. The second portion is a played out simulation of an actual combat situation. Note both armies in the second part of the video are of equal supply, the zerg player is masters league.
Comments / feedback are welcome! 'Like' the video on the YouTube page if you found it useful.
Clarification: this is not meant as a replacement for other forms of micro, it's targeted primarily at players that can't pull off harder methods (yet) or don't have the apm needed to control their units effectively like a masters/GM level might. That aside, this can still be useful at higher levels in some situations.
That's actually a really good trick. Requires some practice to get familiar with the angle you want, obviously, but you could just see an attack coming and shift queue this, unlike most other tricks.
This is a very cool trick!! the only problem that I can see is that if you get caught off guard and attack move your marines too quickly, a lot of them will stop and get slaughtered by banes.
This reminds me of the patrol method of splitting but much, MUCH simpler
On August 26 2011 11:05 envisioN . wrote: This is a very cool trick!! the only problem that I can see is that if you get caught off guard and attack move your marines too quickly, a lot of them will stop and get slaughtered by banes
Yes, that's the only problem I've run into. In that case it's best to just move command away to gain a bit of distance and then continue. It wont work in all situations as well as the more complicated apm intensive methods though so you're trading off a bit in exchange for ease of execution.
I think I'll give this a shot. Also if you have good enough mouse control you might be able to spread some of the already spread out marines in the arc to further increase the effectiveness.
You guys realize that this "technique" is completely useless because no one goes pure blings? zlings r so much faster that a+clicking away doesn't do you any good. No one goes pure blings because as a zerg you have so much extra minerals compared to gas that you might as well make more zlings...
On August 26 2011 11:54 NeMaTo wrote: You guys realize that this "technique" is completely useless because no one goes pure blings? zlings r so much faster that a+clicking away doesn't do you any good. No one goes pure blings because as a zerg you have so much extra minerals compared to gas that you might as well make more zlings...
On August 26 2011 11:46 Nightsz wrote: Useless unless zerg is only massing banelings. With zerglings this trick falls apart immediately
Thanks for the comments, but did you check the video? In equal supply battles with fairly typical unit compositions the terran comes out ahead. The tests included speedlings and mutas.
Wow, that is much simpler than reaching over to the P button and then splitting them in that way, although i think that way is more effective, this is way easier to do!
How could a Zerg counter this? Easiest method seems to be to rush your lings in first to cause the Marines to stand still from the A-move, then blings soon behind. Any other methods?
Seems viable. Its nothing more then a stutter step in a different direction. I think this technique is more suitable for running away from ground units, rather then attacking banelings(just as the posters above mentioned that no one usually sends banes in first). As you run away the small groups left behind will stop the pursuing army for a little bit longer, giving you time to run away safely.
Wow, I really like the video of this. You're going to want to mix in move orders through due to lings. Its not that different than what people already do but its a good break down of the general technique.
Wow, genius! Thanks for sharing. As with the other techniques, even if this technique alone may not be as effective as others, it is always good to know every technique possible so you can mix them up when the opportunity shows :D.
EPT
thanks dude!
