EPTWatch at 35 mins Stephano vs Kas. That's some Zerg micro you can practice on !
Micro for zerg - Page 4
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loginn
France815 Posts
Watch at 35 mins Stephano vs Kas. That's some Zerg micro you can practice on ! | ||
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Hairy
United Kingdom1169 Posts
On October 26 2011 19:11 StatixEx wrote: .... placed in bronze  [snip] Just going back on topic for a second im finding that if you pull back low health units as they are being attacked this can turn the tides . . .although atm im not that accurate so pull more back than i need lowering my dps I would like to point out that micro tricks and techniques are helpful, and I'm happy to discuss micro techniques, but if you are in bronze you should not be focusing on this AT ALL. It's old and tired to say this I know, but macro is really what you want to be focusing on. Microing your units might make them 50% more effective, but I might have 300% as many units as you because I've been macroing hard. And I don't even need to look at my units, I can just a-move and let my guys do their stuff. The worst (and common) mistake is to be in the middle of a battle trying to micro and squeeze a little bit more effectiveness out of the units you have, all the time NOT MACROING back home, so your army is half as big and scary as it should be. I want you to be thinking this in your future games: I scouted him! Am I building stuff? He's going to rush me! Am I building stuff? I make a new building! Am I building stuff? I am setting up a big attack! Am I building stuff? I look at the minimap! Am I building stuff? I pick my nose! Am I building stuff? I breathe in! Am I building stuff? I breathe out! Am I building stuff? ... and I'm not exaggerating here. Try focusing 100%, absolutely ALL your concentration, on just building things all the time. Don't worry about the other stuff, just KEEP BUILDING STUFF. You should be pleasantly surprised at how much better your games go. After a few games of doing this, compare how many units you have at 10 mins / 15 mins to a previous game - you will be shocked! | ||
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Hairy
United Kingdom1169 Posts
On October 26 2011 21:16 Macpo wrote: Sorry, I have been playing for a year or so and never heard of Ctrl + click! what is it? If you ctrl + click on a unit on the main screen, it will select all units of that type that are visible. If you ctrl + click on a unit panel at the bottom of the screen, it will select all units of that type from your current selection (eg if I have a big army of lings + blings selected I can ctrl + click on a baneling's panel and select only the banelings) I was suggesting that you add morphing eggs to your hotkey groups to make it easier to use freshly hatched units. Ctrl+clicking on a morphing egg means that your larvae are DE-selected, so you don't end up with weird hotkey groups. | ||
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Kajarn
United States126 Posts
1. Roaches in small numbers. 8 or less. In this case kiting with roaches vs zealots, focus firing, moving away weak ones. Standard basic micro. 2.Good old ling bling wars. 1-2 Lings on opponents banelings, always move your own in pairs. Being able to fight lings vs lings with banelings close by. 3. 200/200 Zerg Deathball. Two posibilities, Infestor/Brood/Roach/Hydra. Keep Broods back, Neural anything big that gets close, fungal the balls of stalker/marine, Roach/Hydra under or slightly behind broods. | ||
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StatixEx
United Kingdom779 Posts
the people in this post have hepled me no end to look at things and concentreate on when i do my customs. A new problem im having now is i got absolutely smashed the other day with a 80+ stalker count on a turtled protoss on 2 bases to my 4 . . looking at all the stats, i dont know how i lost, i was fully upgraded, if i can find the replay in my list again i will post and someone give me some clear pointers into what i should have done. thanks . . in fact ill look now, expect a post withing the next 2 mins, will put replay on that replayed site. edit: as promised http://www.sc2replayed.com/replay-videos/14713 | ||
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JohnnySC
Canada19 Posts
On October 24 2011 10:47 Xapti wrote: I didn't say they had none, I said virtually none, and by that I meant have very little. You mentioned roach micro, but I mentioned roach micro — I had already conceded that that was one of zergs options. The rest of the stuff that you are talking about for zerg is not really micro at least from my viewpoint, it's just basic unit control. Keeping mutas out of harm isn't micro, it's just normal harass tactics — there isn't muta micro like there was in Starcraft 1. Flanking isn't micro either... it's just flanking — it's not something to practice, at least with custom maps. There's a difference between not a-moving and microing. I don't consider everything that's not a-move to be micro, because otherwise everything would be considered micro. The guy was asking about practice maps for real zerg micro techniques — there's hardly anything there aside from roach burrowing. Many zerg player like stephano and nestea do not split up banelings much or at all vs siege tanks sometimes — it's inhuman to split them up enough for it to be effective to reduce the splash. Even the splitting itself is not something significantly micro-y it's pretty much having units in two control groups, or having them pre-positioned separated (although I will say that in some situations baneling splitting can be useful, but generally marines stay in 1 or 2 clumps and stutter-step (or are pre-positiond spread out) making it unnecessary I'm a masters zerg and I play only zerg. Try asking a person what race they play and at what level before making asinine statements. Like so many people are saying — It's really important to have proper unit positioning and basic control, as well as solid macro. Actual micro is insignificant for zerg — especially with regards to stuff like practice maps, cause there's nothing to practice against CPUs (or even players) other than roach micro or general control. I would just like to point out that your opinion on what is, and what isn`t micro is wrong and I find many people confuse or make assumptions on what it really is. I used to think it revolved around only controlling your army, (pulling back weak/targeted units out of aggro and sending them back in) but I was wrong. Basically, everything is micro, sending a worker to mine minerals after building something, returning cargo/mineral walking, flanking and positioning are all part of micro management based on what liquipedia says. On a side note I agree that it is easier to micro mainly because zerg units get into position a lot more quickly esp. on creep to prep for a good surround. The difference in apm is funny though when I off-race with Z I get 220-250 and 130-160 with my main P. And about the OP, there`s a map called derlangers micro challenge. I think I mispelled that, but its ``something`` micro challenge. There are like 10 different challenges for each race. http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/Micro | ||
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StatixEx
United Kingdom779 Posts
Going off a post i put down a few posts ago, all thas happening in my long games are mass balls of units, mine dont seem to stand up to them. Surely micro is the naswer here, i posted a replay a few posts ago could someone have a look and tell me what i should be doing in this situation | ||
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Sporadic44
United States533 Posts
Given this, solid macro play will often put you into a better position in the game. Moreover, the most crucial thing to keep in mind when microing your troops is that you need to keep your macro going. I cannot stress this enough. There is nothing more frustrating than having an extremely cost effective unit trade, than you go to make more units and you have 6 larva and almost no troops. Generally it's best to focus on unit production first, especially during large trades. Once your macro is exceptional for your current ladder position, start to think about micro more during the game. Eventually your macro becomes almost second nature, and you rarely consciously have to think about it, and you do it quite quickly. I guess the best way to improve your micro is to simply see what works. Start with the basics of course. For example, pre splitting your army before a 200/200 fight. Pulling the weak roaches back from the enemy roaches in small skirmishes. Surrounding with lings, fungals etc etc. You can focus on one aspect of micro per MU for a few games and see how you improve upon it. Eventually you'll start feeling more comfortable with micro and you'll utilize your swarms combat strengths. Like I explained with macro, it will become very natural through practice and implementation. In short, If your macro is still taxing your APM, and decision making, mechanics, focus on that first. If you can macro decently, micro whatever you can while you're waiting on your round of larva, units to pop, expansion to finish etc. There's always something to micro, keep doing it and eventually you'll improve upon it. | ||
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Monkeyballs25
531 Posts
On October 29 2011 01:10 StatixEx wrote: yeah played it, its pretty good! Going off a post i put down a few posts ago, all thas happening in my long games are mass balls of units, mine dont seem to stand up to them. Surely micro is the naswer here, i posted a replay a few posts ago could someone have a look and tell me what i should be doing in this situation Ok I take it you don't want any comments on macro then  Micro tips -send your overlord scout to your 3rd expo location or do something with him to scout for proxy pylons atleast -when drone scouting, just check the edge of each spawn location, IE close enough to get vision of the nexus. Slightly faster that way. -not a micro tip but I just can't ignore this bit. Don't build spine crawlers unless you have a real good reason for it, like an imminent 4gate that you can't get an army in time for. You saw a forge and a cannon, which pretty much rules out any super early pressure like that, and you should have a proper army good to go by the time his delayed attack hits. Why is this important? Because you're nullifying any eco advantage you would have had by expanding early. You have only 15 drones to his 22 probes, and 7 larva you can't afford to convert into units, because you wasted it on 3 spines. -And again, sorry. But you're taking 4 geysers with 14 drones. That's just not gonna be good. -I do like the ling placement though. You'll be ready to respond to any expo attempt by the Toss. -Again, at 9 minutes you're behind on economy despite 2basing to his 1base, just because you have 7 fewer workers. -At 12 minutes, you're both on 2 bases and Toss has 13 more workers. -At 15 minutes, you're still on 2 bases when ideally you'd have expanded 5 minutes ago atleast. You're only 7 workers behind, but its been like that for a long time, and the Toss has 33 more supply. -At 18 minutes, you're sending a drone over to take a 3rd, protoss is taking his 3rd too. And he's got 12 more workers and 15 more supply, -At 21 minutes, you're finally on even workers and bases, after being behind for 15 minutes. Ooh finally some engagements! Muta control looks fine, and you're parking them somewhere safe when going back to do injects, and you're avoiding big packs of stalkers and doing some eco damage. My only criticism is you spent too long floating around his base when it was fairly clear there were no safe targets to hit once the element of surprise was lost. -At 24 minutes, you push your luck too much and start using mutas. Once you see that many stalkers its pointless to keep at it. And you were lucky they didn't have blink. Economically, both still on 3 bases, you're ahead 3 workers thanks to the muta harass, but the amount of mutas you lost makes it a wash. Likewise, you picked off a cannon and colossus den but lost too many mutas to make it worthwhile. -27 minutes. Muta harass is starting to pay off, mainly because Toss can't safely expand. He's also down to 36 workers to your 49 drones. Things are looking good. Btw you had 17 muta at home you could have added to your harassment ball, unless you wanted them kept as reserve. -30 minutes. You're taking a 4th, better late than never. Toss isn't. Not sure how you lose this one really. -33 minutes. 4th base is up but no drones are there. Toss still has more income despite 14 less workers. And on Units Lost tab you're even, so your muta harass isn't as effective as it seems. Not to mention that due to your focus on it, the rest of your economy is pretty dire. 34:39 Micro engagement tip. When you have 33 mutas, make sure they're participating in the battle to save your main. Also make sure half your army doesn't agro into the deathball and die uselessly after being shot at. Now, not only did you still win the engage. You won decisively, your unit micro once the star player mutaball entered the field was fine. The game is now over, you've won. Only you haven't, because you have 10000 minerals in the bank and you're not making them into a new ground army. 37:31 You know what the counter to 4 cannons and no army is? EVERYTHING! Even the few mutas and lings you have are enough. 38:00 You see he has nothing but stalkers and cannons and you make...more mutas. Now that's fine, I'm all for one unit army comps and I'm a roach man myself. But you kinda should be spending those 11k minerals on some lings too. They even counter stalkers and cannons too 44:00ish Again. Your ground army gets murdered while your mutas are out having a smoke. And when it does engage.... Look, there is no good way to micro a 52 stalker vs 25 muta battle. There just isn't, ok? You're going to lose it. 45:00 Reverse problem. Mutas get killed while ground army takes a smoke break. Keep them guys together! Mind you, your ground army can't counter 52 stalkers either. 47:00 Ok you weren't watching this fight. But even if you were, your army is too small for micro to be helpful. 48:15 Ok, you've got 2 infestors, 2 roaches, 7 mutas, 5 hydras and 41 lings. Your opponent has...38 stalkers. He also has 2 colossi, but he probably doesn't need those to win. Again, nothing short of a ghost nuke would get you out of this one. So let's see. -you didn't get enough workers early on. And too many of them were mining gas. -you were slow taking your 3th and 4th bases. -you had nearly 10k minerals at one point. You probably could have still won with nothing but mutas, had you just fixed those things really. You definitely didn't lose due to bad engagements. Bad unit comps to an extent, but definitely not bad micro. | ||
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Monkeyballs25
531 Posts
A new problem im having now is i got absolutely smashed the other day with a 80+ stalker count on a turtled protoss on 2 bases to my 4 . . looking at all the stats, i dont know how i lost, i was fully upgraded, if i can find the replay in my list again i will post and someone give me some clear pointers into what i should have done. I was just trying to explain how inaccurate that statement was, and the reasons why you did actually lose. Not only was it 3base vs 3base for most of the game, but any advantage you had from when you did take more bases was lost to simply not spending that money. Edit : Also another thing to mention. The cool thing about muta harass is not so much the buildings you pick off, since as you saw you also lose the odd muta to make it even. The point is it keeps the Protoss from a) expanding or b) attacking you because he needs all those stalkers rushing between his minerals lines keeping his probes alive. To take advantage of this you need to either a) make lots of things that are good at killing stalkers IE a big Zerg ground army but particularly zerglings since you can spare the minerals. b) Take expansions which the Protoss won't be able to deny or harass for a long time. | ||
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BileHazard
United States8 Posts
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ZenZombie
United States58 Posts
with banelings as back up. Muta micro into mineral lines or magic boxing thors. Drone micro is important to know when you get attacked. learn to use roach burrow micro. Against protoss, even with an observer, learn to burrow, move closer, and then unburrow. The regen on roaches will give you free shots at them, as the collosus won't do near as much damage to your army as they close if they are burrowed. Infestor hit squads are a huge amount of micro potential. Dropping one infested terran on a bunch of siege tanks one at a time can make the tanks kill themselves, or onto thors to get a tank line to break their own units. Against zerg, learn to use one or two banelings to chase off big broods of zerglings. Careful to control your baneling so it doesn't get killed by one zergling running off. Use hotkeys on half of a zergling group and another hotkey on the other half for on the fly micro control to attack a mineral line while engaging forces. Zergling runbys are huge. Binding an overseer to roachs or other big groups of forces can be huge, or groups of zerglings to a roach mass. Either can help your battles massively. Don't forget to macro. It is better to inject all your hatcheries perfectly then to save 5 zerglings. Don't forget to micro your creep spread constantly. Easy way to increase creep spread is every time you inject, do creep spread immediately after, then return to army *stuff* If you feel you need micro practice, go on a unit tester map with a friend and just practice all day against eachother. Hope this helps. Good luck, and always remember to have fun first and foremost. - Zen | ||
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Monkeyballs25
531 Posts
-never stop doing macro things while microing. Put the mutas away somewhere safe and go do it. Not just injects, but taking new bases, new gas geysers, moving drones, building drones and building your ground army. The larva inject timer provides a nice timer for this, IE 12:00 Do larva injects 12:05 Build units 12:10 Send drones to take new base and geyser 12:15-12:35 Harass with mutas. 12:35-12:40 Retreat mutas to safe spot. 12:40-12:45 Do larva injects Basically you can achieve the same aim of containing the toss and doing some damage with a lot less time spent on it. If you even show him your giant muta ball ONCE and do a quick pass of his 3 mineral lines you get most of the desired effect. Another reason not to spend too long on it is that as you saw, eventually he'll have enough anti-muta counter units. | ||
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ZenZombie
United States58 Posts
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canSore
132 Posts
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DuncanIdaho
United States465 Posts
1) Concave: If you're Zerg, you likely are outranged in most engagements. Imagine your ball of doom bugs versus their ball of stuff, chances are they outrange you, and at best, you're even. In either of these cases, balling up is terribad. However, if your ball has greater range, balling up is reasonable, especially versus zerglings. Reason being, your guys in the back can still shoot, while theirs can't hit your back line, and balling up reduces surface area for the surround. As zerg, think about what direction the engagement is coming from, and start a concave arc facing in that direction. (this also applies to lings, blings, infestors, not just roach/hydra. Infestors especially need to be able to cast their fungals simultaneously, rather than one at a time, getting sniped one at a time as each gets close enough... If they were concave a few at least wouldhave landed. 2) Flanking: Always consider setting up a flank, i.e., have agroup of units (usually lings/blings) out on the field to the side, able to hit their army from the side or back while your main army engages the front, hoping to knock out those key support units not on the front lines. Also, there's always the ling surround-bling penetration move to detstroy many balls. 3)Roach burrow micro: You think blink back micro is annoying? This is a great way to even the odds, though better if their obs/detection is knocked out. 4) Move back micro: Remember, as with any unit, a 1hp unit deals just as much damage as a full health unit, except that they die and then no more damage. However, the goal is to distribute the damage across your units with hopefully few units going beyond the death threshold. After a fight its always better to have an entire 200 food army at 1 hp, than half the army dead. Move back your orange/red units, till the AI stops targeting them, and then send them back to the front line, hoping the AI doesn't notice them for a while longer, giving your overall dps of your army a boost. 5) Anti-move back micro: This is done to trick the dumb AI, and good opponents are going to do this. Consider target firing the red/orange units in order to compensate for this tactic. 6) Magic boxing: Mutas, especially, benefit from this, amongst some other situations. Great way to reduce spalsh aoe, from thors, infestor fungals, archons, and in the future, the tempest air unit. 7) Drone (worker) mineral-walk tricks: all workers have the ability to occcupy the same space while moving to a mineralpatch, allowing for them to stack really well, capable of dealing high burst damage to a single unit (or the pylon break for wallins. 8) Manual bling detonation: True, unburrow can be autocast, but this is suboptimal, as they unburrow, then detonate upon melee range. If you see the enemy walking over your blings, selecthem and click x. unburrow autocast genraly climbs out of the gound in time to kill only the units in back. 9) overlord drops: Smart casting with the overlord moving allows for a nice arc placement, and bling bombing the min line with this technique (especially with +2 melee) deals maximal damage to workers. 10) Changelings: send them to a group of units, and rightclick on a unit of similar type. This way, they'll follow their "buddies", making it much harder to discern their movements. 11) Anti Changeling: select the lings you suspect may be infiltrated, issue /dance in chat. The changelings won't dance! 12) Transfuse micro: Turn on healthbars, or have them always on (I prefer the latter), and be hitting the T button, once per dying queen, like mad on the low HP queens. Also, can be useful to cast on high HP units such as roaches, mutas, ultras, blords, infestors (and to a lesser extent, hydras). These are just a few tips I can think of, and this post has inspired me to collect some stuff in a blog, and maybe compose more, in order to eventually post these Zerg micro tricks in an eventual strategy forum thread. In any case, GL! | ||
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Sporadic44
United States533 Posts
On October 27 2011 18:00 StatixEx wrote: + Show Spoiler + Ur right with the building stuff tho, im beginning to overdrone atm. Yes i know im in a low league but that was the point of my post. looking at replays, im finding all we are doing (me and my similarly compared opponent) the same kind of APM and mass ball send and attack(all races). Watching pro replays and i constantly have a stream on while i play, they are miroing all over the place with like at least ahlf the units i have and get away with it. YES i know that this isnt what i should be looking at right now but feel if i can add some of this in its not like deep end when i do start moving up. I played a few gold level players yesterday from my friends and beat them convincingly, im not saying i should be in gold but im in to 5 of my league, always beating favoured and slightly favoured opponents. I feel now its time to take on someting new. the people in this post have hepled me no end to look at things and concentreate on when i do my customs. A new problem im having now is i got absolutely smashed the other day with a 80+ stalker count on a turtled protoss on 2 bases to my 4 . . looking at all the stats, i dont know how i lost, i was fully upgraded, if i can find the replay in my list again i will post and someone give me some clear pointers into what i should have done. thanks . . in fact ill look now, expect a post withing the next 2 mins, will put replay on that replayed site. edit: as promised http://www.sc2replayed.com/replay-videos/14713 I watched the replay I can confidently say you did not lose this game because of your micro. However, as I mentioned in my first post this is a shining example of over emphasizing unit control. 12k minerals is trust fund status. Im sure 12k minerals is rare for you as tal darims a big map. But you need to make a better effort to spend your money. Make a habit of spending your money just to spend it once it gets above say, 2k. You will max out much quicker and can attack full force on your opponents side of the map. That way even if its a bad engagement for you there is time to remake your troops. When toss just derps up to your ramp like that chances are its gonna go poorly. Here is some direct advice from your replay As of right now I'm ranked 838 overall on NA. ~top 1k last season. I dont claim to be godlike but there is merit in what I suggest. Here's what I have for you. + Show Spoiler + --Its been mentioned already but you need a more balanced early game economy. You dont need 4 gasses that early. Generally I like to run off 1 gas till my minerals are almost saturated on both main and natural. As I get lair tech I grab 1-3 more gasses depending on what I want to do. But ya, delay those gasses. Also make sure you're familiar with the idea of "Worker Saturation". You want your mineral patches full with workers, but not bouncing around between patches. Of course this is all general and there are always exceptions. --As soon as you leave your base with your mutas your minerals start to pile up. This is because you watched your mutas fly across the map while doing nothing. I believe this is kindve the krux of your issue. You want to get in the habit of using the minimap to control troop movement. Or issuing a command then going and doing something else as the units carry out the command. Part of this comes from understanding what your opponent is doing and where his army is on the map. For example, when the protoss warps in those stalkers in the main as you fly in with your first set of mutas. What you want to do is right click one immediately and then shift right click the one next to it. Now because he cant micro away you have about 3 seconds to do whatever you need to do. whether it be sneaking an inject in, making a round of drones etc. Work on constantly producing units/OLs as your mutas fly around. Make sure your mutas are hotkeyed so you can swap between the two constantly. Use the minimap every chance you get. The minimap makes general positioning, control, and strategy implementation 99% more efficient. --Key Point-- Stay busy. I watched your replay through your POV and you spend a lot of time just clicking your mutalisks around. Part of the beauty of the way SC2 works is you can use your keyboard while microing your troops around. Start tapping at that hatchery more often. Make sure you use base camera hotkey (default set to backspace). This helps keep tabs on your bases. Then you use unit hotkey to quickly swap back to your troops. In short, you need to work on meshing both macro and micro. In the broadest sense of the words. Its about knowing when to do which. The whole Idea of decision making comes from choosing macro or micro at any moment. Hopefully this all made sense, let me know if you want me to elaborate on any points. Also, I will post here a replay of a similar game to yours I played last night. It was a long macro game zvp cross positions on tal darim. I really hope you take a look at it because I think it can help you tremendously. + Show Spoiler + REPLAY HERE: http://drop.sc/49963 I'm posting this to demonstrate how proper meshing of both macro and micro will win you the game against an even skilled opponent. You'll notice my macro was lackluster through the midgame because I was far behind after early game. So I couldnt just throw units at him and win. Also, you'll notice there's nothing mindblowing about my micro and at times I drop the ball a bit and miss NPs, throw infestors away etc. But I had a constant flow of units when trading. If you watch the rep you posted again watch it in First Person with the production tab up. As you trade with the toss; Are you making units as your supply drops below 200? Concluding Thoughts/TLDR You're familiar with the common terms of gameplay elements; Macro, Micro. Lets go with an analogy here. A match of starcraft 2 is your untied/unlaced shoe(seriously stay with me itll make tie in). Micro and Macro are your hands, and the laces of the shoe are your forces. One lace troops,the other buildings expansions and drones. You can probably get the shoe on and tied up using only one hand. But to truly master shoe tying(sc2), you must incorporate the use of both hands. Suddenly the process becomes more efficient, and the strength of the tie is better because you have double the means to tie the show(winning the match). Kudos if you've read this or skimmed at least half of it. Let me know what you guys think. I've procrastinated long enough. Now its time to write this COBOL program before its due at midnight tonight. LOL | ||
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Sporadic44
United States533 Posts
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StatixEx
United Kingdom779 Posts
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figq
12519 Posts
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