I think im getting better at this game, but need to get the edge now and i believe its all in the micro.
All i really do is a bit of target firing, but basically ball up and press T but with some of the spell units bound to a hot key to use their powers.
Ive been watching a ton of replays lately on how some people go about micro in game (not like millions times better than myself) and they seem to have the sames problems i have(or are doing the same thing i am). i then watch the pros and see whats going on but their macro/micro is way better (obviously) and i find it difficult to focus on any element.
Are there any resources which gives a good look at how to micro each zerg unit against a number of other different units so i can practice in one of them testers?
i saw a great one for terran with reapers, maras, and a drop on tanks with medivacs but never seen one for zerg.
There are a few micro maps in custom games that can really help you understand key concepts. Just search for micro in the custom map search bar.
Also may I suggest practicing huge amounts of harass in ladder games. You need to practice microing and macroing at the same time (Assuming you haven't done so). Even if it isn't the best micro, doing the two at the same time will help you greatly.
Zerg is more about getting good positions for attacking. Surrounding, flanking but also about harassing. Not so much about microing individual units at a fight. But if you want to improve, look at what the pros are doing and try to do the same.
Yeah, I'd recommend the micro tournament. It pits your units up against their units, usually with the premise of neither side having enough or the right units to really "handle" a situation, so it's like a training drill for how to use your units if you didn't "macro better" the way everyone says.
thanks, good info. I would say im an educated player in the game, know all the concepts and WHAT i should be doing and i know what good play looks like, i could probably shoutcast a game and seem like a pro (until someone played me and saw i was a nubbins) but its all down to practice i realise, ive only started play sc2 as much as i am doing now from the middle of last year (but massive bw fan!) will try the micro tournament! My main issues atm is ive seen my army go against an army mine should defo win but doesnt i know all that part, its the control i lack.
anyways thanks again, always better to post here than anywhere else
On October 23 2011 17:56 Xapti wrote: Blizzard made zerg trash in SC2 by giving them virtually no micro potential.
On the bright side, that means you don't need to practice your micro.
The one thing you can do is burrow roach micro, but it's not too difficult IMO.
What?
Late game you should be target firing colossus with corruptors, keeping your bls away from stalkers, fungaling stalkers, target firing stalkers with roaches, etc. Most Zergs just neglect doing any of that and lost units for no reason.
one thing that comes very handy, is fungaling, burrowing and retreating. You can queue the commands with shift. Go to a test map and repeat, until its fully automated
On October 23 2011 17:56 Xapti wrote: Blizzard made zerg trash in SC2 by giving them virtually no micro potential.
On the bright side, that means you don't need to practice your micro.
The one thing you can do is burrow roach micro, but it's not too difficult IMO.
???? theres muta micro, splitting lings blings to avoid tank fire, flanking and positioning trying to get biggest arc possible..... and theres more you think nestea and stephano just move and a move into other armies???? geeeez
On October 23 2011 17:42 Fus wrote: Zerg is more about getting good positions for attacking. Surrounding, flanking but also about harassing. Not so much about microing individual units at a fight. But if you want to improve, look at what the pros are doing and try to do the same.
That's not entirely true. ZvZ is all about micro in the early game
i guess you should try to grab replays of Zergs that use alot of micro and watch the micro moments in normal speed. Mondragon is probably really good to watch when it comes to use zerg units in a good way or stephano/nestea. Other then that there are some micro trainiers you can find over the forum here. (forgot the name of the one i know ^^; )
On October 23 2011 17:56 Xapti wrote: Blizzard made zerg trash in SC2 by giving them virtually no micro potential.
On the bright side, that means you don't need to practice your micro.
The one thing you can do is burrow roach micro, but it's not too difficult IMO.
While I admit that Zerg is the least micro intensive race, saying that they have no micro potential is just simply wrong. Progamer's aren't A-clicking only if that's what you think. Flanking, arching, baneling splitting and targeting, muta micro, roach burrow micro, etc etc. You need to think outside the box, seriously...
try to keep the good info coming, but lets just stay away from bashing peoples comments, ive always found with this game one persons opinion of the way they play isnt someone elses and then the flaming begins!
I just started to analyse my replays and i think i have much bigger issues at the minute rather than worrying about this and its do do with drones, expansion and scouting. its all a bit lame. so to get more out of a medicore army i think i need to better micro as im still getting my checklist in order. Biggest issues come with mass void rays and i think i posted here before about that, cant get out enough mutas hydras any way, any good tuts replays or drills are all welcome
IMHO, The micro for zerg depends on the match ups.
zvt: all about ambushes and full surrounds. This is because the terran will micro your banes, and run away with stim marines. I like to have a splash of lings and bane on the other side of the map. and have them sandwich the running away marines. The micro is all about timing both of your army groups to hit at the same time. And for masters, 3-4 groups at the same time.
also, I think zerg should attack WHEN the terran is not sieged. So attacking them on thier side of the map when they are not expecting it will result in a BIG LOL from you.
In zvp its all about sentry FF. They are the enemy. so the micro goes down to not attacking if the FF cause a shitty engagement.
On October 23 2011 17:56 Xapti wrote: Blizzard made zerg trash in SC2 by giving them virtually no micro potential.
On the bright side, that means you don't need to practice your micro.
The one thing you can do is burrow roach micro, but it's not too difficult IMO.
lol
at least at lower levels Zerg has a much higher requirement for Micro than Protoss does. Everything up to like Diamond you can literally just mass up a strong army and 1-a move.
And if you think high level Zerg doesn't require a lot of Micro you need to actually try playing the race for yourself and learn a thing or two about what's actually involved before making asinine statements.
if somehow he got marines behind his mineral line, you must always micro some lings to go around the other side of the mineral patches. Otherwise they will get slaughtered. Magic box Flanking in ZvT (you have to time it well especially when baneling speed not done)
Against P mostly fungals, drops, nydus but more about positioning and target firing the key units
ZvZ, you wanna learn to pull back the weak lings but a very important one is the banelings, you want to walk them as a group of twos.
you can go into micro tourneys, and pick zerg only. That'll lead to a few interesting situations.
As far as actual in game micro, a lot of it comes from little subtle things, like moving banes/ roaches into some marines, and then cutting off a retreat path with lings, while splitting off a group of 10-20 to run to their third to try to deny mining time.
I feel like there aren't as many zerg micro "tricks" like stutter step micro etc, and more of an emphasis on making sure your attack is going on in half a dozen places at once, and that each part of the attack is going in a way that's at least not horrible for you.
Terran you move(not a move) your banelings and split them to hit marines, bur in ZVZ and ZVP all you do is cast few fungals, select all hatcheries and hold R
On October 23 2011 17:42 Fus wrote: Zerg is more about getting good positions for attacking. Surrounding, flanking but also about harassing. Not so much about microing individual units at a fight. But if you want to improve, look at what the pros are doing and try to do the same.
Listen to this guy here.
Zerg doesn't have a lot of "micro" micro mechanics. Zerg operates on a larger scale when it comes to micro management. Something I had to learn about Zerg mico as a noob is it is very easy to over-micro Zerg units.
The most dramatic improvement you'll see in your engagements will occur when you begin to preemptively split your forces so the concave is already established before going into battle. With units a-moving into a favorable positioning because you surrounded your opponent's army before the battle even started, your apm can be focused on more tricky micro mechanics such as infestors/corruption/manually controlling banelings as opposed to trying to win the positional battle during the battle.
ok heres a question then, larva inject, at the minute i put all hatches on one key and each queen on a different key then ill go 66xRClick, 77xRClick 88xRClick 99xRClick as you can see this does take some considereable time to do . . . are there any other easier ways.
On October 24 2011 01:36 StatixEx wrote: ok heres a question then, larva inject, at the minute i put all hatches on one key and each queen on a different key then ill go 66xRClick, 77xRClick 88xRClick 99xRClick as you can see this does take some considereable time to do . . . are there any other easier ways.
This is what I do and it works VERY well. The control groups may be different for you. Remap back space (home camera) to space bar (by default: last recent event)
All hatcheries on 4 All queens on 5
When it's time to inject do this:
1) Press 5 2) Hold Shift 3) Press V 4) Press Space 5) Left click on hatchery that is now in center of screen
Repeat steps 4) and 5) for each hatchery. Without interruption you can inject 6 bases in literally 1 or 2 seconds once you're fast enough. Also you should be holding shift while repeating steps 4) and 5).
Keep in mind doing this while you have any hatcheries w/o queens that you inject on will cause a queen to walk to that hatchery. This is a NO-NO so once you realize you just injected on an "unoccupied hatchery", with all your queens selected press S so they stop what they are doing and continue the inject cycle on the next hatchery. Just be aware of what hatcheries have queens and you'll find this to be a very fast and very easy way to inject.
On October 23 2011 17:56 Xapti wrote: Blizzard made zerg trash in SC2 by giving them virtually no micro potential.
On the bright side, that means you don't need to practice your micro.
The one thing you can do is burrow roach micro, but it's not too difficult IMO.
What?
Late game you should be target firing colossus with corruptors, keeping your bls away from stalkers, fungaling stalkers, target firing stalkers with roaches, etc. Most Zergs just neglect doing any of that and lost units for no reason.
This type of thing.
But try having your units on 3 different hotkeys. I use roach/ling/hydra on 1 infestor on 2 and broods on 3
On October 24 2011 01:36 StatixEx wrote: ok heres a question then, larva inject, at the minute i put all hatches on one key and each queen on a different key then ill go 66xRClick, 77xRClick 88xRClick 99xRClick as you can see this does take some considereable time to do . . . are there any other easier ways.
This is what I do and it works VERY well. The control groups may be different for you. Remap back space (home camera) to space bar (by default: last recent event)
All hatcheries on 4 All queens on 5
When it's time to inject do this:
1) Press 5 2) Hold Shift 3) Press V 4) Press Space 5) Left click on hatchery that is now in center of screen
Repeat steps 4) and 5) for each hatchery. Without interruption you can inject 6 bases in literally 1 or 2 seconds once you're fast enough. Also you should be holding shift while repeating steps 4) and 5).
Keep in mind doing this while you have any hatcheries w/o queens that you inject on will cause a queen to walk to that hatchery. This is a NO-NO so once you realize you just injected on an "unoccupied hatchery", with all your queens selected press S so they stop what they are doing and continue the inject cycle on the next hatchery. Just be aware of what hatcheries have queens and you'll find this to be a very fast and very easy way to inject.
You would need to add alternate hotkey to base camera because backspace is the default
Zerg isnt really the best race if you want to focus on your micro. You can try to get surrounds with your lings instead of just a moving them and roaches you micro to get most of them to attack at once. banelings you just attack the right units, hydras you just micro when you run away. air units need some micro.. really though as zerg you just want to make sure you attack in as open an area as possible.
Micro is the least of zerg player's concerns in general, but there are some important thing to note: 1. Infestor control 2. Baneling control vs. Bio/mech build (ZvT in particular) 3. Muta flock control
Suggestions: 1. Use them as much as possible to learn. Infestor tech is a massive waste of time if you can't properly send them in to drop fungals on the enemy, and retreat them before they all get sniped. Only time and practice will help. 2. Ling/bling/muta is great against marine tank pushes, but only if microed properly. First try to make sure you engage on creep or as close to the edge of the creep as possible (the only exception being if you can flank the enemy and catch his tank unsieged). I recommend keeping the baneling on a separate hotkey from the lings. This allow you to individually control them much easier and largely reduces the chances you run them into tanks. 3. The muta flock can be deadly, but they become flying hamburger when staring in the face of a bunch of stimmed marines or a few thors while they are piled up. Always keep close watch on the mutas. If you catch a few marines off guard, go in and finish them off, but when the entire army comes, get out once you've forced the stim. Mutas also rip through thors if you magic box them, but make sure that you do it properly, and the marines don't come in to clean up.
Individual micro is not that important with zerg. The biggest thing to help you win battle is positioning. A mass roach army can defeat a collosi/stalker ball, but if you engage in a very tiny choke, you won't stand a chance, and will likely get rolled and lose the game right there. Flank the enemy when you can, and create as much surface area as possible for your army to attack.
See, zerg is the easiest race in the game, therefore they don't have micro aside from mutalisks and cilcking F with infestors. Therefore don't practice your micro, because they won't get you better.
zerg requires you to do "basic" micro , like aiming banes at marines (not thors or tanks) like dodging ff , like keeping your mutas alive all game long , etc.. you shouldnt try to have some gosu micro , its much better to rely on injects and macro..
On October 23 2011 22:21 HaXXspetten wrote: saying that they have no micro potential is just simply wrong. Progamer's aren't A-clicking only if that's what you think. Flanking, arching, baneling splitting and targeting, muta micro, roach burrow micro, etc etc. You need to think outside the box, seriously...
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.
On October 23 2011 19:20 jjhchsc2 wrote: splitting lings blings to avoid tank fire .... you think nestea and stephano just move and a move into other armies???? geeeez
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
On October 24 2011 00:12 BeeNu wrote: And if you think high level Zerg doesn't require a lot of Micro you need to actually try playing the race for yourself and learn a thing or two about what's actually involved before making asinine statements.
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.
On October 23 2011 17:56 Xapti wrote: Blizzard made zerg trash in SC2 by giving them virtually no micro potential.
Yeah, there's really not many cute micro tricks you can do as zerg, compared to as terran or protoss. Positioning is far more important in most zerg engagements.
On October 23 2011 22:21 HaXXspetten wrote: saying that they have no micro potential is just simply wrong. Progamer's aren't A-clicking only if that's what you think. Flanking, arching, baneling splitting and targeting, muta micro, roach burrow micro, etc etc. You need to think outside the box, seriously...
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.
On October 23 2011 19:20 jjhchsc2 wrote: splitting lings blings to avoid tank fire .... you think nestea and stephano just move and a move into other armies???? geeeez
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
On October 24 2011 00:12 BeeNu wrote: And if you think high level Zerg doesn't require a lot of Micro you need to actually try playing the race for yourself and learn a thing or two about what's actually involved before making asinine statements.
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.
For lower level players there is no difference between micro and unit control. Micro = controlling units....
Oh and you never play zvz? Little bit of micro involved there.
I have the impression here that people assimilate micro to single unit managment. If that is the case, then of course zerg doesn't have a lot of micro: probably baneling wars in Z v Z, roach individidual burrow (but this doesn't happen much), infestor spells.
But if we consider micro more generally as the art of using your army in the most efficient way during a battle, then I think there is a ton of micro in zerg play. It's pretty hard to engage big T and P deathballs with zerg units. It requires to have different groups with different hotkeys, that you send them almost simultaneously on the field, but at the same time, in the right order so that tanking units tank, spell casters casts, etc. spell casters should not be too close nor to far, melee units be in the front... Then during the fight, you have to cast spells, move back and forth different groups depending on the situation, target fire some units, individually managing hurt units, plus possibly some tricks like burrowing banelings during the fight... Not that obvious!
...still @ fairchild . . .omg dude this is the best method ever . . . why have i never picked this up before now . . .sod the micro, i never miss injects any more . . .dont mind the select, T, right click right about now with masses of larva!
Haha! Well I'm glad I was of help to you, I'm only high diamond so I don't know if there is a 100% better way of using injects or if this and coupling queens and hatcheries are just as good and it's a matter of preference, but I'll never go back to manually clicking on the mini-map. glglglgl
100% better way, im 60drones, 3 bases by 15 mins . . . its a new world, ive got so much goddamn money . . . i started playing in my unplaced 4v4's and got straight into diamond and ive come in top 1- 3 all games (lost 2 cos of rushes) man im so happy!
fairchild . . . THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!
seriously mad i was doing a different key per queen, if i had 3-4 bases by time id gone to them all it was time to inject again . . .YES THE WANDERING QUEEN IS ANNOYING but man its a small price to pay . . if this does happen its like . . .spread the creep man . . .man im so terrible at that!
On October 24 2011 01:36 StatixEx wrote: ok heres a question then, larva inject, at the minute i put all hatches on one key and each queen on a different key then ill go 66xRClick, 77xRClick 88xRClick 99xRClick as you can see this does take some considereable time to do . . . are there any other easier ways.
What I do is I use the minimap. So I have all my queens on a single hotkey (3). I press and hold V (either that or press and just click on where my hatcheries would be on the minimap. Because I have a queen at each, the closest one will inject.
@final yeah mate i trried injecting through mini for a time, i still use it when i see expansions about to go down with little i can do about it and select the larva they leave behind, its won me the game once that 8 mutas, all maras on other team, i had a hidden evo chamber we both had no drones and cash and i cleaned up . .. woot
I wrote this in another thread, but I'll just repeat it here. The OP commented that his control was bad, and was wanting to know how best to control ling + bling + mutalisk when actually moving to engage a terran army. It goes without saying that if anything is wrong or misleading let me know and I'll edit
On October 18 2011 19:52 Hairy wrote: Your goal in this situation is to have your zerglings envelop your enemy as quickly as possible, your banelings to explode in the heart of his infantry, and your mutalisks to do effective damage while sustaining minimal losses. Let's look at how we might do that...
FLANK: I can't emphasise enough how important this is - it hugely improves how effective your engagements are. This is probably the most important tip here. You should always be attempting to attack from multiple angles simultaneously with your ling + bling (or almost any army). Ideally you should have units charging in behind as others charge in at the front. I'd suggest simply splitting your ling/bling army into two hotkeys of 50% units each, with your mutas on a third hotkey.
LINGS: It's sometimes useful to move your lings "past" his army (so that passive zerglings envelop his units), then attack moving as soon as his army appears surrounded. However, this is absolutely secondary to flanking.
BLINGS: you want to move command them into the heart of the terran infantry to do maximum damage (I typically send my army in and then ctrl+click on the banelings). Once you're happy they are immersed in squishy terran units don't wait to let the terran kill them gradually - change them back to attack move! The only reason blings need micro is to ensure they hit multiple targets. It's also good to spread them out a little before you engage to avoid them being annhilated by a terran focus firing his tanks.
MUTALISKS: are very useful in the big engagement as they do lots of damage but they MUST be sent in AFTER your ground army. This is crucial. If you send in your ground army first his marines will be shooting zerglings. If your mutalisks arrive first - even if only by a moment - his marines will be shooting your mutalisks. And you don't want that.
TARGET PRIORITY: A revelation I had after watching pro games (and wondering why my engagements never seemed to go so well) is that you should NOT prioritise killing tanks with your ground army. Marines are the backbone of the terran army - if you want to break the terran's back you have to annhilate his marines, not his tanks. Let zerglings attack tanks naturally, yes, but DON'T prioritise them. Marines surrounded by zerglings actually take huge friendly fire from his tanks.
It IS good, however, for your mutalisks to target tanks in the battle where possible, but be careful to keep the previous point in mind - be sure that any marines they are near are already fighting your zerglings! Mutalisks should definitely take part in the main battle as they do big damage. Be wary of "over-micro" - don't stress about tanks too much as you likely will be gimping your own mutalisks' effectiveness. It's fine to have them just kill marines too!
Another little tactic to employ - unrelated to the big battle micro - is to try and have a little group of just ~5 zerglings between his base and his army. When a terran begin pushing they will often rally all production buildings to their army; rallied units are NOT on attack move. This simple tactic requires no effort from you, can potentially kill a whole bunch of units for free, and distracts the terran from his main army and push.
Zerg actually has a lot of micro, it's just much more subtle and less "in your face" than the other races.
Hi there. Microing 4 Zerglings in the early game against 1 berserker can help a lot . Same is true for roaches ... think about hit and run and most important: burrow/unborrow. Then Infestors and queens for fungal and transfuse. Banelings without micro is possible - if there are no more units on the field or a big blob of marines is not moving at all . Mutas and Corrupters should be microed as well. From my point of view the only A-click unit is the Brood Lord.
im sorry but the blizzcon tournament or whatever the fuck its called was absolutely horrible... firstly they showed mainly the matches in the losers bracket like wtf was that about?? second those pretty much all fucking zvz with sen doing a bunch of ling roach or ling bane all ins and winning everyone else third... horrible map pool makes for terrible games, yes even the last game between nestea and mvp was awful, they were basicly fucking around i seriously doupt nestea would a move 25 broodlords into vikings and ghosts with no detection or anti-air... like cmon be realistic
For us zergies it's less about micro per-se, and more about battle positioning.
You never want to just A-move into an army, obviously. You should be looking to flank from 2 or 3 sides, and doing little things like stutter-stepping roaches forward to get the most DPS out of your army. All the while you want to be looking for alternate attack routes to their base - for example against toss, when they move out with the deathball, if you have a handful of lings left over, once they get out onto the map, run into their expansions and hit probes. Positioning can be helped SO much by creep spread, so make sure to get those tumours pumping.
Muta micro is a handy one to learn. Not so much "micro" again, but more knowing where to be with them at the right time. For example "should I be trying to kill off workers with all those turrets there" or "can I pick off that tank before the marines get back to save it? This is really all down to practice.
But to be honest, unless you're atleast Diamond, I would focus solely on macro and battle positioning. With solid enough macro, you can literally 1a your way to Platinum.
On October 25 2011 22:12 StatixEx wrote: just another addition, is there any alternative to seeing how saturated your base is or do you just double click
...easy when you know the tricks . . .this is possibly the most constructive thread ever for my play . . . so heres another . .. kinda getting off this micro idea now but it is turning the tide when i do it, . . .anyway, is there a DRONE UP rule, the games i win i seeim on the larva on the drones, the games i lose i may be down on either one. any rules?
Drone timing is a difficult thing for Zerg, and it's the one that dictates whether you win or lose, even to the highest level. It's a hard thing to get the hang of or be taught. Day9's daily on it (not sure of numbers, just search the archives for "drone timing") is helpful.
Also, if you're still looking to practise your micro, Darglein's Micro Trainer is a very good resource for it.
day9 . . hmm ive watched all of the videos, its entertaining and im doing everything he says i guess and use the minimap and scouting(of which mine isnt the best so i guess this is somethin to work on) and drone up while nothing is happening, hmmm, yes this is a hard thing to do and i can tell when i get it right.
I'm not that good with Zerg but I know there are some things you can do. I dont know your level so this might not help you.
In general you can always box select units and spread them to get a better concave. lings you can move command behind the enemy ball until you get a surround before you attack. blings you can split them and right click against someone splitting marines dont send them first against tanks. roaches you can stutter step forward ( 2sec cooldown) and try to get as close to stalkers for instance as possible. Mutas magic box and 1.5 sec stutter step. Infestors click f and then shift right click to move back. Corrupters shift focus all colossi/voids. Send in 1 ling to take first tank hits. the rest right after. Also use 1-2 lings to detonate blings if possible.
I'm sure there is more than that but yea getting in a good position, macro and whether or not to engage in that moment is more important with zerg.
Just to add something that I didn't see mentioned here (or I hope I didn't miss it), I think one of the things that has helped my micro the most has been watching pro streams rather than pro replays. By watching streams you get the huge advantage of seeing their mouse movements, which in micro is obviously quite key. I learned a lot about general army control from watching Idra, Sen, Destiny and others. It taught me that engagements are less control group oriented than I realized. You can do a lot of small boxing and microing during most engagements in most matchups as zerg.
To answer your new question, there isn't a way to have units a-moving directly out of the egg. The way I handle that situation is to ctrl click the eggs at the threatened Hatchery and add them to my ling control group (or whatever unit they are). Then I'll set a shift queued rally that gets them out of harms way. I'll do the same at other Hatcheries, and then once all the units are spawned I'll select the control group and a-move them in. I usually set those individual rallies to kind of surround the push so all the spawning units are equidistant from the enemy.
Hopefully that was clear. I can attempt a better explanation if I need to.
On October 26 2011 05:53 StatixEx wrote: thanks so much to everyone who has posted here my game i believe has gone up a level since starting it. Here is another question. . .
When im spawning units under an attack, how doi make them attack from the hatch rather than running past and me having to pic them up?
Whenever I make attacking units, I virtually always add them to a control group before they've hatched:
-Have your larvae selected -Make attacking units -Ctrl + click on the egg icons at the bottom of the screen to select ONLY the eggs (things get very messy if you accidentally add larvae to a control group) -Shift + hotkey to add those eggs to a hotkey group.
You can't have them attack move immediately, but you CAN move command the eggs to set a rally point. However, if you have that hotkey selected you can easily see when those eggs have hatched and give them a new attack move to get those new units straight into the action.
.... placed in bronze . . .failed 6pool on that mall 2 player map oh well :D the game is still the game!
hairy . . didnt know that! you know ive never really expolored the ctrl clicking . . man this info is golden.
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 . .the neat little tricks are making this my favourite game of all time! Even back in the day i though bw was good, but not much internet connection to see the othr half of the world playing it !
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!
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.
There are only a couple key senarios needed for true micro:
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.
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.
On October 23 2011 22:21 HaXXspetten wrote: saying that they have no micro potential is just simply wrong. Progamer's aren't A-clicking only if that's what you think. Flanking, arching, baneling splitting and targeting, muta micro, roach burrow micro, etc etc. You need to think outside the box, seriously...
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.
On October 23 2011 19:20 jjhchsc2 wrote: splitting lings blings to avoid tank fire .... you think nestea and stephano just move and a move into other armies???? geeeez
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
On October 24 2011 00:12 BeeNu wrote: And if you think high level Zerg doesn't require a lot of Micro you need to actually try playing the race for yourself and learn a thing or two about what's actually involved before making asinine statements.
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
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
Micro is important, and the opportunities to maximize unit effectiveness with the utilization of unit control is infinite. There's a misconception that zerg requires little to no micro apart from "getting a good surround". This is just flat out wrong. While protoss and terran rely on good micro a bit more(opinion/generalization), zerg will always benefit from proper micro.
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.
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.
Btw, just thought I'd explain why I'd post a "macro is good" wall of text in a zerg micro thread. StatixEx had said
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.
Some micro you should try is single zergling into banelings, flanking bio balls with zerglings like this:
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.
Oh and finally some actual useful tips on how to put the macro and micro together. Just remember these rules -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.
Hairy makes a good point. Don't worry too much about micro. Micro is what decides a lot of the game at a pro level, *because* they are already good at macro. I played a game against a protoss player with a "Superior" army but won because I remaxed on roaches 8 times until he just flat ran out of money, and I kept him in his base while I was on 6 bases. I did some micro with burrow and getting cudly, but the reason I won was pure and simple because everytime we engaged, I injected all my hatcheries, and started making roaches as they died. I watched the battle, yes, but as the roaches died, a new one was coming out. I also focus fired the colossus he had so the roaches took less damage and payed for themselves.
Wjile I agree macro is more important for Zerg (and arguably for any race), I disagree with those claiming that Zerg requires no micro, or even, the least. True, our units shine in large numbers, but micro can make or break a key engagement. Too many times I've sent my 15 or so infestors, congo-lineing straight into the enemy's ball (with detection to see them), after shift queing a massive IT bomb on their mineral line, and I've several times gone back home for a larvae vomit cycle just to go back to my army and find they've blundered hard. So, first and foremost, the real key is to learn how to play without exactly looking at your base, butrather macroing from afar, while focusing on the battle in order to issue your micro commands. If you cant do this, macroing back home is arguably more important, especially making sure you dont get supply blocked and always vomit. Day9 recently made a 3 part series, i think a week ago, about tips on how to do exactly this. First, I'd reccomend learning the larvae vomit from the minimap trick, where you add all your queens to hotkey(s) and <shift> v-click,click,click,... etc. while keeping the game camera on your engagements. This way, you can make micro changes on the fly, etc. In any case, after learning how to macro while not looking at your base, here's a few tips I've been able to think of:
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.
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.
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.
--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 +
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
O.M.G. Thank YOUS ALL. so helpful! Worth its weight in gold, and yes, i agree lookingat it myself i should have gone ling/bane . . only over the last 10 games have i started to bane a bit and the reason for my gas is in other games im always waiting for it, not so in this on and yes i was too late with exp . . thanks for all that, i mean it man cheers!
Play around in unit tester to see low number of zerg units vs low number of other units (and vs zerg units too), to get a good idea what groups can deal well with what other groups. For example, 4 zerglings deal with 1 zealot, so in a small battle, try to select such group and focus a target for them, meanwhile select another group and target another unit. Look closely to avoid having units that only move and not attack. Move close to enemy, even closer than needed, so the back units can hit too (for roach/hydra). Especially in very early game practice microing individual zerglings (a bit tough, unless you have a large monitor and decent mouse) which means pulling away the ones that are in the red. Use the X button of banelings to explode in the middle of some unis and catch them all, instead of on one unit, missing some of the rest. Use corruption; use changelings in the middle of battle before retreating - drop them on top of enemy army, and set them on a follow command to a unit of the same type, so they blend in. Hide units in overlords and nydus, if the enemy has detection and you can't burrow - say infestor low on health can be saved in an overlord and dropped a bit later when having enough energy to help. Use morphing on low HP units, because after the morph the new unit is fully regenerated (eg: banelings from red lings, overseers from red overlords, broodlords from red corruptors).
i was lucky enough yesteday to play with a friend who has a high platinum player friend, played a few ames with him, lost them all bt the feedback was my macro is good and im doing all of the right things, in almost every game i was in the position to win . . . . their analysis (and my friend is a very good bz/silver player ) is that my micro is losing me my games. I always thought so as well.going to get to work now on getting the micro stuff together. This post has helpe me improve so much. thanks to everyone.
This game is not about micro per se, i mean its important, but positioning is the key. Micro with vital units like infestors and broods are very relevant though, so you must practice with those
yes i agree fire, ive never really bothered with infestors as i find my army ball always has them at front and get killed. I have started to get them on their own hot key and tap them like i do the bases with fungal but even this is had work thanks man
There are lot's of matchup specific/unit specific micro advice that you can get from better players than me, but I noticed a problem with my own micro in plat that reflected on all of the game for me including my macro mechanic management. Simply put, I wasn't flexible enough with changing my area on the map. This includes everything from lingering in my base when all I'm doing is building a building or two or injecting, to setting up an attack where I would just fail at army positioning and flanking because my ability to split my army up and manage multiple locations was not good. A really helpful way to practice learning your builds with a minimum of lingering is the multitasking trainer. If you play it on easy it's basically just practice your build while microing a unit from a chasing zergling. You will quickly see how terrible you actually are at your builds if you are being distracted by managing something else. Give it a couple runs! It definitely helped me improve. The cool thing about it is you are still practicing your mechanics (it punishes money getting too high or lack of injection/larvae spending) but it tests your ability to do that without looking in your base. 15 minutes of that a day in combination with laddering with a focus on mechanics boosted my skill level from gold to mid-dia and I'm still working on myself/improving glhf
on a side note, zerg does have unit specific micro I don't know wtf some people are talking about. The best way to practice that is with a practice partner of a similar level. I leaned bane/ling micro by a minigame me and a friend invented. We both just do really easy 13gas12pool banes in a custom and play bane wars til the end of time. ZvT I learned by massing games against a terran where I went the same muta build every time and he went the same bio build and we just danced The comfort you get from repeating the build carries over into unfamiliar ladder games ie my bane allin minigame wars has drastically helped my sling expand into bane defense to get past allins because my ling bane dancing to hold stupid crap is much better (not saying those are the best builds just giving examples).
I don't know what you mean 'go back to drone.' If you mean hotkey the drone and use that then I'd say YES! it's great practice to be always comfortable with bouncing around your hotkeys and still getting done what you need to get done in your main. Applications in-game are endless but multitasking trainer specifically made me way better at constantly poking the front with single lings and always having one hovering in attack paths. I focused on that one thing specifically for ZvT and it's changed me from whining constantly to feeling pretty comfortable because it removes a lot of the guessing ie drone until scouting ling scouts something scary -> LINGLINGLINGLING until map control is back.
Those who are saying micro muta, corruptor, etc....
If you think of it that way then every race is micro intensive of course....
Thats like the basic of all races, just common sense, to be careful with muta, colossi, marines, everything basically. Everything requires micro, if you put it that way
It covers burrowed roaches, infestors, magic box mutas, and a few more. In general, however, either Zerg micro is vastly unexplored (and therefore I can't explain it), or there's not cute micro tricks like blink stalkers or marine splitting or stutter step. It's a lot more about unit positioning before battle. That's not to say, however, that target-firing units isn't important. Target-firing colossi, immortals, thors, and tanks, archons, and generally anything that does splash or has a high attack against specific armor is high priority.
Some parts of ZvZ are as micro requiring as PvP is but mostly Zerg doesn't have much micro potential because our units are short ranged and those with longer range are slow (Hydras, Broodlords, Queens AA). It's more about positioning and pulling back wounded units (zergling vs zealot) and also target firing (roaches target fire immortals for ex).
Really, the only way to properly inject if your queens are desynched just a slight bit, is using tabbing.
Muta's flying while you're preparing to harass? Hit F1-F2-F3-F4 to check queens energy. ( Personal bindings ) Muta's forced out, needing to find a new position? Tab F1-F2-F3-F4 again. Once a queen is nearing 20~25 energy, double tab whichever F key its on and inject. Heck, when you prepare an attack, and you've got decent control groups, you can do like 1-a 2-click marines while hitting shift to split some banelings, 3-move infestors/mutas into position. F1-F2-F3-F4? Double-tap-3 to effectively micro your units.
While it may not make your army as effecient as if you had microed everything constantly, the fact that you'll have 16 extra larvae later makes a worlds difference. Also, going above 4 queens for injects wouldn't be that beneficial to you, if you also want creepspread. Tossing away 12 food for queens is quite a big deal.
Small question, why do everyone keep telling to send banelings by pair ? Wouldn't it actually be better to send them one by one ? Then if he crashes banes into yours, he needs 2 to kill one, and it doesn't make that much of a difference against lings. mh, so ?
zerg micro is a bit different from what other races call micro, so telling what to do can fill a lil book, to explain every aspect of it. Alone burrow research allows you alot of things in different situations. You could incorporate that into your play, it takes tons of training, but once you can see the situations where its useful and later on force those situations you are well off. And i am not talking about the basic burrow to save some units because the detection is not paying attention. Afterwards overlords become a nice thing to add to your play etc with their abilities. But the first thing is to learn how to make your units more effective in what situation. (the easiest example is probably low amount of roach/ling vs zealot stalker and i think everyone here knows what to do)
And 2 banes because you could kill a group of banes, and if he uses 2 banes it would be a trade so okay. If you use one bane he would send one ling and prevent you from reaching anything. the 2 banes increase basically the range banelings can run without making them attractive to 2 banelings to kill them off with a gain. Thats why 2 banelings, highest chance to reach something important without losing to much.
A advice that I actually think every race should prioritize is improving the macro instead of the micro, no matter what, StarCraft 2 is still a macro game and you should always practice on macro instead of micro, especially as Zerg, you can pretty much A move as long as you get a good engage and keep macroing.
But you asked for Micro tips so...
My personal opinion about the micro training maps is that they are not as helpful as the real games as you never wanna be caught up only microing and not macroing, therefore you train your multitasking and so forth a lot better with real games. Splitting banelings in beforehand is good when playing vs a marine heavy terran or target fireing the colossus and immortals is enough, you can win against anyone with a superior macro but a good micro player doesn't hold in the long run.
Just watch the camera of any pro zerg player, I'd say IdrA and Ret is a great example as they both prioritize the macro and the time left is for microing, they're heavily focusing on the engage so don't get that wrong.
great advice, i thank you all. Since this posts start i thought i was progressing wel butl im loosing too many now. My game has gone in reverse and this is better by mile
1, droning up 2.spreading creep 3.expansions are quicker and more 4. keyboard is getting into the green for faster apm (marauder, but i dont cre too much about this white ra won on the weekend and hes only like 100 ish apm which is same as mine really) 5. I can multitask units much better (although down to micro, its not great but . . better)
and im loosing most of my games, from winning around 8/10 its down to 1/10??? Its odd but im getting worse! (only using my w/l ratio) if anyone wants to add me and analyse my play now i would appreciate it greatly
As zerg I would actually focus more on improving your macro and scouting (reacting to what you scout too!), since that's almost the "focus" for the race. Of course there is micro involved and so, but as a beginner I would say focus on macro. Against small units like the reaper you can try some fancy stuff like moving back the hurt zerglings, but don't focus too much on that, as it's usually just the top tier players that do.
On November 26 2011 18:56 DontLoseSightOfIt wrote: Those who are saying micro muta, corruptor, etc....
If you think of it that way then every race is micro intensive of course....
Thats like the basic of all races, just common sense, to be careful with muta, colossi, marines, everything basically. Everything requires micro, if you put it that way
But that's exactly the way it is.
In Brood War, the concept of Muta micro is quite famous, but there are players known specifically for their ling micro, for example - and lings are definitely not the kind of unit you would think is "made" for micro.
Even in SC2 you definitely need both. There is a big difference between the player who will harass the Protoss with Mutas and not lose a single one to 2 Cannons or several Stalkers, and the player who will just shift-queue on the Cannons and leave it like that or simply fly away doing no damage. Likewise, there's a big difference between the player who does a ling runby and has 50% of his lings doing nothing because they can't reach the Cannon or do no damage because the other player used hold position on his Probes and the player who micros to maximize the damage being done by the lings. Also, during a drop when Marines move in between the mineral patches, a lot of Zerg players will just a-move lings to clear it up and like 20 lings will end up dying because only 1 can attack at the same time.
Real micro is what you do with your basic units - the simple act of manoeuvring to save your wounded units and retain your army and/or maximize the damage being dealt. It's not about casting spells, especially not the way SC2 does it where you can pretty much spam spells at will.
Storms, EMPs, Fungals and especially blinking Stalkers are the least micro-intensive features on any race, but they end up being done the most simply because you're required to do them in order to make use of these units.
i appreciate the help but getting refered to as a beginner is getting to me a bit. ive been playing sc2 since 98 . . im 31 years old!!! See the problem is this, having owned the games and a pc for so long i know and love the game but last year (bit longer i know!) when sc2 came out i got it, agreed that this is as much as the same but a bit better than bw and then began to play. It was only by chance i typed into google opening strategy terran sc2, to be blasted with a million and 1 pages of tourneys and esport pages . . that was it then, i had to learn to play multiplayer as my single player is ok (way better now ofc!)
So, i do understand that macr is important but this is the thing now. im at a point where more games, more experience will get it batter. I totally understand what is wrong with my play and how to improve it. the problem is the physical nature of doing this. If you couldnt google my rank, i could talk it up all day long this game and seem like a high level player so, to further change the direction of this topic which has been the single most best post EVER for me is there anything i can do with this set up. First of all ill explain how i play this game at the minute as it has radically changed since the conception of this post.
1. I group all melee units to 1 2. i group all ranged to 2 3. i group specials and spell casters to 3 4. queens are one hot hey as are all hatches 4,5
6 is for structures and 0 is for drones and "remember this" things
so my macro i think pretty good, well its getting better the problem is the micro, so here is a typical battle for me, tell me what i should adapt
im going in for the attack:
1. rally group 1 units and then 2 behind them(i have grop3 units in this pack as well just use 3 when i engage to split them)
i send in 1, zerglings get in and give me padding while roaches get in there and start the spray, i then move up my ranged units with these and then use fungals and all other caper.
from the pros i see them do it the other way round but im far too slow for this, my infestors which are the tide of the battle somtimes get sniped and i panic and it all goes to hell and i lose my set 3 army. Yes see macro isnt the problem cos back at home im injecting and spreading and hatching ALways on an attack to make the most of the gain if i get one.
Suggest improvements to this play, i am on some games going fungal first then melee in but only when its clear my opponent is losing macro/micro against my 1a2a3 click attack style
How would you guys recommend engaging a protoss? I played a game on metalopolis, and had a roach/ling/infestor composition, and as soon as I attack, my army is split in half and my infestors are out of range. Should I be leading with the roaches and lings, how should I be using my infestors better?
On November 27 2011 23:26 StatixEx wrote: i appreciate the help but getting refered to as a beginner is getting to me a bit. ive been playing sc2 since 98 . . im 31 years old!!! See the problem is this, having owned the games and a pc for so long i know and love the game but last year (bit longer i know!) when sc2 came out i got it, agreed that this is as much as the same but a bit better than bw and then began to play. It was only by chance i typed into google opening strategy terran sc2, to be blasted with a million and 1 pages of tourneys and esport pages . . that was it then, i had to learn to play multiplayer as my single player is ok (way better now ofc!)
So, i do understand that macr is important but this is the thing now. im at a point where more games, more experience will get it batter. I totally understand what is wrong with my play and how to improve it. the problem is the physical nature of doing this. If you couldnt google my rank, i could talk it up all day long this game and seem like a high level player so, to further change the direction of this topic which has been the single most best post EVER for me is there anything i can do with this set up. First of all ill explain how i play this game at the minute as it has radically changed since the conception of this post.
1. I group all melee units to 1 2. i group all ranged to 2 3. i group specials and spell casters to 3 4. queens are one hot hey as are all hatches 4,5
6 is for structures and 0 is for drones and "remember this" things
so my macro i think pretty good, well its getting better the problem is the micro, so here is a typical battle for me, tell me what i should adapt
im going in for the attack:
1. rally group 1 units and then 2 behind them(i have grop3 units in this pack as well just use 3 when i engage to split them)
i send in 1, zerglings get in and give me padding while roaches get in there and start the spray, i then move up my ranged units with these and then use fungals and all other caper.
from the pros i see them do it the other way round but im far too slow for this, my infestors which are the tide of the battle somtimes get sniped and i panic and it all goes to hell and i lose my set 3 army. Yes see macro isnt the problem cos back at home im injecting and spreading and hatching ALways on an attack to make the most of the gain if i get one.
Suggest improvements to this play, i am on some games going fungal first then melee in but only when its clear my opponent is losing macro/micro against my 1a2a3 click attack style
hey StatixEx,
I dunno if you even play the game anymore as this is a really old post, but if you are still having trouble with your games I would really suggest you focus on 3 specific not interesting non-micro things.
1.) drone counting. 16 drones on your minerals + 6 in gas. So you would want to ctrl+click a drone & see exactly 2 lines of drones + 4 more drones as one drone is in the extractor. this lets you know if you have enough drones. while really annoying to do, it SUPER important (more important than microing) as it lets you know what kind of economy you have. 2.) you want to have a safe macro-style "game plan/BO" to get 3 base fully saturated as soon as possible & know what kind of attacks can disrupt you. make sure to be prepared for the attack without making units until you know it is coming. You do this by ovie scouting at the correct timings & having spotter lings. 3.) gas timings for even distribution of gas & minerals throughout the game -> but under 500 total resources throughout the game. Note the key to getting a good econ is to delay your gas until you actual need it! Besides 100 gas for speed, usually there is nothing else you need that requires gas in the early game (except ZvZ -> banelings). Don't bother taking your 3rd & 4th gas until after you get lair because that gas will just be sitting in your bank not doing anything. Instead get more minerals & make more drones.
Watch your replays & just look at your drone count, drone saturation, & resources compared to your opponents. As zerg your drone count should be higher than your opponents throughout the game and your resources should be under 500 throughout the game until you get maxed. your gas and money should get roughly even. If you see either one spike, that means you either took gas too early or too late.
Basically, I went from platium to masters by focusing mainly on macro stuff like this & understanding build order timings. Tell you the truth, I usually don't even flank with my army and I hardly ever harrass. The most important thing that is micro related is knowing when you can attack & when you should WAIT. If you only attack when you have MORE stuff in an open area, it is really hard to lose. This just requires you to have better econ & be comfortable defending against attacks & harrass.
This is a lot of words & I hope it helps, but from my personal experience, micro is very neglible for sc2 improvement. it's all about the drones/econ, gas timings, (not getting supply blocked or missing injects), and having an economically greedy but safe opening that you can defend against the different types of harrass/timing attacks. I am actually now just starting to try to improve my micro because I am finally playing against opponents as greedy as I am, so our armies are equal. =S
I know its a really old post, but thank you for the added input money4me as well as the treasure-trove of advice for Zerg unit management stored here.
Its very helpful to be almost OCD about your drone counts and saturation, as that alone is helping me make the same transition you've made (plat to masters). I'm already finding that just doing these poorly (I still suck) is enough to make games vs top8 diamonds winnable as usually I can over-run them due to their own macro deficiencies after holding a particularly strong attack.
On November 29 2011 18:59 KimJongChill wrote: How would you guys recommend engaging a protoss? I played a game on metalopolis, and had a roach/ling/infestor composition, and as soon as I attack, my army is split in half and my infestors are out of range. Should I be leading with the roaches and lings, how should I be using my infestors better?
It depends on his composition but if you are going against an immortal, sentry, stalker push. I would suggest that you spread out your roaches so they are not clumped but in more of a line. Meet him as soon as he moves out & try to bait forcefields and retreat without getting any units caught. Continue to do this all the way back to your base while making more troops. Your goal is to have him waste as many forcefields as possible and you want to wait until you have your biggest army to deal with it. Your lings can either counter if he didnt cannon up or run around to flank him. When you do finally commit, you want to attack in a very open space where he cannot use a few forcefields to block you. Try to attack with at least 2 different angles with your roaches. Just run your roaches as close to his army as possible instead of a-moving as only the front line roaches will be in range and the rest of the roaches will get split off. If his FFs aren't perfect the lings can slip through. Infestors can always lob ITs over FFs which helps a lot. once the FFs go down try to WALK (not a-move) the out of range units around the FFs to attack. That is why it is important to have him waste FFs and attack in an open area, so that there will be gaps that you can sneak through. If you fumbled it & only a small amount of your units are in range. pull everything make and try again.
If you are attacking into him, I would suggest trying to distract him with a small ling attack somewhere else so he probably won't FF your main force in time and then push everything right up against his army. fungal then spam ITs.
For those of us using the backspace method - I think a good way to tell if we need to inject while microing is to have our hatcheries selected. If any of the hatcheries have a lot of larvae, inject, spend the larvae, then back to micro.
I just mention this since I think checking the Queen energy isn't as good - if we slip up even slightly with queen injecting, checking her energy will have us checking the base too often.
I guess in tvz the zergs i lose to always put their ultras in front and ling/bling infestor in the back of them. Its extremely hard to hold dat cuz the ultras tank so much damage and fungals trap a lot of my bio. I guess infestors require a lot of micro due to them being spellcasters. Oh and flanks help immensely in spreading out dps of terran units and reducing splash, making them less costeffective cuz they kill zerg units so slowly
Grab small groups of roaches and micro them around to get better arcs, or choose the roaches that are being attacked and move them back for a second so the attacker switches targets. Roaches can be handled similar to dragoons in small battles. In larger battles, its more about getting them into a good arc.
EPT
. Same is true for roaches ... think about hit and run and most important: burrow/unborrow. Then Infestors and queens for fungal and transfuse. Banelings without micro is possible - if there are no more units on the field or a big blob of marines is not moving at all . Mutas and Corrupters should be microed as well. From my point of view the only A-click unit is the Brood Lord.
. . .failed 6pool on that mall 2 player map oh well :D the game is still the game!
