Splitting is a micro technique that requires attention and lots of precise mouse control, especially for smaller units like zerglings, banelings and marines. It is useful when combating units with splash damage.
Patrol splitting is the simple technique of using the patrol command to split your units without using as much mouse control or attention.
For zerglings or banelings, you will issue a shift+attackmove command after the patrol command. This creates somewhat of a splitting effect. It may be safer for ling/baneling to always travel around the map in this way, as it significantly reduces the losses when encountering widow mines. When marines are behind the widow marines, your lings will clump up around the marines and can still suffer major splash damage. To avoid this, box the first 10 lings or so and move command them behind the enemy marines. It will be much easier to box the first bunch of lings compared to without the split.
For marines, you should select the marines, shift+patrol a few times nearby(each time about 3 range away), then hold position when you're satisfied with the spacing. Then you are pre-split against ling/baneling and can magic box your marines forward. You can also leave them to patrol if you have tanks sieging the zerg.
Next tip/guide will probably be on mutalisks vs widow mines, because I really hate widow mines.
On May 27 2013 20:38 vol_ wrote: Awesome trick, thanks! hmm, now to find an easier key than 'P' to bind patrol to, been meaning to do it for a while :\
i did rebind patrol to 'N'. Very convenient location i think, at least way better than 'P'
Here's another way. It's basically the same thing except that after issuing the first patrol command you box smaller groups and patrol them in different directions for greater spread then shift patrol in the direction you want to head. This makes me wish starcraft had formation movements. I think that would add some more depth to the game.
On May 27 2013 21:48 ManiacTheZealot wrote: This makes me wish starcraft had formation movements. I think that would add some more depth to the game.
On a smaller scale, magic box is formation movement.
When your selection is larger than the magic box, you can attackmove on the minimap as far as possible in the direction you want to move. The further the target, the more 'in formation' your units will move, just like how the sun's rays appear parallel because it's kinda far away from us.
I haven't really used that yet, but it seems like it could be practical if practised.
Maniac the whole point is to lower the actions needed, you can just manually split 5 lings and only lose them, but in a game you want it to be as simple as possible.
Anyways I really like the videos, patrol splitting was known for splitting versus Banelings, but I guess there is no reason to use it in other matchups as well I am sure there a lot more things that can be carried over from race to race, just need to think out side the box.
On May 27 2013 22:07 moskonia wrote: Maniac the whole point is to lower the actions needed, you can just manually split 5 lings and only lose them, but in a game you want it to be as simple as possible.
Anyways I really like the videos, patrol splitting was known for splitting versus Banelings, but I guess there is no reason to use it in other matchups as well I am sure there a lot more things that can be carried over from race to race, just need to think out side the box.
Well if you're moving a large group not just 5 and you don't know where the mines are or there's marines with the mines to kill your lings if you only send a couple this would be less effort.
On June 08 2013 08:09 Lobotomist wrote: so the sequence is:
patrol click (to nearby) hold shift attack move past target
correct?
Yup
For lings vs biomine, you want to patrol click (to nearby) hold shift move behind bio
to drag the mines
I loaded up a custom game to play around with this and found that patrol wasn't working correctly beyond ~20 units. Instead of patrolling in formation in a straight line, they began to all patrol to the same point. Did I do something wrong or is this just a weird thing SC2 does? If it is, I suppose you just solve the problem by splitting groups with patrol and then attacking?
Other than that, this is insanely cool, I've never really done patrol splitting. Seems like it would make MMM a thing of beauty in TvZ.
Wasn't there a reason people stopped patrol splitting marines? Something along the lines of it working fine in practice, but not being practical to use in an actual game?
If you start patrol splitting too late, which can easily happen if your looking away macroing, alot of marines will be in range to shoot and not split at all.
actually after some unit testing I think the best way to deal with widow mines is to set a bunch of zerglings on patrol from two small distance locations
then manually select groups of zerglings at a time to go attack. This method is much more reliable than shift+ attackmove.
The patrol split find is still pretty brilliant though.
Edit: Although I guess you can patrol +shift attackmove then manually split, that works too.
On June 08 2013 11:37 kill619 wrote: Wasn't there a reason people stopped patrol splitting marines? Something along the lines of it working fine in practice, but not being practical to use in an actual game?
It doesn't actually split in a scenario when zerg is already attacking into you. However, for pre-splitting, using patrol is super easy and does an incredible job.
On June 08 2013 08:09 Lobotomist wrote: so the sequence is:
patrol click (to nearby) hold shift attack move past target
correct?
Yup
For lings vs biomine, you want to patrol click (to nearby) hold shift move behind bio
to drag the mines
I loaded up a custom game to play around with this and found that patrol wasn't working correctly beyond ~20 units. Instead of patrolling in formation in a straight line, they began to all patrol to the same point. Did I do something wrong or is this just a weird thing SC2 does? If it is, I suppose you just solve the problem by splitting groups with patrol and then attacking?
Other than that, this is insanely cool, I've never really done patrol splitting. Seems like it would make MMM a thing of beauty in TvZ.
Not too sure about what you're referring to here. Sometimes I've noticed it seems that there is not much splitting if you shift-attackmove too fast. Usually works fine though.
This video is nice. I didn't think of doing it this way!
What about this makes it that the units split themselves? Why don't they just patrol as one large group like you'd expect them to?
When you get them to move to a certain location, the lings try to get to the certain square before moving to the second area. Because of unit collision they can't all go to the same square at the same time hence they split up. Another example is the blink-stalker challenge on the starcraft master stage. You have to move command, shift click blink, shift click move. The stalkers will only blink when they get to the square you told them to go to.
Does it work similarly if I queue a move instead of a patrol command? Of course, that would be more dangerous, but it may have its uses if I am near enemy units and a patrol command would just make them attack instead of move.
On June 10 2013 17:11 Malhavoc wrote: Does it work similarly if I queue a move instead of a patrol command? Of course, that would be more dangerous, but it may have its uses if I am near enemy units and a patrol command would just make them attack instead of move.
The first command has to be patrol. It's the patrol that makes them exhibit this splitting behavior. The second command can be anything, move, patrol or a-move.
On June 10 2013 14:26 Havik_ wrote: What about this makes it that the units split themselves? Why don't they just patrol as one large group like you'd expect them to?
I have no idea. Something about the collision. I just noticed the odd behavior and wanted to take advantage of it.
On June 10 2013 10:45 Zailemaos wrote: Thanks OP! you probably saved some of my unhatched zerglings :D
Uploading another video of lings vs widow mines and going to sleep. (It should be ready in a couple of minutes if you can't yet see it)
After more testing, I think that the best uses of this is ling/bling: 1. counterattacking light mine-centric base defense 2. attacking sieged up tanks in base without bio 3. roaming the map with zerglings
The video shows scenario 1. Note the bend in pathing caused by approaching the ramp at an angle. The results are even more pronounced when approaching the wall choke straight on.
Note that it is still more efficient to split manually by sending a few lings in front, drawing the mines and checking for any still active mines, then sending a few more lings to activate those remaining mines, before sending the rest. This method trades cost efficiency for requiring less attention and micro, but is still clearly superior to sending in all the lings directly.
EPT
I am sure there a lot more things that can be carried over from race to race, just need to think out side the box.
