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APM not high enough for Masters? - Page 2

Forum Index > SC2 General
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89andy
Profile Joined April 2011
Canada192 Posts
April 08 2011 02:25 GMT
#21
For a zerg it's going to be pretty hard to play at low apm. Reason being is that keeping up with creep spread and queen injects requires a moderate amount of apm in addition to the regular things you will have to do.
tarath
Profile Joined April 2009
United States377 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-04-08 02:28:13
April 08 2011 02:26 GMT
#22
I'm a low masters player and my avg apm for a game where I don't spam at all is only around 50-60.

I play toss and I think that for toss you can have very low apm as long as you are very precise and react very quickly. That is you don't need to be doing a ton of actions but if your forcefields are off by 1 hex or 500 milliseconds you just die a lot so as long as you are very calm and collected with your clicks you can get away with being quite slow at low masters level.
KneeDeeP
Profile Joined July 2010
United States256 Posts
April 08 2011 02:27 GMT
#23
Socke has always been known to have lower apm also and he is an amazing toss player. Strong decision making and macro with 80 apm. Focus on something more important and you will do great.
"the virtuous man is content to dream what a wicked man really does"
zylog
Profile Joined August 2010
Canada943 Posts
April 08 2011 02:27 GMT
#24
It could just be a matter of needing to practice things.

Choose a task that you have to do in the game e.g. injecting larvae, building supply depots, etc. Figure out what the most effective series of hotkey presses and mouse actions are to execute that action.Then, practice that sequence at increasing speeds until you can do it extremely quickly and automatically.

So, for a task that you might have previously executed at 150 apm you might now be doing at 300 apm. Now imagine gradually doing this for all the tasks you need to execute. In addition to directly increasing APM via shortening the time taken to execute tasks, you also free up some time which you can use to execute more tasks or do additional micro.
Chocobo
Profile Joined November 2006
United States1108 Posts
April 08 2011 02:28 GMT
#25
I'm a masters league zerg with 65, 70 apm tops. (which is actually close to 100 actions per real world minute... why can't the game use real minutes??)

High APM is certainly not required to get to the higher levels of gameplay, though it certainly helps. Scouting, good game sense (for instance being able to see an army, realize it's small for this point in the game and know he must be teching to something), unit positioning, and solid macro can take you very far.

I'm sure that high apm is needed to reach the very high levels of competitive gaming, but worry about that when you get to it. APM is needed to micro all your units while still doing all the stuff you normally do... to keep your scouting units moving and keep them alive if enemy units show up... all those little things can make a difference at the highest skill levels. But masters league is something like the top 4% of players now... it shows you have a very solid grasp of the game and know what's needed to win, but it's still a far cry from the pros. Masters is like the starting lineup of your high school basketball team, while the pros are in the NBA.
Skaggs
Profile Joined April 2011
United States57 Posts
April 08 2011 02:28 GMT
#26
Alright, it seems like the general consensus is that my APM is fine and I don't need to take any series actions to try to just increase it. That definitely eases my mind, so I appreciate the input, gang.
Shadowcloak
Profile Joined March 2011
Netherlands194 Posts
April 08 2011 02:29 GMT
#27
Dignitas sjow has like 90 orso liquid nazgul 80 and there are probabbly allot whos apm just isent high but they get the macro and micro done and still spot everything on the map.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ SUPP SON
Zarahtra
Profile Joined May 2010
Iceland4053 Posts
April 08 2011 02:33 GMT
#28
Tbh as I see it, you just need combination of a few things to make it into masters(dependant on race how important each is).

What I mean is if you have low APM compared to in this case low master players, other parts of your gameplay(Such as decision making/macro) need to be above low master players. But tbh to be low master, you just got to be doing something right.
chonkyfire
Profile Joined December 2010
United States451 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-04-08 02:33:43
April 08 2011 02:33 GMT
#29
I have a hard time believing sjow only plays in 90 apm

I could see like 130, but 90... come on
Just when I thought that I saw I ghost, I realized that it was the endo smoke
Arisen
Profile Blog Joined October 2010
United States2382 Posts
April 08 2011 02:35 GMT
#30
Anyone saying you NEED a certain amount of APM to be in masters league is uninformed, simple as that. Perhaps the median number is around there, but you don't need any more than what is required for you to execute your idea. There's a famous canadian Brood War professional player named Testie who only had like 80-100 APM, even though most in Brood War thought you needed 250ish APM to make it as a pro player, and testie was legitimately one of the best players around.

If you perfer to make every click and keystroke precise and only do it once, you're going to have a very low average APM, but that doesn't mean you aren't doing everything you need to do. If you can't perform the actions you need to do, then you might want to train your hand speed through mass practice with the aim of improving APM or reaction/fast games such as Minesweeper, and various other online games.

Hope that helped. GL
"If you're not angry, you're not paying attention"
Owarida
Profile Joined April 2010
United States333 Posts
April 08 2011 02:36 GMT
#31
For me as zerg I have around 140 average APMs and I could still do more. Honestly to be terran or protoss you could get away with 80APM but as zerg you really should have around 200.
Zeetee
Profile Joined December 2010
United States153 Posts
April 08 2011 02:39 GMT
#32
On April 08 2011 11:18 Slago wrote:
70 apm is enough to be masters as T or P, definately not Z, just to much to do as Z, I have around 210 real time apm, not sure what it is in-game (I use sc2 gears). but you should be fine, apm isnt really a huge stat, its what those actions are for


when comparing P/T apms to Z apms people should take into account that doing several basic things as zerg requires more actions.

for example:
terran/protoss building workers: select CC/Nexus, press build worker. zerg building workers: select hatchery, select larvae, build worker.

terran/protoss increasing suppy: select worker, build pylon. zerg increasing supply: select hatchery, select larvae, spawn overlord.

once the muscle memory for these things (4e vs 4s vs 4sd) is developed, i would say that they take the same amount of effort to execute, but the Zerg ends up with higher apm.
Whole
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
United States6046 Posts
April 08 2011 02:43 GMT
#33
On your question of getting higher APM, you should not focus specifically on getting your APM higher, but just improving your overall game. I'll quote IdrA as always to explain.

On May 27 2010 23:53 IdrA wrote:
apm is determined by mental limitations, not physical ones. it is not hard to click 300 times a minute, but it requires a lot of practice to be able to know what to do without spending time thinking about it. thats what translates to speed.

On_Slaught
Profile Joined August 2008
United States12190 Posts
April 08 2011 02:45 GMT
#34
It's absurd to say that apm doesn't mean anything (like somebody said in this thread). You need a certain amount of apm to pull off certain tactics necessary for top level play.

Having said that, you clearly don't need the 300+ to be good. Stork in BW was notorious for having extremely low apm relative to everyone else. Despite that he is one of the best protoss in memory.

As long as you have enough to do even the most basic of maneuvers (100+ i'd say), you can compete with the big boys. After that it comes down to decision making.
Soulish
Profile Joined April 2010
Canada1403 Posts
April 08 2011 02:50 GMT
#35
On April 08 2011 11:07 YoiChiBow wrote:
Minigun became good and he was like only 80 tops.



I've seen his stream, that guy is definitely not 80. He even spams the entire duration of the game, I'm thinking 200+
me all in, he drone drone drone, me win
Jonoman92
Profile Blog Joined September 2006
United States9103 Posts
April 08 2011 02:51 GMT
#36
You can get into masters with 60 sc2 APM for sure. Though you probably need to be a bit faster to be more highly competitive.
SpiDaH
Profile Joined March 2010
France198 Posts
April 08 2011 02:51 GMT
#37
mid late zerg not at 150 is going to have troubles. Low-mid masters z here
Ansinjunger
Profile Joined November 2010
United States2451 Posts
April 08 2011 02:53 GMT
#38
Would it be fair to say that as a random player, my APM will rise more slowly? I "learn what to do" less quickly playing three races.

The funny thing was, I once played a game listening to day9 daily 252 (where he discusses mouse/keyboard mechanics) and my APM went up to 100 over a normal length game, whereas my average is that 60-70 zone. Hearing him talk about minimap and other macro reminders (i.e. tapping) was kind of like having a coach help remind you of those things. I might just have to get into the habit of talking to myself while playing.

The frustrating this is begin my games tapping a lot but when it becomes more complicated, I pretty much forget all about it until one of those "PHEW" moments.
CanucksJC
Profile Blog Joined August 2010
Canada1241 Posts
April 08 2011 02:57 GMT
#39
I think when i first started playing and got into masters I had around 50 APM... now close to 100 without doing anything to improve it specifically.. Once you get used to the mechanics your APM will increase too naturally
UBC StarCraft Club is official @ UBC Vancouver campus! Your first eSport community on campus. Welcomes players of all levels at UBC. Follow us on facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/group.php?gid=155630424470014 or IRC @ irc.rizon.net #ubcsc
Shusaku
Profile Joined February 2010
United States24 Posts
April 08 2011 02:57 GMT
#40
60-70 apm is indeed quite limiting. I won't say you cannot be Master's without improving it (because I don't think that's true), but speeding up would definitely help. You said your apm has never improved... don't worry about that too much, if you started with SC2 you haven't had much time to practice yet. The fastest players you see have built their speed up through years and years of SC:BW play.

As far as improving goes, I find that you need to push yourself past your comfort limit and simply try to do more things faster than you are used to. After a while you will become comfortable at that speed and then you can continue to push it further. An important note though, make sure you are driving this based on actions you want/need to do moreso than some arbitrary apm number. Good luck.
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