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I did a test where I played the super easy AI (in other words, it was invisible) then I played my current favorite build which is a one rax expand bio based build that pretty effectively spends resources all the way till I take my natural, (so it isn't so simple), taking natural at about 8 minutes and starting upgrades, starting on 3rd immediately, then establishing 3rd then taking gold and at about that time I have a 200 army so I just go kill him.
During this build my army is moved around a bit, I put up a few turrets, a sensor tower, a bunker or two. I scouted, without hassling. Try to build out my production to keep pace with income, try not to leave scvs just standing around. I stop building workers at about 69, and all 4 bases are producing at the end but my main is almost mined out. Income/minute ends about 2600 minerals. 200 army/supply size is about the 16 minute mark. I wasn't really trying for maximum army growth here - just playing as I would if not pressured.
I don't spam click the build or move or attack commands except at the start there are a few structures whose timing needs to be just right. I use hotkeys never click the bottom right area.
Anyway in reviewing the replay the displayed average APM rises slowly, from about 55 (before I take natural) to by the time I just start concentrating on moving up my army, it has stabilized at 75.
So my conclusion is getting a 3/4 base terran going absorbs about a 75 APM.
Since in any game I play on the ladder, stressful or not, my average end game APM struggles to reach 90 I can see that there is only about 15-30 average APM "spare" for fighting. That isn't a lot!
I'd be interested to know if these figures are about the same for Z and P (get to 4 bases, get to 200 army, go kill AI, report average APM) or have any other thoughts on what this means, if anything.
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Interesting...but I'd like to object. My average APM is capped around 50-ish even on ladders and I can keep up with my macro until past 30 minutes. I'll do some tests personally, I think we can get lower than 75APM for a 3 base terran!
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Um, in order to be perfect, considering that you're a perfect human and all and know when exactly you need to do everything, you would probably still need 200 APM at least in order to do everything perfectly.
Lategame, or even when I'm on 3 base, even my 100-120 APM isn't enough to cover everything.
I mean, look at pros, their apm is 200 or even higher, because they have to constantly cycle through buildings so that they can be ready to build more units for the next production cycle.
Now, about the races at a lower level, I think Z usually has slightly higher APM, though I'm not sure about now (did Blizzard change it so that making multiple units with 1 key counts only as 1 APM?).
Like back then, T and P i would have about 100, and Zerg 120.
Edit:
rereading your post, I think I might have been a little misled
You are talking about managing bases without having to "waste" apm on harassment or attacks and etc.
Well, in that case, I still think you would need at least 150 APM if you have a perfect timer in your head, and more realistically, at least 200 up til you get to 200/200 on 3 base.
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Just from my own experience, I play all three races and my zerg has consistently a higher APM.
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I play diamond zerg assuming I dont spam at the start cause Im nervous for like first 5 mins my apm is 50-70 at mid to late my apm rise to about 110-120 with little to no spam. most replays I watch of terran or protoss apm rarely go over 90 with no spam at the start
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On June 21 2011 12:22 closey wrote:
Interesting...but I'd like to object. My average APM is capped around 50-ish even on ladders and I can keep up with my macro until past 30 minutes. I'll do some tests personally, I think we can get lower than 75APM for a 3 base terran!
If your apm is around 50 on ladder games then your not keeping up with your macro at all sorry  my apm is around 130-140 avg and i still struggle to keep my macro going when their is a lot of battles occurring.
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If it's just macroing without any fighting or active scouting, etc. then you can probably do it with 60-80 APM. Protoss will obviously need less and Zerg and Terran will need more.
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Its kind of a pointless gig, because macro falls under the umbrella of creating earlier expansions, managing and defending multiple expansions, powering production buildings at the right timing, etc. Rather than just making units.
For example, Flash has amazing defense, allowing him to get really early expansions while defending with the minimal amount of units. But on top of this, he is also is great at managing 5 bases and keeping them all in check, which requires a ton of apm.
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interesting topic.
I can tell you as a high diamond protoss that when i am just sitting around macroing (and i am not spamming for one reason or another) my apm sits around 50-60. once i get into a battle, or am delaying a hatchery, my apm quickly jumps to 180ish.
I would guess that for a protoss who is only macroing, you generally need only 60 apm to accomplish all of your tasks. I would guess that a terran, since he needs to cycle through more production buildings, probably requires 70-80 and a zerg because of injects probably requires 80-85.
just my opinion.
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I disagree, some people click less and spam less than other players, 50 is kind of low, but 130-140 is not needed to macro at a decent level
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I think the lowest number is most likely whatever Sjow's is, like 75ish? Maybe higher?
I don't think 50 is enough tbh, I have to imagine you would be missing depots/production/floating money intermittently, just too many things that need to be done as the game goes on. Maybe this means assuming there is no aggression/scouting going on but that's not realistic.
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im a diamond zerg and i find that in the early game my apm is around 30-40 then as more things happen, like zerglings and the natural pop, it goes up to 50-60, then more structures and tech come up and im on 3 bases trying to scout and make units, move overlords around, etc. my APM slowly builds up to about 90 lategame and i can feel that its pretty slow. i dont spam at all, i right click once to move units and attack etc. but if i go faster i usually mess up hotkeys or misclick much more often.
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If I'm not mistaken, there's something in SC2Gears that allows you to check your Micro APM as well as your Macro APM.
Generally, I think micro takes up more actions in the early to mid-game, that's when macroing becomes extremely important. Remembering to continually produce units, expos and production facilities in the late-game, --when there are many battles happening alongside each other-- is really the time that you can see how efficient you are with your macro.
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If you load your replay in sc2gears, it can give you your APM separated into micro and macro.
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In SC2? I'd guess probably 50-75 if that considering you can hotkey all of your structures and really just hit 5ss4aaa for 2 scvs and 2 marines or whatever. It's obviously a lot more complicated than that in a real game, but if you were "just macroing" it wouldn't take very much apm at all.
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The APM differential required to play zerg is extreme, especially at higher levels. I'm a 1.5k masters protoss and I have an average of 200 apm around the 12 minute mark when everything starts picking up (constant poking, upgrades, building pylons, making gas geysers etc.) However, when I offrace as zerg, the creep spreading and the queen injecting off 3-4 bases gives me an apm spike of around 400, while I maintain an average of ~250 (it would be higher if i was more comfortable with the zerg mechanics).
I do believe that protoss has the lowest apm requirement, as if you watch Huk's stream, he used to constantly type song lyrics in pvps while making probes, colossus, and the occasional unit. I heard somewhere that toss takes 60 apm to play a perfect game?
I've played many players with an average apm around 80-100 and lost to them, but personally I believe you need at least a good 120 average apm to play the game at a very precise level. However, until you reach the tops of the master league, the more important thing is macro and knowing how to macro (what unnits to make, when to add buildings and take expos) and you can do that with around 90 apm pretttty well.
APM will naturally increase as you become more familiar with your race, too, so just keep playing!
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this thread seems kind of pointless, but since im posting in it might as well make it worth it. tbh i bet you can get away with around 35-40 apm on just macroing a base. a lot of people will move the rally point on the mineral field or little things like that which jump it up. but to press s every 25 seconds and construct supply or what ever building you need really don't take up that much. once you have unit producing structures you will be pressing different hotkeys to see which building requires units which will artificially bump up your macro. but some one with good game sense not worrying about micro could easily just hit 4s, 3mmm, and pause for 20 seconds. adding a depot or command center wont significantly jump the apm so you'd be around 35...
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I maxed on 2/2 speed roaches around the 13:00 mark on 4 bases with 70 drones (yes I know my macro sucks). Did 110 APM intentionally not spamming anything, which is slightly higher than my usual APM, probably because I wasn't distracted by my opponent. I'm sure it would have been significantly lower if I hadn't been spreading creep and sending overlords out, but I felt like it would be inaccurate if I didn't, since they're things a good Zerg has to do.
I think that Zerg undoubtedly takes the most APM (not skill, just APM!) because of creep spread and stuff like that, but I think it's somewhat counteracted by it being easier to keep up with production while you're doing other things like microing. I know that back when I was practicing solely against the AI and focusing entirely on my macro, I still couldn't really even keep my money down as Zerg until I had around 60 APM, and I wasn't even bothering with creep or overlords at the time.
Also, I'm not completely sure, but I think I remember Day9 saying that 45-50 APM is the sweet spot where you can do a reasonable job keeping up with your base, but I'm not sure if he only meant that in respect to the earlyish stages of the game, since I can't imagine running 3 bases on 45 APM as any race.
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well that was my point (of the post) when I was bronze league my APM was like 40 and I just could not handle two bases well, or three bases at all. And now I know why.. because even IF you are left alone you don't saturate properly, you don't make enough workers, you don't build enough production and minerals pile up. The story of bronze 
now I am platinum and I can macro OK if I am not pressured, so I was curious to see how much baseline APM that takes and it seems 50 on one-two bases, and 75 on three-four bases is about right, at least during the build up phase.
My 90 average APM now leaves me a small amount spare to harass without stuffing up macro. But not that much because even a little harassing can make you forget your next macro step.
I'd be interested to have a Zerg try a similar one to four base expansion over 15 minutes with mixed army composition without pressure and report what APM they manage. (edit: ok you did, thanks).
I often read terran macro takes more APM, perhaps because you have to fiddle around making production structures and returning SCVs to the line and cope with bumps in production from mules.. but never any solid evidence that this really does need more commands per minute to manage.
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On June 21 2011 12:54 nyc863 wrote:
I often read terran macro takes more APM, perhaps because you have to fiddle around making production structures and returning SCVs to the line and cope with bumps in production from mules.. but never any solid evidence that this really does need more commands per minute to manage.
I'm sure that if you just made drones, units, and upgrades, did larva injects, and did the necessary transferring of workers for good saturation, Zerg would have less "required" APM than Terran, but the other stuff is too important to ignore.
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On June 21 2011 12:32 K3Nyy wrote:
If it's just macroing without any fighting or active scouting, etc. then you can probably do it with 60-80 APM. Protoss will obviously need less and Zerg and Terran will need more.
Obviously? What makes you say that? Couldn't Terran be lower because they can queue their units and thus theoretically not be as attentive whereas Zerg and Protoss have to be constantly checking forlarva availability or warp gate cooldown?
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From my own experiences, I would say 75-80 APM is good for good macro if you remember to put depots, get upgrades, build stuff at the exact needed time.
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I actually try, and my average apm when just macroing and 1a all my units (zerg) is like 120~. Games where im just fucking depressed and want to go to sleep after losing to 6 terrans bunkers.
All other times i spam my heart out and get avg 200 ! :
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i'm pretty sure zerg macro is most intesive, my apm peaks at 200 when im injecting,making units, drones and upgrades. but i don't do the backspace trick which may help but i'd say that avg apm for good macro is 100
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On June 21 2011 13:22 Adicon wrote:Show nested quote +On June 21 2011 12:32 K3Nyy wrote:
If it's just macroing without any fighting or active scouting, etc. then you can probably do it with 60-80 APM. Protoss will obviously need less and Zerg and Terran will need more.
Obviously? What makes you say that? Couldn't Terran be lower because they can queue their units and thus theoretically not be as attentive whereas Zerg and Protoss have to be constantly checking forlarva availability or warp gate cooldown?
Hm.. from personal experience, Terran's way of macroing takes up more apm than Protoss macro. It's easy to keep up with injects and warpgates if you're used to the timings, but it's a little harder to get the correct Terran unit cycles in because there are so many different units and they create at different times so you have to hit each key for the unit specifically.
When I play Protoss I usually average 140-150 APM whereas when I play Terran or Zerg, I average 170ish and 200ish respectively.
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On June 21 2011 13:22 Adicon wrote:Show nested quote +On June 21 2011 12:32 K3Nyy wrote:
If it's just macroing without any fighting or active scouting, etc. then you can probably do it with 60-80 APM. Protoss will obviously need less and Zerg and Terran will need more.
Obviously? What makes you say that? Couldn't Terran be lower because they can queue their units and thus theoretically not be as attentive whereas Zerg and Protoss have to be constantly checking forlarva availability or warp gate cooldown?
If you queue your units, you don't macro good enough, you need more APM.
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APM shouldn't be your main concern, it's all about remembering to do everything the second you need to.
Minigun and sheth play very slow, like 60 APM slow. They are both super high Grandmasters
On the flip side, I have friends that love to spam 200 APM, but are in silver league. Just remember what you need to do, starting with the basics of keeping money low and making probes, and then adding on more tasks as you improve.
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On June 21 2011 13:37 Blixy213 wrote:
APM shouldn't be your main concern, it's all about remembering to do everything the second you need to.
Minigun and sheth play very slow, like 60 APM slow. They are both super high Grandmasters
On the flip side, I have friends that love to spam 200 APM, but are in silver league. Just remember what you need to do, starting with the basics of keeping money low and making probes, and then adding on more tasks as you improve.
I've seen replays of them where they average 150 apm+.
I don't think it's possible to compete at grandmasters with 60 apm, though I've heard Axslav has like 80 apm average or something, but I'm wondering if that's a bit overexaggerated.
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On June 21 2011 13:37 Blixy213 wrote:
Minigun and sheth play very slow, like 60 APM slow. They are both super high Grandmasters
Don't mislead people. Players like Sheth might be around 120 APM average( which is slow for pros), but they can accelerate their clicking and pressing keys if necessary.
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I think Adele's APM is like 80 from what I've seen, and I think there are other good players with APM around there.
Though I haven't seen any zerg APM that low. Seems like you need at least 120 or so.
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On June 21 2011 13:42 TigerKarl wrote:Show nested quote +On June 21 2011 13:37 Blixy213 wrote:
Minigun and sheth play very slow, like 60 APM slow. They are both super high Grandmasters
Don't mislead people. Players like Sheth might be around 120 APM average( which is slow for pros), but they can accelerate their clicking and pressing keys if necessary.
Agreed. People mistake spam for skill.
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On June 21 2011 12:26 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
Um, in order to be perfect, considering that you're a perfect human and all and know when exactly you need to do everything, you would probably still need 200 APM at least in order to do everything perfectly.
Lategame, or even when I'm on 3 base, even my 100-120 APM isn't enough to cover everything.
I mean, look at pros, their apm is 200 or even higher, because they have to constantly cycle through buildings so that they can be ready to build more units for the next production cycle.
Now, about the races at a lower level, I think Z usually has slightly higher APM, though I'm not sure about now (did Blizzard change it so that making multiple units with 1 key counts only as 1 APM?).
Like back then, T and P i would have about 100, and Zerg 120.
Edit:
rereading your post, I think I might have been a little misled
You are talking about managing bases without having to "waste" apm on harassment or attacks and etc.
Well, in that case, I still think you would need at least 150 APM if you have a perfect timer in your head, and more realistically, at least 200 up til you get to 200/200 on 3 base.
This is completely not true. There were plently of pros in BW (maybe I shouldn't say plenty, but enough to say that it is possible) who had APM averages in the mid 100's. This obviously includes macro and micro, but it also takes considerably more actions to execute everything in BW, and BW apm is always higher than SC2 because BW is measured in real time.
Based on this, I would say that you could get away with having and apm average between the mid 80's and mid 90's and still be a top tier pro. Obviously this means that every single action is meticulously accurate and you aren't wasting any actions or making any mistakes, but that doesn't mean it is impossible. Also keep in mind that apm is relatively meaningless.
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Well, we can calculate how much APM are necessary for perfect macro:
Assuming a 2-base terran with marine/tank/medivac/viking (i don't know the exact building counts, so YMMV):
2 Orbital Commands - 2 workers every 17 seconds (requires about 7 APM)
2 Mules every ~90 seconds (requires about 2 APM)
2 Rax with reactors - 4 marines every 25 seconds (requires about 10 APM)
1 Rax with tech lab - 1 marine every 25 seconds (requires about 2.4 APM)
2 Factories with tech lab (2 Tanks every 45 seconds (requires about 2.7 APM)
1 Starport with Reactor 2 Medivacs or Vikings every 42 seconds (requiers about 3 APM)
So for perfect 2-base macro you need around 28 APM. Add about 5-10 for building selection, setting rallypoints, etc. and we have around 35-40 required APM for pure macro on 2 bases.
Additional buildings of course increase the required APM.
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well protoss doesnt need to cycle throug production buildings as W will bring up all the warpgates leaving upgrades (2 forge, 1or2 robo and maybe an upgrade running). So that leaves a lot of time for army positioning
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depends on how you macro as well
as zerg i macro using individual queen hotkeys to inject or build/send units to my different bases
if i were to inject perfectly on 3 to 4 bases the apm boost would be absurdly high. if im lazy and doing the bare minimum on 3+base (keeping army hotkeys up to date, injects, larvae usage) my apm is around 140 - and im playing far from optimally.
I think zerg macro on 3+ bases done perfectly would require 200+ apm, but it can be done well at far less
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On June 21 2011 12:26 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
Um, in order to be perfect, considering that you're a perfect human and all and know when exactly you need to do everything, you would probably still need 200 APM at least in order to do everything perfectly.
Lategame, or even when I'm on 3 base, even my 100-120 APM isn't enough to cover everything.
I mean, look at pros, their apm is 200 or even higher, because they have to constantly cycle through buildings so that they can be ready to build more units for the next production cycle.
Now, about the races at a lower level, I think Z usually has slightly higher APM, though I'm not sure about now (did Blizzard change it so that making multiple units with 1 key counts only as 1 APM?).
Like back then, T and P i would have about 100, and Zerg 120.
Edit:
rereading your post, I think I might have been a little misled
You are talking about managing bases without having to "waste" apm on harassment or attacks and etc.
Well, in that case, I still think you would need at least 150 APM if you have a perfect timer in your head, and more realistically, at least 200 up til you get to 200/200 on 3 base.
That is a way too high apm... If your efficient enough 150 is totally fine. Idra does everything w/ 150 apm and he's a macro beast
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On June 21 2011 13:51 seupac wrote:
depends on how you macro as well
as zerg i macro using individual queen hotkeys to inject or build/send units to my different bases
if i were to inject perfectly on 3 to 4 bases the apm boost would be absurdly high. if im lazy and doing the bare minimum on 3+base (keeping army hotkeys up to date, injects, larvae usage) my apm is around 140 - and im playing far from optimally.
I think zerg macro on 3+ bases done perfectly would require 200+ apm, but it can be done well at far less
Well for Zerg i agree that perfect micro would require a high number in APM. I also consider spreading creep as a part of it.
Terran and Protoss are to be played perfectly with less than 100
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I think its silly to say you need over 100 for Macro APM. If you dont spam, I'm sure even with 70 efficient apm u can macro fine, maybe even less. Now when u include micro, things are different, but that wasnt the question.
Granted at times you would need to peak to more, other times u really dont have to do anything macro wise. 70 average apm for macro should be plenty unless ur on a ton of bases maybe.
also i dont see why T would need more macro apm than P (besides ordering more t1 units since they are cheaper)
Also I too noticed that Z on my level (diamond) have higher apm than P and T, to the point that I see Z with equal apm to mine as lesser players (which is prolly unfair but they usually lose)
edit 2: also seems like noone actually did what OP asked us to (check the required "macro only" apm vs pc opponent).
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I feel that you can't really look at AMP in this way because what you use your actions on will vary in a given situation. For example, if I'm in the middle of a huge 200/200 fight that will determine the game, you can bet your ass I'm using all my APM micro'ing my army instead of hitting the perfect chronoboost timings.
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On June 21 2011 13:56 iokke wrote:Also I too noticed that Z on my level (diamond) have higher apm than P and T, to the point that I see Z with equal apm to mine as lesser players (which is prolly unfair but they usually lose)
Real Zerg APM are hard to calculate, especially if they play Ling/Bling-Heavy styles. Usually Lings aren't produced by pressing the key every time, they are produced by pressing and holding, so 50 Lings are produced in 2 seconds (so 750 APM in this 2 seconds alone). The same is true for banelings, which are morphed by pressing and holding. This means there are big spikes in the APM from producing units eventhough the real action is just one keypress.
Since terrans and protoss cannot really produce by pressing and holding (except for maybe bronze league), their APM tends to be lower.
Since the current playstyle of Zerg tends to be ling/infestor, the APM will be inflated in every game.
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Ok, so perhaps my estimations were too high, thanks to others and this post
Well, we can calculate how much APM are necessary for perfect macro:
Assuming a 2-base terran with marine/tank/medivac/viking (i don't know the exact building counts, so YMMV):
2 Orbital Commands - 2 workers every 17 seconds (requires about 7 APM)
2 Mules every ~90 seconds (requires about 2 APM)
2 Rax with reactors - 4 marines every 25 seconds (requires about 10 APM)
1 Rax with tech lab - 1 marine every 25 seconds (requires about 2.4 APM)
2 Factories with tech lab (2 Tanks every 45 seconds (requires about 2.7 APM)
1 Starport with Reactor 2 Medivacs or Vikings every 42 seconds (requiers about 3 APM)
So for perfect 2-base macro you need around 28 APM. Add about 5-10 for building selection, setting rallypoints, etc. and we have around 35-40 required APM for pure macro on 2 bases.
Additional buildings of course increase the required APM.
Didn't think of calculating it like that :D
And if you were making buildings for supply and production, each of which would take 5 APM (build, select building, place on ground, shift, right click back to minerals), and you make about 1 depot per minute and about 1 building per minute, that's roughly another 10, so about 50 for 2 base.
But still, only if you're perfect :D
Hm, I just realized how useful the timer could be. If you practice quickly calculating and memorize patterns between different producing units (like 3 X unit cycle is almost 2 Y unit cycles), you could see at what times you need to come back to macro.
But I guess it would be much more effective (and give you more APM) if you just cycle through your buildings every now and then xD
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On June 21 2011 12:47 Warp wrote:
The APM differential required to play zerg is extreme, especially at higher levels. I'm a 1.5k masters protoss and I have an average of 200 apm around the 12 minute mark when everything starts picking up (constant poking, upgrades, building pylons, making gas geysers etc.) However, when I offrace as zerg, the creep spreading and the queen injecting off 3-4 bases gives me an apm spike of around 400, while I maintain an average of ~250 (it would be higher if i was more comfortable with the zerg mechanics).
I do believe that protoss has the lowest apm requirement, as if you watch Huk's stream, he used to constantly type song lyrics in pvps while making probes, colossus, and the occasional unit. I heard somewhere that toss takes 60 apm to play a perfect game?
I've played many players with an average apm around 80-100 and lost to them, but personally I believe you need at least a good 120 average apm to play the game at a very precise level. However, until you reach the tops of the master league, the more important thing is macro and knowing how to macro (what unnits to make, when to add buildings and take expos) and you can do that with around 90 apm pretttty well.
APM will naturally increase as you become more familiar with your race, too, so just keep playing!
Really? As a zerg I find zerg macro not particularly APM-intensive for several reasons. (This does NOT include creep spreading, overlord map presence, that pack of speedlings running around outside your base, and all those other things you really want to do as zerg.
Ultimately, macro for all 3 races is honestly very APM-SIMPLE in that even though it may take a lot of actions, the actions are all practiced and swift, even for mediocre players.
The harder part is not the APM you need to spend, but the periodic timing that you need to have in your head to come back in 15 sec and do it again.
Comparing zerg and terran directly, you realize that they're much more similar than they are often made out to be. For zerg, rather than checking on various types of production structures building units that take varying amounts of time, you only need to inject larva every 40 game seconds, and spend them. Spending them is relatively simple, especially since you don't need to go build depots/pylons, you just hit V a couple times while building units. It's also much simpler to handle banking money as a zerg than as other races because your production comes in big bursts.
Larva inject + build units is only marginally more complicated than "select all barracks and jam on A key" - and once you throw in the terran building supply depots and dropping mules here and there, it starts evening out. It does technically require clicking, which building marines does not. But if you use the bitter method or the Idra method, it doesn't take THAT MANY actions.
Actually I would probably say the larva mechanic inflates your APM since it's very easy, very fast series of keypresses (This is what I mean by APM-Simple) - the two methods are like 5shift~click~click~click and 44Vclick55Vclick66vclick. Both of them probably have 1-3 seconds of 300+ APM, but it's very simple apm - I'd say about the same simplicity as pressing 12341234 with no intent, because there's no decision making involved.
Much of the APM requirement IMO with zerg is the amount of mobility and frailty that zerg armies have - you NEED good positioning to win most battles, but your units are also some of the most mobile. Speedling, speed roach, mutalisk, and corruptor are all very fast. Hydras and Broodlords aren't, but they require good positioning and constant attentiveness and support or they get murdered. Ultras and banelings require good positioning. You need to be active with your mobile armies to utilize this mobility. You need to send overlords to appropriate places. You need to spread creep consistently.
And your bigger armies, even "zerg deathballs" with properly supported broodlords are probably the "least 1-A-able" of large armies. Not saying it's complicated, but if you have a pile of broodlords + fast zerg ground units + infestor/corruptor support for broodlords, and you 1A? Even if your enemy was only 1 screen away, your stuff all arrives at different times and doesn't really fight effectively.
(Many types of Terran armies are probably also not very 1-A-able either, in particular marine tank compositions in TVZ... when you 1A marines and tanks rather than proper siege pushing, you get rolled by banelings. Literally. But that isn't my point really. My point is that a big zerg army is not something you can 1A with effectively.)
Macro in SC2 is a lot less apm-intensive than BW - not that that's a bad thing, it just requires less actions to do the macro. (Also, the numbers are artificially lower in SC2 because blizzard doesn't understand what 1 minute is. Our hands are in the real world, not in the game world.)
BW - I want to make 2 zealots and 6 dragoons from my gateways, 2 probes from my nexii
F2, click, Z, click, Z, click, D, click, D, click, D, click, D, click, D, click, D, 0 (nexus), P, click previous probe, rightclick mineral, 9, P, click previous probe, rightclick mineral
25 actions. Time? I could do this in about 5 seconds, and I'm FAR from being a pro. That still bursts me up to 5 actions per second - 300 APM. It's APM-Simple. Even I reach 300 APM during these 5 seconds! And it's all effective & useful APM!
SC2, same thing (with stalkers instead of goons.)
W, (or 5, i don't care) Z, shift, click, click, (release), S, shift, click, click, click, click, click, click, (release) 6, E, E
16 actions (releasing shift doesn't register. I'm not sure pressing shift does either, but I'm counting it.) Even if it's happening at that same 300 APM (it likely is) and taking ~3 seconds it isn't as long of a burst, so the overall actions per minute is always gonna be lower.
Now, my point with this is not that BW is a more difficult/better/whatever game. The difference is purely hand speed. And it's not just hand speed, it's hand speed when you're performing mentally pre-programmed/muscle memory actions. You do this series 100 times per game, every game, in both games. It's actually pretty easy. But it means the BW player (or even a player of both games, while playing BW) will have higher APM while doing the same (technically merely analogous) thing.
This goes between races in SC2 as well. To perform macro maintenence (excluding any "new steps" in a build such as adding new infrastructure or expanding), the terran player selects CCs, builds scvs, drops mules, selects rax, builds marines (and marauders?), selects factories, builds whatever, selects starports, builds whatever. Takes an SCV or two and adds some supply depots.
The protoss player does much the same, though he has to click units down in a pylon field to warp them in. The zerg player injects all his hatcheries, builds some overlords, and builds the pile of units/drones he so desires (there is some decision making here that the other two races don't entirely have in what to build with the larva. That's got nothing to do with APM though.) Every once in a while the zerg builds some dudes without the larva popping off, but 1 larva every 15 sec is not really different from 1 worker every 17 sec or marine every 25.
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On June 21 2011 14:22 Morfildur wrote:Show nested quote +On June 21 2011 13:56 iokke wrote:Also I too noticed that Z on my level (diamond) have higher apm than P and T, to the point that I see Z with equal apm to mine as lesser players (which is prolly unfair but they usually lose) Real Zerg APM are hard to calculate, especially if they play Ling/Bling-Heavy styles. Usually Lings aren't produced by pressing the key every time, they are produced by pressing and holding, so 50 Lings are produced in 2 seconds (so 750 APM in this 2 seconds alone). The same is true for banelings, which are morphed by pressing and holding. This means there are big spikes in the APM from producing units eventhough the real action is just one keypress. Since terrans and protoss cannot really produce by pressing and holding (except for maybe bronze league), their APM tends to be lower. Since the current playstyle of Zerg tends to be ling/infestor, the APM will be inflated in every game.
if im not mistaken it is now fixed and the opposite is true, meaning zergs make more units with less apm if they hold the button.
it was patched a while back
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if im not mistaken it is now fixed and the opposite is true, meaning zergs make more units with less apm if they hold the button.
it was patched a while back
Thanks for clarifying.
So the apm for Z/P/T is much more equal now, since Z apm was usually just a little higher :D
Good move by Blizzard imo, it's nicer to be able to compare different APMs that are closer at least relatively, and not like you were actually pressing more than 1 button for each unit.
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On June 21 2011 14:33 seupac wrote:Show nested quote +On June 21 2011 14:22 Morfildur wrote:On June 21 2011 13:56 iokke wrote:Also I too noticed that Z on my level (diamond) have higher apm than P and T, to the point that I see Z with equal apm to mine as lesser players (which is prolly unfair but they usually lose) Real Zerg APM are hard to calculate, especially if they play Ling/Bling-Heavy styles. Usually Lings aren't produced by pressing the key every time, they are produced by pressing and holding, so 50 Lings are produced in 2 seconds (so 750 APM in this 2 seconds alone). The same is true for banelings, which are morphed by pressing and holding. This means there are big spikes in the APM from producing units eventhough the real action is just one keypress. Since terrans and protoss cannot really produce by pressing and holding (except for maybe bronze league), their APM tends to be lower. Since the current playstyle of Zerg tends to be ling/infestor, the APM will be inflated in every game. if im not mistaken it is now fixed and the opposite is true, meaning zergs make more units with less apm if they hold the button. it was patched a while back
I'm not 100% sure, but i think each produced unit still counts as one action, no matter how it was started.
Maybe someone can clarify with a source?
It would explain why sc2gears shows a far higher APM for me than when i watch the replay.
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On June 21 2011 14:35 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:Show nested quote +if im not mistaken it is now fixed and the opposite is true, meaning zergs make more units with less apm if they hold the button.
it was patched a while back Thanks for clarifying. So the apm for Z/P/T is much more equal now, since Z apm was usually just a little higher :D Good move by Blizzard imo, it's nicer to be able to compare different APMs that are closer at least relatively, and not like you were actually pressing more than 1 button for each unit.
I still press Z 6 times when I spend 6 larva on lings >_> Habit? More effective for me personally? It's still ultra-simple and takes less than a second. (I guess the repeat delay on my keyboard is too slow to be effective for me, but when I turn it down I start failing miserably at typing because I'll pause momentarily while a key is depressed as thoughts congeal.)
I do let the repeat rate do it for me when it's more than 16 units all of the same type (rare, since I normally do things like RRRRVRRRRV to remember not to supply block myself. I'd need to already have all the supply I need for a while.)
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Haha same, only until recently did I start getting used to holding onto a key
Before that, lategame, I would spam Z like 50 times... rofl
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On June 21 2011 12:22 closey wrote:
Interesting...but I'd like to object. My average APM is capped around 50-ish even on ladders and I can keep up with my macro until past 30 minutes. I'll do some tests personally, I think we can get lower than 75APM for a 3 base terran! For this to be a meaningful response, you'd have to post your league ranking. If you're 'keeping up with macro' in Gold, no offense, but you're not keeping up with macro.
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On June 21 2011 13:50 Morfildur wrote:
Well, we can calculate how much APM are necessary for perfect macro:
Assuming a 2-base terran with marine/tank/medivac/viking (i don't know the exact building counts, so YMMV):
2 Orbital Commands - 2 workers every 17 seconds (requires about 7 APM)
2 Mules every ~90 seconds (requires about 2 APM)
2 Rax with reactors - 4 marines every 25 seconds (requires about 10 APM)
1 Rax with tech lab - 1 marine every 25 seconds (requires about 2.4 APM)
2 Factories with tech lab (2 Tanks every 45 seconds (requires about 2.7 APM)
1 Starport with Reactor 2 Medivacs or Vikings every 42 seconds (requiers about 3 APM)
So for perfect 2-base macro you need around 28 APM. Add about 5-10 for building selection, setting rallypoints, etc. and we have around 35-40 required APM for pure macro on 2 bases.
Additional buildings of course increase the required APM.
This is totally and completely wrong.
How do you keep track of the timing on each structure's production? Unless you have a little alarm system that chimes differently for each production cycle pre-emptively you will have down time. Just going off the alerts on-screen will give you down time, as they appear as the unit has finished, not before.
Pro players 'tap'; that is to say they bind their production to control groups and then tap back and forth between them so as to keep track of where everything is up to. Tapping can consume between 2-15 APS (actions per SECOND). This is excluding upgrades, and building construction to keep up with supply (each depot needs at least 4 actions), etc, etc.
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I play all three races and my Zerg always results in the most APM as well.
Day9 threw out 80 APM as kind of a bar to go by for required APM to sufficiently do everything up to the diamond level (this was before the advent of Master league). I think this is pretty accurate if you look at Minigun and Sjow.
I feel that many people are misguided when they say they need to improve their APM in order to do more things. That's not really the right way to approach it, and more than often will lead to dick measuring contests. The better way to approach this is being able to think about your next step. You should always have your next step "buffered" in your mind. That way there is no lag when you cycle through your hotkeys or dart your eyes to the different parts of the screens. The other part of it is being able to find windows of time where you're "waiting." If you're moving your army across the map, you have a "window" where you can macro or do something else, while you wait.
It's difficult at first, but slowly your mind and fingers will sync up in execution.
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This is totally and completely wrong.
How do you keep track of the timing on each structure's production? Unless you have a little alarm system that chimes differently for each production cycle pre-emptively you will have down time. Just going off the alerts on-screen will give you down time, as they appear as the unit has finished, not before.
Pro players 'tap'; that is to say they bind their production to control groups and then tap back and forth between them so as to keep track of where everything is up to. Tapping can consume between 2-15 APS (actions per SECOND). This is excluding upgrades, and building construction to keep up with supply (each depot needs at least 4 actions), etc, etc.
We're talking about the minimum, so if you read more carefully you'll see he calculated that considering that you macro perfectly, aka you do have a perfect built in timer in your brain :D
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On June 21 2011 15:46 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:Show nested quote +This is totally and completely wrong.
How do you keep track of the timing on each structure's production? Unless you have a little alarm system that chimes differently for each production cycle pre-emptively you will have down time. Just going off the alerts on-screen will give you down time, as they appear as the unit has finished, not before.
Pro players 'tap'; that is to say they bind their production to control groups and then tap back and forth between them so as to keep track of where everything is up to. Tapping can consume between 2-15 APS (actions per SECOND). This is excluding upgrades, and building construction to keep up with supply (each depot needs at least 4 actions), etc, etc. We're talking about the minimum, so if you read more carefully you'll see he calculated that considering that you macro perfectly, aka you do have a perfect built in timer in your brain :D That doesn't make any sense. That's...not the minimum for a human. I don't know how else to say it. If players that train 12 hours a day for years can't do that, what possible use is that information?
It's no more useful than if I said you need ~900 apm baseline minimum for 'perfect' macro, because then you could individually micro every worker to the optimal mineral patch at all bases all game long. It's a useless statement.
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On June 21 2011 15:39 DaemonX wrote:Show nested quote +On June 21 2011 12:22 closey wrote:
Interesting...but I'd like to object. My average APM is capped around 50-ish even on ladders and I can keep up with my macro until past 30 minutes. I'll do some tests personally, I think we can get lower than 75APM for a 3 base terran! For this to be a meaningful response, you'd have to post your league ranking. If you're 'keeping up with macro' in Gold, no offense, but you're not keeping up with macro.
I'm sorry, but you're wrong about league being required for it to be a meaningful response.
Maybe he's in gold because he sucks at holding off cheese, losing most of his losses <10 minutes to all sorts of all-ins, but winning most of his wins >15 min in a macro game? Or easily crumbles under pressure from an enemy army (sharking, poking, etc) He could still have good macro, but lack other fundamentals keeping him from rising in the ranks. It's just that macro is the MOST LIKELY culprit for what is keeping a player from rising in the ranks.
Also remember 50 SC2 APM is actually 70 APM.
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On June 21 2011 15:50 DaemonX wrote:Show nested quote +On June 21 2011 15:46 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:This is totally and completely wrong.
How do you keep track of the timing on each structure's production? Unless you have a little alarm system that chimes differently for each production cycle pre-emptively you will have down time. Just going off the alerts on-screen will give you down time, as they appear as the unit has finished, not before.
Pro players 'tap'; that is to say they bind their production to control groups and then tap back and forth between them so as to keep track of where everything is up to. Tapping can consume between 2-15 APS (actions per SECOND). This is excluding upgrades, and building construction to keep up with supply (each depot needs at least 4 actions), etc, etc. We're talking about the minimum, so if you read more carefully you'll see he calculated that considering that you macro perfectly, aka you do have a perfect built in timer in your brain :D That doesn't make any sense. That's...not the minimum for a human. I don't know how else to say it. If players that train 12 hours a day for years can't do that, what possible use is that information? It's no more useful than if I said you need ~900 apm baseline minimum for 'perfect' macro, because then you could individually micro every worker to the optimal mineral patch at all bases all game long. It's a useless statement.
It's a baseline. You can always go higher but you can never go lower.
You cannot have perfect macro with less APM, no matter how you time it. Even an AI with perfect timings would need that amount of APM to macro.
Of course you need more APM for tapping and whatever else you want to do for macro, so the neccessary APM for macro is definatly higher.
And yes, it is meaningless for a real game, it's just an example to show that APM _are_ relevant, you cannot play on 3 mining bases with 50 APM while still controlling your army as all your 50 APM will be required for macro. The further your APM are above the baseline, the better you probably play. If you are below... well, then you most definatly are doing something wrong.
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day9 says to play starcraft 2 you need what, a minimum of 80 apm to be effective?
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Perfect macro would probably require 100 if you are not hotkeying and controling units at all.
200+ otherwise.
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On June 21 2011 12:31 Mojar wrote:Show nested quote +On June 21 2011 12:22 closey wrote:
Interesting...but I'd like to object. My average APM is capped around 50-ish even on ladders and I can keep up with my macro until past 30 minutes. I'll do some tests personally, I think we can get lower than 75APM for a 3 base terran! If your apm is around 50 on ladder games then your not keeping up with your macro at all sorry my apm is around 130-140 avg and i still struggle to keep my macro going when their is a lot of battles occurring.
Then you're probably doing a lot of useless clicking. To macro efficiently you generally only need something like: 4 + (bases * 4) actions every ~17-30 seconds. That is assuming 4 different production facilities (including nexus/cc) and 4 production facilities per base, but that is still no where near 140 apm required to macro.
+ Show Spoiler +
Explanation:
A + (B * C)
A is the number of hotkeys you'd have for production facilities, we're assuming 4, one for each type.
B is the number of bases you have
C is the number of production facilities you have per base (which is usually 4, including nexus/cc)
Off of three bases you'd have 12 total production facilities. (Ex: 3 ccs, 1 factory, 1 starport, 7 rax)
Reactored barracks count as two production facilities.
So the number of clicks to macro would be:
1. Select CC
2. Make SCV
3. Make SCV
4. Make SCV
5. Select Rax
6. Make marauder
7. Make marauder
8. Make marauder
9. Make marauder
10. Make marauder
11. Make marauder
12. Make marauder
13. Select Factory
14. Make Tank
15. Select Starport
16. Make medivac
We'll use 17 for the build time because that is what SCVs are. This will inflate the APM requirement a bit, but it will show that you really don't need that much.
APM = Actions / Minutes
APM = 16 / (17/60)
APM ~= 56
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On June 21 2011 15:43 Battousai13 wrote:
Day9 threw out 80 APM as kind of a bar to go by for required APM to sufficiently do everything up to the diamond level (this was before the advent of Master league). I think this is pretty accurate if you look at Minigun and Sjow.
People just "throw numbers" out or their head in these matters. I throw one number myself: Zeerax (i think that was his nick) won against well known players with 50 apm not so long ago in a tournament.
I remember it because the caster and the co-caster were talking about it.
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On June 21 2011 17:35 Okiesmokie wrote:Show nested quote +On June 21 2011 12:31 Mojar wrote:On June 21 2011 12:22 closey wrote:
Interesting...but I'd like to object. My average APM is capped around 50-ish even on ladders and I can keep up with my macro until past 30 minutes. I'll do some tests personally, I think we can get lower than 75APM for a 3 base terran! If your apm is around 50 on ladder games then your not keeping up with your macro at all sorry my apm is around 130-140 avg and i still struggle to keep my macro going when their is a lot of battles occurring. Then you're probably doing a lot of useless clicking. To macro efficiently you generally only need something like: 4 + (bases * 4) actions every ~17-30 seconds. That is assuming 4 different production facilities (including nexus/cc) and 4 production facilities per base, but that is still no where near 140 apm required to macro. + Show Spoiler +
Explanation:
A + (B * C)
A is the number of hotkeys you'd have for production facilities, we're assuming 4, one for each type.
B is the number of bases you have
C is the number of production facilities you have per base (which is usually 4, including nexus/cc)
Off of three bases you'd have 12 total production facilities. (Ex: 3 ccs, 1 factory, 1 starport, 7 rax)
Reactored barracks count as two production facilities.
So the number of clicks to macro would be:
1. Select CC
2. Make SCV
3. Make SCV
4. Make SCV
5. Select Rax
6. Make marauder
7. Make marauder
8. Make marauder
9. Make marauder
10. Make marauder
11. Make marauder
12. Make marauder
13. Select Factory
14. Make Tank
15. Select Starport
16. Make medivac
We'll use 17 for the build time because that is what SCVs are. This will inflate the APM requirement a bit, but it will show that you really don't need that much.
APM = Actions / Minutes
APM = 16 / (17/60)
APM ~= 56
Indeed. However, when you enter one of those "macro cycles" even a gold level player with 50 apm is going to be doing this in much less time than 17 seconds. But then he'll probably be looking around and not doing things much more often, and possibly miss the start of the next macro cycle.
In macro, the hard part is not the APM requirement, but the periodic requirement that makes it challenging. One way many pros and players handle this is a very high APM way of constantly tapping back to their production facilities to see if they're ready, but you could theoretically do it just with a mental timer (I imagine the famously low-APM players do it this way instead. Thus, their APM seems lower just because theyre approaching their macro without spamming actions.)
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On June 21 2011 15:54 sylverfyre wrote:Show nested quote +On June 21 2011 15:39 DaemonX wrote:On June 21 2011 12:22 closey wrote:
Interesting...but I'd like to object. My average APM is capped around 50-ish even on ladders and I can keep up with my macro until past 30 minutes. I'll do some tests personally, I think we can get lower than 75APM for a 3 base terran! For this to be a meaningful response, you'd have to post your league ranking. If you're 'keeping up with macro' in Gold, no offense, but you're not keeping up with macro. I'm sorry, but you're wrong about league being required for it to be a meaningful response. Maybe he's in gold because he sucks at holding off cheese, ... He could still have good macro, but lack other fundamentals keeping him from rising in the ranks. Sorry, but...no. Just...no.
If you actually think this, then you're just rationalising your own ranking. If you're not in masters, your macro needs work. If you're not in diamond, it's fucking appalling. This is just how it is. You don't macro well and stay in Gold. It's been proven countless times. It's even been shown you can get to diamond on pure macro using idiotic compositions like Queen only (Destiny did this).
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Russian Federation304 Posts
for me pretty hard to play macro (15+ min) with avg ~150 apm. i think 200 is good
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On June 21 2011 13:50 Morfildur wrote:
Well, we can calculate how much APM are necessary for perfect macro:
Assuming a 2-base terran with marine/tank/medivac/viking (i don't know the exact building counts, so YMMV):
2 Orbital Commands - 2 workers every 17 seconds (requires about 7 APM)
2 Mules every ~90 seconds (requires about 2 APM)
2 Rax with reactors - 4 marines every 25 seconds (requires about 10 APM)
1 Rax with tech lab - 1 marine every 25 seconds (requires about 2.4 APM)
2 Factories with tech lab (2 Tanks every 45 seconds (requires about 2.7 APM)
1 Starport with Reactor 2 Medivacs or Vikings every 42 seconds (requiers about 3 APM)
So for perfect 2-base macro you need around 28 APM. Add about 5-10 for building selection, setting rallypoints, etc. and we have around 35-40 required APM for pure macro on 2 bases.
Additional buildings of course increase the required APM.
thank you for being alive
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On June 21 2011 23:05 DaemonX wrote:Show nested quote +On June 21 2011 15:54 sylverfyre wrote:On June 21 2011 15:39 DaemonX wrote:On June 21 2011 12:22 closey wrote:
Interesting...but I'd like to object. My average APM is capped around 50-ish even on ladders and I can keep up with my macro until past 30 minutes. I'll do some tests personally, I think we can get lower than 75APM for a 3 base terran! For this to be a meaningful response, you'd have to post your league ranking. If you're 'keeping up with macro' in Gold, no offense, but you're not keeping up with macro. I'm sorry, but you're wrong about league being required for it to be a meaningful response. Maybe he's in gold because he sucks at holding off cheese, ... He could still have good macro, but lack other fundamentals keeping him from rising in the ranks. Sorry, but...no. Just...no. If you actually think this, then you're just rationalising your own ranking. If you're not in masters, your macro needs work. If you're not in diamond, it's fucking appalling. This is just how it is. You don't macro well and stay in Gold. It's been proven countless times. It's even been shown you can get to diamond on pure macro using idiotic compositions like Queen only (Destiny did this).
Hahahahahahahaha, no. Quit making such a big deal about leagues. You can have amazing macro and still lose if, for example, you never attack and your opponent gets you with Tier 3 units.
Anyway, APM isn't really needed in large quantities. People keep saying "Oh, he ONLY has 50 APM", but to be honest, professionals with lower APM that still do well only proves that the only part of APM that matters is the efficiency (aside from having at least 30 or so APM to compare to a perfect situation). You can spam your hotkeys over and over, but the actual APM count isn't what matters.
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It's weird, I've seen such a variance between players. My apm averages around 130, with Terran (my worst race, strangely) averaging around 150apm (maybe I shit myself that I'm making mistakes more when I play it, and check things? I dunno).
My friend is top8 Masters Zerg, and his average APM is ~60 - 70 pretty much every game. I guess maybe it varies on whether you are a mechanical player (think idra) or a tactical player (white-ra). I'm not saying you shouldn't be both, but from watching both players' streams, it's evident that white-ra's mechanics are much more laid back, and his apm is notably lower in comparison to idra? Even in BW, some players like Testie were reknowned for being low APM players.
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In sc2gears I have 64 apm for the macro apm stat. That's real time apm not sc2 apm so it's lower in sc2. My real time apm is about 160-180 and sc2 apm usually under 140.
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On June 21 2011 13:50 Morfildur wrote:
Well, we can calculate how much APM are necessary for perfect macro:
Assuming a 2-base terran with marine/tank/medivac/viking (i don't know the exact building counts, so YMMV):
2 Orbital Commands - 2 workers every 17 seconds (requires about 7 APM)
2 Mules every ~90 seconds (requires about 2 APM)
2 Rax with reactors - 4 marines every 25 seconds (requires about 10 APM)
1 Rax with tech lab - 1 marine every 25 seconds (requires about 2.4 APM)
2 Factories with tech lab (2 Tanks every 45 seconds (requires about 2.7 APM)
1 Starport with Reactor 2 Medivacs or Vikings every 42 seconds (requiers about 3 APM)
So for perfect 2-base macro you need around 28 APM. Add about 5-10 for building selection, setting rallypoints, etc. and we have around 35-40 required APM for pure macro on 2 bases.
Additional buildings of course increase the required APM.
What about building each of those buildings? Making a command centre into an orbital? Adding addons? scouting? Adding units to control groups? Adding buildings to control groups? Setting camera hotkeys? Upgrades? I think you are massively underestimating how much the small things add up. Hell, for perfect macro, let's include mineral stacking at the beginning too.
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I think it's worth mentioning that the APM needed to macro also depends on what units you're producing. If you're making more expensive units it takes less actions than making more cheap units. Eg, producing off 8 barracks can take roughly twice as much APM as producing off of 4 factories, even though you're spending the same amount of money.
Likewise this applies to other expensive units such as VoidRay, Colossi, and hydralisks
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On June 21 2011 12:30 Efemral wrote:
Just from my own experience, I play all three races and my zerg has consistently a higher APM.
You produce a bigger quantity of units so that should be the case yes.
Anyway, I doubt people with under 70 APM actually does macro as well as they say they do. For me I can't even comprehend how some people play at a high level with under 100 as I feel I need a lot more APM with 150-170 in my games.
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On June 22 2011 00:03 Valikyr wrote:Show nested quote +On June 21 2011 12:30 Efemral wrote:
Just from my own experience, I play all three races and my zerg has consistently a higher APM. You produce a bigger quantity of units so that should be the case yes. Anyway, I doubt people with under 70 APM actually does macro as well as they say they do. For me I can't even comprehend how some people play at a high level with under 100 as I feel I need a lot more APM with 150-170 in my games.
That just means you're not efficient with your APM.
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On June 21 2011 23:36 Zeke50100 wrote:Show nested quote +On June 21 2011 23:05 DaemonX wrote:On June 21 2011 15:54 sylverfyre wrote:On June 21 2011 15:39 DaemonX wrote:On June 21 2011 12:22 closey wrote:
Interesting...but I'd like to object. My average APM is capped around 50-ish even on ladders and I can keep up with my macro until past 30 minutes. I'll do some tests personally, I think we can get lower than 75APM for a 3 base terran! For this to be a meaningful response, you'd have to post your league ranking. If you're 'keeping up with macro' in Gold, no offense, but you're not keeping up with macro. I'm sorry, but you're wrong about league being required for it to be a meaningful response. Maybe he's in gold because he sucks at holding off cheese, ... He could still have good macro, but lack other fundamentals keeping him from rising in the ranks. Sorry, but...no. Just...no. If you actually think this, then you're just rationalising your own ranking. If you're not in masters, your macro needs work. If you're not in diamond, it's fucking appalling. This is just how it is. You don't macro well and stay in Gold. It's been proven countless times. It's even been shown you can get to diamond on pure macro using idiotic compositions like Queen only (Destiny did this). Hahahahahahahaha, no. Quit making such a big deal about leagues. You can have amazing macro and still lose if, for example, you never attack and your opponent gets you with Tier 3 units. Anyway, APM isn't really needed in large quantities. People keep saying "Oh, he ONLY has 50 APM", but to be honest, professionals with lower APM that still do well only proves that the only part of APM that matters is the efficiency (aside from having at least 30 or so APM to compare to a perfect situation). You can spam your hotkeys over and over, but the actual APM count isn't what matters. Leagues measure skill within a decent degree of precision. If you think your 42 apm Silver league placement is not really true, and you ACTUALLY are a diamond player if only people would stop cheesing you...you're kidding yourself.
And you'll stay in at that level until the day you change your mindset.
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Are we talking about Blizzard's APM recording or actual APM (recorded by say, SC2 gears)?
Either way, I think we can agree that SjoW's APM is probably the benchmark.
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On June 21 2011 23:48 mcclurg wrote:Show nested quote +On June 21 2011 13:50 Morfildur wrote:
Well, we can calculate how much APM are necessary for perfect macro:
Assuming a 2-base terran with marine/tank/medivac/viking (i don't know the exact building counts, so YMMV):
2 Orbital Commands - 2 workers every 17 seconds (requires about 7 APM)
2 Mules every ~90 seconds (requires about 2 APM)
2 Rax with reactors - 4 marines every 25 seconds (requires about 10 APM)
1 Rax with tech lab - 1 marine every 25 seconds (requires about 2.4 APM)
2 Factories with tech lab (2 Tanks every 45 seconds (requires about 2.7 APM)
1 Starport with Reactor 2 Medivacs or Vikings every 42 seconds (requiers about 3 APM)
So for perfect 2-base macro you need around 28 APM. Add about 5-10 for building selection, setting rallypoints, etc. and we have around 35-40 required APM for pure macro on 2 bases.
Additional buildings of course increase the required APM. What about building each of those buildings? Making a command centre into an orbital? Adding addons? scouting? Adding units to control groups? Adding buildings to control groups? Setting camera hotkeys? Upgrades? I think you are massively underestimating how much the small things add up. Hell, for perfect macro, let's include mineral stacking at the beginning too.
Most of those are one-time actions, so their influence on the APM is negligible and depending on a lot of other factors (length of the game, etc.). Building all the above buildings, OCs and addons requires about 20 actions over the time of about 10 minutes, so basically 2 APM on average, but after that you don't build a lot more production facilities. Scouting is not a macro action so it is not in the calculation. Upgrades are hard to calculate but in average they result in about 2 actions every 3 minutes (or 3-4 if you upgrade bio _and_ mech), so it's about 1 APM in average. The only other APM drain that i didn't include is building supply depots, but this depends on how you use the units, how many you lose, etc., which means it can't reliably be included into the calculation but should net about 5-6 APM if you never lose units.
The biggest contributor to the APM are the repetitive actions (building units and tapping to check production).
As i said in a previous post, it's the baseline, the absolute minimum. If you go higher (mineral stacking, tapping all production hotkeys every second, etc.) you will have better macro, but you need at least ~35-40 APM for constant production if you ignore all other factors. You can not under any circumstance go lower in this situation but you can always go higher.
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I don't think APM is much of an issue when it comes to macro because of MBS and automine. It's more important to know when production/research/buildings are done and make something right as they finish.
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From my experience with coaching 75 would be BARE minimum 100 is a comfortable amount to have.
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On June 21 2011 12:31 Mojar wrote:Show nested quote +On June 21 2011 12:22 closey wrote:
Interesting...but I'd like to object. My average APM is capped around 50-ish even on ladders and I can keep up with my macro until past 30 minutes. I'll do some tests personally, I think we can get lower than 75APM for a 3 base terran! If your apm is around 50 on ladder games then your not keeping up with your macro at all sorry my apm is around 130-140 avg and i still struggle to keep my macro going when their is a lot of battles occurring.
sorry I disagree with you. EG Axslav plays at such a low APM, but he is on top of his Micro and Macro. So you dont have a valid point. APM gets solid as you play more and more and tend to repeat your builds and refine them
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in general - I believe zerg requires more apm than the other races, considering injects and such, theres just more to do lol
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When a zerg creates 4 lings does that count as 6 APM?
5(hatch hotkey) S ZZZZ
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If you have some kind of superhuman sense so you know when each unit will finish, then the larva will be add or instantly when a building is done without having to sift through the buildings repeatedly, then probably near 100. But normally 150-200.
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AHHHHHH, apm discussions. 150 APM is most definitely not required for good macro. I know I can pretty much nail a Protoss 2 base robo/gateway/twilight/forge build with <50 APM. I know, because I do it all the time in team games and such where I'm not bothered to do anything else until ~12-15 minutes. And for the first 15 minutes of pure macro, I can have <50 APM. And can average about 300 unspent resources. Now, once you add in battles, with FF, re-rallying units, blink, taking more expansions, etc, etc, then you'll need to bump it up to at least 100, but unless you're just needlessly spamming move commands and such, then 100 effective APM is PLENTY good enough for a decent Master's level toss. Watch Minigun if you have any questions.
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On June 22 2011 00:22 coL.Minigun wrote:
From my experience with coaching 75 would be BARE minimum 100 is a comfortable amount to have.
75 is the bare minimum for what kind of gameplay? Silver league? Grandmasters? Without stating for whom the rule applies, those numbers are meaningless.
I know I'm comfortably up there in the Master league with well below 75 Macro APM even when I'm on my third base.
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I think you need a high level of Macro to work on having the excellent ability of pushing out units from all buildings and such. This assuming that you only have one unit per production building (excluding the warpgate) and having upgrades plus managing the things ie: building more stuff and getting workers to work.
For just good macro, I'd say 150 and under works just fine. I'd say my top paragraph only applies if you continue to produce and expand around the map. That's when it starts to increase via building units. The thing is, once you reach the 200 food count, there's not much left to macro. So it's kind of an icky thing to look at.
I'd say the APM is unimportant, as long as you're doing what you need to do in a current game.
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On June 22 2011 00:36 cantwait wrote:Show nested quote +On June 22 2011 00:22 coL.Minigun wrote:
From my experience with coaching 75 would be BARE minimum 100 is a comfortable amount to have. 75 is the bare minimum for what kind of gameplay? Silver league? Grandmasters? Without stating for whom the rule applies, those numbers are meaningless. I know I'm comfortably up there in the Master league with well below 75 Macro APM even when I'm on my third base.
None, for optimal macro getting done what needs to be done when it should be done. It's closer to 100 now that I think about it. League has nothing to do with it.
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Uh.... my apm is around 65-70 and I'm hovering around 1300 masters.
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On June 22 2011 00:36 cantwait wrote:Show nested quote +On June 22 2011 00:22 coL.Minigun wrote:
From my experience with coaching 75 would be BARE minimum 100 is a comfortable amount to have. 75 is the bare minimum for what kind of gameplay? Silver league? Grandmasters? Without stating for whom the rule applies, those numbers are meaningless. I know I'm comfortably up there in the Master league with well below 75 Macro APM even when I'm on my third base.
Looking at the title of the thread, I'd venture so far as to guess that he means bare minimum to keep up macro.
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there is no bare minimum since it also depends on your income rate and number of production facilities.
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As far as apm per race goes, mechanically Zerg requires the most apm. Zerg has the most mechanics in it to require the most efficient play, OL spread, creep spread, injects. Beyond mechanics though, I would argue that a multitasking bio drop terran requires a tremendous amount of apm to macro efficiently behind that. Unlike a mech terran for example. Take MMA for instance at MLG against Losira he was a beast all over the place.
Mutaling as zerg also requires more apm than roach hydra. Ling, infestor, drop is very similar to bio drop play, apm wise. Both require a large amount. Aswell as blink stalker play, while macroing behind it. Or pheonix play.
So in summary I think that Zerg is the most mechanically demanding apm race, but the playstyle you have of any race determines how much apm you need.
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On June 22 2011 00:45 DreamRaider wrote:
there is no bare minimum since it also depends on your income rate and number of production facilities.
Obviously the number goes up as the game goes on...
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At 80 APM as a peak average, I can ALMOST maintain 3 bases and spread creep to the cooldown with tumors + queen. My injects are usually reasonably on time, I'll end up with about a spare 2 injects per queen at each base by late mid-game to late game (15 to 18+). So I figure it'd probably take an additional 30 or so APM to have "solid" macro.
But, I'm gold and I probably don't even have a good concept of macro.
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I play all 3 races and personally I find Terran the most APM demanding. The builds i use require a lot of harassment and flipping back and forth to micro a banshee but still building depots in your base and just general macro. Protoss i don't really encounter any high APM situations with my style and zerg is usually the constant scouting that requires a lot of APM (eg constantly running your lings in vP to see his sentry count and if he's cancelled the nexus etc)
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On June 22 2011 00:23 Ashes wrote:Show nested quote +On June 21 2011 12:31 Mojar wrote:On June 21 2011 12:22 closey wrote:
Interesting...but I'd like to object. My average APM is capped around 50-ish even on ladders and I can keep up with my macro until past 30 minutes. I'll do some tests personally, I think we can get lower than 75APM for a 3 base terran! If your apm is around 50 on ladder games then your not keeping up with your macro at all sorry my apm is around 130-140 avg and i still struggle to keep my macro going when their is a lot of battles occurring. sorry I disagree with you. EG Axslav plays at such a low APM, but he is on top of his Micro and Macro. So you dont have a valid point. APM gets solid as you play more and more and tend to repeat your builds and refine them
But his APM is not 50 isn't it?
The more bases you have, the more apm it will require to manage all the base. Most people who say they have less than 80 APM and still diamond master are 2-base players from my experience from all threads like this.
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Strangely enough, I also did the same test for terran when practicing my mechanics. For me, normal basic macro with no queueing from 2 base takes ~45apm and 3 base (before max supply is reach) takes ~65apm. Tried my best to not waste any clicks (much harder when on 3 base) and not select any units. Only action i tried to do is building scvs and units, building structures, addons and supply depot, drop mules, put guys in gas, upgrades and set rallypoint once for each building.
Right now, it takes most of my concentration just to macro properly in a relax environment. Wish I could actually macro and fight :p
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Somewhere between 75-100 APM is sufficient for doing nothing but macro.
The unfortunate consequence of only playing at this APM, though, is that your multitask suffers horribly - you might hit some 200-300 APM when microing your army for those big battles, but you'll probably be hard-pressed to do anything else useful in the meantime.
If you are already at 75+ APM doing nothing but macroing as efficiently as possible, the next logical step would be to then practice your multitask, which should naturally elevate your APM as you learn to control both your army and your base at the same time without falling behind significantly on either.
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On June 22 2011 01:10 canikizu wrote:Show nested quote +On June 22 2011 00:23 Ashes wrote:On June 21 2011 12:31 Mojar wrote:On June 21 2011 12:22 closey wrote:
Interesting...but I'd like to object. My average APM is capped around 50-ish even on ladders and I can keep up with my macro until past 30 minutes. I'll do some tests personally, I think we can get lower than 75APM for a 3 base terran! If your apm is around 50 on ladder games then your not keeping up with your macro at all sorry my apm is around 130-140 avg and i still struggle to keep my macro going when their is a lot of battles occurring. sorry I disagree with you. EG Axslav plays at such a low APM, but he is on top of his Micro and Macro. So you dont have a valid point. APM gets solid as you play more and more and tend to repeat your builds and refine them But his APM is not 50 isn't it? The more bases you have, the more apm it will require to manage all the base. Most people who say they have less than 80 APM and still diamond master are 2-base players from my experience from all threads like this.
I'm mid-Masters, have decent macro, am not a 2-base player, and have a usual average APM between 60 and 75 (I think 86 was my record, when I went pure Marine/Medivac against a 4 base Master Protoss). I don't think I've ever watched a replay where my opponent had over 100 average APM (as almost all do) without spamming ridiculously at the start and telling their units where to go 20 times each. The difference between my APM and theirs is that mine goes up as the game gets longer and more demanding while theirs invariably goes down.
This isn't to say that you can be perfect and go pro with 60 APM, of course, but far too much is made of this ultimately useless statistic -- as the completely random numbers of 150 or 200 that people are throwing about demonstrates. The SC2 world (and most of its players) would be turned on its head if the stat only counted effective APM.
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Well, I don´t think there is an answer to that as Macroing is a lot about remembering stuff and since a lot of what makes your macro suffer are pressure situations there is not really much answer to how much APM you need to Macro well
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On June 22 2011 01:26 Dzerzhinsky wrote:This isn't to say that you can be perfect and go pro with 60 APM, of course, but far too much is made of this ultimately useless statistic -- as the completely random numbers of 150 or 200 that people are throwing about demonstrates. The SC2 world (and most of its players) would be turned on its head if the stat only counted effective APM.
It's rather difficult to get an objective number out of a subjective classification.
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China6330 Posts
I am a top Gold - Mid Plat level protoss and always plays defensive macro games, with an average APM of 75, according to sc2gears my usual macro APM is like 40 or so, and if I play Zerg(way worse than my Protoss), the average APM rises to near 100 and macro APM into 60 or even more (my lavae injection and creep spread is pretty decent among gold level players); with Terran my APM and macro APM is quite identical with Protoss, with relatively good mule and scan usage, so I think when it comes to macro you need a lot more APM if you play Zerg and Protoss seems to be the least APM dependent on macro.
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The amount of people who didn't read the OP is incredible, holy shit people READ THE THREAD YOUR POSTING IN.
In response to the OP I think that 60-75 APM is tons to do JUST macro. The only reason you would need more is if your cycling through all of your production buildings constantly, which isn't really needed if you have decent sense of timing (note: I don't mean don't cycle, I mean cycle less but at better times). This number will go up if you include good army movement and lots of scouting.
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As a Terran to strictly macro without devoting actions to anything else I think 60-80 is completely reasonable. I play around 140 total and feel like my speed limits me in the late game on multiple bases. Macro on its own while not under pressure is fine, the difficulty is doing it efficiently in between micro while under pressure.
The more I think about macro and micro APM tend to start to tie together. If you are attacking and microing your units and have the 80 APM to manage your base but no more, either you leave your army and macro, or you micro and your macro slips. You are rarely ever given the chance to just macro with zero pressure in a game, so although 80 may be sufficient more is obviously going to benefit you.
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A test needs to be repeatable, and standardized, otherwise the results are just subjective to your skill level.
I didn't gather that this was a skill test, but rather a "minimum APM" test. Something like this could be derived with math. Once you have a mathematical approach, then you can make tests and predictions.
For instance:
1. You could assign APM Values (or APMVs) to certain tasks.
2. You could assign APMVs to required routines.
3. You could assign tasks and routines frequency values.
4. Everything would be relative to the game clock.
5. Once your have your values assigned, you would simply apply them to a build order.
That is one way you could mathematically prove minimum APMs for a build order. I'm not going to do it, but if someone else feels so inclined, go for it!
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The more I think about it, it wouldn't surprise me if ideal Protoss macro APM has to be about 25+ apm higher just because of warpgate requiring you to click on the map. Subsequently, it isn't a difficult task even if it is represented as a spike in APM because it isn't conflicting with keyboard space, which leads me to consider TimeSpiral's distribution method just for the sake of delineating between actions that can be done simultaneously and those that can't.
But yeah, 75 sounds about right for just macro for T.
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This reminds me of the scenario of the girl who's obsessed with her weight rather than how her body looks. If your body looks good, I don't give 2 shits what your weight is. If your macro is good, I don't give 2 shits what your APM is.
Worry about good macro not about APM.
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Northern Ireland26223 Posts
Depends what counts as an action as well, I'm really not 100% sure about this. I know for example that clicking on a control hotkey will register, but what about camera hotkeys for example to warp in at a forward pylon>
What the guy above said rings true. My average is like 110 as a gold player (don't kill me guys I've only recently got the game  ), my friend Flu who's a high master zerg goes on about 60-80
As far as I can tell it's a matter of playstyle as well as having your builds down TIGHT. I prefer to play very aggressively, I often do Blink Stalker all-ins v Zerg for example which require tons of blink micro to work, simultaneously warping in while attempting to macro at the same time. Flu on the other hand has solid, solid standard builds and doesn't have to think when he's executing them
I also notice Zergs APMs tend to be higher, but I think that's due to their method of injecting and producing everything from the hatch, as well as spreading creep
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depends on the map+playstyle
if you're taking early 3rds you need decent APM to keep up
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United Kingdom14464 Posts
Get good macro, and the apm will follow. Anything else is just silly.
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On June 21 2011 12:32 K3Nyy wrote:
If it's just macroing without any fighting or active scouting, etc. then you can probably do it with 60-80 APM. Protoss will obviously need less and Zerg and Terran will need more.
Obviously? How is that? Protoss is quite similar to Terran in the macro department I'd say, both have to add more structures the longer the game goes on and actually Protoss can Chrono every 25 energy as opposed to every 50 so they have to use that more often. Not sure how Terran needs more APM for macroing.
On June 21 2011 13:51 Mykill wrote:well protoss doesnt need to cycle throug production buildings as W will bring up all the warpgates leaving upgrades (2 forge, 1or2 robo and maybe an upgrade running). So that leaves a lot of time for army positioning
Yeah because the only production buildings of Protoss are Warp/Gateways... Ignorant statement. Does this mean you put all your production facilities on 1 hotkey? That's bad practice anyway. I have 3 different keys for Gateways/Robos/Stargates.
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Northern Ireland26223 Posts
Also I hear SC2 gears splits your APM into "micro" and "macro" APM, pretty interesting way to do it. I'd love to know the values but for some reason can't get the thing to work
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On June 22 2011 01:26 Dzerzhinsky wrote:Show nested quote +On June 22 2011 01:10 canikizu wrote:On June 22 2011 00:23 Ashes wrote:On June 21 2011 12:31 Mojar wrote:On June 21 2011 12:22 closey wrote:
Interesting...but I'd like to object. My average APM is capped around 50-ish even on ladders and I can keep up with my macro until past 30 minutes. I'll do some tests personally, I think we can get lower than 75APM for a 3 base terran! If your apm is around 50 on ladder games then your not keeping up with your macro at all sorry my apm is around 130-140 avg and i still struggle to keep my macro going when their is a lot of battles occurring. sorry I disagree with you. EG Axslav plays at such a low APM, but he is on top of his Micro and Macro. So you dont have a valid point. APM gets solid as you play more and more and tend to repeat your builds and refine them But his APM is not 50 isn't it? The more bases you have, the more apm it will require to manage all the base. Most people who say they have less than 80 APM and still diamond master are 2-base players from my experience from all threads like this. I'm mid-Masters, have decent macro, am not a 2-base player, and have a usual average APM between 60 and 75 (I think 86 was my record, when I went pure Marine/Medivac against a 4 base Master Protoss). I don't think I've ever watched a replay where my opponent had over 100 average APM (as almost all do) without spamming ridiculously at the start and telling their units where to go 20 times each. The difference between my APM and theirs is that mine goes up as the game gets longer and more demanding while theirs invariably goes down. This isn't to say that you can be perfect and go pro with 60 APM, of course, but far too much is made of this ultimately useless statistic -- as the completely random numbers of 150 or 200 that people are throwing about demonstrates. The SC2 world (and most of its players) would be turned on its head if the stat only counted effective APM.
are you including your micro into that apm count? If so, your apm is really way too low to do any stuttersteps while getting a good macro going (unless of cause you are queuing lots of units)
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On June 22 2011 05:03 dani` wrote:Show nested quote +On June 21 2011 12:32 K3Nyy wrote:
If it's just macroing without any fighting or active scouting, etc. then you can probably do it with 60-80 APM. Protoss will obviously need less and Zerg and Terran will need more.
Obviously? How is that? Protoss is quite similar to Terran in the macro department I'd say, both have to add more structures the longer the game goes on and actually Protoss can Chrono every 25 energy as opposed to every 50 so they have to use that more often. Not sure how Terran needs more APM for macroing. Show nested quote +On June 21 2011 13:51 Mykill wrote:well protoss doesnt need to cycle throug production buildings as W will bring up all the warpgates leaving upgrades (2 forge, 1or2 robo and maybe an upgrade running). So that leaves a lot of time for army positioning Yeah because the only production buildings of Protoss are Warp/Gateways... Ignorant statement. Does this mean you put all your production facilities on 1 hotkey? That's bad practice anyway. I have 3 different keys for Gateways/Robos/Stargates.
Protoss units are generally more expensive, so you train a smaller quantity compared to terran. Translates to less APM.
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On June 22 2011 05:03 dani` wrote:Show nested quote +On June 21 2011 12:32 K3Nyy wrote:
If it's just macroing without any fighting or active scouting, etc. then you can probably do it with 60-80 APM. Protoss will obviously need less and Zerg and Terran will need more.
Obviously? How is that? Protoss is quite similar to Terran in the macro department I'd say, both have to add more structures the longer the game goes on and actually Protoss can Chrono every 25 energy as opposed to every 50 so they have to use that more often. Not sure how Terran needs more APM for macroing. Show nested quote +On June 21 2011 13:51 Mykill wrote:well protoss doesnt need to cycle throug production buildings as W will bring up all the warpgates leaving upgrades (2 forge, 1or2 robo and maybe an upgrade running). So that leaves a lot of time for army positioning Yeah because the only production buildings of Protoss are Warp/Gateways... Ignorant statement. Does this mean you put all your production facilities on 1 hotkey? That's bad practice anyway. I have 3 different keys for Gateways/Robos/Stargates.
It's more effecient to put all your production facilities on 1 hotkey and tab through them. It's what pros do. Just sayin 
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It's a futile question, IMO. The better you are at keeping mental tabs on your production, the less apm you need. Top pros like sjow play at <200 apm because their mechanics are ultra crisp.
On June 22 2011 00:46 ProtossPenny wrote:
As far as apm per race goes, mechanically Zerg requires the most apm. Zerg has the most mechanics in it to require the most efficient play, OL spread, creep spread, injects.
I wouldn't say zerg is the most mechanically demanding, but rewards players with superior mechanics. You don't need much apm at all to macro as Z; Infact, it's relatively easy to micro/macro at the same time mid fight/mid harass, minus injects. Even then, when compared to protoss, it's a similar amount of actions/window focus between both injecting and having to look at a pylon to warp off 7-12 gateways. All three races are relatively similar in the difficulty of their mechanics; T and Z simply have a higher skill ceiling than toss.
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if you use Sc fusion (sc2 build order calculator) to create your build you can look at the number of steps in detailed view then divide that by time.
the average apm needed for perfect macro doing the bare minimum is extremely low, but there are spikes where you are going to need extremely high apm to macro perfectly.
lesson learned from thread:
be more precise with the timing of macro actions and you will need less to achieve the same level of macro. freeing more apm for micro
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Why is there really even a thread on this?
"Perfect" macro (in a theoretical sense) is impossible to achieve.
The degree to which good macro can be achieved is a combination of both speed of APM, and efficiency of APM. Fast APM with no efficiency will be bad, efficient apm with super slow APM (like 50-70) will also be bad. You need a combination of the two, the slower, it's probably worse (assuming the efficiency remains the same.)
Point being, if you have an APM of 70 or so, you're not doing it optimally.
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On June 21 2011 12:22 closey wrote:
Interesting...but I'd like to object. My average APM is capped around 50-ish even on ladders and I can keep up with my macro until past 30 minutes. I'll do some tests personally, I think we can get lower than 75APM for a 3 base terran!
Sorry, but I seriously doubt you can "keep up with your macro" at a pro-level with 50 apm. It's simply not feasible on 4+ bases that you're really doing it nearly as well as you claim, even if you aren't spamming or wasting clicks.
You may have very different standards for good macro as someone like IdrA does. I bet it's impossible to have IdrA's level of macro with anything less than 90-100 apm. And for a human, it's even more than that because it's not possible to always click inject, spawn creep tumor, etc. with 100% timing unless you spam.
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I play Gold Terran and average apm on like 70-80. Sometimes I play a really good macro game, but it's never close to perfect. I think you'd need like 150 ish apm to get a really good macro going (not pro level ofc)
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Your APM improves as your macro improves. When I started I had 70apm~, now I have 130-150 APM as Protoss and around 130-140 APM as Zerg
Your apm is low because you aren't macroing/microing very well, not the other way around.
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On June 22 2011 05:01 MCDayC wrote:
Get good macro, and the apm will follow. Anything else is just silly.
Ya, pretty much, gotta say though that there are very few cases where good macro correlates with gosu-high APM among pros, there are many higher level players that have <150 APM and yet use that limited APM to great length. I think instead of aiming to raise your APM you should keep practising until your mechanics/timings are instinctive, at which point there is really no need to have insane APM.
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I play with about 100-120 apm on a masters-level but still my macro is nowhere near perfect. I dont really think apm is a huge contributor to good macro, it's more a mental checklist. If you are always aware of when you need to build a worker or build depots etc, I am sure you can get by with maybe 30-50 apm.
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Sorry, double post, accidentally backspaced after posting.
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All this anecdotal evidence isn't really worth much... my 100 APM will be different than yours. For a better example, check out Axslav (at least in WC3). What OP wants is the effective APM, i.e. whats the least amount of clicking and button pressing needed to produce efficiently?
You could probably figure this out without playing by looking at production times, total minerals to spend, etc. but its going to be different depending on what you're producing.
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Hello there, I would consider myself getting close to high masters level play as terran and i have 70 apm during most ladder games. If i play agaisnt a computer I need around 60 apm to macro very well to 200/200. I am confident I could play at low-mid masters level with 50-55 amp if i really wanted to. I consider my macro the best part of my game. I play on a laggy laptop so micro is a little tough
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Players like Sjow and Goody consistently que up tons of scvs, and units in the mid-late game and their apm's are incredible low. They hover around 100, but I know they have recently gotten a tad bit faster in the 120 range. However they are two of the top pros in europe despite being so slow. You really don't need that much APM, 90 APM can get you into masters, and if you are efficient enough, even grandmasters. Goody and Sjow's macro are not that good, but their decision making and knowledge of the game is very good. You really don't need to worry too much about APM.
I'm a masters player that plays all the races, and my APM will hover anywhere from 90-130 average throughout the game. In big fights it will spike to 300-400. I've found my lowest APM is as protoss (which is actually my strongest race), then terran and zerg are a bit higher but both being around the same number.
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From a terran perspective:
40ish apm one base
70ish 2 base
100ish 3base
120ish 4 base+
Just to macro, coming from mid-master terran
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If you are looking over your production facilities, it is very easy to just macro with low apm, because you do t have to cycle through your buildings at all be because you can see he progress bar.
Doing the same with just hot keys is a different matter entirely
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I used to be able to macro at a non-cheesy C+ ICCUP level with 40 sc2 apm in BW. I'm sure you can play at a Masters level with 50 sc2 apm.
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some can do it with 10, some do it with 200 there is no real answer.
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im always at minimum 110 APM without spaming ofc. just what I need to do, im on Plat league.
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Playing 2-3 vs the AI getting maxed as fast as possible instead making up and posting this would be 10 times more useful for your apm. Mechanics take practice, that's all. Having 150 sc2 apm is really easy(go to an online metronome and see how slow that is) the thing is you have to know what are you going to do instead of thinking of it in the game.
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I think the consensus is that you need ~40 apm per base to macro, which seems pretty reasonable to me.
- Protoss is slightly less due to Warpgate mechanic being extremely APM efficient.
- Zerg would be the lowest off one base, but due to zerg expanding more, it evens out.
- In the Lategame, apm is lowered substantially because depots/pylons/ovys are no longer required.
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I'm gold Zerg, and if I'm not pressured or anything, I can keep a healthy 70-90 APM if I keep up with my injections and creep spread. I dunno if it takes higher APM for zerg to do everything effectively. This is of course when I'm up running 3-4 bases with good creepspread and each queen manually hotkeyed as an injection method(Not the most effective one in term of speed, but I'm feeling like I kind of lose controll too easily with the backspace method, with queens running everywhere :/)
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Blah blah blah, Terran, blah blah blah, Zerg, cause blah blah blah, Protoss bLAH!
E-Penis Can has so huge for apm cause be can 400apm. Blah
Seriously, APM, required is all relative. Do you want to be in bronze league fine then you only need 50 apm. Do you want to be in masters league then fine you need 120 apm. Do you want to win GSL code S, then fine you need 250 apm. Do you want to be a bot with perfect macro with every worker being stacked on close mineral patches in perfect order, mules being pulled away last second, fine you need 1500 apm. This question is pretty vague. This thread is just E-penis measuring contest pretty much.
Who gives a shit about how much you apm NEED and why are you trying to have the minimum apm required anyway. Practice until you have the apm and mechanics of a korean pro, and constantly improve. Put some effort into getting better instead of trying to do the bare minimum required to get by, if you have that mindset you should stay in what shitty league your in forever.
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My average apm usually ends somewhere between 50-60 from the games. When watching replays the highest I've ever seen myself at was 132. I don't spam at all during the game. I think the key thing to look at is average apm vs. possible apm. I regularly average around 100 during battles, and could easily average that if I wanted to spam. However, I don't so my true average apm is only about 50-60. And I'm in diamond by the way.
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yeah, I'm a plat Terran and have 150(in game) apm and after about 30 minutes or so, when I'm about 4-5 bases my macro kinda slips.
id say, platinum and below, 100 is probably more than enough.
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Russian Federation269 Posts
180+ here, in ladder im around 180-195 in tournys im around 200-215+
im a zerg
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Eh, some of the suggested numbers (anything over 100+ basically) seem unrealistically high, regardless of level of play. The only difference between "perfect" macro and any other kind is in having your actions done exactly on time, rather than doing more of them. Nobody misses a Larva inject because they have so much to do that they're 10 actions too slow to do it - they miss it because they forget about it for 5 seconds or 5 minutes (and this is where skill level makes a difference)
I can't really imagine a macro-only scenario that would require you to do more than 1 or 2 timely actions per second on average. Although I suppose a lot of it depends on inner sense of timing - so you don't need to "check" (use a hotkey) like 20 times to see whether something has finished producing or if your cc/nexus energy built up.
My estimate would be 50-70, depending on race.
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When I play protoss i can macro fine with 70-100 apm but when I play zerg i'm having at least 140+ apm and i play both races at around the same level
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well i've seen master players with 70 apm so i don't think its that important... i'm plat and i average 100-110 out of combat and it spikes way higher 250+ when fighting. But that doesnt mean nothing as most of it is useless... all that matter is efficient apm and u dont really have a way to messure that.
As long as you know what to prioritize to make ur apm as efficient as possible its all ok altho geting from bronze(where i had 50-60 apm) to plat my apm got higher and from gold(it was still at 100ish) to plat it has become way more efficient as now i'm starting to feel i'm able to macro and micro way better... only thing i think that i should improve is prioritizing what to do with my apm.
tl:dr make ur apm as efficient as possible even if its 50ish and then try to make it higher as it doesnt really count if u have 200 apm but 100 is wasted
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To me apm really isn't that big of a deal. Having a lot of apm in fights and for harassing and stuff is always great but not that big of a deal. If you are only macroing and doing it perfectly as terran I would think you'd need upwards of 100-120 apm to constantly check your barracks and command center to make sure you're constantly making units without queuing.
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60? Generally the more the better.
The whole "Just macro your way into diamond/masters" is sort of misleading. Really, it means that you should generally focus on macro stuff like not getting supply blocked, expanding, making workers and building stuff with most of your mental energy rather than attempting to perform advanced micro or play mindgames or do cute tricks. It's a good game approach, but not really as concrete as people think.
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it all depends on the build, especially when you take a quick 3rd
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Well SC II Gears can distinguish between micro and macro apm.
As a mid level master zerg player my macro apm in long games is around 40. I guess with 60 APM for macro you have enough clicking capacity to play "perfect" macro.
That doesn't change the fact that apm is overrated. There's a correlation with win rate, but APM is no causation for success.
The spam clicking has some kind of placebo effect because people actually believe it makes them better.
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trying to figure out what how much to apm for macro is hard because if the apm were to increase or decrease, it only means that buildings are being placed down slow/fast, units being made fast/slow, it also has to do with how hotkeys are used for buildings.
i use minimum apm and i average 110 apm for terran/toss and 130 for zerg. (random player)
by bare minimum i mean no pointless spamming throughout the game by selecting workers, cycling through hotkeys, rally pointing multiple times, all in a span of 1-2 seconds. one to two clicks when moving units. no double clicks to select same type of unit.
after how people would try so hard to increase their apm by whatever method they have in mind, i've decided to go the other route. my apm does spike up to 200 to 300 when it requires me to but mostly during battles.
if i remember correctly from checking sc2gears last time, my micro was about 80 and my macro around 40.
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APM really doesnt matter... just work on spending money and making workers, and your apm will go up as you get better and faster.
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sounds about right, 80 or so just for base management. another 200 or so for army to do everything right.
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On August 20 2011 10:28 jinorazi wrote:
trying to figure out what how much to apm for macro is hard because if the apm were to increase or decrease, it only means that buildings are being placed down slow/fast, units being made fast/slow, it also has to do with how hotkeys are used for buildings.
i use minimum apm and i average 110 apm for terran/toss and 130 for zerg. (random player)
by bare minimum i mean no pointless spamming throughout the game by selecting workers, cycling through hotkeys, rally pointing multiple times, all in a span of 1-2 seconds. one to two clicks when moving units. no double clicks to select same type of unit.
after how people would try so hard to increase their apm by whatever method they have in mind, i've decided to go the other route. my apm does spike up to 200 to 300 when it requires me to but mostly during battles.
if i remember correctly from checking sc2gears last time, my micro was about 80 and my macro around 40.
+1.
I main terran and I sometimes offrace aswell. Numbers are the same for me. Maybe even 5-10 lower (especially for protoss but it's because I'm bad so I don't really know what to do).
as T I often end short game with less than 90, and long macro heavy game with over 110~120 because 5(my rax hk)aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa does make a lot of actions lol.
Someone more precise who almost never check anything (i mean uppgrade timing) and doesn't missclick could be even lower.
I think many player who don't spam feel comfortable and do everything needed with between 90 and 130 apm.
For those who say low apm = low multitask, they're wrong. Multitasking is more about how organised you are because you obviously can't do everything at the same time. You need some priorities (and then do it as fast as you can, but doing it fast isn't hard at all).
Note that most "good" players averaging 90-120 will usually have apm spike during fights/tense moment because... well they have to. But when you have 5 scv and there is nothing to do, they won't have 300+ apm like other players and average 30.
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Right now I'm at a 3-1 micro-macro rate. I find the faster your apm becomes the better your macro will become because you can handle more. Even when I'm microing a fight I'm sitting there thinking dam I'm broke. But ya my macro is usually around 70
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On June 21 2011 12:31 Mojar wrote:Show nested quote +On June 21 2011 12:22 closey wrote:
Interesting...but I'd like to object. My average APM is capped around 50-ish even on ladders and I can keep up with my macro until past 30 minutes. I'll do some tests personally, I think we can get lower than 75APM for a 3 base terran! If your apm is around 50 on ladder games then your not keeping up with your macro at all sorry my apm is around 130-140 avg and i still struggle to keep my macro going when their is a lot of battles occurring.
I'm sorry, but seeing as whitera's apm is 120 avg and goody generally has 120 apm for the first 10 minutes, I'd say you're either wasting apm or spamming.
In any case, apm doesn't matter: If you're really concerned about improving/sc2 your time is better spent in the strat section/ watching replays/fpstreams (obv i'm not rly concerned)
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On August 20 2011 10:17 TigerKarl wrote:
Well SC II Gears can distinguish between micro and macro apm.
As a mid level master zerg player my macro apm in long games is around 40. I guess with 60 APM for macro you have enough clicking capacity to play "perfect" macro.
That doesn't change the fact that apm is overrated. There's a correlation with win rate, but APM is no causation for success.
The spam clicking has some kind of placebo effect because people actually believe it makes them better.
I beg to differ. I find my spamming at the start it gets my hands nice and warmed up/comfortable. It and it allows me later game to inject perfectly/tumors etc no matter how many bases I have because I am warmed up to move that fast. Sure I spam at the start but when I finish the game around 250 alot of that changed into useful apm (constant ling movement/ tumors/overlord position/ injects/ larva management etc.) Not to mention the ridiculous amount of micro you must use.
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As a masters zerg player, I start off the game spamming my control groups between 3 and 4 and then clicking eggs and re-rallying them. I usually stay around 150 apm until my queens come out, then my apm tanks to about 80 since there really isn't much to do when you're scouting with lings and just looking at them. I do creep spread constantly, but as the game progresses my apm gradually increases, on three bases I usually average about 120 apm and off 4-5 it goes up to about 160. This is just me making units/overlords, spreading creep, injecting, and clearing tower vision in ZvP. In ZvT I muta harass and the commands I give cause my APM to increase to about 180-200. What I've noticed is that my injects/creep spread are much better in my ZvP matchup, which means that my muta harass is soaking up much of my "macro apm." I would say about 70 APM is needed to macro zerg off 2 base and a +15-20 per additional HATCH since unit production counts as part of APM. This is if you include creep spread, which is definitely necessary.
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If you're just macroing, you need maybe 50-60 apm, because it's about timing, not apm. However, that's pretty useless because you're never going to only macroing. I have 160-170 apm, and i can't do all the things i want. Ideally, i should be able to send out drop, micro a drop i have already sent out, while pushing forward/sieging tanks one by one, adding more production, taking another expo, split my marines, etc. That would probably require around 250 apm, and that's if it's being used efficiently, and so far, only the Koreans have been able to do that. Select is pretty close, but people with high apm like merz, vibe, select don't use their apm very efficiently.
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If supply depots and pylons moved around the map Terran and Protoss would have higher apm also
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I'll just say this:
It is impossible, not next to impossible, to measure the required APM for each race, each build-specific order of things at each minute of the game objectively and without bias simply because
+ Show Spoiler +
You can use mass amounts of tests to try and counteract this with a more 'accurate' average but you'll still find things very messy and subjective.
Besides, is this really necessary to find out? We're not talking the 150 EAPM for macro the lowest level of progamers in BW have..
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SC2 Gears says my Macro APM is 90 and it's still really bad (My macro)
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Hey
Interesting subject, it should be kinda easy to calculate if you look at pure macro and a specific build
You have your mules from 2-3 orbitals, suv production and suply depot building during the buildup to 200/200, buiding of rax and fac/startport and then the production from that, upgrades and addons , setting rally point and occasional switch of point of vieuw and control group
you could in theory add it all up,and then calculate the apm needed
Guess it might be supringly low, 40? might try to calculate it
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I think it's irrelevant. The hard part isn't macroing or microing its doing both at once. If u did the same test with bw u would barely need anymore more apm than sc2 except for a couple more clicks to get ur workers mining. When ur only focusing on macroing its not that hard to do.
The reason that bw macro is much harder than sc2 macro is not that it takes a lot more apm but that it forces u to pull ur attention back to the base more. And that's what consumes the most time, switching between tasks at different locations on the map, and not the actual task of macroing.
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That is a really hard question to answer as I don't anyone's APM is 100% efficient and more factors affect how well you macro other than APM.
Speaking from personal experience, over 30 minute games I can have an average APM of 160-177; and my macro still needs work; easily.
That being said; if my game sense was better; speed of mind and simply "Knowing" more about the game, I could probably macro better with less APM - for arguments sake.
However, I wouldn't give up my APM for that; as marine splitting is very challenging on US server (laggy grr) and I need all the hand speed I can get.
Also, it'd be quite race dependent also.
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Protoss High masters, i spike to 300 apm in Micro intensive lategame battles, avrage around 190-200 overall <-- this being effective APM and not the spamm. with spamm i avrage 230-250 overall.
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I used to think injects were super easy, and in the early game, they are. But then I started copying play from pros like July and started doing shit like counter attacks, multi prong attacks, babysitting low HP units, etc.
That's when I realized macro goes much deeper than what I originally thought it would be. Sure macro is easy when your micro basically consists of a-clicking, but once it gets deeper and you're in more complex situation, your view on it becomes completely different.
My apm went from 120 to 180-200 as I began changing my playstyle.
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When I play protoss, probably around 60 apm just to macro. When i play zerg, at least 75 apm for macro. I am unsure about terran. The goal should be to constantly be macroing and microing when you have time. Obviously there are times when micro is more important, but in general, the bigger army wins the day.
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I think with Terran it's the highest, with around the 50 APM needed early game and maybe up to like 200 APM late-game to macro perfectly.
Zerg is somewhere in the middle. I think they need a higher early game APM than terran, but need a lower amount (~160 to 180) late game.
Protoss just stays at around 60 to 100 apm all game long, unless they're in some sort of high stress, high # of bases situation and are tech switching.
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zerg needs atleast 250-300 apm or more there is no arguing that, i would think terran is around 180-200 and protoss is around 50-150. That is for just actual macro apm and not spam or involving micro.
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On August 20 2011 12:30 Msr wrote:
zerg needs atleast 250-300 apm or more there is no arguing that, i would think terran is around 180-200 and protoss is around 50-150. That is for just actual macro apm and not spam or involving micro.
Yeah.... nah, mate. That's quite wrong tbh.
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On August 20 2011 12:52 Suc wrote:Show nested quote +On August 20 2011 12:30 Msr wrote:
zerg needs atleast 250-300 apm or more there is no arguing that, i would think terran is around 180-200 and protoss is around 50-150. That is for just actual macro apm and not spam or involving micro. Yeah.... nah, mate. That's quite wrong tbh.
That's very wrong. Zerg just need 120-150 apm, same with terran. Protoss needs slightly lesser apm about 90-120 as warpgates are darn easy to use.
However, on the micro part, Protoss will need slightly higher apm to micro the forces while terran just T a click. Zerg micro part is dependant on their unit composition. Obviously muta micro requires more apm than any other unit.
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As a Master league Toss I sit at about 90-120 average by the end, about 160ish average only considering late and mid. Still not always enough to micro and macro perfectly.
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Pull up sc2gears, and then look at the APM breakdown of a pro replay, usually it's around 40-50 apm
If you start to include the production spam necessary to macro well as terran the actual APM jumps to around 120
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In SC2 there are a lot of APM saving tricks, so pure APM does not tell the whole story .. when i moved over from BW i inkitially had a 30% higher APM, which actually lowered now, because i started shift-rallying+hotkeying units right when they are eggs, so it is rarely necessary to move the cam to a rally point and hotkey/move units from there. they are always hotkeyed/rallyd correctly as they pop.
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On August 20 2011 13:35 warcralft wrote:Show nested quote +On August 20 2011 12:52 Suc wrote:On August 20 2011 12:30 Msr wrote:
zerg needs atleast 250-300 apm or more there is no arguing that, i would think terran is around 180-200 and protoss is around 50-150. That is for just actual macro apm and not spam or involving micro. Yeah.... nah, mate. That's quite wrong tbh. That's very wrong. Zerg just need 120-150 apm, same with terran. Protoss needs slightly lesser apm about 90-120 as warpgates are darn easy to use. However, on the micro part, Protoss will need slightly higher apm to micro the forces while terran just T a click. Zerg micro part is dependant on their unit composition. Obviously muta micro requires more apm than any other unit.
You try T a clicking into every engagement and see how you fare....ya....no
terran needs to stutter micro, land emps, snipe stuff, and micro air like vikings. Terran needs the most apm. Larva inject is fukin easy with backspace toggle. Other than that, zerg hardly never needs to go back to base and do anything.
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Doesn't Sjow only have like 80-100 apm?
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On August 20 2011 12:30 Msr wrote:
zerg needs atleast 250-300 apm or more there is no arguing that, i would think terran is around 180-200 and protoss is around 50-150. That is for just actual macro apm and not spam or involving micro.
please don't listen to him. he has absolutely no idea what he is talking about. 250-300 for zerg and 50-150 for protoss? Where do you get these numbers lol.
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EPT
