Hmmm, this feels like it belongs in SC2 General instead of strategy. It's not really a guide yet but rather a planned video series. I'll move it there for now.
On August 07 2012 07:08 Pylons wrote: my friend, google was top 8 grandmasters with about 40 - 60 apm, so 40 apm is definitely enough to win in masters league!
Also, I'm fairly sure google aka oGsMC was a hacker.
For those asking why settle for low APM, you have to understand some people will be stuck at that speed because of physical limitations. It might be because of a disability or maybe just age (too young or old).
Plus, if say you are at 40 APM now, why not be good at 40 APM and improve your speed at the same time?
I know I'm stuck at about 80 APM, down from about 120 APM back in my BW days. So difinitely this helps because I am getting slower with time.
On August 07 2012 08:28 etherealfall wrote: I really don't understand why you would advocate for settling for less mechanical skill. 40APM is incredibly slow. By simply mineral stacking, my early game APM is 110APM.
Might I direct you to the part of my post labeled, "The Point" where I give you the main point.
If I can do it in 40apm, if you have anything over 40apm you too can do it.
On August 07 2012 08:31 NrGmonk wrote: Hmmm, this feels like it belongs in SC2 General instead of strategy. It's not really a guide yet but rather a planned video series. I'll move it there for now.
Also, I'm fairly sure google aka oGsMC was a hacker.
Okay. I figured it would go in strategy because it is going to turn into multiple videos that are basically "guides" for everything, but that won't be for a few more days so maybe I'll have someone change it back then.
my average apm in sc2 is around 40-50 but in fights its around 200+. at the start of the game is almost 0 as there really isnt much to do. ofcourse im only a noob high diamond player atm because i dont play often due to bad wrist and drop from masters after race switch.
On August 07 2012 08:42 aintz wrote: my average apm in sc2 is around 40-50 but in fights its around 200+. at the start of the game is almost 0 as there really isnt much to do. ofcourse im only a noob high diamond player atm because i dont play often due to bad wrist and drop from masters after race switch.
And while it's great to have 200apm in fights, there's actually a lot of players who can't get up to that 200apm in an engagement and thus spawned the series for people who don't quite move that fast...ever...or so if you have 160APM on top of the 40apm then it's just added bonus and you can hold things easily.
i wonder how so many people can call what OP does bad just because they think having 40 APM is too less anyway......well there are people with only 40 apm around so they can need the advice which things they should allways do with their apm and which things can be skiped if they are too slow.....
its good to have a look at those things not only if you have just 40 apm, for every player, even a guy with 150 apm could sometimes use 500 apm to do everything perfectly.....so having a look at which things are more important than other and which you should do first and which you can skip if your APM aren t enough for the actuall situation to handle, is very good, for every player, no matter if 40 or 200 apm
On August 07 2012 07:08 Pylons wrote: my friend, google was top 8 grandmasters with about 40 - 60 apm, so 40 apm is definitely enough to win in masters league!
Your friend, google, also used blink hacks and (probably) also maphacked. He mostly relied on two base all ins in PvZ and PvT. I don't know what he did in PvP. His style was easy to execute especially coupled with his hacks. His style may not be viable anymore.
On August 07 2012 22:19 uzushould wrote: i wonder how so many people can call what OP does bad just because they think having 40 APM is too less anyway......well there are people with only 40 apm around so they can need the advice which things they should allways do with their apm and which things can be skiped if they are too slow.....
its good to have a look at those things not only if you have just 40 apm, for every player, even a guy with 150 apm could sometimes use 500 apm to do everything perfectly.....so having a look at which things are more important than other and which you should do first and which you can skip if your APM aren t enough for the actuall situation to handle, is very good, for every player, no matter if 40 or 200 apm
Thank you for being someone who gets it. A lot of people really seem to think I'm promoting losing your apm when in actuality I'm just promoting being smart with it
I feel that this idea you are promoting is similar to what a lot of martial arts instructors teach - do it slower at first, a lot of times, to get the technique perfect. Once perfect, increase the speed and try to maintain the correct technique.
If you can perfect your decision making at 40APM, then you can move onto 60APM, 80APM, 100APM, etc.
In fact, getting everything perfect at 40APM can help force you to understand what you need more APM for - i.e. a midgame engagement while macro may likely need more than 40APM, and once you hit that wall you understand how to improve.
On August 08 2012 06:10 wcr.4fun wrote: might work as protoss. You can't play zerg good and have low apm. You need to spread creep, manage your injects.
Stephano is greatest USA bonjwa and he barely ever spreads creep (I troll I troll, but seriously, he barely spreads creep)... And realistically, injects are what, 20 APM if done efficiently?
People are missing Llamma's point, which is actually common sense and 100% correct. The best way to practice and improve in anything is to isolate the simple, basic aspects and practice them rigorously. Only once you've become proficient at these individual pieces do you combine them all.
A quick example is swimming and learning how to become a faster and stronger swimmer. It's very common to practice leg strokes and arm strokes separately, doing laps with only your arms for propulsion and similarly doing laps with only your legs kicking. Or take basketball for example, you learn how to shoot and you learn how to dribble separately and only after becoming proficient at both do you start to practice jump shots and lay ups.
Essentially what Llamma is saying is, focus on decision making and don't worry about your speed. Once you've gotten a decent feel for the game strategically you can move on to playing faster. 500 APM doesnt mean much if you don't know how to scout effectively or how to respond to certain unit comps/strategies. Obviously vice versa, all the game knowledge in the world is useless if you can't click accurately to save your life.
Essentially, I think his point is that you need to break your game down and isolate the basic pieces, strategy and mechanics. For the vast majority of us it's completely inefficient to try and improve both at the same time.
This is a great idea. How efficient can you make each click? is basically your question. I hope you discover some cool results man!
Theoretically if you discover how to hold something (for example) with 40 apm you can then work out how to get ahead at the same time with the other 100 apm perhaps?
Of course the availablity of the in game resources will limit this approach..
I think 40 APM is setting the bar too low. If someone is stuck at 40 APM they should play cards or chess instead of SC2. Anyone should be able to improve their APM from 40 to atleast 60-80 by just deciding to do so, and believe it or not 60-80 allows you to reach mid master in SC2.
Atleast I myself average 80-100 at 1000-1200 points in master, with protoss (previously random-player, so not just due to protoss being easier to 1a ).
I think you should increase your APM bar to 60 and atleast dedicate one episode to improving your battle-APM, so that you have to capacity to engage in large battles properly without the strain of maintaining a high APM all game long. 60 is just not sufficient, unless you choose your battle ground 30 seconds in advance and start preparing flanks and such. For bio-terran it will still be impossible to engage favorably, because the easiest stutter step micro requires 100+ APM (the one where you select your bio into: mouse-click --- S (stop) ---- mouse-click away --- S (stop) --- ...) and even higher with proper stutter stepping where you go through a three click sequence requiring 150+ APM ( mouse-click --- A (attack move) --- mouse-click --- mouse-click --- A (attack move) --- ...).
Another thing you could choose to focus on is avoid spamming to improve APM, have players embrace their low APM instead of artificially increasing it. If players got APM down at 40 I doubt they will see much improvement by the much hailed APM spam (the theory being, if you spam for months, you will slowly turn useless APM into useful APM), this they should achieve simply by trying to fulfill their races mechanical requirements, being building workers, maintaining steady unit production in the early-mid game.
On August 07 2012 05:21 Cyro wrote: Macro mechanics, creep spread, injects and basic army movement is enough to put you at ~150eapm+ if you are going mid/lategame zerg, how are you going to handle that?
And also considering that 500 resources of zerglings (20 lings) moved twice will count as 40 actions, but 500 resources of roaches (5 roaches) moved twice will count as only 10 actions, how are you going to account for that? APM is a horrible measure of hand/brain speed.
So true..so true.. im around 110-120amp , and im not doing nothing special , just creep spread , injects , controlling army at 2-3 hotkeys , one key for hatches , one key for queens
On August 07 2012 07:08 Pylons wrote: my friend, google was top 8 grandmasters with about 40 - 60 apm, so 40 apm is definitely enough to win in masters league!
Maby someone gonna belive it , but not me. Its impossible , or NA GM is really shit , but its not that bad so.. you lie sir.
I'd say 60, you could do this, 40 maybe a little to slow, if you hit late game, you'll be breaking that easily just producing units.
And it has to be impossible as zerg. I play toss main, but my APM is way higher when I play zerg, the macro mechanics just require a lot more clicking.