Everybody's talking about micro but I really don't know how I could do it. I know that I should be using the keyboard (hotkeys) to give out commands more quickly (which I don't as I'd have to look for every key individually). But besides that - what is mirco, what can one do? The only thing I sometimes do is withdraw a unit which is being focused and bring it back so it lives longer. But in the replays I always see very complex dancing around of zerglings and surrounding and so on... how do I do that (I yet have to get used to use a-right click instead of right click only thuogh )
Unfortunately if you can't use your keyboard without looking at it then you are pretty much barred from being able to micro. You can do minimal things like what you mentioned, but that only covers a very small portion of what one is able to do with their units, as you saw in pro matches. In fact if you can't use your keyboard blind then even your macro leaves a lot to be desired. Long story short, you would improve in every aspect of the game if you learnt your keyboard layout. Do some typing work, practice on your own, or play those typing games. Those would help you develop the skills needed.
when you are watching replays on youtube, you are watching the pros which is pretty hard to reproduce. good micro entail you being able to do the following all the following: - control your army in different groups (ranged/melee/air/casters) - have your unit production buildings in a group and pump units - expand at the same time - keep track of your production by clicking on your tech buildings and keep building your food supply. - constantly try to scout - find opportunities - harass i know some players that were in diamond league with me, and they didn't even use hotkeys or groups, they manually clicked everything really fast... but i dont recommend it because they were limited to what they could do.
Some of the points you mention come under macro, not micro. Anyway. I doubt using the mouse really fast to compensate for not using hotkeys would be any easier than learning the layout of his keyboard. The added benefit of using hotkeys is the reduced chance of mistakes (the chances of the selected unit using a hotkey directly adjacent to the intended one is next to zero, while misclicking with the mouse has a much bigger chance).
Micro depends a lot on mouse control and your keyboard hand like mentioned earlier. One thing you can do to improve is practice using your mouse so you can quickly select units and move them exactly where you want them to go. Combined with hotkeys and some awareness, good mouse control will allow you to move injured units back, blink/burrow them, whatever you need to do to keep them alive and do more damage than your opponent.
I view micro as falling into three elements of ascending difficulty to 'master': 1) Use of keyboard shortcuts. Honestly this is the easiest thing to master in my opinion (although I routinely avoid any real efforts to improve out of laziness). It is mostly a matter of planning (optimal arrangement of shortcuts) and practice to train your motor memory. 2) Physical Dexterity. This applies to you ability to quickly and accurately manipulate both the keyboard and the mouse. The keyboard is an easier element because there is less going on, keys always remain in the same place, et cetera. Still, there is a difficulty element involved and the more keys you can manipulate well the more options you will have (including using key combinations for modifiers). Much more difficult is manipulating units/abilities on your screen with the mouse. 3) Mental Dexterity. This applies to your ability and speed in processing information on the screen and reacting quickly to choose/execute the right choices. Even if your good at #1 and #2, if it takes you too long to process which units are taking damage, or if react too slowly to other presented scenarios, your micro is going to suffer. Improving most of these, to the extent you can, is mostly a matter of practice. You need to train your hands to use the keyboard well (without looking down) and to do it fast. You also need to train your brain to get used to looking for and responding to certain things happening on the screen, and to remain alert and not "slack off" on all the different things you should be doing during the game (and cursing yourself later as you realize...gee I should have been doing that). Other than that there are usually shortcuts and tricks you can use to help you. As a person limited in their keyboard skills myself, I make a point of hotkeying critical and usually the most used abilities/commands to those keys that are the easiest for me to operate quickly and accurately. In a lot of games I also usually try to setup my keys logically so similar abilities share a hotkey across characters/races....or if they don't I draw mental associations between those abilities, to improve my physical memory of the proper hotkeys. So for example, in WoW I would map rooting abilities for different characters to the same keyboard key. Although I haven't gone this far in SCII, a similar use would be mapping psi-storm and fungal growth to the same hotkey, or perhaps burrow and blink, which at least for me represents a logical association that would help me use the right hotkeys when swapping races.
Microing comes with much practice. Microing in Starcraft II is extremely different than microing in, let's say... Warcraft III. A-Left Click to me is so natural now that it's built into my play, I even accidentally do it with scouts here and there. Having different control key units is also important in microing if you want to flank your opponents and do other sophisticated plays.
Warcraft III is a micro-based game. I see SC2 being a Macro and Micro game, however your Macro is reflected upon your micro. So the people who don't believe in micro-ing their skill level is limited. Fast Micro > Fast Builds > Save Time > Faster Army Production > Efficient Army which makes you win the game. at one point micro reaches its limit to helping you in a game, someone with a 120 APM can beat a 160APM player, so when you've reached the limit (100+ APM average) it comes down to intelligence, adaptation, and creativity.
Thanks for your helpful replies. Actually I've started using hotkeys (only a few for now) and it really speeds things up. But I am a bit surprised, as someone else has mentioned, I would have enlisted most of the things in this thread as macro, not micro. I was really referring to unit control in a battle. Now I know, one aspect is controlling casters, then control groups are useful and the mentioned withdrawing of weakened units. But my problem is that I not only don't know HOW to do something else but WHAT else can be done. When I watch replays they often say something like "nice surround here" or you see that units are moving back and forth. I do not even understand how that could be done (e.g. surrounds) or what would be a beneficial way pulling back and attacking with units.
I think you are refering to Kiting and surrounding. KITING: Kiting is the technique of Fight then flight! You shoot and then move back as you "reload" it is mostly(if not only) used with ranged attack units like the marauder or helion for Terran. The mechanics are pretty simple, you a+left click to attack and then immediately right click away from your target, you will see your units turn around and start fleeing. Immediately after that you a+left click back on a specific unit or right in front of the enemy. Repeat as needed. This technique is really good against zerglings or drones and probes so you can actually save your units a lot of damage by effectively using the ranged attacks and avoid a surround(discussed below). DO IT PROPERLY THOUGH, or else you will actually inflict less damage to your opponent then if stationary, you have to time your attacks with the specific reload time of each unit you're kiting with/against. SURROUNDING: This technique is pretty self explanatory and usually applies to melee units. When facing a Terran mech army as Zerg for example, you'll want your zerglings to get within the mech ball in order for all the zerglings to be able to attack at the same time. Here's an example ; if you come in a nice ball of zerglings against a few sieged tanks you're pretty much screwed but if you drop them right onto the tanks from an overlord you'll be able to surround which will accomplish 2 things: first you all your zerglings will have a chance to take a bite out of those tanks and secondly the splash damage from the tanks will also hurt the nearby tanks in the ball making your attack that much more effective. Splitting your army is a good way to be able to surround, splitting is made easier through hotkeying(either by unit type or simply by numbers) Both these techniques are part of microing your units but not at the cost of not casting... Casting(using your units' abilities) is the most important part of micro. Micro is important but not as important as macro,(I can already hear the roars of disagreement...) what I mean is you have to keep producing units and expanding etc. while you're fighting a battle. Some players will lead a good fight only to realise they are up to 2000 minerals and 1500 gas with no reinforcements at their base to deal with a counter!!! I hope I helped! TB
One little thing to consider though, is that while good micro can help neutralize a bad situation, it is more macro than anything that determines whether you win or lose. I personally have very low APM, like 60 tops for a long game, but I manage to be in diamond league through macro. So make sure that when you do micro, its for a good reason. Too often I've seen somebody micro the **** out of a small group of units only to have them do very little damage relative to the time that the player took to micro them.
What exactly is a-right click? I feel like a noob for asking but I've never heard of it. What does it do?
isn't A-left click? when you have a unit(s) selected and you click "A", you click on a spot and it tells your unit(s) to go to that spot BUT if he/they encounter anything that is enemy, they will stop and attack it
Yeah it is left click, just tried it out. So you just use it when you are clicking to move your units? Or when you attack other units as well?
i use it to move my units as well, so that if my unit intercepts an enemy, i can see where they were going since it will be following it, or simply attack to kill automatically. Otherwise if i am not paying attention, my unit will just run by the enemy and i would have missed out on some valuable intel or get killed. I use it for almost every movement.
Hey everyone, I'm still very new to SC2 after having spent some time on SC. So far, the game mechanics and the pros/cons of each race have been kept. I used to play Z and I'd say macro is the most important thing. You can lose the fight by not "microing" but you'll definitely lose the war by messing with the macro. That way, focus on macro and if you have spare time, handle your units more specifically. I found this a good way to see my improvement (I'm slow...): the more complicated my attacks are, the more I progressed. But first improve the way you handle macro strategy before going deeper into the fight. My 2c of old SC. Maybe i'll change my mind later PS: really nice forum. Chosen to get further input!
