So, I'm playing Zerg. All those pros are telling me that as long as I outmacro my opponent, I should win by A moving. If I can have someone tell me that and SWEAR it will work, I'll do it.

I'm plat by the way.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1UN98vOKuk&playnext=1&list=PL329BDD535CB76B3A

ROOTDestiny claims that up to Diamond, mechanics are all that matters. To prove this, he plays several games with one of the worst strategies (mass Queens). However, his claim is that lower level players should work purely on mechanics (macro, micro, hotkeys), and disregard builds completely.

I think micro is still important. In Bronze/Silver there is almost no micro from the majority of players, so outmacroing should make you win. However, up at platinum, there is some micro going on, and if you just A-move, it would cost you in most situations.

TL;DR pro player says work on macro/micro/hotkeys, and build orders aren't as important.

Here's what you should be doing as Zerg:

1) Macro and learn basic counters. You know he is getting hellions then get roaches, if he's getting marines then get banelings. Naturally you can't just amass zerglings and rush in expecting to win against hellions with blue flame.

2) Expand often. You must have a good economy to beat P or T.

3) Creep. Everywhere. Spread those creep tumors like it is your fucking job. Your units will glide through the map like ice skates with rockets. Always keep your bases connected by creep, it makes it very easy to defend them all this way.

If you can generally do all of those things, a-moving is virtually foolproof at lower levels.

My problem is my multitasking... I usually do everything, creep, expanding and macro, but when I'm at 3 bases and I have to keep track of my opponent's base and unit counts, I fumble and my APM lowers.

1 Hotkey for each queen. 1 Hotkey for all hatcheries. Each hatch has waypoint to it's own mineral field, and the other waypoint for all of them is set to your units staging area (where your army is). Synchronise larva spitting, it's easy enough to get right and means you have maximum larva available to you at any given point. 3 Base zerg requires a macro-hatch, unless your queen spitting is phenomenal and you're making broodlords, corrupters, infestors and ultralisks. Don't neglect upgrades. Sacrifice overlords to get intel. Control xel'nagas at all times.

I've been copying Spanishiwa's extremely late gas 'build'. It pretty much relies on mass queen and fast expansion, then you get quadruple gas and double evo chamber along with your chosen tech path (roach/hydra), (infestor/baneling), (mutalisk,zergling) etc. By the time you've got 4 gas geysers, you should know with 99% certainty what your opponent's unit composition is. He will either have moved out against you early whereby your queens and spinecrawler transfuse combo undoubtedly held out. Otherwise he has also expanded. Notice timings. Know your enemy. If you know tanks can be produced say at 7 minutes (guessing), around 7 minutes would be a good time to sacrifice an overlord to see if he is gearing up for a tank push. What time can he pop out a double medivac? That would mean that 30 seconds later is a good time to have your queens in your mineral line or around the most likely point of air-entry into your main. Is he going for fast collosus tech? Know what time he can start or finish a robo support bay and again, sacrifice an overlord at around this time. You don't even need to sacrafice overlords, a zergling running up his ramp can tell you 90% of his unit composition. Lots of stalkers means he is unlikely to be teching up. Lots of zealots means he is likely to be teching up. Lots of sentries would suggest teching up or expansion play.

A lot of people I play against in Platinum seem to attribute Zerg to have this extreme vulnerability to air. Which is true. And it's the exact reason I like Spanishiwa's style. Two or three Queens hold their own against 2 voidrays. What's even better is when you combine nydus with queens and a heavy ground force. Baneling drops and overlord tech is also pretty damn valuable. I love doing a timing push with +1 melee, 8 banelings, 2 overlords with speed and transport, it's not really high on things to expect from a zerg.

Zerg are a reactionary race, I don't agree with the statement that 'as long as my macro is higher than my opponents I can just a-move over his base and sit back while he says gg'. Roach, Hydra, Infestor will lose to Zealot, Stalker, Colossus. Hell, it even loses to Zealot, Stalker, Sentry if he has good forcefields and upgrades. If you really want to out-macro your opponent you have to lay the hurt on his mineral lines at some point. 7 or 8 mutalisks, zergling run-by, baneling drops, nydus harassment, infested terrans etc...

If all else fails, just fucking mass expand. In Gold and lower people hardly ever scout and I find even in Platinum games that if I send an early drone scout to an opposite corner, wait for his probe to get to my base, and then put down a hatch there while faking wanting to build a hatch at my front and instead going fast speedling is a killer opening. All the time he'll think you are on one base, but you have a spire and a roach den hidden at the other side of the map...

Watch Day9, watch replays, learn what counters what, learn to scout, macro macro macro.

Well thanks Cardinal, when I'll start playing again, (when I'll have enough of the old DooM, Hexen and heretic that I downloaded a few days ago) I'll remember that, and I'll perhaps get to practice it against silvers or golds, since my macro will have regressed a lot.

- Remember to scout as early as you can
- Scouts helps you to counter your opponents easier and to see if they are going to cheese like a proxy
- Read above learn basic counters to your opponents units
-3 m's, Micro, Macro, Map control
- The problem with zerg is that most of their units are meant to counter other units (this is why you should scout as much as you can)
- Zerg is all about speed so use creep tumors alot, this will help speed up you units and make defending/attacking all that much more speedier
- Know when you should expand, zerg can keep them in there base but you need more bases to replenish your army
-If your cheesing and have an advantage start expanding
-Keep queens spawning larvae

This link really helped me alot...
http://www.squidoo.com/starcraft-2-zerg-strategy-guide

Watch Husky or HD's videos as they will help you somewhat, i do the same thing with cod videos =p.

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=208343

Macro and mechanics are all the matter up to the pro level, macro is all that matters up to high master level.

I disagree with that statement on so many levels.

There is more to it than macro that people don't talk about. The meta-game and scouting in combination with macro and general game knowledge are what will get you into Diamond/low masters. What's the use in having amazing macro if you can't tell a fast banshee harass or can't spot a medivac drop? Know what timing pushes people sort of go for, scout well, keep timings in your head to know when to expect what from what sort of opponent. Make in-game decisions - not for yourself, but decisions that affirm what you know.

For example, my opponent has 3 stalkers at 5 minutes - he therefore must have been chronoboosting off 2 Gateways, and his gateway tech will finish shortly - could be in for some early harass.

Or, my opponent is terran and has 2 gas + barracks when I first scout his base at 2 minutes. This means he his gearing up for tank play / fast banshee / medivac harass.

Gain the most out of your scouting by knowing when to scout and WHAT to scout. If you see an opponent has taken an expansion you wern't expecting - check how much gas is remaining in the geysers, this is a good way to benchmark yourself against him. Assuming he is a good player, his gas/minerals will remain low throughout the game, and therefore you can infer that if he has mined a lot of gas from this secret expansion you've only just found - that he is investing in upgrades / tech / tier 2 or 3 units.

I've played at both that level of play, and at my level of play, and from experience I can say you'll beat most of whatever people are doing at lower levels (and by most I mean 95% of games) with just a lot of stuff from proper macro.

Think of it this way: yes you are right reacting to your opponent is a good thing. However you can't do the reacting part properly unless you can macro properly.

I don't really get why you disagree, it's not really refutable. You disagree with me on so many levels? Well every high level player I know agrees with me on all levels, even Artosis and Tasteless on GSL.

I actually agree on so many levels. I've spent a lot of time watching pros play, replays, casts, etc. and thought, "Alright, I know how to play this perfectly." I did some great scouting, some worker harass... placed in Bronze. I lost every single placement match, and two Bronze matches after that.

Spent some time just working on hotkeys, APM, not floating resources, and good worker count, and I won several games in a row. Players in lower-leagues can't handle good macro (example: I went marines vs baneling/roach and won with a-move).

Not that my macro is any good, which actually emphasizes the point.

Nobody gets blue-flame Hellions in lower-leagues but I bet with decent macro on your side, mass Zerglings would win. And actually, if you get a surround (which isn't hard considering lower-level micro), Zerglings aren't too bad against Hellions (as wrong as that sounds).

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jun 1 2011, 2:56 am by Roy.

You will throw away your Zerglings against his blue flame hellions. While he's microing those furiously and defeating your army, you'll have another the same size while his production abilities are sitting unused. Then you'll roll over him.

The game is pretty dull in my opinion until you get to high enough levels, micro is almost never important enough to make up for any sloppy play.

You're missing the context. Zerglings on creep can, with micro, surround hellions and destroy them. But this is irrelevant, I was speaking of a pure macro style of play where all you do is amass an army and a-move into your opponent. Supposing your opponent did invest in blue flame for hellions, then you can bet your ass he's going to have quite a few. More than enough to toast your zerglings and harass you all the same by a simple a-move. I'd put the number of zerglings to defeat a hellion at 10:1 in groups, if even that, since their splashes contribute heavily. Supposing you maxed out your army with 300 zerglings a mere 30+ hellions could destroy them.

Obviously in lower-level play players that focus on micro will have intense macro slips, and players that focus on macro will have equally impressive micro slips. It's really not worth the time to micro if you can out-macro your opponent by a significant value, so that would make the obvious decision.

Aw, who am I kidding, I do this all the time damn marines and my desire to micro them.

I would assume by the second wave, if you just lost to 30 Hellions, you could hit "R" instead of "Z." If your macro is better, you'll win in lower-level play almost every single time.

Yes, only you will have suffered a loss of 7500 minerals, and supposing you kill all of the hellions, he will have only lost 3000. So I am to ask, macro with what?

I think the better question is: how did he get 30 Hellions with blue-flame so early, and why can't I re-mass? I should work on my macro. (On a side note, I've never seen anyone randomly go pure-Hellion).

If you're streamlining Zerglings in and see two Factories with Reactors, it's time to swap to another unit. If you sat back and just massed 300 Zerglings and see that he has 30 Hellions, you say "Well played, sir; good game" and play another game to improve your macro. (And maybe mass up more than one type of unit so you aren't just hard-countered).

I see your point with scouting, but being able to counter and barely hold on in lower-leagues isn't going to improve your skill as fast as working on macro. Since macro (especially for Zerg) is a multi-tasking activity, you'll become faster and have an important aspect of the game automated so that you can more easily focus on scouting/countering/microing.

Edit: Semi-Relevant:

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Jun 1 2011, 5:20 am by Roy.

Holy crap that's good micro 0_o

lol r u srs?

He was controlling on hellion against players who didn't seem to know they had Zerglings. And the game lasted 16 minutes and none of the Zerg players had speed? Half of the time the Zerglings were just on a-move and idling (you can tell because they would follow the hellion a certain distance and then return back to where they were idling...) And I doubt that was player control forcing that 'attack and back' manouvre since that's just retarded - apm would've been better spent surrounding the hellion or splitting your lings.

Well, Cecil. I don't really disagree - it's just that everyone goes on about 'macro' as this imba uber leet technique that will elevate you all the way into Diamond or whatever. Maybe I'm just speaking from my personal experience here, but in any melee 1v1 game I find myself in, the game always comes down to positioning in a battle, controlling certain chokes / areas, getting good concave/surface area or a surround on your opponent, baiting and kiting units and using distractionary attacks (such as: lololol nydus in your main! by the way armies punching you in the face now as you look elsewhere).

And trust me I don't want to sound cocky when I say this, but if macro is all it takes to be elevated from 'lower-level' game play then I must be 'elevated' - since about 90% of my games come down to stuff I mentioned in the previous paragraph.

I'm not discounting that 'macro' is a large part of SC2 and obviously in any given 'level' of gameplay, if your opponent is ahead of you in harvesters/income - you're generally behind. And then each race has it's own macro-specific mechanics: such as dropping mules, adding sufficient barracks/factories, getting add-ons when appropriate... spitting larva, spreading creep, scouting with overlords, expanding... warpgate cycling, chronoboosting forges/robo facilities, knowing when to boost our probes / when to focus on upgrades etc... then the obvious things like don't get supply blocked, use decent hotkeys, learn timings etc.

But what happens to people when the inevitable 10 pool happens? Or that reaper harass gets a few worker kills? How do you react to a baneling bust? Blue flame hellion drop? Siege tank contain? warp prism zealots? Dark templars? Fast bunker rush? proxy gate ways that you've only just scouted? cannon rush etc? Your macro won't help you one bit if you panic and get destroyed. Macro takes a good 10 minutes of game time to develop (probably not wording this properly), but 20 workers can die in a split second if you're not scouting (ie: investing time in doing non-macro related things) - again didn't really phrase this well, the jist of it was that you can lose 30 workers in <5 seconds if you don't realise your opponent is into that kind of thing. I don't know - would you count scouting as part of macro or micro? :s

I am by no means a top level player, lol that's laughable me even feeling the need to say that - but regardless I just typed 5 paragraphs on starcraft 2 and that makes me feel cocky. :3

I guess just do whatever works for you, and since this is a pro-tip thread here's one for you:
If something is in your mineral line, you can put all your workers on Hold Position. It'll force whatever is harassing you to require to be manually told to target individual workers (provided you have a military unit nearby). This has saved me in a few lol-lol-lol situations when some douchebag would warp-prism drop 4 zealots in my main super early on and all I would have is a couple stalkers. He just A-Moves to the mineral line, but when the probes are on hold position, the zealots can't path through them and will try attack the stalkers due to the AI targetting priority - resulting in useless Zealots.

Most people would either keep their probes mining, or make them all attack the zealots - or run away. Each of these options results in losing more probes or losing more mining time :3 (which means his harass was super effective).

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jun 2 2011, 8:06 pm by Cardinal.

Have you ever considered you're just not good enough at macro? Cecil is diamond (maybe master?) and has been talked about by people such as Artosis. I'd MUCH rather believe his advice (that he used himself to get to diamond) than yours.

Macro alone will get you to Diamond/Masters easily. You might get build order countered every once in a while, sure. No one said it would get you there undefeated.

The game only comes down to positioning when you have similarly sized armies. Players in Bronze->Gold are inefficient as hell, Platinum players tend to know one build order well enough that they can be said to have decent macro up until their timing attack, and Diamond players are generally getting an idea of how to macro. At Masters, games can be decided by good micro because while doing so the players are also macroing effectively and keeping aware of everything else necessary, so they're not suffering by that focus. That's much rarer in the lower levels, players just don't acknowledge it because they rarely watch replays.