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.

Quote from Cardinal

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.

On a similar note, if you're trying to damage the mineral line, you can move units into it and hold position to target the workers without worrying about your units chasing aggressors. This works especially well with a group of Zerglings.

Quote from Tempz

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).

Quote from Cardinal

Quote from Tempz

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).

Lets have some lessons. I'll teach you some proper protoss macro, and this way you'll be able to see the difference in play. The difference between good macro and bad macro is actually ridiculously huge and the leading cause of players staying below master's league. I can try and show you the things you aren't quite yet noticing in your play, and tell you how to improve them. Interested?

Well there's thor builds, and there's tank builds, but there isn't a thor+tank build...

Saw some thor-tank out of mech terrans at MLG. Dump the minerals on blue flame hellions and zerg melts, provided that they don't get up to infestor broodlord.

Quote from FatalException

Saw some thor-tank out of mech terrans at MLG. Dump the minerals on blue flame hellions and zerg melts, provided that they don't get up to infestor broodlord.

Just mass roaches...