GGC’s DLs are really slow, so http://wc.forelmashi.com/files/gg/GGClient_setup.exe

DIAF if you post the link somewhere public.

“What does APM have to do with micro?”

Higher APM just means you click more.

“Is there some relationship between clicking more and micro?”

Not really.

APM = MICRO?

There is one school of thought that says you should spam actions to raise your APM and eventually the spam will magically turn into micro. I say bulls***. I think you should get rid of unnecessary actions so they don’t distract you. The key is to stay calm and keep everything on the screen in your attention instead of spamming actions and getting caught up in one thing. Everyone has probably experienced at one time or another, like while watching a replay, totally missing something during the game. “I didn’t even realize that happened.” If this happens to you, you really need to just STOP clicking and doing so much stuff and first learn how to WATCH the game and be aware of what is happening. Admittedly, this still happens to me a lot especially if I haven’t been playing or haven’t warmed up; I coined a term for it back in my 220-200 AT days, I call it “game awareness.” The first step towards improving your micro is working on your game awareness, not increasing your APM.

Tying it Together

So what’s next? After you can watch the game when playing without getting lost is when micro begins. You want to stay calm and go through the actions. Staff a unit, pass staff, staff unit, pass it again. Select footman, move it back, select group, deselect footman and regroup. It should all be very smooth.

When you lose your step and the smoothness breaks, for example if your opponents just really outmicroes you and you slip when a footman didn’t get deselected, the best thing to do is just stop and regain composure. It’s like if you’re playing in an orchestra or something and you get lost, you’re a measure behind. You have to stop before you can start again.

i have a song i want to use to use for a video, but no video =(

The first and most important way to improve your micro is to use good unit groups. I’ve written about this before in Hotkey for Success.

There are two basic points I think about in my group design:
1. I want to be able to move my whole army in few actions
2. I want easy access to invididual unit types

With these two basics in mind, you can make your groups. More points to consider:
3. Units that attack together should be in the same group. e.g., footmen and breakers
4. Units that do not move together should not be in the same group. e.g., usually ground and air

It’s usually not possible to perfectly achieve all 4 points and the balance between them is up to you.

The benefits of point 1 should be obvious, but it is difficult to achieve with a maximum group size of 12 units. To help with this I have some groups follow (right click on a hero/unit to follow it) my hero, such as priests, tanks, mortars. This works for basic army movement but in combat it is inadequate.

A lot has already been said in the “Hotkey for Success” post so I won’t repeat it here.

Introduction

Micro Matters is going to be a semi-organized series about micro-related topics. It is not going to be a full system on how to micro; one, because my ’system’ most likely isn’t the best and two, it wouldn’t be complete anyway as there are lots of things I don’t do very well. Finally, because I’m just FAKING it I actually don’t know what I’m talking about. =)

What Is Micro?

Simply put, I’m going to use the term ‘micro’ to refer to anything you do on the smaller scale of play. Unit usage and creeping are examples of micro. Conversely, ‘macro’ will refer to the larger picture, the overall game; things like controlling units at different spots on the map, resource management, remembering to build your buildings, etc.

Parts

This will be updated as posts are finished.

ferf said i should add a search and that was a good enough excuse to work on the site so 2nd version of demon hunter reps is up. changes: sort by site, event, matchup, map as well as a search. i guess i’ll stop deleting old database records so that the search is more useful.

oh yeah… izireps (the replay database most commonly used) has some really fucking weird code for the page numbers.. didn’t even notice til i rewrote a lot of stuff today. here’s what it had:

$tmpsum = ($all_num_of_rows / $REPSPROSEITE) + 1.0;
if ($tmpsum == ((floor($all_num_of_rows / $REPSPROSEITE + 1.0)))) $tmpsum–;
for ($i=1; $i<(floor($tmpsum)+1); $i++){
 if ($i == $seite){
  echo $i.’ | ‘;
 }elseif (!empty($show)){
  echo’<a href=”‘.$replaypath.’file=show_replays&show=’.$show.’&seite=’.$i.’” >’.$i.’</a> | ‘;
    }else{
  echo’<a href=”‘.$replaypath.’file=show_replays&seite=’.$i.’”">’.$i.’</a> | ‘;
 }
}

dunno where the guy came up with that.. it’s even worse cause in the for loop it’s going to calculate floor($tmpsum)+1 every single time. the value never changes so you don’t want to do that

broke my losing streak in clan wars against cruncher today in wcip quals. replays: lost temple – terenas stand

so let’s see today is sunday the 23rd. after i wake up i’ll work on something for this blog :D dunno how it will turn out though i might decide it sucks while doing it. next few days i absolutely have to finish this other project i’ve been doing i’ve already wasted about 20 fucking days away “working on it”… battle tanks games take like 1 hour +.. dota is around there too…

want to make my own blog template for this site.. that’s going to take a good few hours of work. that will come LATER though so i best not even think about it. it’s when i think too much i end up doing nothing

so i guess i’ll put this on this blog instead of my personal one. i got around to reading this ebook i should have read a million years ago and that’s really why i could just work and finish version 2 of demonreps in a few consecutive hours. i’ll just quote a little bit

“do you know how to tell a successful person from a[n] unsuccessful one? the easiest way is by the language they use. when you talk to a successful person about his goals, he’ll tell you what he plans to do and when it will be done. when an unsuccessful person talks about his goals (assuming he even has one), you’ll hear something along the lines of, ‘i hope to do this someday.’ here’s a clue for all you losers out there; someday never comes.”

so DO IT. DO IT NOW.

i guess there were rumours he would leave or something (i never heard about them) and he posted on replays.net forum that he will not be leaving according to gosugamers.

as usual with my scene news post, there is something fun in the comments.

#1 flamethrower37 5 @ 2007-12-19 17:33:50
mouz without fly would be a cake without cream

#2 xG.Nevermind 1 @ 2007-12-19 17:55:40
Except they have Tod, Sase and Happy.

#3 Dectilon 1 @ 2007-12-19 17:57:26
Yeah, that’s the cake. Fly is the cream! ^^

and ud >>>>>>>>>>> hu

ahah ahahahahaa! nice joke blizzard!

but yeah i’m playing like ridiculously terrible

ahahahahaa life sucks ahahaha

“afk” go kill my towers kthx

today i was planning on making a video thing about basic micro concepts

but then i lost to someone i don’t think i should lose to. i dunno everytime this happens i stop giving advice cause i feel like i don’t have any qualifications to do so.

so no video. =)