Micro
Written by HautamakiProof read and formatted by epidiOn Pictures by Zoxxer and Raistlin |
Microing a Reaver drop
This is something that takes very low hand speed yet is still regarded by many as a defining skill of Protoss players. For a long time in my newbie days I disliked High Templar immensely and so became very proficient with Reavers as an alternative.There are a few things you must do in a Reaver drop.» 1st - the preparation - scout with an observer for likely targets wherever possible. Never send in a Reaver without pre-scouting the drop zone. Hotkey the Shuttle. Try to never bring a lone Reaver. One Dragoon is better then nothing, two Zealots is far better then one Dragoon, and a second Reaver is a little better then two Zealots.
» 2nd - be careful - Never drop onto a spot that is defended. A Reaver and a Shuttle are a major investment. Never risk losing one. If the enemy has four Dragoons on your drop zone there is a good chance you can drop and even get a Scarab into his mineral line, but no way will that one Scarab be worth the cost of your Reaver, Shuttle and whatever else was in it.
“ A Reaver and a Shuttle are a major investment. Never risk losing one.” |
» 3rd - be persistent - Just because you're careful doesn't mean you should give up if he's blocking a drop on his mineral line. A Reaver and a Shuttle are a major investment and not using them is almost as bad as losing them. Therefore try a few things: one thing is to fein an attack on his front to try to lure his defenses away from his mineral line and drop your Reaver into his mineral line as he moves to the front of his base, then run your frontal army away before it gets massacred. Another idea is to drop an undefended part of his base.
“ A decoy shuttle is good for luring away defenses.” |
» 4th - the actual drop - left click the unit picture in the shuttle bay to drop whenever possible, its a lot more reliable. If there is defense near, drop your decoy cargo (Zealots or Dragoon) first to draw fire, then your Reaver. If you are hitting a naked mineral line, drop your Reaver first to allow the enemy the least amount of reaction time possible before your Reaver starts shooting. It's safe to drop on a single cannon in this way, or a single Dragoon or even two Dragoons. Three is pushing it unless you have two Zealots or two Reavers. Make sure your Reaver focuses on a Probe. You want to right click a Probe that has the following attributes: it is within Reaver range (so that it doesn't need to move to fire), it is heading towards the mineral line (i.e. is not currently mining or returning a mineral), and it is close to the middle of the mineral line. By the time the Scarab gets to the Probe, it will be mining or close enough that you'll get maximum effect. However, if the enemy is quick and moves away all his Probes your scarab might screw up and do nothing. That's luck. Once his Probes move away, it's time to get the hell out of there. I usually forget about the decoy cargo and just save the Reaver, but sometimes you can save the Zealots or Dragoon too. If you lose the Reaver and Shuttle, your drop was worth it if you kill at least 8 Probes early in the game. “ If you save the Reaver and Shuttle, you get psychological edge of him having to play more defensively for the rest of the game.” |
| 1 - in the minerals 2 - right behind the minerals 3 - from a distance |
Microing a Psionic Storm Raid
This is something a lot more difficult then a Reaver drop, but potentially a lot more explosive. You'll load a Shutttle generally with at least two Templar and some combination of Dark Templars and Zealots (Dark Templars if you scouted a lack of detection, otherwise Zealots). In general the same rules apply to Psi Storm raids as to Reaver drops. Remember that you can't Psi Storm buildings, so unless you scout a mineral line that you can hit, don't bother.Dropping the Templar and storming with them takes a lot more control then doing the same with a Reaver, but here is the technique that I use. Force move the Shuttle to a destination past the point where you want to drop your units, and then left click on their portraits as you go over the drop zone. The Shuttle keeps moving as the guys unload. This will get the shuttle out of the way so that you can select the Templar more easily. Also it doesn't matter much what units you drop first because the enemy AI will switch focus to your decoy Zealots anyways (whereas if it were a Reaver, their AI focus would stay on the Reaver). If you're dropping onto Sunken Colonies with Dark Templars and no overlords are around, the Sunken Colonies will keep attacking your Templars, so act fast. I wouldn't bother dropping Dark Templar and Templar near tanks with no detection as the tanks need only two shots to kill a Templar, so tanks means instant death for your Templars without a Zealot to draw fire. Anyways, with the shuttle out of the way, you can select the Templars and storm the mineral line a little easier, then pick them up and run for it. Either that, or simply have the Templar hotkeyed as well.
Microing vs Hydralisks/Zerglings with Zealot/Templar
I did a lot of experimenting with this and found that for someone of my mouse speed and lack of hotkeying, it's most efficient to ignore Zealots and just concentrate on storming once the battle starts. Obviously if you can see him first and storm him first while his guys are standing still thats a big plus (Observers help there).
“ A good Hydralisk dancer will have you doing more damage to yourself than he does to you.” |
Microing Dragoon/Reaver armies
Dragoon/Reaver armies are relatively cost efficiently weak compared to many other Protoss ground combinations. Pure Dragoons flanking can be your bane, in addition to pure Hydralisks flanking. Tanks obviously massacre, so I won't even bother talking about them. The real key to a Dragoon/Reaver army is formation. You want your Dragoons in a line facing the enemy with your Reavers about one square behind them (about equal to the size of a goon). If the enemy tries to focus on your Reavers, by all means pick them up in a Shuttle if you have one. If not, there's not much you can do as running away won't get your Reavers anywhere fast. Most of the micro in that sort of fight is in the preparation. Making sure that he isn't flanking you and making sure that your Reavers aren't too close to the front to be focused on, yet aren't too far away that the enemy will be out of their range. It's difficult to get them to move in concert with goons in good formation but practice will help you more then anything. At any rate, I'd almost never advocate getting Reavers against Zerg, and definitely never going for a Reaver/Dragoon ground force against Terran, so the only way you usually see it is PvP, where one or both players go Reaver drop at first and then try to attack the other player's expansion with Dragoons. A Reaver on defense with damage upgrade and proper Dragoon support can be a real boost in PvP though. The only thing is it's difficult to attack an all goon user because of the danger of getting flanked. So you'll often see Reaver droppers getting overpowered if their drop fails.
Microing Dragoon vs. Dragoon
In small numbers (12 or less apiece), focusing fire and dancing is the key to victory. Tell all your Dragoons to attack the closest enemy Dragoon, meanwhile pulling back the goon which he is focusing on. If his Dragoon gets out of range, don't chase it, but instead switch targets to another one that's close to you. If you have really good handspeed, make only one of your Dragoons chase his wounded one, otherwise you'll have to let it go until it comes back into range. Chasing after it with every unit while getting shot at is definitely not cost effective. In larger battles, focus firing becomes less important because your goons will be wasting shots (it takes less then 12 shots for a Dragoon to kill a Dragoon, so having more then 12 units focusing on one enemy is pointless) and because it's very difficult to get 12+ goons in range to attack the same enemy goon (meaning that several goons will just be milling about in confusion not shooting at anything). It's still worth your while to periodically pull back injured goons that are getting fired upon by multiple units though, so keep your eyes peeled for that detail. Most important of all is your starting formation. You want your Dragoons to form an arc around his units, which are ideally in a filled box or circle. That way, all or most of your own Dragoons will be in range to fire, while many of his will not. I'd say that with an ideal formation against a bad formation, 16 Dragoons could easily take on 20 or even more, depending on the enemy's reaction. So don't attack move into an enemy line formation with a clump of your own units. Spread them out as much as the terrain allows into your own line formation and try to break up his formation with hit and run attacks into the center of his line, drawing them towards you. Obviously any time you can set up a flank on him you certainly should. Many PvP games come down to a big Dragoon vs. Dragoon battle and many people get decimated even when the numbers are relatively close, without even knowing why. Chances are it's their formation.Microing Zealot/Templar against Dragoons
This is obviously extremely similar to microing against Hydralisks but a little bit harder (to micro, not to win) for two reasons: 1 - Dragoons are large, and thus you can't storm as many at one time and 2 - goons are a lot tougher, meaning that storm alone rarely kills them. Zealot/Templar is definitely a cost effective unit choice against all goons provided the Zealots are speedy, but it does have to be microed well. First off, never send in the Zealots before you storm, you want to storm first so that the Dragoons are running around dancing it instead of attacking the Zealots on the way in. Second off, remember that storm is not necessarily your primary weapon. Unless you have like 8 Templars and 8 Zealots, the majority of your damage will be dealt by Zealots. Storm's purpose is to soften up the Dragoons and give the Zealots some cover so they can get in close. That means take care not to storm your own Zealots. Unlike battles against Hydralisks, it's not okay to indiscriminately storm everything in sight. Once your Zealots are engaging Dragoons in close combat, your job is basically done. Storm only if you can be sure that goons backing away from it won't lure your Zealots into the after-effects of the storm. Assuming equal numbers of Zealots as goons and close to equal upgrades, once your Zealots get in close the Dragoons are destined for an early grave. The Dragoon's big hope is in being able to kill off some Zealots on the way in. Make them dodge storms and they won't get their chance. After that let the Zealots do their work.
Microing drops onto well defended islands
The truth is even speedy Shuttles make crappy transports if you have to drop onto a decent amount of turrets or spores (cannons are less dangerous to shuttles since they switch focus to your attack units once their dropped) and they are just deplorable against Goliaths or microed Hydralisks. However, there are two tricks to get your loads off safely. If it is your natural cliff being dropped by a large Terran drop force you can be in real trouble (especially at 9 on Lost Temple, where Terran takes away two expansions) and probably don't have the resources on hand to save yourself, nor can you spare to go without two expansions while you make them. Generally, the Terran drops some absurd amount of Goliaths on the cliff (~12) with only one or two Tanks. Those Goliaths are more then capable of blasting the one or two Shuttles you have out of the sky. However, you probably have another choice. Force move some Zealots and all your Templar to right below the cliff. With only one or two tanks it will be a while before they focus on your Templar. Use a shuttle or observer to vision the high ground (or let his Goliaths give it to you by firing down on your Zealots) and storm them. The Terran user will be forced to pull back his Goliaths as you storm them. That may give you a chance to unload four Zealots onto his cliff safely. Although four Zealots won't do much to that many Goliaths, while he's dancing around fighting them you can unload four more and repeat as necessary. As long as his Goliaths don't get a chance to shoot down your shuttle, you still have a chance to end the threat to your cliff.
While that may sound pretty reasonable and logical, many times the Protoss player is well ahead in the game suddenly finds his cliff occupied, promptly throws away a loaded shuttle or two to the Goliaths, and basically has the whole game turn against him in an instant. Keep your head, as long as you have some Templars with mana you have a chance to stay in the game.
Later in a game you may find yourself wondering how you're going to get Terran off an island which he has erected 15 or more Turrets onto. You'd need at least 5 Shuttles to have a hope at unloading anything, obviously all the Shuttles would be forfeit, many wouldn't get to unload at all, and there's no guarantee whatsoever that what does land will be able to even defeat the mining SCVs in combat. Not a very happy situation. But there is one thing you can try. Rather then making 8 Shuttles, take advantage of the Turret AI. They always attack fighting units first. Load up two Shuttles with Zealots, Archons, or Dark Templars, and maybe a Templar or two, and make an escort of four or five Corsairs. I don't mean using Disruption Web, because if you just discovered this island and you have no StarGate it will take you too long to get the mana and wait for the research to bother (unless you plan to use Disruption Web later for some reason). Disruption Web is one way to take care of turrets (although its duration is pretty abysmal right now, should cost 75 for that amount of time), but just decoying them works just as well. Force move your Corsairs to the middle of the island and then shift click a few rally points for them to move around to to make sure they don't run away. Right behind the Corsairs (and I do mean right behind, because Turrets can kill Corsairs surprisingly quickly and then turn on your Shuttles) send in the Shuttles and unload. If all goes well you should have unloaded your full cargo. You might even be able to save your shuttles by running them away right away. Your Corsairs will probably be forfeit, but its well worth it to take out an island expansion, especially that heavily fortified. The mineral cost of 15-20 Turrets could very well be more then what he actually mined from it before you took the island back, which would really be a blow to him. Or suppose you're going Carriers and the guy has all those turrets. It will take two or three Carriers forever to wipe out that defense, especially if hes repairing and rebuilding turrets. Just bring a Shuttle or two along with the Carriers. While the Turrets (and possibly Goliaths too) are happily blasting Interceptors out of the sky your Shuttles can safely unload Zealots, Dark Templars, or Templar to give your Carriers a lot of extra punch. Once you've got yourself an extra gas expansion you can start mixing in Arbiters as well, which are almost always worth their absurdly high cost.
The same trick of using Corsairs/Interceptors to decoy anti-air units works in many circumstances. You can use it to help you drop onto Goliaths assaulting your cliff, same with Hydralisks/Lurkers doing the same (though Carriers vs Zerg is almost always asking for trouble).
Microing vs. Terran Metal
A lot of mediocre toss players have real trouble with this one. I know I did. I used to try all kinds of things like dropping Reavers onto tanks, mind controlling with Dark Archons, rushing to Disruption Web tech. Silly things that Protoss players will try when they don't know what to do. Well the bottom line is that it's actually simple. When Protoss players get smashed by a metal army, its probably for one of two reasons - either the Terran just has a much bigger army (doesn't matter how you micro, 12 Zealots and 6 Dragoons cannot defeat 12 Vultures and 24 Tanks) or Terran has a much better upgraded army (3-3 metal vs 0-0-0 toss is dismal). It's not because he's outmicroing you. Basically all you really have to do is stay even in production and throw stuff at him at the right time. The right time is pretty subjective and nothing but experience can help you there. As for the throwing, well, here's a few tips.
» 1st - send in the Observers/Dragoons first to clear mines as far as you can before getting shot by Tanks. If his Vultures come out to play, shoot them too, just don't get lured into Tank range. If there's lower numbers of units at play, like maybe 12-20 Protoss ground vs. maybe 6-10 Vultures and six or so Tanks then it may be worth your while to suicide some Zealots to clear mines. Send them in in groups of two or three (since one will die to Tanks too soon to do anything) and force attack into the Tanks. With luck you'll pull Mines with you, damaging the Tanks. Also, if you happen to notice a bunch of Vultures laying mines in a tight area, sending in one Zealot might be very fortuitous. At the very least you'll take out all or most of the mines, and at the best you might get a pile of Vultures with it. After you've done as much Mine clearing as you can, send in everything at once. Dragoons/ Templars/Zealots/Dark Templars/Archons, the whole smack of guys at the same time.» 2nd - flanking helps a bit. While it won't hurt his army much, since tank range pretty much takes out the notion that you'll engage him without some of his units being able to reach you and fire back, it does help you get your guys in on him at the same time better, and naturally spreads you out a bit more, decreasing the effectiveness of Mines and Tank splash.
» 3rd - Storm only Tanks that you think won't otherwise die before firing. Theres no sense in storming a tank surrounded by four Zealots and a dt. If you notice two tanks right beside each other its tempting to storm them both, but if there's six Zealots running towards them you'll probably do more harm than good unless you aim it perfectly. Storm a Tank further back instead, or storm a clump of Vultures laying mines. If you notice more then two Vultures laying Mines at the same time in a small area, go ahead and storm it, it's worth it for eliminating the Mines and doing some damage to all the Vultures. Also, a Vulture laying a Mine is a stationary target and thus totally vulnerable to Storm. Storm clumps of Goliaths at every opportunity of course.
» 4th - if you're not using Templars in the battle, you can sometimes get away without microing once you've sent the guys in. So take advantage of the time to do other things that require your attention, such as producing your next army. Or better yet, take advantage of the fact that he probably is microing his units. Coordinating a Storm raid with a major attack is a great way to deal two heavy blows to Terran at once. Since his attention is on the battle, he won't be able to move his scvs out of the way of your psi storms, ensuring almost total success.
Microing Dragoons vs. Psionic Storm
Psionic Storm can do a lot of damage to you very quick, no doubt about it. The best thing to do when hit by a Storm is pull straight back, not to the sides, and definitely not forward. Going side to side or forward allows the enemy troops to easily get several free shots on you. Pulling back at least makes it harder for him to hit you. Don't bother trying to focus fire on the Templars too much, they'll almost always get off all their storms before you can kill them with Dragoons. Better to try to minimize the damage the storms do than sacrifice 12 Dragoons to kill an 18 mana Templar.Microing vs. Lurkers without detection
This is a very difficult situation for Protoss. Doing hit and run with goons is one possibility for sure. You want to delay him as much as possible with your Zealots too by forcing him to burrow and unburrow all the way to your base. Be careful though as you don't want to sacrifice 12 Zealots for the sake of a few seconds. If the Zerg has his lurkers where he wants them hit and run obviously no longer works well. Say he is burrowed near your robo trying to kill it before an observer can be made. What to do? If you have an Archon, force move a Zealot over top of the burrowed Lurker and tell him to hold position. Then have the Archon attack the Zealot; the Archon's splash damage will hurt the Lurker. If he has many lurkers firing at the Zealot it may take a few Zealots but Lurkers are a good deal more expensive so don't worry about it. No Archons? I have tried this trick with Reavers as well and for some reason or another they just didn't work. Maybe it was because my Zealot wasn't exactly over top of the Lurker so the splash wasn't hurting it. Maybe it was a bug. I'm not sure. If you're desperate you may as well try it anyways. At any rate, if a Reaver fires at a clump of burrowed Zerglings, all of them die, not just the one you targeted, so I'm pretty sure the Reaver should work against the Lurker too, so long as the Zealot is positioned right. If you have no Reavers or Archons, then move a Zealot in range of the Lurkers firing such that the Lurker misses the Observatory. The zerg player will have to force the Lurker to fire upon the observatory since its AI will tell it to hit the Zealot instead. The Zerg player may not notice that his Lurker isn't shooting at the Observatory for a few seconds, buying you valuable time. The same can be true if he wants to hit a mineral line. Don't send in your troops in a blind rush to kill the Lurkers, send them to a spot where the Lurker's spines will not be hitting your mineral line when the Lurker is shooting at your Probes. That gives you a few valuable instants to get your Probes away before they are massacred. Also, one thing many people do is have their Zealots hold position over their ramp to keep the lurker from climbing. Thats fine but only use one or two Zealots at a time. You don't want the lurkers shooting up the cliff hurting all of your Zealots at once or you'll lose a whole army in seconds.
Microing a break out attack against Lurker containment
This is a very difficult situation, and often unavoidable as well. I'd say that as many as 40% of my PvZ games where I get an expansion he will attempt to Lurker contain me. The important thing is to keep your head and not panic. Just because you are contained does not mean the Zerg secured 6 expansions and is creating 20 5-3 Ultralisks while you're sitting in your base. It can take me as long as 5-6 minutes to break out, but I still win a lot more than I lose. Here are the steps to go through in your break out attempts.
» 1st - Storm harass constantly. Using your Observers, Storm whatever offers itself, even if it's a lone Lurker. If it is a lone lurker, send in a ranged goon with the Templar. After storming the Lurker, let the ranged Dragoon take a shot at it, which will kill it. That's if the enemy Hydralisks let you. They may very well swarm in, especially if he had advance warning of your Templar coming in by using an Overlord.
» 2nd - Build multiple Observers. Hydralisks almost always kill Observers every time one gets close enough to spot a Lurker for you. Upgrade the sight range of your Observers to help out in that respect. Storm the Hydralisks when they come out to kill the Observer, and make sure you always have another one ready. That means almost constant Observer production out of your Robotics, since you have to be very proactive in taking the fight to his containment force with Storm.
» 3rd - Back off his Overlords as much as possible. You will of course have several ranged goons - use them to back his Overlords off into his own ranks as much as you can without sacrificing anything. If you have a StarGate, building a Corsair for this purpose alone is worthwhile. It will be useful to see what his power is like as well. I wouldn't advise building a StarGate in order to do this if you don't have one already however, since you need to spend money on massing only when you need to break out of a containment.
» 4th - Take no risks. Don't lose any material (except for the inevitable loss of observers). The point is that you are wearing away at his forces while constantly building up your own.
» 5th - When you go to actually attack, here is what you do. Have at least four observers with your army so that he will not be able to kill them all during the fight, leaving you in trouble against his lurkers. You don't want to go to break out, lose both your observers, and then have your Zealots and goons milling about stupidly while getting killed by 8 lurkers, forcing you to run away and build up your strength for another two minutes while he continues to power. If he has more Hydralisks than Lurkers, (thus making you a lot more Zealot than Dragoon) send in three or four Zealots first by force moving them behind his containing Lurkers. That should draw their fire away from the bulk of your forces. If he has more Lurkers than Hydralisks (a Lurker roughly equals three Hydralisks, assuming he has only two geysers) then you should have equal numbers of Dragoons and Zealots. In that case, send in the Dragoons and Templars first, holding back the Zealots. With insane micro you can focus on the Lurkers with the Dragoons, but I mostly just let the goons do their own thing and concentrate on storming the Lurkers with my Templars. They usually naturally die to a random goon shot after being stormed anyways. You'll likely get your Dragoons pretty hurt by the Lurker/Hydralisk fire, but once you get most of the Lurkers out of the way you can safely send in your Zealots to clean up. It's important to keep the Zealots in good shape because he's not likely to have many more Lurkers besides the ones containing you. Most likely he'll have mostly Hydralisks, Zerglings, and Sunken Colonies that he's hastily constructing in panic as you break out. For that kind of stuff you want Zealots a lot more.
Tips for offensive hatchery containment
I've had this done to me a lot less than a simple Lurker/Hydralisk containment and so have a lot less experience with dealing with it. Basically, rather then Hydralisks supporting his lurkers, he has sunkens supporting his lurkers. For that I would make a few changes.
» 1st - Be a little more desperate, because Sunken Colonies are cheap and cost effective once they're in place. As time goes on you'll probably only get more in the hole.
» 2nd - Forget about large scale Templar production. Against a Hydralisk/Lurker containment I'd go wild with the Templars, you just can't Storm too much in that situation. Against Sunken Colonies, Storm does nothing. I'd stop making Templars after three or four.
» 3rd - You'll have a lot of extra gas. Here is what you do with it - Reavers and Dark Templars. Reavers are obviously your friend for three reasons: they outrange Sunken Colonies and Lurkers, you don't need a shuttle to carry them to the battle, since the battle is on your doorstep, and they will draw out the enemy Hydralisks giving your Templars a chance to Storm them. Dark Templars are also good because they are effective against Sunken Colonies with their massive damage, and aren't necessarily higher on attack priority then Zealots and Dragoons, meaning their low hit points won't be too badly abused. Furthermore, Dark Templar drops are almost always very effective because for some reason Zerg doesn't seem to defend his expansions properly when he is Lurker containing. That mistake is not limited to newbies either as Grrrr... himself has won games by Dark Templar dropping Zerg progamers that have him sunken-contained more than once.The times that Ive been offensive hatcheried I've almost always broken out successfully (by successfully I mean that I went on to win the game, since breaking out and then facing 5 mining bases doesn't mean anything). Zealots, Dragoons, and Dark Templars working together make a decent enough fighting force against Sunken Colonies. The Lurker backup is what really hurts you, maiming your Zealots and Dark Templar, but with a Reaver or two backing you up, you should be in fine enough shape to win the battle. However, I have seen games where Zerg successfully contained Protoss with Sunken Colonies, and I've seen progamers forced to resort to Shuttling around the map expanding to islands and teching to Arbiters, so be warned that this is a serious problem if you find that you cannot stop him from setting up the containment.
Microing an early push
Usually the early push comes in the form of some combination of 2-3 Vultures, three or four Marines, a Tank or two, and maybe as many as four SCVs. This is something that is quite hard to micro against, but more important then microing skill is just having the right unit selection. For me, I almost always have an Observer and four Dragoons when his first units come knocking. If you're low on units for some reason, but have excess minerals, make a Shuttle. If you see the Terran leaving his base with an early push, definitely make Zealots, even though they're slow. Also, make more gateways (2 doesn't cut it) and get a Citadel of Adun right away. You can't keep a natural unless you get very lucky with micro so don't bother getting one until you win a battle or at least get to a point where you know that you can go without four extra Zealots for a few seconds. Try to meet him just outside his mineral only with your goons, and retreat to another main, not your own. Rely on reinforcements from your gates to stop his initial force and use your initial force to cut off reinforcements from his main after his initial force has engaged your reinforcements at your mineral only natural. Rally your gates to the battle. When microing the battle in front of your main: when he lays Mines with his Vultures, fire at them with the Dragoons as best you can, then run away as the Mines burrow. Don't let your Dragoons get massacred by a Mine hitting them under any circumstance. Keep running away with your Dragoons while shooting at him. Pretty soon he'll be out of Mines or Vultures. The Tanks will have bothered you some but shouldn't have done too much damage since Siege Mode is probably a little while from finishing researching. After he's done trying to Mine you, clear away the mines safely with your Dragoons. By now your Dragoons are probably almost dead against tank fire, but your Zealots can easily chase off the one or two tanks. More reinforcements, in the form of an even mix of Zealots and Dragoons, should be on the way, and you can start mining from your natural. Using a Shuttle to drop Zealots onto his tanks works well of course.Microing Probe/Zealot rush on Zerg
This is something you just have to practice to get good at. Here are a few rules of thumb.» 1st - Keep your units in a tight group. Try to keep the Probes in between your Zealots and your opponent's Zerglings. The Zergling AI will tell them to attack the Zealots while the Probes get extra hits.
» 2nd - Don't get surrounded. Dodge around, use the Hatchery, any available doodads or mineral fields to your advantage. Try to get into a thin spot where only one or two Zerglings can attack at a time. In between mineral fields is generally a great place, and they are always available at his expansion.
» 3rd - Don't chase the Zerglings, attack the Hatchery or morphing Sunken Colonies if the Zerglings run away. Attack the Zerglings if they come back. Attack the Hatchery or morphing Sunken Colonies again if they run away again. Repeat.
» 4th - Know when to run away. That's something that comes mainly with experience, it's very hard to give a formula for when your rush will no longer do anything but waste Zealots.
» 5th - When you do run away, and if his Zerglings are following you, make a judgement call. If you can beat his lings, then do so of course. If his Zerglings will probably win, get your Probes out of there and hide the Zealots in a good spot. Behind the mineral only minerals is one good spot. The point is to put your Zealots in a spot where it's impossible for him to surround them. Ideally, he'll have to attack the Zealots with one Zergling at a time. Make sure you block your ramp with other Zealots so that he can't run into your main. Later on you can go back and rescue those Zealots. For the time being they make a great deterrent to him, and may be used as scouts as well.
This article is written by Nic Hautamaki. Formatted with permission by GosuGamers. Around 2002 Hautamaki wrote these guides and then asked GosuGamers to republish. Under the terms CopyLeft (for more information » Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.5 License)
Next time we will go through Macromanagement. A teaser:
Macromanagement, or Macro to Starcraft players, is the act of producing units and managing your economy. For a toss player it's extremely simple. For a zerg player it's incredibly complex. Luckily we're toss players. However, unluckily for us, if you want to know how to beat a zerg player, it's good to know how their macro works.
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