APM Obsession

[Riken]

Why is it that I hear about APM all the time, have high APM or you suck.

From all the replays I've seen of pro players ALL they do is spam click rally points and select / deselect their workers and get 250 APM.

So I'll ask, why do people put so much stock into this arbitrary spam counter?

[Adamu]

Who is obsessed about APM?

[Dalcyon]

Why is it that I hear about APM all the time, have high APM or you suck.

From all the replays I've seen of pro players ALL they do is spam click rally points and select / deselect their workers and get 250 APM.

So I'll ask, why do people put so much stock into this arbitrary spam counter?

It's all about winning these days.

[Audaylon]

What's APM?

[Conscience]

i saw a vid where a guy kept high lighting his characters and when he gave a move command he clicked the area like 10 times.

if ppl think that's pro then obviously i need to let my tourettes kick in when i play.

[Nevermore]

Why must everyone focus on the first 2 minutes of the game?
I average something like 60-70 APM, so I am by no means great.
The first 2 minutes of the game, yes there will be needless spamming and that makes people with high APM no better than someone with 12 APM.
For the first 2 minutes.
When the game advances into 4 base vs 4 base conflict with several attacks going on at any given moment, then someone with 200 APM is going to beat someone with 60 APM hands down.

Think of APM as a resource, like minerals and gas. There are always places you could spend your minerals, always places you could spend your gas, and there is always ALWAYS somewhere on the map that could use some attention. Those with high APM have more APM to spend than those with low APM.

There is a common misconception that having high APM makes you a better player. This is far from the truth. Having high APM gives you an advantage. I have beaten 200 APM players with my 60 APM before. Just means i made my 60 actions count more than his 200 actions...

You cant mine more APM... I am working every game to train myself to have higher. When i started, i had a good 20... so i'm working my way up.

[Savarashii]

What's APM?

[Disastorm]

Why is it that I hear about APM all the time, have high APM or you suck.

From all the replays I've seen of pro players ALL they do is spam click rally points and select / deselect their workers and get 250 APM.

So I'll ask, why do people put so much stock into this arbitrary spam counter?

Thats just when they are "practicing" their apm. Usually high level players like to keep a constant apm, so even when they don't need such high apm they do random stuff like that, however when it comes time to actually use all the apm, pro players can actually do hundreds of EAPM a minute (EAPM is Effective APM which is non-spam APM). However, I'm not sure how much EAPM players have in SC2 atm, but what I said was true of SC1.

[Audaylon]

Actions Per Minute?
How do you even keep track?

[Conscience]

What's APM?

actions per minute

[Disastorm]

Actions Per Minute?
How do you even keep track?
look at a replay. sc2 keeps track for you.

[Audaylon]

look at a replay. sc2 keeps track for you.Well, I am still learning what all I can track with replays. Thanks for the info.

[Savarashii]

actions per minute

Ah.

You need more sugar.

[Excrement]

The all Famous APM, (Actions Per Minute) which I still think is really funny, have a Eleventy-Billion APM or you suck. I find quality of APM is better the Quantity. I still have memories of many games in TFT where at the end where my opponents, say how did you beat me I had Twice you APM, I tell them its an average and over the course of the game. needless clicking constantly for the minute doesn't do you any good except exhaust your finger and put wear on your mouse.

It has happened to me a few times already in SC2 got a few whispers how did you beat me MY APM was Way higher than yours. I laugh.

[Baked]

Actions Per Minuite.

and yes, in the beginning, alot of pros will spam needlessly. For the majority of players its for apm count but for the real pros its to set the pace of your match and to never slow down until its over.

[Wyndrunner]

If you go into a replay and look at the drop down menus at the top left, one of them is APM. I've both beaten and lost to players with much higher APM so it isn't everything, but having good reaction skills and being fast on the hotkeys is a very important skill to have if you want to improve at this game.

[Azile]

Pros with high APM spam click in the early boring parts of the game to keep their actions constant so when they actually need to use them they can. It's like running, do you think your body would handle a dead sprint better if you jogged in place for 5 minutes first or if you just woke up and walked outside and tried to sprint.

There are no pro players with low apm, there are multitudes of bad players who preach about how low APM doesn't matter because they have low APM.

Proof is in the pudding.

[Nevermore]

The all Famous APM, (Actions Per Minute) which I still think is really funny, have a Eleventy-Billion APM or you suck. I find quality of APM is better the Quantity. I still have memories of many games in TFT where at the end where my opponents, say how did you beat me I had Twice you APM, I tell them its an average and over the course of the game. needless clicking constantly for the minute doesn't do you any good except exhaust your finger and put wear on your mouse.

It has happened to me a few times already in SC2 got a few whispers how did you beat me MY APM was Way higher than yours. I laugh.

Yeah, its definitely true that APM only matters at certain points. But when those points come along, and you are incapable of pulling more than 20, you are certainly going to wish you had more to spend. It gives you an advantage.
A good way to increase your APM in general is by trying to keep it high the whole game, even when it isn't necessary... omg this is spamming! It DOES have a purpose!
If you get into the rhythm of quick APM you are more likely to keep it when you need it. Tried, tested and true.

[Kralic]

APM is SC's version of WoW's Gear Score.

[Conscience]

i bet these ppl randomly click around the screen when they're at work too.

watching a power point presentation by one of these "pros" would make you want to stab yourself with a chair.

[Audaylon]

When you highlight all your workers in the beginning of the game, Does it count that as 12 APM?
1 for selecting, 1 for telling it to gather.
or 1 for selecting, 1 for telling it to gather, and another for specifying what to gather..for 12 APM because selecting doesn't count as an action orrrr. ya.

[Messana]

The Gearscore of SC2. I really don't know why they put something in the game that actually tracks this, as anyone who actually cares about it just inflates it.

[Blackrend]

Pros with high APM spam click in the early boring parts of the game to keep their actions constant so when they actually need to use them they can. It's like running, do you think your body would handle a dead sprint better if you jogged in place for 5 minutes first or if you just woke up and walked outside and tried to sprint.

There are no pro players with low apm, there are multitudes of bad players who preach about how low APM doesn't matter because they have low APM.

Proof is in the pudding.


fundamentally anything over 120 a min is just spam. Thats not how brain hand eye coordination works. Infact id be will to say effective apm is lower than that. Even to get to 120 the majority of it must be preconceived, ie just going through your hot keyed buildings tapping production hotkeys with little attention to whether or not they needed more on their queue. When it comes down to combat micro theres no way to even conceive of outputting 120 useful actions a minute.

[Kralic]

When you highlight all your workers in the beginning of the game, Does it count that as 12 APM?
1 for selecting, 1 for telling it to gather.
or 1 for selecting, 1 for telling it to gather, and another for specifying what to gather..for 12 APM because selecting doesn't count as an action orrrr. ya.

1)highlight 3
2) click them on minerals
3)highlight 3
4)click them on minerals
5)click on nexus/cc/hive
6)Make worker
7) make rally point

7 apm without spamming in the first 3 seconds which shoots your APM up. Now if you spam the hotkey for the worker this also counts!

[Audaylon]

1)highlight 3
2) click them on minerals
3)highlight 3
4)click them on minerals
5)click on nexus/cc/hive
6)Make worker
7) make rally point

7 apm without spamming in the first 3 seconds which shoots your APM up. Now if you spam the hotkey for the worker this also counts!Even with not enough minerals?

[Azile]

fundamentally anything over 120 a min is just spam. Thats not how brain hand eye coordination works. Infact id be will to say effective apm is lower than that. Even to get to 120 the majority of it must be preconceived, ie just going through your hot keyed buildings tapping production hotkeys with little attention to whether or not they needed more on their queue. When it comes down to combat micro theres no way to even conceive of outputting 120 useful actions a minute.

Move to korea, become the #1 SC1 player with 120 apm, then come back here and tell us all about it.

[Blackrend]

Move to korea, become the #1 SC1 player with 120 apm, then come back here and tell us all about it.

I didnt say the spam didnt serve as a warm up purpose but you can find breakdowns of apm for sc1 in various utilities, while they may have AVERAGED 300 apm or whatever moments of down time are what carried it and their actions per minute always decreases in combat or fulfilling some meaningful operation.

The previous poster talking about running warmed up or cold is the proper explanation, their hands are more used to moving from the constant spam and arent hesitating and mis-stroking keys.

[magister]

I really don't understand how people buy the whole "warming up" thing.

It couldn't be more clear, or logical, that when there is downtime in the game, the APM goes down, and so spamming away during that downtime helps the overall average. It strikes me as patently obvious. Yet people perpetuate this notion.

Even if you really are "warming up" or "practicing", woudln't you rather know wht your actual/real APM is? I mean, can't you see how spamming like that that would actually make the numbers even less meaningful? How it could give you the impression of having an even higher APM than you actually do? I mean, if you think right clicking a rally point as fast as possible in downtime means anything, you are nuts. You can't do normal mircoing of units and abilities at that speed. It's a clear attempt to maniuplate and INFLATE the number.

But that's just it, the only thing APM proponents see is how big the number is, and they don't care that it's inflated, because everyone else inflates it too. Gotta have the biggest number.

It's not a meaningless stat by any means, but it's imporance is highly over-valued, and those with high numbers basically inflate those numbers by false means, all the time.

[Azile]

I really don't understand how people buy the whole "warming up" thing.

It couldn't be more clear, or logical, that when there is downtime in the game, the APM goes down, and so spamming away during that downtime helps the overall average. It strikes me as patently obvious. Yet people perpetuate this notion.

Even if you really are "warming up" or "practicing", woudln't you rather know wht your actual/real APM is? I mean, can't you see how spamming like that that would actually make the numbers even less meaningful? How it could give you the impression of having an even higher APM than you actually do? I mean, if you think right clicking a rally point as fast as possible in downtime means anything, you are nuts. You can't do normal mircoing of units and abilities at that speed. It's a clear attempt to maniuplate and INFLATE the number.

But that's just it, the only thing APM proponents see is how big the number is, and they don't care that it's inflated, because everyone else inflates it too. Gotta have the biggest number.

It's not a meaningless stat by any means, but it's imporance is highly over-valued, and those with high numbers basically inflate those numbers by false means, all the time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muscle_memory

Go read for a bit, learn something.

High effective APM = important
Number judging your APM = not important

I don't expect you to understand the difference.

[Terranosaur]

The APM obsession is the result of confounding cause and effect. Good players have high APM, because they are constantly scouting, building, attacking and observing all at once. The converse, that players with high APM are good, does not hold.

[Jrix]

Spam clicking really does prime your brain for being more aware, I know it sounds crazy, but try it for a few games.
Click all the time, check up on all your units all the time... keep doing it.

You'll find that when the meat of the game gets underway you much more easily transition into doing all these tasks.

As I said, yeah, doesn't sound intuitive. Just try it, you'll see it's not all bull%@!#.

[Unsuspected]

I really don't understand how people buy the whole "warming up" thing.

Yeah, I think some people came up w/ that excuse, and now everyone says that since they don't want to admit that their end goal is an artificially inflated APM.

TBH, APM does tell you something interesting about a player. However, as often stated in computer science: Garbage in, garbage out.
If you're focusing on making your APM high (e.g. sending 20 move commands to the same place for no reason), your APM score is worthless. If two players who've never heard about APM play, then their APM number would be interesting. However, it's gotten to the point where so many people inflate their APM, that you might as well be reading a random number.

[Sykomyke]

APM is SC's version of WoW's Gear Score.

QFT. Shame that people can't just play a game without referencing some arbitrary counter. Even the "pro's" Which, I might add, just to clarify what a "pro" is: Unless your being sponsered, and getting paid (either in cash or gear) in competitions on a consistent basis, you are not a pro. You are just a player who is good.

I look at it this way, you have your fans (who watch and occasionally play). Your recreational players (who play on a consistent basis). Your serious players (who may or may not play for a team in addition to playing on a consistent basis---Like a community sports league). After that if your getting paid to play a sport, you are a pro (even if your in "the minors" by standard definition). You don't call people who play on a rec team "pros". So why would you call people who play in "friendly tournaments" pros when they don't get paid?

Sorry to burst your bubble. You may be better then me, or another guy, or the guy who made this thread. But you are not a pro.

[Sykomyke]

i bet these ppl randomly click around the screen when they're at work too.

watching a power point presentation by one of these "pros" would make you want to stab yourself with a chair.

Unfortunately I had a coworker like this. He didn't even play games though, as I came to find out. Whenever we reviewing our sharepoint layout he would just click and highlight words randomly. It was really annoying and I constantly wondered why he did it. If anything he typed more then he clicked, so it made no sense even in a business "warming" sense.

[Shiladie]

APM does not cause skill
skill causes APM

a lot of people have problems with this concept
As you get better, your APM 'will' go up, because as you get better, you're committing more things to muscle memory, and having to think less about what to do.

Example:
as a zerg player playing late game muta-ling vs toss I want to do the following:
Ensure all hatches have spawn larva on at all times
Ensure all hatches have 6 or less larva at all times
Keep constant upgs for air and ground melee
Be creating changlings from different angles to run them in to scout
Have a control group of lings moving and in position to take advantage of a backstab nexus snipe if toss moves out
expanding to new locations
watching the minimap for any signs of the enemy, so you can get there nearly instantly with your army

All of this is outside of combat, once you enter combat you want to be doing micro AND continuing to do the above THAT is what makes a pro a pro, and why their APM is so high

Now, there are a number of these you don't need to think about, and can do automatically
*selecting your hotkey with queens and hatches and hitting R and then clicking each hatch icon
*selecting your hotkey with hatches and hitt S then spamming T until out of gas, then spamming Z
doing the above takes a few seconds, and no thought if you've practiced it, leaving you to be able to focus on the rest of the game

I spam at the start of the game, and am actually upset BNET2.0 doesn't do what BWChart does and ignore the first 2 minutes of the game in the APM counter. spamming gets me psyched up and ready to keep pace with the game, so I don't have to slowly get rolling once I need that APM.

[Coolness]

I wouldn't compare gearscore to apm...... Gearscore has to do with your possesions.. APM has to do with how fast you can make tactical decisions when needed.

For example lets say you have a terran player with siege tanks sieged and ready to go, but they have no detectors(yes I know this wouldn't happen but just for the sake of discussion.) now lets say your sending roaches towards his base unknowing these tanks are ready to open up on them. A person with better APM (not just higher but better quality as well.) would be able to respond faster and more effectively then someone with worse apm.

[Sykomyke]

APM does not cause skill
skill causes APM

a lot of people have problems with this concept
As you get better, your APM 'will' go up, because as you get better, you're committing more things to muscle memory, and having to think less about what to do.

Example:
as a zerg player playing late game muta-ling vs toss I want to do the following:
Ensure all hatches have spawn larva on at all times
Ensure all hatches have 6 or less larva at all times
Keep constant upgs for air and ground melee
Be creating changlings from different angles to run them in to scout
Have a control group of lings moving and in position to take advantage of a backstab nexus snipe if toss moves out
expanding to new locations
watching the minimap for any signs of the enemy, so you can get there nearly instantly with your army

All of this is outside of combat, once you enter combat you want to be doing micro AND continuing to do the above THAT is what makes a pro a pro, and why their APM is so high

Now, there are a number of these you don't need to think about, and can do automatically
*selecting your hotkey with queens and hatches and hitting R and then clicking each hatch icon
*selecting your hotkey with hatches and hitt S then spamming T until out of gas, then spamming Z
doing the above takes a few seconds, and no thought if you've practiced it, leaving you to be able to focus on the rest of the game

I spam at the start of the game, and am actually upset BNET2.0 doesn't do what BWChart does and ignore the first 2 minutes of the game in the APM counter. spamming gets me psyched up and ready to keep pace with the game, so I don't have to slowly get rolling once I need that APM.

But muscle memory has nothing to do with this. Muscle memory is good for rote exercises (like spamming a certain unit from a production building to use up excess resources).

This is mainly respondant conditioning. You first learned the race and it's mechanics (how it builds units, etc). Then you learned the units and their hotkeys. Finally, you learn to use the units abilities and micromanage them while in and out of battle.)

None of these are based on APM though. Sure, APM *MIGHT* improve this, but this is all behavior conditioning brought on by your willingness to learn.

Being able to think actively and counter is probably why some people are getting messaged with "My APM was higher then yours, how did you beat me?" Because simply put, they were thinking actively during battle, while people who are obsessed with APM were thinking with a behavior conditioned brain. The difference is that no matter the APM, if you can't think actively and creatively, you aren't going to win.

[Rivfader]

APM is a load of crap and another online e-peen measurer for tools. Much like gearscore in WoW.

[Gemini]

Pros with high APM spam click in the early boring parts of the game to keep their actions constant so when they actually need to use them they can. It's like running, do you think your body would handle a dead sprint better if you jogged in place for 5 minutes first or if you just woke up and walked outside and tried to sprint.

Proof is in the pudding.

That's a bad analogy, since you are playing the game for the first 5 minutes, warming up, not sitting cold for 5 minutes then spam clicking.

It's more like jogging in place for 5 minutes, vs walking around for 5 minutes. Pretty sure jogging in place will tire you out faster than walking around for 5 minutes.

Course using arm muscles to move your fingers isn't really comparable to a higher level activity like walking/sprinting/jogging in place.

[Rowdy]

Downtime? Besides the beginning of the game, when is there downtime? Half the point of this game is that there's always more to do than a human player can handle, forcing players to prioritize effectively and act quickly.

Nobody thinks spamming ineffective actions makes you better at this game. That's a complete misrepresentation of the APM argument. Obviously, speed is only one aspect of Starcraft, but it's ridiculous to deny that speed is an asset or that there is a clear correlation between speed and success at the highest levels of play.

Of course APM matters.

[Unsuspected]

APM has to do with how fast you can make tactical decisions when needed.

No, APM counts how many clicks you did per minute; it doesn't distinguish between a "tactical decision" and "20 move clicks to the exact same spot".
Honestly, I hear people say how good they are at micro because they have a high APM, but in reality they suck. Just 'cause you can click frequencly like some sort of monkey doesn't make you good at micro; it's about the action you perform.

Also, some people who lose claim they out-microed their opponent because their avg APM was higher. Yes, those rally point click spams during the first 2 mins of the game was some awesome micro.

[Bloodsugar]

I was watching a video of a guy i beat and he had about 100 apm versus my 40.

At one point during the replay he would have his scv run around in circles by clicking the map every half a second.

So really.... i personally dont think it means crap. I think "reaction" time is important but APM is just a side measurement.

[Cofo]

What people really mean when they say "APM = skill" is MEANINGFUL actions per minute.

Yes, APM can be skewed, by meaningless spam-clicking and whatnot, but if you could somehow filter that out and get only the meaningful APM, then the higher of the two players is very likely to win.

Also, the higher APM player might be an idiot. If they're massing hellions against straight air, APM isn't going to mean jack. But assuming that both players' strategic knowledge and execution are similar, there's just no way that you can logically argue that doing more things at a faster speed does NOT make you more likely to win.

[Xnimativ]

ITT: people that try to find excuses for having low APM by saying it just flat out doesnt matter...inflated or not, 9/10 times, when you lose your opponent will have had higher APm than you. Do not lie, do not talk about how you beat this 1 guy once and he had 100 apm and you had 40 (which does happen, but is not a constant). The "inflation" you speak of comes from maintaining a high APM even when there is not much to do. Even if your apm is 90, and all your clicks are effective, a guy with 400 apm is still going to have more effective APM than you....this is not wow, apm is not a gearscore that you get without doing anything, it comes from repetition and practice.

[Bloodsugar]

ITT: people that try to find excuses for having low APM by saying it just flat out doesnt matter...inflated or not, 9/10 times, when you lose your opponent will have had higher APm than you. Do not lie, do not talk about how you beat this 1 guy once and he had 100 apm and you had 40 (which does happen, but is not a constant). The "inflation" you speak of comes from maintaining a high APM even when there is not much to do. Even if your apm is 90, and all your clicks are effective, a guy with 400 apm is still going to have more effective APM than you....this is not wow, apm is not a gearscore that you get without doing anything, it comes from repetition and practice.

i could run around with 100 apm if i wanted to. When i play protoss i have around 100 apm. With terran i just ctrl my buildings so i can mass the units i need while microing the units i have out. Except, as protoss i always seem to lose for some reason. As terran i just mass marines and marauders and all goes well. So far im undefeated doing this strategy.

What im trying to say here is, yes, APM isnt useless but its not as important. If i microd my units correctly and killed off more of his guys than my guys. even with his crazy APM im still going to come out ahead.

To me, a good micro is always better than a good macro. The reason is, you may lose some building time here and there, but if you just go back and forth inbetween battles and re-surge your army you really arent losing too much in the macro department.

Heres a good example:
You are attacking. You are head to head with your opponents force. Now, are you simply going to click a unit - build some units - click a unit - build some units etc. etc. the whole fight? You could... but that gives the player who is microing a huge advantage during the fight.

When im attacking i watch the fight very closely to make sure there arent units stuck behind not helping the onslaught. Making sure everyone is targeting the same unit/structure etc. If everybody attacks the same structure it will drop much faster than if your units are scattered around attacking random crap while you build more units.

Killing your opponents starports can be much more important than making 6 more marines. THis is where Strategy is > APM.

[Xnimativ]

you assume people who have high apm aren't going to be microing their battles. you don't need to return to your base to build more units. chances are if a guy has double your APM, he's going to be microing the battle AND building reinforcements, and even if you win the battle, he's going to overpower you through macro. i don't know why i'm posting on these forums, you are all from wow.

edit: you say killing starport might be more important than making 6 more marines, this is where your LOW APM hinders you. someone with high apm will kill the starports WHILE making 6 marines. your argument is invalid.

[Ciez]

I think the whole argument can be summed up into two camps of people.

First you have the players who simply can't admit that they're bad at the game, and don't care about actually trying to get better. They sit on terrible APM and try and tell themselves that APM is meaningless. Second you have the people who know they're decent/good at the game, but still want to improve their game play. These people are not professionals but enjoy competition and winning.

Now, if you look at ANY replay of ANY professional player in pretty much ANY RTS one thing holds true. They all have high APMs. I don't see how anyone can say that APM is meaningless if every professional has high APM.

I am one of the players that falls into the decent/good camp. I have somewhere between 65%-70% win, plat division 1500ish ELO. I am by no means a top level pro player, but I still enjoy winning as much as the next competitive person, and I am always trying to become better at the games that I play. I also played WC3 a few years back, but never could get into it much (too slow paced I think and was not a huge fan of the hero system). One thing that I noticed was that the games where I would "spam" actions at the beginning I ended up making significantly less errors in. By "spamming" the control groups that I place my buildings in, or my initial scout in I am able to prevent myself from accidentally forgetting to to put a building in a control group, because I will notice that I am not selecting it. It also helps especially in the first few games of the day. I don't know about you guys but on weekends if I don't have to work in the morning, or don't have anything to take care of I'll play some video games, but my fingers always feel slow. By "spamming" my fingers between my various control groups early in the game it gives them a chance to warm up, the same applies to my mouse which is why I find myself drag-selecting small groups of workers, or clicking between mineral patches, etc etc. It just warms your fingers up.

The other thing is that it definitely keeps you focused on the game. I think we can all agree that there is very little diversity in the first 2 or so minutes of the game. You don't want to zone out during that time and forget your second supply depot/pylon/overlord, and things like that. By keeping your mind focused and attentive you keep yourself from making silly mistakes that can lose games at the high levels of play.

Also, just because your eye doesn't SEE something happen on screen doesn't mean that your brain cannot react to it. Take any fighting game for example. People will perform different moves/combos/techniques based on extremely small windows in frame-rates. These windows CANNOT be seen by the naked eye, but people can still perform the techniques solely based on muscle memory. It is entirely possible to have more than 120 "effective APM" because when playing at a fast pace you don't WAIT to see if an action happens before moving on to do another action. You know that the action will happen and you already move on to performing another action.

[Unsuspected]

Ciez.zeic, I said it before and I'll say it again: garbage in, garbage out. APM is a good indicator of skill, but only if it isn't inflated by spamming. To all those people that argue that spamming in the beginning warms you up: your argument is null and void because you'll only spam action that actually increase your APM. In WC3, everyone did a rally point spam because this counted as an action. Spammers will never do just random clicks with the mouse, since that wouldn't be counted towards their APM.
Let me make some things clear: First, I love that Blizzard added an APM meter, because it displays average APM and current APM. No matter how much a spammer inflates his APM, I can always get a better read of his "true" APM when we collide in battle (big shocker: it's usually very low).
I was actually a really good player at wc3 and at the top of ladder various times (had problems where I couldn't find games for hours because the matching system sucked at the top). I'm not pro, but what pisses me off, though, is when newb who inflate their APM claim to have better micro than some pro. New flash: If you spam, your APM is garbage.

[Crisischild]

No, APM counts how many clicks you did per minute; it doesn't distinguish between a "tactical decision" and "20 move clicks to the exact same spot".
Honestly, I hear people say how good they are at micro because they have a high APM, but in reality they suck. Just 'cause you can click frequencly like some sort of monkey doesn't make you good at micro; it's about the action you perform.

Also, some people who lose claim they out-microed their opponent because their avg APM was higher. Yes, those rally point click spams during the first 2 mins of the game was some awesome micro.


APM takes more of a backseat in SC2 (Because of the new, better interface). I can win with 40 APM against someone who has 300 APM because I find no reason to issue the same command 50 times. Once is fine.
The only time my APM goes very high is when I'm Stalker harassing Melee units, that requires two or three actions a second while macroing your base.

[Gokanjin]

actions per minute

Really? All this time I thought it was Army per min. LOL

[Ciez]

Yeah, I completely agree that spamming 23048203493 move commands is utterly useless, but ordering a unit to move 4-5 times just prevents mis-clicks, or thinking you've clicked when you haven't and stuff like that.

For the first few games each day I find myself warming my fingers up more than most games that I play, maybe it is just a psychological effect (which have been proven to have HUGE impacts on performance) but I really feel like it allows my fingers to become more nimble quicker.

It is mostly the mid/late game that separates the APM spammers and the truly great players though. If a person is wasting his time clicking 25 move commands for a group of units then he is wasting time that he could be macroing his bases, scouting, etc etc. Pros maintain high APM while not wasting time clicking a billion times for one command.

APM is still relevant to performance, but saying that high APM = high skill is a false statement. Usually with more skill comes higher "EAPM" because a player learns to quickly do all of the important things in the game. One of the best parts about SC2 is that there is SO much going on mid/late game that you really cannot keep up with it all, and so you have to maximize the effectiveness of your actions and prioritize what situations receive your attention.