So what is APM, otherwise known as Actions Per Minute? Basically, it’s the game-wide collective number of all your clicks and button presses, averaged into a per minute number. Ever since the release of Brood War Chart by French programmer JCA, APM has been the golden standard for players to judge another players skill. Many times when I play I get asked questions such as “what’s your APM?” If I’m talking with someone about a certain player, the subject of their APM will almost certainly come up in the conversation. If you think about it, APM is a justifiable method for judging a players speed, but perhaps not necessarily skill. Over the course of three weeks, every time I’d play on BNET I would do a little bit of research on APM, how it affects your play and the actual relation of APM to skill. My findings are as follows:
Roughly 75-80% of players with a certain skill level had a standard APM.
For this experiment I needed to judge a players skill level without taking APM into account so I could then correlate and compare the APM’s of similar skilled players. What I found out when playing games and examining replays is that 75-80% of players with a similar skill level would have a similar APM. I observed several games, and if it was a close game generally both players would have similar APM’s. If it was a very one-sided game, the winning player would usually have a higher APM. I found the same thing when I was actually playing. If it was a very close game, my opponent and I would have similar APM’s. The remaining 25-20% were cases when a player with an APM as low as 70 would dominate a player with a 130 APM, simply because he had far superior strategies and/or micro. Sometimes it was the opposite, where a player with a 170 APM wouldn’t be as good as the average 120 APM player and would lose simply because of a lack of control, strategies, etc, even though the 120 APM player was just average.
Players with a higher APM had better micro.
About 95% of the time, players with a higher APM would have better unit micro. This is not including little things such as setting tanks on a cliff to defend or burrowing Lurkers in a neat line to defend a choke; this is actual unit control during battle or during an attack. It doesn’t take much skill to set up your units when you don’t have pressure, but when you need to micro right at a certain moment the faster players almost always do better. Obviously, it makes since. If you are faster with the mouse, you will be able to select and give commands to your units faster and more effectively than players with a low APM.
Players with a higher APM would have better multi-tasking skill.
About 95% of players with a high APM would have better multi-tasking skill than players with a low APM. It makes sense as a faster player will be able to do more things than a player with a lower APM. They will be able to check on expansions, build units, attack and micro with more efficiency than slower players. I also found that low APM players did not expand nearly as much as they should have, simply because they didn’t remember to do so with everything else that needed to be done, or because they were focusing on something more important. High APM players will be able to do all that at once, which is obviously a very valuable skill.
Players with a low APM would be worse late-game.
Obviously, this is due to the fact that there are many more things to keep track of late game. Expansion, unit production, many more places to defend, much more to watch, etc. This is directly tied to multi-tasking, where being fast is a huge help.
Many people like to say that APM doesn’t mean anything. I found after three weeks of research that it does, in fact, mean a great deal. APM is basically your speed in the game. How fast you can select, build, and jump around the map taking care of tasks. If you’re slow, you won’t be able to do that efficiently, and your game will undoubtedly suffer. There are of course exceptions, but the fact remains that APM is almost always directly related to skill. One common thought is that a lot of people simply click a ton of times pointlessly to get a high APM. While it works in theory, it has several flaws. First, to maintain your pointless clicking throughout the game, you’ll be so distracted from other tasks and will forget to do so many things that it will make your game significantly worse. I tried it on several occasions to see if I could to it. The first few times it worked in the beginning, but when the action heated up and I had lots of things to focus on I simply forgot about clicking pointlessly. I tried it a couple more times with the sole intent of clicking really fast, and I played like utter crap. I forgot to build overlords, pools, extractors, almost everything. I couldn’t micro, I couldn’t build units, I couldn’t watch the map and I couldn’t scout. Obviously, it’s not the thing to do. A lot of people try pointlessly click really fast throughout the game to get a high APM, but all you’re training yourself to do is click pointlessly really fast. Not actually get faster at doing important things. A lot of people who repeatedly try to pointlessly click really fast do in fact get faster at doing other things. Unfortunately, they tend to miss a lot when important tasks come up, and end up doing them over and over to get it right. For example, such a person would need to tell a drone to morph three or four times just to get the placement right. The result is basically the same speed as before, with much more expenditure of energy. A lot of people do a lot of really fast clicking and key mashing in the beginning of the game to get themselves up to speed and ready for action. It does work, but just make sure that’s not how the rest of your game is played. Don’t think either that APM comes with experience. While that’s somewhat true, it’s generally not past 70 or 80 APM. In my personal experience watching other players, you need to be competitive and actively trying to get better at the game. Don’t just try to win; try to improve your game without worrying about who will be the winner. Worrying about victory comes later. I know many people who have played thousands of games, yet their APM is only in the 70’s. They are good at a lot of the other aspects of the game simply from experience, but their slow speed really destroys their true potential. I myself did not get past the 80 APM barrier until I became aware of it and actively worked at improving my skill, and not just with APM. It’s kind of the opposite with very good players. Sometimes the players APM’s will vary by as much as 150, but the players will still be evenly matched. A lot of it has to do with the pace of the game and the strategies being used. My conclusion however is that APM is very important regarding your overall skill. On the next page I have listed what I find to be the best methods for improving your APM. Keep in mind the results will vary for the individual.
APM Live may or may not work for you.
APM Live, another program by JCA, allows you to monitor your APM in-game. It will also beep to let you know if your APM drops below a desired number. It does teach you to do things faster, but a lot of that is just pointless clicking like I was talking about before. However, eventually what a lot of people find is that by using APM Live, it does in fact make you faster at doing important tasks such as microing during a battle. Overall I believe it’s a helpful program for a while, but don’t expect your APM to immediately jump up to whatever you want it to and stay there for every game after.
Remind yourself.
I find that reminding yourself to focus on speed in-game is not as effective as APM live, but it’s still somewhat effective if you can remember. A lot of players need the extra beep that APM Live provides simply because they forget to focus on their speed when they’re focusing on the game, but some players find it extremely annoying. It’s up to you to find what works best.
Specialized Tasks.
Focus on single tasks at once. When in a game, try focusing on a single task such as quickly selecting your units and telling them to attack. A lot of people won’t remember to specifically focus on that during an intense battle, so try making a map. Make a simple UMS map with units of your choice and a few buildings. Next, try picking a specific unit and as fast as you can tell it to attack a pre-designated unit or building. Try making a map with a bunch of drones and a mineral patch. Select them one by one and tell them to go to work as fast as you can. Do this over and over until you feel confident with your ability, and then move to another task such as drops. This not only makes you faster, but also more accurate in terms of selecting things and ordering actions.
Actively work to improve your game.
Many people play only to win. Though that’s the goal of any game, it’s unfortunately not the best way to get better. Try not to worry at all about winning, and focus all your thought into improving your game. Watch replays, kill that ego and look at what you did wrong. If you know what you did wrong, you know what you need to work on. If you lose and don’t know what you did wrong, save the replay and see. It’s boring, but it will help you improve.
Use hotkeys.
All good players use hotkeys. You will not get far without using them, as both your efficiency and APM will hit an indestructible brick wall. Hotkeys are extremely important for being able to quickly select important units or structures anywhere on the map. They are a necessity for controlling specialized units and producing units away from base. They will also save you the trouble of clicking the unit portrait to build something when your curser can be used elsewhere. I don’t know for sure, but I would say at least 35-40% of any good players APM comes from hotkeys. I get really irritated when I open up a replay with BWchart and find that a certain player wasn’t using any hotkeys. How can hotkeys be so ignored when they’re obviously so useful? The answer is laziness. Laziness is not a good way to improve on anything. If you want to get better as SC and have a high APM, you cannot skip doing certain tasks out of laziness. My point is that you need to use hotkeys if you want to be a good player.
None of these methods will yield immediate results. Getting better at anything takes time, and if you’re not willing to work hard for your goal you probably won’t achieve it. Having a good guideline to help you get the most out of the time you spend is very useful however, and I hope mine helped. Good luck and have fun.