Monks: A Powerful Yet Challenging Unit to Master
Monks are among the strongest units in the game, but they can be difficult to micro effectively at any skill level. This guide will help you harness their power to convert enemies and lead you to victory!
Key Things to Know About Monks:
- Faith Efficiency: If multiple monks are converting the same unit, only one monk will succeed in the conversion, while the others lose their faith. It’s crucial to have one monk dedicated to converting a single unit.
- Chasing Units: A monk retains its conversion charge as long as it isn’t assigned to another task and as long as you maintain vision of the unit it’s converting. So, let your monks chase the target unit for the best results.
- Conversion Charge Persistence: Monks retain their conversion charge even when switching targets. This means you can easily reassign them to another unit once they finish converting one.
Two Key Situations When Using Monks:
- A Few Monks and Other Units to Micro
- Large Monk Army with Game-Deciding Micro
1. A Few Monks and Other Units to Micro:
When you have a small number of monks and other units to manage, it’s unrealistic to devote all your attention to monks. Instead, you’ll want a simple yet effective approach to maximize their potential.
When preparing to convert, select all your monks and target the closest enemy unit to begin the conversion. Once the conversion charge starts, you can switch between monks, assigning each one to a different enemy unit by simply clicking on them. This helps avoid wasting the monks’ faith on already-converted units.
2. Large Monk Army for Game-Deciding Micro:
When you have a large monk army and microing them effectively is critical, you’ll need to master control groups. As mentioned earlier, each monk should convert a separate unit, which becomes difficult when managing many monks at once.
To make this process more manageable, I recommend watching the accompanying video for a clearer demonstration. Here’s a step-by-step guide to using control groups effectively:
Instructions for Setting Up Control Groups:
- Go to your hotkeys and change “Create group 11, 12, 13 …” to “Ctrl + F11, Ctrl + F12, Ctrl + F13…”, and adjust “Go to group 11, 12, 13 …” to “F11, F12, F13…”.
- If you have a gaming mouse with customizable software, assign the Ctrl key to one of your mouse buttons (most gaming mice have this feature). If your mouse doesn’t have this option, you can skip this step, but the method will be less efficient.
Practice Setup:
- Create a single-player game or use the “Practice Micro Scenario” to rehearse your control group skills.
- Select 20 monks and position your cursor on the icon of the monk the more to the left in your selection box at the bottom of the screen.
- Hold the Ctrl key (or press the assigned mouse button) and press 1 while clicking the monk icon to assign it to Group 1. Repeat this for the remaining monks, assigning each to Groups 2 through 20.
- For verification, enable “Control Group Icons” in your settings to ensure you’re assigning them correctly.
- Continue practicing until you’re able to assign monks to control groups more quickly.
Once you’ve assigned each monk to a control group, you can select a group by pressing the respective number (e.g., 1, 2, 3, etc.) and then right-click on an enemy unit to convert it.
I recommend following a consistent pattern to avoid accidentally converting the same enemy unit with different monks. Personally, I like to convert from left to right, starting with the first row.
With this refined approach, you should be well on your way to mastering monk micro and converting your enemies to claim victory!
