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I recently made the switch from Protoss to Zerg and have been getting my ass kicked a lot, which I fully expected. I'm working on my Zerg play and it improves with every match, but I wonder which is the better way to practice - through BO repetition or drilling fundamentals.
I learned Protoss through BO repetition. I picked the 4 Gate (later switched to 3 gate robo) and I just played that every single game. I fought my way up to Platinum and then considered switching to Zerg.
As Zerg, I'm just working on keeping my money low, not getting supply capped and spawning larva constantly. I'm not worrying about anything else. I lose games because of things like poor scouting, but as long as I did those 3 well, I feel okay about the loss. I plan to drill those things in until I'm losing based on reasons other than not having enough shit.
Now that I look back on my progress through the races, it seems like my Protoss advancement happened much faster than my Zerg advancement, but my Zerg advancement feels more thorough. I feel like a better player, even if I'm ranked lower.
When I just worked the same BO over and over, I began to falter badly after that BO had run it's course. If I did a 3 gate robo and was unable to seal the deal before the 15th minute, I would lock up and not really know what to do. I didn't have a concrete plan for spending money or teching up and I would lose the game to an opponent who did know.
Now that I'm just working on money, supply and larva, I feel a bit sloppier in the early game, but my mid and late game is much stronger. I'm finding ways to spend all of that money since I care more about that than I do about the win.
On TL, it seems a lot of people recommend picking a BO and just perfecting that, but I didn't feel that paid off too well for me as Protoss. It brought me to Platinum, and then the holes in my game became readily apparent. If I didn't seal the deal at the 15 minute mark, I was always outclassed. I think I'll be a more well rounded player by working on the basics until I'm no longer losing because my basics are subpar, and then switching to refined openings, proper scouting, proper transitions, etc.
 
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Since beta, I didn't really memorized any BO's , yes I know BO's but I always practiced for my fundamentals, when your fundamentals are good enough you can do any BO or tweak them as you like.
So I'm in favor of practicing fundamentals.
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I play protoss and highly recommend BO's.
The problem is we don't have that many good maps for that.
So maybe stick to some maps if it helps.
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On October 08 2010 06:33 PangO wrote:
I play protoss and highly recommend BO's.
The problem is we don't have that many good maps for that.
So maybe stick to some maps if it helps.
Why do you recommend BOs?
Like I said, I feel like I would fail horribly once the BO was complete and my opponent wasn't dead. How do you continue after the BO has run its course and you need to start being more dynamic?
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Calgary26003 Posts
"Is it better to practice your breakaway move or workout at the gym?"
Impossible question. You need both, and each one is better depending on what you want to accomplish.
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It's not that hard to perfect your mechanics (fundamentals) and learn a certain build order. at least one single solid-safe build order will get you far. Like chill said, you need both, if a certain BO needs a lot of hotkeying/multitasking can you actually execute it?
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On October 08 2010 06:39 Chill wrote:
"Is it better to practice your breakaway move or workout at the gym?"
Impossible question. You need both, and each one is better depending on what you want to accomplish.
Chill nailed it.
You have to practice a BO. Without a solid one, the best fundamentals in the world won't mean jack.
You have to build your fundamentals. Without them, the best BO in the world won't mean jack.
Best thing you can do: Pick one solid BO that works across all three matchups (14 gas, 14 pool, for example) and religiously drill it. This way you'll develop both your BO knowledge, and your fundamental ability to execute the BO.
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United States33671 Posts
Are you suggesting that you don't use RTS fundamentals when you perform a build order? I don't get it. Fundamentals are in play at all times. If you're not macroing, microing, scouting and adapting while you perform a strategy/BO, then you're performing that BO correctly.
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The two aren't mutually exclusive. You should practice the hell out of a build order and work on your fundamentals within the context of that BO. Your build should include a key scouting point and a few loose transitions to choose from depending on what you scout, and from there it's nothing but fundamentals. A build order should set you up for a good macro game, defend against cheese and early aggression, and allow you to scout; you shouldn't be relying on it to win you the game. Along the same lines, you shouldn't expect to win just by making random units and not scouting. Both are important.
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On October 08 2010 06:39 Chill wrote:
"Is it better to practice your breakaway move or workout at the gym?"
Impossible question. You need both, and each one is better depending on what you want to accomplish.
True, so perhaps I should rephrase the question as "For a shitty player trying to take those first steps towards not being shitty, which is more important to be done first?"
In the long run, I'd like to have both down well enough to have some self respect, but with my skills as low as they are, I don't think I can work both of them simultaneously and am wondering which one should I work first.
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On October 08 2010 06:44 visual77 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 08 2010 06:39 Chill wrote:
"Is it better to practice your breakaway move or workout at the gym?"
Impossible question. You need both, and each one is better depending on what you want to accomplish. True, so perhaps I should rephrase the question as "For a shitty player trying to take those first steps towards not being shitty, which is more important to be done first?" In the long run, I'd like to have both down well enough to have some self respect, but with my skills as low as they are, I don't think I can work both of them simultaneously and am wondering which one should I work first.
You can't have one without the other.
Pick a BO and practice it. Your mechanics will develop by virtue of playing the game.
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+ Show Spoiler +On October 08 2010 06:44 visual77 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 08 2010 06:39 Chill wrote:
"Is it better to practice your breakaway move or workout at the gym?"
Impossible question. You need both, and each one is better depending on what you want to accomplish. True, so perhaps I should rephrase the question as "For a shitty player trying to take those first steps towards not being shitty, which is more important to be done first?" In the long run, I'd like to have both down well enough to have some self respect, but with my skills as low as they are, I don't think I can work both of them simultaneously and am wondering which one should I work first.
Well, if you like to practice your fundamental first (micro, macro, proper use of hotkeys etc.) then you should at least have one solid opening with that. For me, when I played SC:BW I always practiced the proper use of hotkeys then someone mentored me with the proper BO for each match ups.
But still if you're going to practice fundamentals might as well grind it out with one single solid opening/BO.
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Still, as zerg is more about "fundamentals" than BO seeing how you can theorycraft the best BO in the world but you still need to adapt ALL THE TIME. So just 14 pool 20 hatch and ladder, ladder, ladder.
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If you're really low level (like <1000 diamond) then you don't really need to think too much, Just play lots of games and get comfortable with just building stuff. You need to practice quite a bit to get your mind focused on multiple tasks at once.
Of course if you're tired or a bit bored, you can read up some strategy or watch some high level games to get a general idea of how things should be done.
In BW I saw some people do an opening then just freestyle it. I saw others learn a single BO to 100 supply and try perfect it. The better players in the end were simply the ones who had played more.
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Calgary26003 Posts
On October 08 2010 06:44 visual77 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 08 2010 06:39 Chill wrote:
"Is it better to practice your breakaway move or workout at the gym?"
Impossible question. You need both, and each one is better depending on what you want to accomplish. True, so perhaps I should rephrase the question as "For a shitty player trying to take those first steps towards not being shitty, which is more important to be done first?" In the long run, I'd like to have both down well enough to have some self respect, but with my skills as low as they are, I don't think I can work both of them simultaneously and am wondering which one should I work first.
Fundamentals. People talking about mutual exclusivity are missing the point in my eyes. Things like practicing accurate clicking, increasing hand speed, and general fundamentals take conscious thought to improve effectively. You'll get some benefit in them by just practicing build orders, but it will take much longer to see improvement.
Once you have fundamentals you can do anything; however, going fundamentals-first will mean you lose more than if you just learned some build orders. It will also take much longer.
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Calgary26003 Posts
On October 08 2010 07:02 Nytefish wrote:
The better players in the end were simply the ones who had played more.
I vehemently disagree with this statement.
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On October 08 2010 07:03 Chill wrote:Show nested quote +On October 08 2010 06:44 visual77 wrote:On October 08 2010 06:39 Chill wrote:
"Is it better to practice your breakaway move or workout at the gym?"
Impossible question. You need both, and each one is better depending on what you want to accomplish. True, so perhaps I should rephrase the question as "For a shitty player trying to take those first steps towards not being shitty, which is more important to be done first?" In the long run, I'd like to have both down well enough to have some self respect, but with my skills as low as they are, I don't think I can work both of them simultaneously and am wondering which one should I work first. Fundamentals. People talking about mutual exclusivity are missing the point in my eyes. Things like practicing accurate clicking, increasing hand speed, and general fundamentals take conscious thought to improve effectively. Once you have fundamentals you can do anything; however, going fundamentals-first will mean you lose more than if you just learned some build orders. It will also take much longer.
Yeah, it's definitely been more losses than wins, but I do feel like I'm improving in a more solid way than I was as Protoss. I don't really mind losses. I just want to be better than I was last week, not better than the other guy.
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On October 08 2010 07:03 Chill wrote:Show nested quote +On October 08 2010 07:02 Nytefish wrote:
The better players in the end were simply the ones who had played more. I vehemently disagree with this statement.
Well I'm not surprised, everything I say just comes from what D- players I observed. It's unlikely I conducted a thorough and scientific test to support my conclusion.
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Focus on fundamentals while playing stable openings that let you transition well into the midgame instead of doing a mass warpgate all in.
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I've played more then friends of mine that are better then me and i've better then other who played more ;o
So you definitely learn better by doing certain things. For me the most helpful thing is to do the same build order over and over and focus at learning one thing at the time that I feel need improvement. It works well.
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Actually I'm a bit confused as to what people are referring to when they say a BO.
I mean something like 14 gas, 14 pool is hardly a BO, to me it's just an opening that can transition into many things, of course you should memorise and practice those.
But something like 4 warpgate all-in I would regard as a build order that you could practice lots and get a good win-rate with, but really limits your ability and understanding if it's the only thing you can do well.
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On October 08 2010 07:18 Nytefish wrote:
Actually I'm a bit confused as to what people are referring to when they say a BO.
I mean something like 14 gas, 14 pool is hardly a BO, to me it's just an opening that can transition into many things, of course you should memorise and practice those.
But something like 4 warpgate all-in I would regard as a build order that you could practice lots and get a good win-rate with, but really limits your ability and understanding if it's the only thing you can do well.
When I say BO, I mean I picked something in YABOT and practiced that for awhile. I ended up using the 3 gate robo the most, because I was under the impression that it was a stable, flexible build order that would do fine in all matchups in the lower leagues.
I would rigidly build a 9 Pylon, 13 Gateway, 14 Assimilator, etc. This led to me getting up to about 35 supply with great efficiency, and then locking up after that. I would forget my chronoboosts, float, forget to tech up, forget to expand and all that. I was good in the early game, but not because I had skill, merely because I had a sequence of buttons trained.
This time around, I started playing it from the other perspective. I'm not ultra concerned about dropping my pool on 13 or anything like that, but much more concerned with thinking about supply and minerals and larva. When I worked that BO, I never got supply capped before 35 and would often get supply capped afterwards. The same goes with money - I kept it ultra low, until I was out of my comfort zone.
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I think you pretty much understand what each style of learning does for you already.
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On October 08 2010 07:31 Nytefish wrote:
I think you pretty much understand what each style of learning does for you already.
Yeah, I do, which is why I put this in blogs rather than any of the forums. I was just curious as to the thoughts of others on these different practice styles. The general opinion seems to be focus on BOs, and I'm not sure if they just assume everyone on TL has fundamentals or what, but it definitely didn't work for me.
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u'll have more fun practicing fundamentals.... BOs can come later and more naturally (u just need a 2/3 root builds that reaches 25/30 supply imo)
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Fundamentals ( Flash)
vs
BO (Fantasy)
That's the gist of it. The choice is dependent on the desired possibility of play-style(s).
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You can't really practice one without the other. In a way, this is a false question because builds aren't some kind of super rigid down-to-the-supply formulas. They are a large overarching scheme.
I would rigidly build a 9 Pylon, 13 Gateway, 14 Assimilator, etc. This led to me getting up to about 35 supply with great efficiency, and then locking up after that. I would forget my chronoboosts, float, forget to tech up, forget to expand and all that. I was good in the early game, but not because I had skill, merely because I had a sequence of buttons trained.
The opening of 9pylon 13gate 14gas is merely an opening. This by itself isn't a build order at all. Just this by itself doesn't have any kind of plan. Now you falling apart after the early game is because you don't know what you should be doing because you're going into a game without having a game scheme in your mind. So you can't blame your lack of coherency later on in the game to builds because well, you're not even going into the game with a build in mind.
A build won't work to any good sense without the ability to understand the fundamentals of the build. If you understand the fundamentals of the game then you will naturally plan out builds. The two can't be separated at all.
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On October 08 2010 07:02 Nytefish wrote:The better players in the end were simply the ones who had played more.
If that is true, isn't it pretty boring? Just compare practice times, and you'll know who's better... Would you say that Jaedong loses to Flash repeatedly just because he's slacking on practice
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They're pretty much the same thing. Have a good bo and you don't forget depots or scvs since its part of your build order, but people call these things fundamentals.
So they're isn't really a difference.
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It doesn't matter how good your build order is if you can't macro, manage economy, remember workers/depots, etc. Fundamentals are much more important for starting out at improving.
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On October 08 2010 07:54 xMiragex wrote:Fundamentals ( Flash) vs BO ( Fantasy) That's the gist of it. The choice is dependent on the desired possibility of play-style(s).
i think that's a pretty horrible comparison as you picked perhaps the two terrans with the most flexible playstyles out there
fantasy has some kinky BO's from boxer and co, but so does flash
flash has some excellent mechanics, but fantasy's is not shabby at all either (the difference only really starts showing late game)
i'd say that instead of starting out with solid BO's (especially because the game is still developing!) trying to keep low money and adapting through scouting and game sense until you feel very comfortable with the race will be quite beneficial, and then trying to apply all that you learned to a couple of your favorite BO's.
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As terran I just know a BO for an early mm push. I practiced that a lot, i got better, MUCH better, and i lost late game. got out macroed.
tpi I think having a good.... general.... bo for many things is good. you'll go far.
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People really tend to focus in on details far too much. And I believe that people really do think that there is a "if I do X it will beat Y" situation. The game is not like that, so I would not recommend just playing 1 build over and over and over, that seems like a horrible thing to do to your learning.
Also just focusing on your fundamentals (ex: not supply blocked, money low, building workers) is not going to really help you. The only time I do a "fundamentals game" its my first game in a while and im just playing a custom to get my hands going.
What I suggest is very simple in concept but leads to far more understanding than any other method and this is how I play.
You start with a PLAN. and plan in not a "Build order". It is a plan. An idea that you will try to bring into the game. A plan for me as protoss, could be as simple as, 1. I want 2 bases, 6-8 gateways, and (Insert power unit of choice here). Now that there is a plan, PRACTICE is required to learn what routes there are, which are safer depending on different situations and many other things that can only be gained through practicing this PLAN.
Now you aren't bound by any sort of I do XYZ everygame fuck whatever he's doing mindset, and you will learn more from every game through trial and error.
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On October 08 2010 06:31 Borked wrote:
Since beta, I didn't really memorized any BO's , yes I know BO's but I always practiced for my fundamentals, when your fundamentals are good enough you can do any BO or tweak them as you like.
So I'm in favor of practicing fundamentals.
aka everyone should be super flexible and freestyle, use a build if you see fit.
♥
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Honestly I would practice fundamentals first. BOs are important but if you don't have the fundamentals down then there really is a huge issue getting BOs down. I don't think better players are those you simply play more, that is true to an extent but that's why you see a lot of people who have 500+ ladder games played and are still in gold. My point is fundamentals are what you need to start you off, then BOs can come in.
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Thank you for making this thread and to everyone who contributed to the discussion. I feel that I learnt a lot just from reading this thread.
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1. SC2 doesn't have concrete BOs as far as I know. The ones that are standard at the moment are also incredibly flexible during the game so that's also not the great thing to practice. With SC1 you had the Pros giving out BOs that were perfectly made and timed. At this point, SC2 has yet to see something similar.
2. Without fundamentals you can't execute BOs. A lot of the times, BOs are fundamental intensive. You need to keep track of supply, money count, etc, in order to time your BO just right. Without fundamentals, you're going to be late and get owned later.
3. Fundamentals and BOs are not mutually exclusive. In all honesty, BOs are fundamentals.
Therefore: Practice fundamentals in terms of looking at the mini-map, standard micro management, keeping track of food, constant use of MULEs, chrono boost, larva inject. Do all of that before you practice actual BOs.
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Fundamentals are more important for consistent success in many things.
BO's in Brood War pretty much map all the fundamentals down to a certain point, then you need to pick it up after the last building mapped for you and you have to know when to expo, when to engage, when to poke, etc.
BO's in SC2 are flimsy because the game is still in its learning stages and because maps still need improvement, so things can change anytime.
While you need good BO's, you must first have the fundamentals to not only follow up the execution, but to also know how/when to tweak your BO's and to even understand WHY you are doing a certain BO.
So work on the fundamentals always. But, also try to balance it with learning BO's too, because they do work together. And really your basics can always be improved over time I think, so never stop thinking about them.
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It's now been a month since I posted this, and I think my work on fundamentals has helped me out very well. I go into every game just thinking "saturate multiple bases, don't get supply capped, spend all money, don't miss a spawn larva". I got promoted back into platinum and am wrecking through it. The only time I lose is if I play someone who puts pressure on me early.
I know that I'll start stalling out once most of my opponents can macro well, but I still think this practice style has done wonders. As the games proceed, I don't forget my spawn larvas, I don't forget to spend my money, and I don't get supply capped. Working the fundamentals has drilled that timing into me so much better than any BO did with Protoss.
All in all, I'm very pleased with this practice method. I'm exciting for diamond league when I start facing people who force me to focus other areas, because when that time comes, my fundamentals will still be subconscious.
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EPT
