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Sup TL,
I'm in my mid-20s, from Australia. University student, full-time worker, SC2 lover, Protoss player (like 90% of female players, evidently.)
I played BW in highschool and loved it. When I bought SC2, I figured I'd be amazing and went straight into my placement matches.
Got placed in the bottom of Bronze, obviously.
With time, lots of Day9 and State of the Game casts, I'm in the top 10 of my Bronze league.
Where Dis Bitch At:
My SC2 Ranks Profile
I've been playing Silver players, which I suppose is a good sign that Battle.net is matching me up with them. (Rank 25 Silver even match, wtf?) I don't think I'm winning over 50% of them though.
I always lose due to stupid decisions.
My macro is great in the first 15 minutes of the game. I outmacro my opponents 90% of the time. But then I do dumb shit - ie: send up whole army up the ramp to commit suicide, not scout expansions, etc.
This is pretty frustrating. It's like having blinders on in games, sometimes - in retrospect, I can watch the replay and be like "wtf was I thinking", but in game I was completely blinded by whatever it is I was focussing on, ie: containment, whatever.
Things I've Done So Far:
* Watched so much Day9, it's crazy. The whole "making pylons, making probes" mantra on its own improved my game 13,984% (approx). Watching him alone took my win rate from 43% to 50.86%. It was 54% at its peak, but I've had huge losing streaks to cheese/me being a dumbass.
* Listen to State of the Game on my way to work on the train or at the gym.
FYI, it's very difficult not to laugh at InControl being a big funny fucker, while working my ass off on the crosstrainer.
* Watched MLG/Dreamhack/etc replays/VODs/casts.
Things I'm Focussing On:
* I don't have build orders, as such, more big stupid ideas about how my game will play out. I've downloaded replays from KiWiKaKi, InControl, LiquidTyler etc in order to watch orders more carefully to see how they play out.
* After two bases, I completely lose control of my macro and basically never expand again out of fear.
* Need to be more aggressive. If I make a conscious decision at the beginning fo the game to DT harass, etc, it works out. In any other situation, though, I completely lose my nerve and just sit out the front of my base shitting myself.
* Need to not fear teching. A lot of the time, I'll feel so revved up mid-game, that instead of teching to High Templar or (GASP!) carriers or whatever, I'll just continue to pump out gateway units when really, 90% of the time, it'd help more if I teched.
Anyway, that's all for now. I haven't been able to play too much over the last few weeks due to work, but that'll change.
My next update I'll post some replays and shizz like that.
Keep it gangster, TL.
 
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One thing that might help with the whole losing your army walking up a ramp without checking is to make up a timing push that hits right when your first observer comes out. This way you can send the observer up to have a look at whats up on the cliff while your army waits nearby. From there you can either make the decision to push up if you think you can win or just leave your army where it is and keep your opponent contained.
If you have your opponent contained that is a great time to take an expansion.
Always try to make what you do lead on to something else so you never feel lost.
Just things like:
- When I move out to attack I will take an expansion at the same time (opponent distracted)
- When my observer is done I will move out with my army and poke at my opponents base.
- When storm finishes upgrading I will try to take out one of my opponents expansions.
Setting up little "events" in my head helped me a lot playing Protoss. Once you get more used to how the game flows you can set up "events" for what you see your opponent doing also.
I think you are doing the right thing ignoring build orders, focusing on good mechanics like making workers, keeping up good unit production and upgrades will help the most. I still don't really use set build orders in low Diamond because I feel good mechanics are more important.
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My macro is great in the first 15 minutes of the game. I outmacro my opponents 90% of the time. But then I do dumb shit - ie: send up whole army up the ramp to commit suicide, not scout expansions, etc.
That sounds so familiar! I seem to be able to get up a decent army and then have it to commit suicide. It's really a moment worth of facepalming, at least when it happens to me. The only remedy for that is, to get your scouting to improve. Something I personally am working on as well, among many other things.
That feeling when you just sit in your base - from my experience, as long as you have a plan what you are roughly going to do in the game, it usually works out. Of course, there are the factors of what you scout in your opponent's base... there's no point to sticking to ie getting fast colossi if your opponent is getting air units. When I have a plan, I'm not 'worried' to go out. It's also, when I don't scout, that's a reason to be worried to go out. Being in the dark, blind is never good in this game. So again, decent scouting is something necesary to work on, along with mechanics/macro.
Another thing, which you might want to incorporate if you haven't already - upgrades. I never went for those but after watching some of my friends playing, I noticed that it can make a huge difference. So I make sure that I do get the upgrades at least whenever I grab my first expo and invest any leftover minerals/gas into them.
I'll keep reading your blog - always good to see insights of people of my own level. Good luck :-)
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On a side note: though I'm from Singapore, after years of WoW and now SC2, I feel strangely connected to Aussie gamers :p.
Anyway, it's good that you're watching Day9 and learning from it. I'm so addicted to BW that I don't find the time to watch any of his dailies past the really really old ZvZ Banelings episode lol, but one thing I've learnt from BW is that the pros always press their advantage and try to go one more expansion up, rather than move out into the enemy's main once he has an advantage.
I've incorporated that into my play and suddenly I'm beating Plat/Diamond friends... though I'm Zerg, I'm sure it applies to Protoss as well, get your 3rd earlier and add more Gates...
I've always envied Protoss with their Observers, it's like cheap invisible map hack - always see the pros in BW make a couple of Obs in most match ups. It's always good to know what your opponent is doing - I do it with Mutalisks -> you are less nervous if you don't feel paranoid about what they might be doing -> better decision making.
Oh and caught something out of the last post before hitting "Post" yea upgrades are sooo important, I always make sure my Spire is researching something with my Muta heavy play.
Good luck~ it's good that you're actively playing solo - something I can't bring myself to do at the moment - but I do still get practice in with friends.
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Hey lady I'm Terran, and VT.Awesome is Terran, and GT.Navi is Zerg. That's gotta be more than 10% of female players (jkjkjkjkjk). Protoss is rather elegant, though, unlike the boxy utilitarianism of Terran and the corporeal squishiness of Zerg.
About being scared shitless - just remember in every game that it's just one game. You have played a bunch of them. You will play many, many more of them. Rankings and points don't matter - it's your skill level that matters. Just give yourself permission to lose, because at the end of the day it's not life or death and the sun is still shining outside (unless it's night). Then you'll start taking risks and actually learning what to do when various things happen in a game, and then (after you lose a bunch of times) you'll start winning.
Do check out Liquipedia for build orders and stuff - the ones that have the little "bronze proof" sign mean that they're easy and safe enough for bronze players (not that they will annihilate bronze players or that bronze players can't use them). That's what I started out with before I got better and started diversifying my build orders.
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EPT
