EPTWhen I first started playing SC2 I started off in Silver. I had watched a few videos from Husky and HD and just learned about basic unit composition. That got me to gold. I quickly ranked up and then kinda fell. This is when I started learning about good group key bindings and general micro. I also started to actually scout my opponent out. At first I I wasn't really sure what to look for when scouting. I was just kinda getting to their base and then getting the nearest Xelnaga tower. Half the time the probe would just die. Then I started watching the day9 daily a lot. He talks about scouting a lot and how important it is for your gameplay. I learned what to look for and other things I can do with my probe, such as stealing gas against terran to try and hinder him from fast banshee play or other fast tech. This boosted me back up and I then made Platinum. Once I hit Platinum I started to struggle a lot. Then I watched a few more videos a learned how to execute build orders properly like the 4-gate, 2/3gate robo, and forge fast expand.I started learning how to positioning my army so that I get the better concave in the fight. Right now against zerg its really easy for protoss to hit a well timed 6 gate or 5 gate robo push with +1 and just kill a zerg. That has brought be up to the top of my league, currently +1 waiting to get diamond. I don't do any cheeses like proxy gateways or cannon rushing on ladder. I feel that at this stage I should be focusing on good macro and mechanics. I have done it maybe a couple times on 2v2 latter but that's it.
There are two things that I've learned that I think has improved my gameplay the most. Scouting and Macro. I always keep a probe/observer keyed to 2 so I can always keep tabs on what my opponent is doing. That alone has helped SOOOOOO much with cheese, especially 6 pools. I've been seeing some zergs do blind 6 pools on 4 player maps. The problem is most of the 4 player maps are large and that hinders the zerg rush. They also have to hope to scout you by the time their lings are done. If they don't scout you with their first guess, then they got a coin-flip to pick the right base. If you can spot the 6 pool you should almost always be able to defend it. Get a forge and completely wall off is the easiest way to handle it's really easy to just 4 gate or 3 gate expo the zerg. You can cancel a pylon while its building. Worst case you have to kill one and lose 100 min, big deal.
As far as macro goes its pretty simple; keep up probe production and and keep money low. Also its good to know when to cut probe production, but not too long. You don't want to fall behind on macro. When you scout you want to check obvious expansions to see if they've expanded. With terran you want to check their main for building CC, as this is the general strategy for most terrans these days. Against zerg, you want to try and delay expansions as much as possible. Pylon to block natural with scout probe, and Void ray harrass with 3rd. Lately it's been hard for me to do 3rd expansion void ray harass because most zergs react hard to seeing Stargate units. Most either build a ton of spore crawlers and/or a ton of queens. But its easy to switch to robo tech and get Colossus for the death ball. Some zergs have been using mass bane/ling comps with drops. I've found this pretty hard to deal and not quite sure whats good against it.
My main issue right now is PvP. I don't usually 4 gate to often against zergs and terrans and it seems most diamond players can execute it better than me. I sometimes use the 3 gate stalker into robo build thats come out lately. Sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't, it really comes down to can you can get that proxy pylon out and get immortal out fast enough before a 4 gate hits your ramp. If i can get the gateway times synced with the warp tech time I generally seem to win, especially if I get a proxy pylon on in front of the ramp. Although I haven't seen it in awhile, I still don't know how to deal with a Thor/marine/scv push.
Anyway. I gotta go to sleep. I'm gonna game some more tomorrow and post another blog. Later
-Siege
