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A while ago, I made blogs stating how I'd like to go pro. I had these totally naïve ambitions of being a top EU GM in 6 months and stuff. I've recently realised how stupid I was. I am trying to set a reasonable goal, since I've always wanted to improve. I want to get to masters. I came to this realisation after realising how hard foreigner pro gamers such as ToD and Lastshadow practice, and I don't mean to sound disrespectful, but still aren't top pro gamers (yet, ToD and LS fighting!). How would I get anywhere near to their skill level playing 3 hours a day and not targetting specific areas of weakness properly?
I have many, many, many, many flaws in my play. It's very bad. I am playing Terran.
-Supply blocked
-Macro late game
-Lack of a solid build order
-Completely clueless in TvZ
When people say, “Just work on one aspect”, if I am working on supply blocks, do I just make supply depots when necessary and make only marines? As it seems you're just going to be losing a lot doing this. I know to get better you have to lose more than you win, and you're going to lose a lot when you're doing this, but this seems like you'll lose A LOT.
My macro late game tends to make me float around 1000-2000 minerals. Is it okay to be floating minerals this late, or should I not start floating until 200/200?
The build orders I plan on learning are:
TvZ – Polt's Reactor Hellion
I copied this build from a replay I found, from a site I can unfortunately no longer remember. It was very good. I came out of it thinking, “If a GSL Korean Zerg lost to it (it was Zenio), what silver league will?” I aim to copy it with about 5-10 second disparity.
TvP – this is where I am slightly confused. Is it worth learning 1/1/1? I would think not, learning it would not improve my mechanics that well, considering it's all all-in; but I supose it could improve my aggression and it's another style to use, as well as being a good build to know.
TvT – is 1rax FE a good build? I am unsure how it would follow up; 2fact and go mech, maybe? I am sorry this sounds like a really bad [H] strategy post.
I am going to play around 3 hours a day, and make sure I am working on something when I am playing; most importantly my mechanics. My multitasking as any race is pretty bad. I get slow and then when I am doing this, I forget things and it becomes a horrible sight.
If you have any tips/advice for me, please comment. And if you just have anything I should know about Terran, please tell me. (TvZ please!)
 
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what league are you in right now?
play macro styles/greedy styles and adjust them as you get beaten. get comfortable on 3 bases, then 4 bases. The only time you can float mins/gas as terran is when you are maxed -- otherwise theres a snag in your production for some reason.
you don't need to make only marines and focus on depots to get better. Play however you want to play, but in the higher leagues, there is more of a focus on economy. TvZ, and PvZ, and TvT -- generally, the player who has more workers and makes smarter decisions will win.
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I never had the chance to read your post of going pro so I don't know your timeline to do so, but only playing 3 hours a day won't get you there. I had the goal of getting GM in 4 months ( a while back, I had the plan to get it by january) I only got High masters from being masters when I set the goal. Now I'm moving to Poland to participate in a pro house and practise 11 hours a day and am having doubts of ever actually being pro. The more you practise the faster you will improve, I'm grinding out 8 hour days now and and barely holding top 8 in a competitive group, but 3 hours a day, will take quiet a bit longer.
No offence. I support you 100% going pro, But don't set goals you can't complete. Saying you want to be pro in a year, while practising 3 hours a day isn't really reasonable. Set goals so you won't dissapoint yourself, It makes them much easier to obtain.
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Karmy, you're mistaken. I'm not deciding to go pro, that's the point. I'm deciding to get better. And I can play 3 hours a day realistically considering I can get on the PC around 5pm-11 school days. And some of that will be homework, plus I may do other things.
On February 18 2012 14:45 ahw wrote:
what league are you in right now?
Silver.
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tvz go reactor hellion expand make a banshee just to be safe then go for marine tank dont attack till u have secured a third
tvp open fast tech lab fast reaper and concussive then get mara after this will help scout early what toss is doing expand behind that go for marine marauder medivac ghost and vikings if needed.
tvt try reactor hellion cloak banshee in hellion tank viking mech.
oh and for TvP 111 do it and do it a lot : )
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The thing that most people mean when they say "work on one thing at a time" is to simply concentrate less on the other things and more on the issue you select to improve. For instance, when I was in bronze and silver as Zerg, I worked on a simple build order that stayed on 2 bases. I never tried to get 3 or 4 hatcheries up because my sole focus was to learn to inject better. Start off by choosing an easier 2 base build that doesn't require a lot of more complex macro. What I mean by that is, don't try to open with banshees or something because that style requires a ton of micro to use effectively and it will detract from your main objective (i.e. supply blocks, scv production, etc.).
I'll try to give a rundown of what basic builds you could use in each of your matchups and explain why I think they will benefit your play. This is probably stuff you know already but I'll post it just so you can have an easy reference.
TvZ: Reactor Hellion
The reactor hellion opening is a very safe opening and gives you map control.
9 depot
12 rax
13 gas
@100 gas make factory
@50 gas make reactor on rax
Swap rax and fact when done and make 6 hellions
You will have enough money to build another Command Center while this is going on. After the 6 hellions, you can produce 2 more rax.
Obviously make marines and scvs until you need to use your gas and make the Orbital Command as soon as you can afford it (if you make a marine and scv first you will get it on 17).
Reactor hellions can transition into a very standard marine/tank composition by taking the factory off the reactor, building another rax on the empty reactor and putting a tech lab on the factory when you land it. This probably isn't new for you but it's the way to do it most effectively. This strategy might actually be harder to do than a bio ball with medivacs but it is safe and allows you to do what you want behind the hellions.
TvP: 3 Rax
Opening 3 rax, 2 with tech labs and 1 with reactor is extremely safe and easy to macro off of.
9 depot
12 rax
13 gas
Make 1 marine and then get the tech lab on the barracks.
Make a marauder when the tech lab finishes and get the concussive shell upgrade.
Add on 2 more rax (1 with tech lab and the other with reactor).
You will have enough money to produce another Command Center around this time.
If you make marauders from the tech lab rax and marines from the reactor while getting the upgrades from the tech labs, you can take an easy expansion and then get a factory/starport to get reactored medivacs out. Only do this once you have your expansion down and have taken 3 more gas. You can add on 2 more rax the same as before with a tech lab and reactor. Since this build relies on bio units, it is beneficial to get upgrades started from the engineering bay as soon as you expand as well (the extra gas will help you in this regard). You can instantly put on pressure with your force and the medivacs will be a huge boost to the strength of the army. If they get colossus out, make another starport for viking production.
TvT: 1 Rax reaper FE
The reaper will let you scout the opponent and maybe get a couple of scv kills.
Open the exact same way as TvP with the tech lab on your rax
Build a reaper after the tech lab instead of a marauder this time.
Produce marines after this one reaper.
Make sure you start your expansion Command Center as soon as you can afford it with constant scvs and rax units.
If you want to go mech, add on 2 factories...one swaps with the rax and the other can be reactored for hellions. One two base you can add on another factory for more tank production and blue flame research.
*If you decide to go bio instead, add on only 2 more gas and go up to 4 rax on two bases. Then you can transition into the same style as TvP with 5 rax and a reactored starport.*
These are by no means down to the second or tiniest detail but things you can tinker with until you feel comfortable with them. The first thing you need to do is make sure supply blocks are minimized. The 27 supply block is ultra common so make sure you start a depot at 22 or so. The reason this one is so common is because your production starts to kick in around this time (especially with the reactor hellion build). The supply depots in between 27 and the time your 2nd CC finishes (10 more supply) are crucial...make sure you absolutely know when you need to start depots. After this it's simply directing your focus to this issue. One trick I used with Zerg that might help is any time you go to make units, make 2 depots before you produce the units. As soon as you make the depots, then select your production facilities and macro. If you get in a habit of thinking about the supply depots first instead of the units then you will find yourself transitioning into heavier production with less snags. At some point 2 depots at a time won't be enough to keep up with additional unit production but you can gauge this and start adding 3-4 instead.
Hopefully this is somewhat useful and I wish you the best of luck improving. This game has something that most others don't and the constant need for improvement I think is the one facet that is particularly addicting. If you find yourself dying to something ask yourself a couple of questions:
1. Did I scout enough
2. Was what I did too risky
If you didn't have scouting information, that might be where your focus should go for practice. If you died because you didn't have enough units out, alter your build and find something safer. Don't try to improve everything at once...pick that one thing and work at in a custom game vs. a very easy ai until you feel comfortable with the first 7 or so minutes of your build. Then take it to ladder or a practice group and put it to work. Having been in bronze and gotten to a position where I play masters level players now I hope my experience is helpful to you. Good luck, have fun, sir!
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Why would learning 1-1-1 not be worth it? It surely isnt the hardest build there is and you want to "get to masters" anyways.
Since that is your goal i dont see the reason why you dismiss cheese.
Just try to win, NOT to improve your mechanics or play "the right way" (since your only in silver you wont hit your skillcap in quite a while, you will improve either way by playing hundreds of games), thats bullshit.
When you actually are in masters and doing well, THEN maybe think about cleaning up your play and think about if youre playing "right", before that it doesent make sense, just play to win and have fun.
Good luck my friend
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Grohg, I think I love you. Holy shit; thank you, thank you, thank you!
Also, isley, there is no point setting bad habits only to find them harder to fix them in the future when they're even more set in. I want to get better, and masters is the goal.
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On February 18 2012 16:30 Jedclark wrote:
Grohg, I think I love you. Holy shit; thank you, thank you, thank you!
Also, isley, there is no point setting bad habits only to find them harder to fix them in the future when they're even more set in. I want to get better, and masters is the goal.
You have wrong mindset in my opinion, if you approach it like that it will be unnecessarily frustrating. Just play to win ladder games and have fun. There is no point in being very careful about not obtaining "bad habits" if you dont want to play this game competetively.
Thats the nonsense day9 and others teach starcraft noobs
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i think worrying about specific builds is counter productive for lower leagues. You should win games by economy and decision making, not by timings and build order wins. When you win it should feel like a landslide.
Find a general build, try to figure out why it works, and compare it to other "standard" builds. Try to figure out why the players you watch make the decisions they make. Don't worry about mapping out a build to 60 food.
Learn how the game works; play economy and macro.
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i think day9 is very useful, some of the advice i picked up from him pushed me from plat to almost masters.
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You can't go into a game without a plan. If you have no idea what you plan on doing to start off a game you will deviate every single time and never feel like you have a solid understanding of what's going on. The advice of sticking to 2-3 builds until you feel comfortable is there in order to allow you to no focus so much on when and where to build units/buildings but instead to direct your attention to the holes in your play.
To anyone saying openings aren't worth learning at lower leagues, that's actually the opposite of true. The reason an opening build is better than winging it is for the consistency. If you do things differently every game, you will be hard pressed to pinpoint your mistakes. It's much easier to compare good games to bad ones when you repeat the same strategy consistently over time. Blindly following a build because someone said it was good isn't the way to go either, I agree. This is simply a starting point. In fact, build orders hardly ever address the mid-late game and that is where you make the most decisions and adapt. Getting to that point with good mechanics and a good setup, however, is extremely important and if you can start a game with something solid then you will be able to make those decisions more easily than if you were to open up with a build that is extremely inefficient.
In my post, I purposefully made sure to leave as much room for deviation as possible. This is so you can experiment and figure out things on your own. Tricks like the supply depots every time before production are things you should constantly add to your arsenal. These autopilot mechanics will free up mental space for you to make the decisions that pertain to strategy, not APM intensive skills.
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EPT
