I have been playing Starcraft: Brood War for about a one and a half years now. I played the campaign when I was ~10 years old and forgot about the whole game after that. Many years later I found out about Boxer through some related Starcraft content on youtube and discovered the Korean proscene.
I've been following the proleague/OSL/MSL for 3 years now and love it with all my heart. My gaming experience has not been so great. Like all, I started as a d-, tried to figure out the correct responses and builds by myself or by watching the progamer VODs. Eventually I figured the metagame out through Liquipedia, and learned the basic builds by heart for ZvP and ZvT (3hatchspire->5hatch, 3 hatch hydra, 3 hatch muta etc). I haven't got the slightest clue about ZvZ so I don't even play that matchup.
My mechanics developed aswell so I got to be a solid mid D player. As my mechanics (Im at about 250apm now) and overall knowledge of the strategy grew I managed to hit D+ for the first time and I've been low D+ / mid D+ player for a while now. This was also when things started to go downhill. I feel personally that I'm at a halt at my Brood War skills and do not have fun anymore playing the game. The biggest reason I think is that there isnt really that much info about the Zerg strategy in detail. For example I do not know the correct most cost-effective counter against the 2-gateway opening from Protoss. The teamliquid strategy section seems also to be more about Protoss and Terran strategy.
I feel like an asshole writing these down, but these are my honest experiences when playing Brood war on Iccup.
1) No one plays Terran anymore 2) D- and E rank players are always really D-/E rank players. 3) Players creating "D/D-" games are usually D ranks themselves. 4) Players creating "D/D+" games are about 70% D+/D and 30% C or higher 5) C rank players are all assholes 6) B rank players are much nicer, I will get to this later. 7) The usual (9 times out of 10) answer when I ask for advice from a C ranker is one of the following: "You suck lol", "Play better", "I don't know", "stop qqing and gg already", "micro better". This is also one of the reasons why I'm at a halt, because no one has the courtesy to tell me my mistakes even if I kindly ask. 8) Anyone who tells me to watch the replay afterwards, has no idea what they are talking about. What is the point for me to watch the replay if I don't know where I'm making the mistake. Obviously there are mechanical mistakes like forgetting to make an overlord every once in a while, but that doesn't effect the whole strategical mistakes of my gameplay, you know? 9) B rank players tear me a new one, but they always give me advice after the game. Too bad that I get to play B ranks so rarely.
Not to offend anyone, the game is just a struggle for me at the moment.
8) Anyone who tells me to watch the replay afterwards, has no idea what they are talking about. What is the point for me to watch the replay if I don't know where I'm making the mistake. Obviously there are mechanical mistakes like forgetting to make an overlord every once in a while, but that doesn't effect the whole strategical mistakes of my gameplay, you know?
Yeah, I often tell my friends to watch replays because it helped me get places in SC2. Generally I watch for things like worker count, and often just tactical mistakes if I can. (Okay, moved that group of Marines and they all got murdered. Whoops).
Overall I'd just say that smaller things will become better over time, but if there's that one disastrous engagement, watch it from different angles, look at supplies as closely as you can, and resources, etc.
I don't think its rude to say 'I don't know'. I've been asked that before, and usually, I honestly don't know. I was too busy clicking like a madman to pay attention to every subtle detail of my opponent's play.
I completely agree on the lack of strategic ressources for zerg, except maybe in zvt. ZvZ on liquipedia doesn't make sense and ZvP is completely outdated. Just don't ask advice to c- players for instance, they probably can't help you anyway. And yeah, more terran please
Obviously there are mechanical mistakes like forgetting to make an overlord every once in a while, but that doesn't effect the whole strategical mistakes of my gameplay, you know?
Actually, it usually is just simple stuff like you're missing timings because you made mistakes like forgetting overlords or didn't make drones at the right time. If you really truly sit down and think about the game you played, tactical errors will become obvious too. Like if you get to a point in the game where you lose a big army vs his, pause just before that and ask yourself 'what could I have done instead of what I did?' Backstabbed? Delayed? Cut off reinforcements? Was my tech just wrong for this point in the game? Could I have distracted him with my army without losing it?
I'll grant you that ladder is a very unfriendly place to play the games, especially if you aren't in the habit of rematching (and most people aren't). You are better off PMing people who sound like they still play the game that are willing to play with you. If you're amiable enough, you'll get the advice you want and make the game a lot more personable.
Ladder is this kind of faux serious business where people get very worked up and unfriendly. You really just have to make friends with some people if you want to avoid that.
Well, how will someone who is at even C know about the mistakes you made, especially if they are playing a different race. They might sort of know the overall flow of the matchup, but not what mistakes what you made. And even if they do give you some advice, it's probably not going to be to accurate.
You're a 250 apm zerg and you're only D? Man, with those mechanics you should be able to tear it up to C- at least. I can understand losing ZvZs cause nobody knows what the hell is going on in that (even pros seem like they have no idea LOL) and it's pretty coinflippy at the start. ZvT and ZvP should be a breeze though, especially ZvT.
I do agree, you don't see many terrans at low level. I think because terran is just unforgiving and really really mechanically difficult. I trip over myself at 200 apm nonstop and look like a D- baddie sometimes. It's just a really hard race unless you're Flash.
It sounds like your weaknesses are a lack of understanding of strategy and smooth execution of transitions. If you have the mechanics, it can't be a micro or macro problem (unless it's all spam). I'll be glad to sit down with you and drill the hell out of your ZvT at least. My TvZ is somewhere between C+ and B level depending on how derp I am, and my best friend is zerg. I should be able to at least get you into a comfort zone vs anyone up to about C.
PM me if you're interested. Also check out OP Teamliquid if you haven't already. I'm there when I'm online as well.
I dunno how you see no Terrans. I'm pretty sure I only broke into D+ last season solely on my PvT cause I played so many of them. Then again, I think people just race Terran cause I'm Protoss. Either they feel more confident with PvT or they really hate TvZ. I'd be down to play a couple games of PvZ with you but I don't even know how I do in that match up anymore. I have a hard time finding Zergs and if I do find one, either they're REALLY bad or I get cheesed to death. Pretty sure I wouldn't be of much help. But good luck and keep at it. I think you'll eventually find your way past this wall and just start tearing it up.
I laughed at the ZvZ part. I try to replicate proleague ZvZ games but I end up winning by going some gimmicky 3-hatch ling build that usually wins me the game. Mutas come way wayyyyy later than what pros would get them out by LOL. Main reason why i spam lings is i'm always scared that they have more lings than me before my mutas come out.
It's too bad I'm in australia, i always get asked to leave because i lag the game out.
Lol fuck playing on iccup man, get on fish server, you will make friends, they speak english with you, and many of them are very nice (the other group of people find out you are foreigner and spam curse words and stuff like "U LIKE SEX?").
I dunno, generally I'll give advice if they ask, but it kinda depends on how i'm feeling when I'm laddering ( I won't bm you though). Generally when I'm laddering, I'm stressed or something, so I ladder to get more stressed, so I don't feel like giving advice when asked. Also, it's not usually done, so when I get asked, I'm just sitting there in shock.
Ladder isn't really the best place to get advice on how to get better. It's better to ask people in op teamliquid or something.
But on the flip side, you should be able to look at your own replays and identify mistakes. Also, at D levels( and even C and above) you need to realize that a lot of mistakes are mechanical. As in, so much so, that you can't even TALK about strategy because of the mechanical mistakes.
Honestly a lot of zergs in zvp that I've met have different ways of remembering things and are still learning the game themselves so their too afraid to give out wrong information.
I think the only advice C/low B rank zergs can really give is tell you a build to copy and supply you with vods and its up to you to figure out the rest for zvp.
Those are the 2 builds that i use the most, if you have any specific questions you can pm me about them.
For ZvT its been the same general idea for a while so luckily theres a lot of replays available which make it easier.
This is a pretty good indication of standard zvt timings although my memory might be fuzzy since i haven't watched it in a while.
In a nutshell you want to do 12h 11p 13h and 14 or 15 gas and make 2 lings when pool finishes(most common). You get your 2nd gas once your 3rd hatch finishes and spire once lair is done. While spire is building you start 3 creep colonies and morph them into sunkens if you see him moving out. You should also send a drone to your 3rd (should be in another main) so you can build it right after you start your mutas. While spire is building you go up to 59 supply (should be 3 ovies started when spire is at like 200/300 hp) and save rest of larve for mutas. Once spire is done you make 9 mutas, a hydra den, then 2 more mutas, and a 4th hatch (3rd) should be somewhere in that rotation. As soon as hydra den is done you start lurker upgrade immediately. Once lurker upgrade is like 30-50% done you start your queens nest and get defiler den + consume asap. Get 4th base once u have consume and start making ultra/ling/defiler once u have 4 gas.
Also, vs +1 4/5 rax the normal response is to micro down the marine count and cut off reinforcements with mutas while you build lings and attack with around 2 control groups of lings + your mutas sometime before lurkers are out (although if you can delay until you start 2 lurkers at your 3rd ramp that's even better).
In time you will learn to cringe at the mere thought of vessels and mines and breath a heavy sigh of relief when your opponent selects a race that isn't Terran.
ZvZ: Bullshit build order game, HF!
And since you gave a specific example, the way i deal with 2 gate (i don't really know if this is the ideal response) is first of all you don't make your 3rd hatch at first, you should scout him in time before you put it down assuming you scout at the same time you take your natural, you make as many lings as possible up untill like 12-ish (not sure) and as soon as your natural hatch finishes you make 2 sunkens there. Once you feel safe or have enough money i add the 3rd hatchery and my gas and do a 3 hatch muta build that is really close to the zvt 3 hatch build (except i get my gas right after 3rd hatchand 2nd gas can come a little later if you can't afford it). I also get overlord speed really quick vs any 1 base protoss (right after mutas if you can) also bring like 4 scourge with your mutas because he should have 2/3 sairs when you get there.
Another great resource is Day9's daily on Hyuk vs Anytime where he outlines a lot of guidelines for playing vs a 1 base protoss, and in general his BW dailies are far superior then his SC2 ones and you should watch as many as you can.
I totally agree, I myself recently got into ICCUp after being experienced with SC2 and got placed into D- after a bad losing streak, the players down here are very rude and BM you like no other
Never tried the fish server but do you get latency there?
I agree about the few terrans and I blame protosses. Pretty sure 80% of the games I join, I choose terran and then the person chooses protoss. 60% of the games I play are tvp (I'm c-/c range).
It gets tiring for any d/d+ terrans to play so many protosses. Especially if you aren't able to host games (I fortunately am). Any terran out there in the d/d+ range who just tries to join other people's games is going to join a "d/d+ python/fs/motw" game only to have some c-/c [PE] guy choose protoss and try to be a fag. Also for me iccup has gotten a bit harder the past couple seasons as well (imo, at least I run into more people who "actually" are c/c+ when trying to ladder at d+; as well as people have gotten better).
Why are you relying on the ladder community so much? Just play the game, collect a replay and then rewatch it with a friend to find out what you're doing wrong. Then practice with them until you find an answer you feel is appropriate to whatever you're dealing with. If you've got no friends, find some. Everyone wants some so it's not that hard, even a penguin like me did it
EPT
