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End of day feelings: A little mixed
Things focused on: Step 5 of the staircase
Completion of Focus: Could have passed but stopped myself
End of Day Placement: Silver (#1)
Recap:
So, first off, as you might have noticed already, I got promoted to Silver today. Which is pretty kickass. My first real milestone in my play. I'm trying not to be too results oriented, but while I'm not celebrating wins so much, I am allowing myself to be happy about promotions. Wins don't mean I'm doing the right thing, but promotions mean that I'm moving in the right direction... so yeah I'm happy about it.  You might also notice that I'm #1 in my silver league... ignore that as when I joined I was #2 and only 2 of us had any points. Don't know what the deal is with that, but getting #1 right now means nothing as there is no one else in the division yet.
Another thing that I'm a little happy about, I had my first win against a Gold player today. He did a nydus rush that I held off with my marines and I kept macroing beautifully during the whole thing. I am proud of that game because the first thing I thought when he attacked me was "Am I making SCVs and marines?" and I checked before anything else! I made a lot of mistakes that game, but I am proud of not freaking out over the attack and forgetting to macro.
The mixed feelings come from the fact that though I got promoted and won a lot of games I was having a lot of issues hitting my SQ, SCV and supply block marks. I DID have a game I could throw out because it was less than 1k average income and it would have had me pass step 5, however I felt that I played so badly in it because of a small wrench thrown in my routine that I felt I needed to start over to get my 3 in a row. This is because I'm still in the pure macro stet for Medivacs so I'm doing a good MMM opening and having good attacks with only attack moving. So I want to take a bit of time on this one (as I like this build) and actually take my time to get it nice and crisp and comfortable.
Then I imagine I will take my time with the micro step of this one as well working on doing some drops while continuing macroing and whatnot. I like doing drops and I love the idea of being good at that sort of multitasking in my play (should help to boost my APM above the 35-60 I seem to be floating in now).
Overall Thoughts:
Things I need to work on:
SUPPLY DEPOTS -- I'm getting supply blocked far too much and I'm just not happy with it. Out of the 11 games I played today I failed due to supply blocks five times. That's just unacceptable. And when I did get supply blocked I would often over build depots then get supply blocked again. So I need to work on a timing for building depots constantly at the right times.
Too much money -- Right around the 9-10 minute mark I'm drifting up around 1k minerals before I take my 3rd. So I am going to adjust what I've been doing a little bit. At 10:00 I usually have 5 barracks, (3 reactors 2 tech), a starport and a factory (as far as unit producers go. So what I think I will do is increase that number of barracks to 7 and after the 7th barracks I will start my CC. I think that will be good timing and should help to keep my money down. Will adjust if needed.
upgrades -- I'm getting them, but often slowly, and there was more than one game where I had an engineering bay sitting there that never did anything. Upgrades are far too good not to be getting them, especially since I'm relying on marines and marauders for my army, I need to make them better!
 
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grats on promotion!, keep taking notes of the bigger details like the supply caps and your noticing around what time your having too much money. Keep this up and you'll go up in the ladder very quickly. Don't worry about your builds too much until plat, just keep focusing on making units and spending money.
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Seems to be The Staircase approach is being a bit detrimental to you right now (bear in mind, I haven't used it, I only know the basics of how it supposedly works). Your overall thoughts state that you still have issues with supply and floating minerals. These are without a doubt your biggest problems, and you've correctly identified them, which is awesome. However, if I understand it correctly, the step you're in in the staircase is telling you to start working on micro. If this is true, I must say the staircase is probably not a great framework, since it's a waste of time to work on micro if you're being supplyblocked and floating money, which have a far bigger impact and are more fundamental.
I would recommend relaxing with the micro until you've comfortable with supply and keeping money low. However, this seems to be the way you're planning to do it, so you're looking good, and I would expect you to be out of silver in no-time if you can fix those supply issues.
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Congratulations on Silver and holding off that Nydus rush! I'm in Platinum and I play Terran. If you ever want to play some practice games and need a little advice, feel free to add me.
Azera 955
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Thanks for the words of encouragement and the advice guys as always it is much appreciated.
Tobberoth - Sorry, I think I was a little unclear. In the staircase (as it is now) the steps alternate. Odd numbered steps introduce a new unit which you use with macro only. (blind attack moves) Even numbered steps have you use the same new unit (and all preceding ones of course) combined with microing. So you still have to hit your same benchmarks (I have taken the standard Staircase ones of SQ and supply blocks and added a minimum SCV count @ 10:00) in both. I'm on step 5 which is macro. My comments about micro were thinking about after I finish this step and move on to the next. Sort of a train of thought that apparently didn't get expressed as my fingers did the thinking.
The problems with floating money at around 10:00 and my supply blocks are why I decided not to move on to step 6 when I could have technically since I would have gotten 3 in a row, I just wasn't happy with my overall performance and decided to stick with this one till I was.
As far as the staircase goes, I frickin' love it! It's actually much like what I was doing on my own but with a set progression and explaining how to use your money. I knew I was supposed to keep my money low but I still wasn't spending enough of it (or properly) before I learned about SQ and things of that sort. I'm actually doing the same build I was doing before I started using the staircase, but I am winning closer to 75-80% of my games by attack moving where before I was winning 45%, that's how big a difference it's made.
Azera - Thanks for the offer, I will definitely hit you up on that in the near future when I start working on microing and things that I really don't understand so much. (For example how to use Ghosts/BCs/Thor etc properly. )
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That'd be great! I love micro-ing units! For Thors and BCs there isn't a proper way to use `em. For Thors you can use them to focus fire hard-hitters like Siege Tanks in TvT (when you're charging into enemy lines) or Ultralisks in TvZ. For BCs you just use the Yamato if you've researched it or focus fire Tanks in TvT. When you use Ghosts all you have to remember is to cloak when necessary and EMP High Templars, a tight pack of Zealots, or some Immortals.
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You're likely floating money becasue you are getting supply blocked. Once you sort out the supply blocks it will bring all your timings forward and you won't have to compensate by building additional production buildings.
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5 rax before your third is too many. You shouldnt be builidng 5 rax until you've already started your third CC. You should focus on not getting supply blocked and macroing instead of adding extra production because when you get better at macro you'll have to unlearn this build
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EPT
