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Road to Semi-Pro, first entry
The Practice
After watching Day9 regarding the tapping exercises, I jumped in and started practicing it. I didn't utilize tapping before, and I assumed that tapping was needless spam. I wondered why pros tapped their CCs, Tech Buildings, army and their hoes. I didn't understand it. And looking at their panel may cause epilepsy.
But Day9 convinced me to work on tapping. I found that there was a reason -- a good reason. It stopped me from over-queuing, which was the cause of me forgetting to make SCVs. My tapping is not refined yet, and is anything but "l33t." But with constant practice, I believe I'll get there. Yes I can, yes I can.
As I practice my tapping, I came across a problem that came with it. When moving my army, I accidentally set my CC rally point to the middle of the map. Annoying since I have to go back to my base, reset my CC rally points and go back to my army which is now under a Psionic Storm.
So I worked on a drill. I'll play against Easy AI and practice my tapping and my army a-moving. Here's the set-up:
Tapping and A-Move Drill
- Set Control Group 6 for CC
- Set Control Group 5 for Tech
- Set Control Group 1 for the scouting SCV
- Set Control Group 2 for the first Marine
- Set Control Group 3 for the second Marine
While I'm practicing a build, the scouting SCV will dabble at the opponent's base and pretend that it's scouting a 4gate or a 6pool. Once the 1st and 2nd marine pops out, Control Group 1, 2 and 3 will A-Move counter-clockwise in the middle of the map (so Group 1 A-Moves from North-to-West, Group 2 from East-to-North, and Group 3 from South-to-East). I'll force myself on staring at the mini-map, making sure that the blips don't stand idle. The only time I look at the center of the screen is when I issue an A-Move or when I build a structure.
The object of this drill is to make sure I don't mis-click and rally my SCVs or Marines to the middle of the map. I had a match where I was good at pumping out SCVs, only to find out that they were rallied to my opponent's base because I misclicked my CC during a drop-harass (not the Ultralisk kind).
But what about the constant stream of units while A-Moving the first 3 Control Groups? I've read a lot of threads about "what did I do wrong?" in the strategy thread, and there are games where someone could have won if they added their reinforcements to their current army.
To make sure that I don't fall on to this trap, I added this drill to my practice:
Camera Hotkey Saturation Drill
- Set Camera 1 for Main
- Set Camera 2 for Nat Expo
- Set Camera 3 for Third Expo
- Set Camera 4 for Transition Expo
I often wondered how pros saturate their expansions so smoothly. Before I utilized camkeys (sounds awful but it's 5 letters less), I was bad at saturating. Also, I could never go beyond two bases since it was a hassle to scroll in between bases and click the minerals while the enemy moves out to ask for sugar. I scoured the deep recesses of TL and found a thread about camkeys.
Camkeys are great, and it helped me improve my saturation and also my aversion to make SCVs. On this drill, the aim is to mine on three bases and max out before the 17 minute mark. Expansion timings differ on each builds. But the second CC should be on the way before the 6 minute mark. For the third CC, it should be on the way before the 10-11 minute mark.
The timing for the fourth CC is dependent on how many mineral patches are left on the main. If there are four patches left, I have to make a fourth CC. This makes the fourth camkey a wildcard since I'm focusing on saturating three bases all the time.
Camera Hotkey Rally Point Drill
- Set Camera 5 for Tech Structures
- Set Camera 6 for Rally Point
Camkey 5 is designated for Raxes, Factories and Starports. I feel I'm wasting time whenever I pick an SCV, edge-scroll to an empty space, lay down a structure, press F1 and click a mineral. Even if it's a millisecond of scrolling, I feel that it's wasted effort since the pointer is not centered after edge-scrolling. But I'm Silver, so it could be my mouse accuracy or something else.
Rather than scrolling to the empty space, I'll designate the empty space for camkey 5. So when I decide to drop more barracks, I'll press F1, box SCVs, press F5 and drop some raxes. I'm still working this in my drill, but I did notice that my buildings are more organized than before.
I've rebound camkey 6 to Space and designated it for my Rally Point. During my A-Move drills, I will reset my Rally Points to random places: Nat, Ramp, enemy Ramp, third, etc. While my army do their rounds of A-Moving, I'll constantly check my Rally Point. If there's a unit in there, I have to include them in Control Group 4.
The Schedule
I work 8 hours a day (well 8.5 since they won't pay the 30 minutes of the 1 hour lunch), so for my Semi-Pro schedule, this is what I have.
- Mon-Thur:
8:00 pm - 10:00 pm (Practice & Ladder)
10:00 pm - 10:30 pm (Replay Analysis)
10:30 pm - Bed Time* (watch the pros, playhem, IPL, MLG, stream here, and stream there, streams everywhere!)
- Sat-Sun:
2:00 pm - 4:00 pm (Practice & Ladder)
4:00 pm - 4:30 pm (Replay Analysis)
5:30 pm - 6:30 pm (Write and revise weekly blog)
6:30 pm - 8:30 pm (Practice & Ladder)
8:30 pm - 9:00 om (Replay Analysis)
In total, I have 20 hours of practice or play time in a week. Some of the days will have conflicts because of tournies that I may enter. Friday is my day. Man's gotta party ya' know?
 
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If your silver I would recommend focusing on fundamentals above anything else. Learn solid builds timings and start to understand the matchups on a deeper level. Focus on rising up the leagues before thinking about being a semipro. It may take months of work to get there.
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GL HF! 
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sounds like you understand what must be done. that is Extremely important in playing at a higher level. I don't know how many masters players I've talked to do things without knowing the purpose of them =/ good luck
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Thanks all! Just resting now. Did 3 games. Dong more later. One thing I need to work on is upgrades. :x
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Good luck man! Your training seems pretty well thought out.. I'm impressed
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I've been thinking about setting up a schedule myself in order to gave a more persistant training rouitine. I think that will help a bunch, especially when you work 10hours/day. Focustraining with clear milestones and goals is the key I believe.
Good luck with your training sir!
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@ Ventil: 10 hours a day is a lot! I hope you get to squeeze in some training/playing time and become better!
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Hmmm, as much as I like this, this will not improve you to a higher league unless your MECHANICS and MACRO (needed to put some emphasis on that) are already flawless. If you are in a lower league like gold-silver, it's always better to focus on mechanics or just spending your money, cause I can say you can win 90% of your games just by havind better macro.
P.S You seem to find it a hassle to manage more than 2 bases, a better start to make would be multitasking, which is really important. I for once have actually practiced around 50 games of me having more than 5 bases until I had the macro right.
P.P.S I hope my post has helped a tiny bit, and I wish you success in your training even if my post has not helped
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Thanks Exodus. I believe that practicing tapping may help my macro since I get to keep tabs on production. After some laddering yesterday, I did notice that I stopped tapping when I'm moving my army to my enemy's ramp. I would catch myself not tapping, so I tap back to my tech and CCs when my army is free from danger.
I also wondered how pros kept up with their upgrades. I checked their control groups, and they don't have their upgrade structures bound to any control groups. But I did notice that they place them in their main, next to their CC. So they just go to their base, click their engie-bay and upgrade away.
But yeah. There's a lot of theory on the practice drills, and I'm not sure if it most of it ports to actual gameplay. I'm thinking of doing one or two drills per day, minimum of 10 minutes each. Once that's done, even if my mechanics were crappy, I have to jump in laddering.
Lastly, my eyes needs to be glued on the mini-map. Literally. Part of my aversion of forgetting to make supply depots and additional tech structures is the fear of leaving my army for just a second, and that some magical baneling would eradicate my whole army.
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Rather than creating a new entry, I revised this entry regarding my practice drills. The previous entry barely touched on utilizing camkeys in regards to saturating bases, and I didn't have a clear goal on what I was trying to learn on the drill.
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- Mon-Thur:
8:00 pm - 10:00 pm (Practice & Ladder)
10:00 pm - 10:30 pm (Replay Analysis)
10:30 pm - Bed Time* (watch the pros, playhem, IPL, MLG, stream here, and stream there, streams everywhere!)
I feel like your time here would be much better spent by changing two things:
1) Analyze each losing replay right after the game is played - don't set aside 30 minutes for analysis. You'll be better off by figuring out what you did wrong when the game is still fresh in your mind. You'll remember why you made a certain decision and can try and revise your thinking process.
2) Don't watch streams.
Spend almost all of your time from 8:00pm to bed time playing. Maybe pick out some games in advance that you want to watch that relate to a specific matchup you're having trouble with but don't just watch whatever's on TL. Many of the streams have downtime where the casters are just talking and there's no guarantee that your race will be playing.
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On November 29 2011 03:37 -Frog- wrote:
- Mon-Thur:
8:00 pm - 10:00 pm (Practice & Ladder)
10:00 pm - 10:30 pm (Replay Analysis)
10:30 pm - Bed Time* (watch the pros, playhem, IPL, MLG, stream here, and stream there, streams everywhere!)
I feel like your time here would be much better spent by changing two things:
1) Analyze each losing replay right after the game is played - don't set aside 30 minutes for analysis. You'll be better off by figuring out what you did wrong when the game is still fresh in your mind. You'll remember why you made a certain decision and can try and revise your thinking process.
2) Don't watch streams.
Spend almost all of your time from 8:00pm to bed time playing. Maybe pick out some games in advance that you want to watch that relate to a specific matchup you're having trouble with but don't just watch whatever's on TL. Many of the streams have downtime where the casters are just talking and there's no guarantee that your race will be playing.
Thanks Frog. I do watch my losses after a game. The extra 30 minutes (10pm - 1030pm) is for pure analysis, meaning just watching my games, finding my strengths and weaknesses and comparing my games with the pros.
From 10:30 onwards, I'd like to relax for a bit and eat dinner (man's gotta eat too). While eating, I'd either watch a stream or download a replay from sc2rep.
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EPT
