I have a replay! But first id like to say ive been playing SC on and off for years, but never like this before. Back a few years ago in Highschool i just used to play money as toss. Now I'm back and trying to learn the "Right" way to play. Its fun and interesting because its all new to me. Ive read the reccomended threads and browsed around but still have some questions. Whats a soft and hard counter? I mean what do they mean? How does one get involved in iccup? Is it worth it for someone as bad as me? How do the ratings work? And thats about it for now..
As for my playing. Ive all the builds for toss and i think i understand the purpose of them. I guess im not good at scouting my opponent or understanding what counters what. Whenever i go for more troops vs tech, i seem to get stopped anyway then their tech kills me. If i tech or FE i get rushed and vice versa
The other thing is too, i need help killing supported seige tanks. They are my bane. I dread playing against terran just because of them. Its easier if i can flank them somehow but say on LT when you have cliffs on each side its quite hard flank and i cant win head to head.
As for this game, why i lost. I would say im slow in my macro. I'm pretty good early game i think, but when theres more things to worry about i loose track of others. Put pressure on me so i have to defend? Really screws up my macro. Any tips for this or is it just practice? My unit production was slow as was my tech. I saw he was teching right away and i tried a small push, but was stopped. I was going to try to go lots/goons/archons/arbs with a DT drop but he just outproduced me and got me on that push. I know i suck horribly, please be nice. I havnt won a game yet and i try to play noobs. Heres the rep: http://repdepot.net/replay.php?id=29108
yeah i play toss and i hate the PvT matchup because of tanks as well. Playing terran lategame is a bitch and i reccommend that you either try to finish the game early, or out-macro the shit out of them. if however, tanks and a support units are giving you trouble, go for zealot bombs. they rape tanks even when supported with vults. on the occasion that you do go into late game with terran, arbiters with stasis and offensive recalls are the way to go. arbiters can efffectively cripple the terran economy and with enough scouting, you can even shut down their main unit production building. stasis is used to put tanks out of commision so that you will not have to face the brunt of the terran army at once ,and you can pick off the tanks easier
a hard counter is more of something being a direct counter. Kind of like zerglings and swarm being a hard counter to goons. A soft counter would be something that works, but isn't a direct counter. Like hydralisks against goons. It can work, though, with proper micro.
Thanks for those definitions, if anyone watches the replay can you offer some advice? or am i right with just being slow...
Ill try zealot bombs, i did stop my friends tank push once by flanking with reavers from behind his tank line while i pushed, but he just messed up making turrets..
I'm not too keen on the strategy of PvP (Because I'm a terran and I also hate watching pro pvp), but there's a couple of things I saw which I thought would help you.
1. Rally your gateways to your choke. Instead of going back every time to get them from your gateways and move them to your choke, rallying does this automatically.
2. Consider your tech choices more carefully. You built DTs after he had observers out. True, they helped during the reaver drop, but, besides that, they did very little. Also, you built two stargates and an arbiter tribunal and didn't really do much with them.
3. When you expand, move 6-8 probes from your main to your natural. This is called maynarding, and it's done so that you can reach full saturation at both bases quicker (because 2 nexuses make probes faster than one).
When you just started the match, you sent all your probes to the same mineral patch. This makes that your probes will wait for the others to finish mining the patch and slows your mineral count down. Try to send them to different patches at the start so your economy will be better during the first minutes. This is called 'splitting'.
Alright guys. I tried some of your suggestions and i can see some improvement. I got a win over a terran, but he was worse than me which is a hard feat. I played my friend who plays terran twice, got raped both times. The first time with tanks, i was late getting the leg upgrade so that didnt help.
The second time i think i played pretty damn well, he just seems faster. I didnt watch the replay yet but the game was pretty much over. He lost his attacking/only force but left me with 2-3 goons and a drop took out all my probes at my main, so in the end i was more setback then him. I probably could have tried to recover but i wanted to get into another game and he would have rolled over me anyway.
Anyway.. take a look at my playing in this one and give me any pointers you have, i didnt watch it yet. I think my friends pretty damn good at toss, at least to me.
Wow, 42 apm. Firstly, you don't need to worry about why you lost too much, because the answer is your mechanics. Everyone starts out this way, but you basically need to get amped up and play faster. You also need a build order that you use. Just one, with variations depending on what your opponent is doing. For example, in PvT you might do a 2 gate goon -> expand build, and you watch your opponents fact timing carefully to determine when you are expanding/teching/adding gates and macroing. Subtle things and finer details of strategy aren't all that important. Just get a good build and learn it inside and out, and work on mechanics. I would also suggest watching a few FPVods of decent players. Not necessarily progamers though, because its very difficult to jump from 42 apm beginner to progamer. But watch some mid level foreigners and just see that they do soo much more, and see how they use the UI and stuff like that.
On January 18 2010 08:32 Sc1pio wrote: move 6-8 probes from your main to your natural. This is called maynarding
No it's not. Seriously stop calling it that. It's getting really annoying.
Yes, it is called maynarding. Enlighten yourself before trying to correct others.
lol owned.
as far as your issues, start out slow. go into single player and practice doing a few builds off liquipedia ( i recommend 1gate obs for pvt, ffe into +1 speedlot for pvz, and 2gate reaver for pvp). Once you know them by heart up to like 50-60 supply, go onto iccup and apply those builds to multiplayer. You'll get your ass handed to you a lot, but eventually you'll find yourself winning. Also, once you have builds down you can concentrate on making your hands move faster because your build will be second nature. Always watch replays when you lose, and if you can't figure out why you lost, ask someone. PM me on iccup and I can help you out sometime. stoned_rabbit.
I have a couple of newbie questions of my own if Dabba doesn't mind. When I am first starting I am really trying to focus on my BO and I have trouble scouting. I know I want to keep my probe in his base as long as possible but what way should I go about it?
Right now I am hot-keying my probe and then I hold shift and keep clicking in the vicinity of his base (using the minimap) to string a chain of commands for my probe and keep him moving. When I'm there I might then do the same thing but click around his base, mainly making my probe do a z-pattern back and forth. But I find that I can't actually micro him because my BO will suffer greatly. Is there a better way than what I am currently doing for my skill level?
Also, is splitting the same thing as cloning? I'm not good enough to do it yet but I find myself, after the probes initially head to the same minerals, selecting one at a time on the way back to the nexus and assigning them to a different mineral patch.
Yeah im not that good at keeping the scouting probe alive. I hotkey my nexus so i can just shoot back to main to continue my build as each probe finishes
not messing up your BO is about 10x more important than keeping your scouting worker alive. Basically you have to get into the habit of going back every 2-3 seconds while keeping your BO in tact... just got to practice it a lot
Also after you get your b.os down as much as people are against it, spamming a bit at the start of a game HELPS before I did it in the middle of a game my max apm would be like 120 then after starting games off with a little spamming I can hit 220 for a few moments ingame. And with it helping me play faster my aims gone from 60-130ish
b.os ? Haha thanks. I think i got my basic b/o. Lets see if i remember. I dont remember the supply count but its pretty much 2 or 3 probes, when i get 100 i get the pylon and then as soon as thats done i go with a gateway, followed closely by another. So i pretty much have 2 gate pretty early. From then on in i balance Lot production with getting core and gas to go goons depending on how aggressive the other player is:-\ From there its to citadel/robo and depending its reavers/obs and arbs is my normal plan.
Ill be honest i havnt tried one of these cookie cutter build orders (like forge FE etc) yet. I think my opening is variation of 2 gate right?
learn a different build order for each match-up... and there's a reason they're considered cookie-cutter: because they're better than anything you can come up with on my own.
for example: PvP: 2gate goons -> robo PvT: 1gate goons -> expo PvZ: forge FE
with regards to your particular build order, 2gate zeals is not the most versatile build... it's terrible against terran on most maps since they can wall, making zealots are useless. 2gate is only good against protoss if you can do some damage because dragoons > zealots early game. 2gate is really a PvZ build, and nowadays it's fallen out of favor because zergs have gotten a lot better at defending against early aggression.
good to know, by my logic im rush paranoid so i like having a few lots to defend and if i find they're not rushing i will. ill def try some new BO. anything good against a walling terran? haha
On January 19 2010 14:05 azndsh wrote: not messing up your BO is about 10x more important than keeping your scouting worker alive. Basically you have to get into the habit of going back every 2-3 seconds while keeping your BO in tact... just got to practice it a lot
Thanks a lot, the guide was really helpful. And although I was pretty familiar with the basics stated in the guide (and they are laid out very nicely), how to go about getting better along with the specific tips is what I found the most helpful for my skill level.
I've been playing the game off and on since it came out but not until last year did I really want to improve, and I finally resolved myself to finish the BW single player campaign. Still haven't done it yet, having some difficulty on the very last match, but I'm finally starting to study why I'm making mistakes and what I must do to get better. The resources at this play are fantastic, even if a little overwhelming at times.
For now I'm going to focus on learning 3 race specific BO's until I get them down pat along with the other goals stated in the guide. As much of a newbie as I am, I'm a pro compared to my friend, and I'm trying to get him up to speed as well. This guide will prove to be really valuable. Thanks.
On January 18 2010 08:32 Sc1pio wrote: move 6-8 probes from your main to your natural. This is called maynarding
No it's not. Seriously stop calling it that. It's getting really annoying.
Yes you do, tho "transfering" has started to being used more and more the last 1-2 years.
It's a shame if newschool players forget the word "maynarding", the name comes from a foreign player who was among the first to popularize transfering.
ICCup = Smurfed "D" players who really are C ranks and like bashing new D players to the keyboard and mouse. I guess the only way for u to improve is to continue to play these guys and keep losing. Eventually ull win and ull have to repeat the process over and over again until u reach rank A.
Sorry about the uhmm b.os I'm on my iPod >.< but i origionally kept playing fastest on b.net which gave me a bad habit of not expanding but yeh iCCup ur probably gonna lose like at least ur first 20 games.
i would say that you should play on bnet for 300 games like i did before you get on iccup. or at least till you can win a few games against the bnet peeps with their low apm and maphacks. However, in answer to the scouting question. I really don't think shift moving around the base is a good habit to build. I did that back when i was learning but the reality is that you waste more time picking spots to shift click in the base when you should be clicking once and then be back in your base building stuff. at first you will lose your scout every time but eventually you get better at it. Make it a point to always be looking at your scout if you have nothing to do back in the base..it will hopefully get you to check on it more frequently. Also, a good way to train is to play against two comps and use your worker to harass their workers, they will then send all their workers to chase your one worker. build your base as normal and fight the other comp. When you can win easily at this you will find it easier online as well.
so, how does one actually sign up and connect to iccup? is it like battlenet with games to host and join?
also was wondering if someone can suggest some BOs i can use as a beginer, preferably 3 for each protoss matchup. Like whats defensive? whats middle of the road? and which is offensive? id prob stick with middle of the road. I can also say i should learn my enemys bo right so i know what i should so with mine? or does it not matter right now? i mean do you guys just do your own BO and see what the enemy is doing then switch according to them or do you just stick with what you start? terrans easy enough to spot but zergs a little tougher for me. thanks guys
On January 18 2010 16:18 Dabba wrote: Alright guys. I tried some of your suggestions and i can see some improvement. I got a win over a terran, but he was worse than me which is a hard feat. I played my friend who plays terran twice, got raped both times. The first time with tanks, i was late getting the leg upgrade so that didnt help.
The second time i think i played pretty damn well, he just seems faster. I didnt watch the replay yet but the game was pretty much over. He lost his attacking/only force but left me with 2-3 goons and a drop took out all my probes at my main, so in the end i was more setback then him. I probably could have tried to recover but i wanted to get into another game and he would have rolled over me anyway.
Anyway.. take a look at my playing in this one and give me any pointers you have, i didnt watch it yet. I think my friends pretty damn good at toss, at least to me.
lol A Terran should have high APM and yes he had twice the APM.... but it was 78 LOL. 78 APM for a Terran player is really bad. Even 78 eAPM isn't enough.
If you come to Iccup it's going to be rough for you even at D level. So don't give up if you lose multiple times in a row.
I've started playing 4 months ago and I've definitely improved so hopefully I can tell you what does and doesn't work. Build Orders: Yes they're important and yes you should use a decent one, but frankly just pick one. I say that because a correct build order, no matter how perfectly you execute it won't help you win your games at this stage in time and it probably won't even improve your gameplay much.
The real reason you're losing like many have said is because you have less 60 actions per minute (APM). People will argue that APM doesn't mean much but there's a minimum number of actions you need to be able to perform per minute in order to be effective. At 42 APM for example it is impossible to make probes from two nexuses constantly while producing troops out of four gateways and if I had to guess as to why you're so slow:
1) don't click buttons but use the shortcut keys on your keyboard (p for probe). you're probably already doing that, just make sure you do it for everything
2) Use hotkeys and F-keys (this is a big one you're not doing). Most protoss hotkey their nexuses to 0 then the next one to 9, then 8 etc. It'll seem awkward at first but even if it seems like you're slower that way use them ALL the time to make probes. never select your nexus using the mouse. Eventually you'll just automatically zoom through 0p9p8p to make a probe at each nexus (and those 6 clicks can be done in 1s). You can also always keep track of if your nexuses are making probes (without having to scroll back to your base). I'll let you read up on hotkey setups for toss, suffice it to say you absolutely must use them, even if they'll feel uncomfortable for awhile.
3) Don't watch your fights. What I mean by that is that everyone, including me, has a tendency to watch their units fight against the big army, giving them instructions, telling zealots to run here, dragoons to attack there etc. Those are important things to do of course, and you may even win a battle because you controlled your units better but: let's say because you've controlled your units you win the fight with 4 zealots left over. If you hadn't controlled your units you would've lost and the terran would've had 3 tanks left. The point is that you didn't build anything during that fight because you were watching it. The terran in the meantime didn't watch the fight at all (or he hopped back to it every now and then to make sure nothing unexpected was happening) and he's been cranking stuff out of his factories. So even though you won the fight with 4 zealots, 4 zealots is all you have. The terran lost the fight but he has 4 tanks and 12 vultures back in his base that can now continue to roll over you.
To say that more succinctly: if you look at your money count after there was a fight, and you notice it's up by 1000 or 2000 minerals then you were watching your units too much. For us beginners build order is secondary, keeping minerals low while ALWAYS making probes and units (which you can only do by using hotkeys) is the most important thing.
And just cause I haven't yapped on enough here's my pro tip to start you off: If you choose to play a LAN game against the computer you can start the game and kick the computer opponent during the 5s count down before the game starts. Do that (so that you can play a game without any opponent) and just go nuts on production, making sure you're never psi blocked and that your nexuses always make probes, and that you're always using your hotkey setup. Start with one nexus till 200 psi, then try again making an expansion, then again making 2 expansions. I'm sitting at 100ish APM as terran and I know that terran at least needs a minimum of 80APM in order to keep production up off of 3 bases. 42APM simply won't cut it and you'll never win games until you fix that through practice.
End Rant^^
*edit* ok not quite end rant, one more thing: Make sure you have a decent mouse cursor speed. For one thing don't use mouse acceleration (or mouse precision enhancement or something in windows), and set your mouse at a decently slow speed. Someone mentioned that you should split up your workers on all 4 mineral patches at the start. If you can select each worker while they're moving and tell them to head to a different patch before they get to the minerals then you're golden. If you're mouse is so fast that you have a hard time selecting a moving unit, then turn it down. Day[9] has a decent...podcast?.. about how to adjust your mouse, hold your hands that kinda thing, look it up if you want more info^^
Awlright I watched the replay now so a few more things: You're doing ok in the psi limit department (you hit psi limit a few times but it looks like you're at least trying to check every now and then), good job^^
Did someone tell you it's bad to queue up units? That's true usually, but when it comes to probes you should queue up the next probe before the first one pops out. Right now you have like a 3s interval in between a probe finishing and the next one starting and while that doesn't sound like much it's actually very big. Basically if you make every probe 3s slower than your opponent you auto-lose. Also never stop making probes, ever. (unless you have some build order in mind in which you "cut probes" intentionally). You shouldn't have waited for 100 minerals for your first pylon but made a probe instead, same for the gateway, same for the first zealot. always keep probes being made, and when you happen to have 100 bucks plop down a pylon. if you don't, then keep making probes until you do.
As to playing on ICCUP: if you want to get started head to www.iccup.com , download their map pack and their launcher and you're set! At your level you'll get smoked by everyone, falling to the lowest of low levels but quite frankly I had 70 APM when I started ICCUP and I also got smoked by everyone. You learn stuff by losing all the time, you just have to decide if you're comfortable with that. Nobody will hate you for giving them an easy win^^ (be warned though that it's frustrating at times because alot of great players take pleasure in kicking us bad players's ass.. I'm talking 300APM people that shouldn't be playing at D rank).
And on a final note without trying to sound mean or stuck up: your terran friend, by iccup standards, is also absolutely lousy and would fall to lowest rank. (Pro tip for you, if he always goes marines like that build a reaver or a high templar =P), so my challenge to you is: practice until you beat that terran into the ground. That's a very attainable goal. If you just keep production up like I said he'll lose 100% of the time unless he wasn't being serious that game
i come closer if he plays toss, im just against terrans and seige tanks. thanks for all the awesome advice feefee. i know its bad to que up units but i do it because if i have extra money it alows me to produces units while i devote my attention elsewhere (like battles). i normally do it if i have extra cash but know my eco cant hold up any more gateways. or should i never do it? if i need to go back every one unit, thats a feat in mid-late game.
mm some people will tell you you should never queue but realistically if you expect to have to micro in a big fight, sure, queue up some units. Protoss units however build very slowly and cost alot of money so I think you'll get alot better if you never queue much (probes being the exception). And you don't go back every one unit, you either have your gateways all on a hotkey (in the early game) or you go back and make a round of units out of all your gateways ( by the time those units finish building you'll have enough money for another full round). That means going back to your base, what, every 40 seconds at least? That you should definitely do. (zealots and goons take 40s to build)
On January 20 2010 14:19 knightpraetor wrote: i would say that you should play on bnet for 300 games like i did before you get on iccup. or at least till you can win a few games against the bnet peeps with their low apm and maphacks. However, in answer to the scouting question. I really don't think shift moving around the base is a good habit to build. I did that back when i was learning but the reality is that you waste more time picking spots to shift click in the base when you should be clicking once and then be back in your base building stuff. at first you will lose your scout every time but eventually you get better at it. Make it a point to always be looking at your scout if you have nothing to do back in the base..it will hopefully get you to check on it more frequently. Also, a good way to train is to play against two comps and use your worker to harass their workers, they will then send all their workers to chase your one worker. build your base as normal and fight the other comp. When you can win easily at this you will find it easier online as well.
Thanks, I will definitely use that advice on the scouting. For now I will just hot-key him and send the probe on its way into the base. When I am waiting on something I’ll check on him but all of my focus will be in getting a BO that is second nature to me.
Also, great tip on playing against two comps. Right now, I am playing against one but had the problem of all their workers attacking my probe so I just started mimicking the motion of scouting and just sending my probe to choke points instead. Your two comp method is much better.
On January 20 2010 17:18 Dabba wrote: so, how does one actually sign up and connect to iccup? is it like battlenet with games to host and join?
also was wondering if someone can suggest some BOs i can use as a beginer, preferably 3 for each protoss matchup. Like whats defensive? whats middle of the road? and which is offensive? id prob stick with middle of the road. I can also say i should learn my enemys bo right so i know what i should so with mine? or does it not matter right now? i mean do you guys just do your own BO and see what the enemy is doing then switch according to them or do you just stick with what you start? terrans easy enough to spot but zergs a little tougher for me. thanks guys
Since I kind of highjacked your thread a bit to ask about scouting I feel I should contribute as well. I haven’t seen your replay but I’m guessing we are on about the same level skill wise. My highest APM is in the 70’s and my average is in the low 40’s. But since I’m also in the same predicament in trying to learn and I also play your race let me tell you some things I’ve learned from here. Hopefully it will prove helpful since I can relate to your same struggles.
**Since I am a noob if anyone has any comments or disagreements with what I’ve written please point them out! But I do think this is sound advice.**
First you’ve heard the suggestions about using hotkeys. That’s great but what are some ideal setups? First listen to Day[9]’s podcasts on Mechanics. He has two, the first is just an introduction and the second goes into the basics and gives some recommended hotkey setups and keyboard finger placement:
(edit: oh crap, I noticed he just recently added the 3rd section so I am definitely going to go and check that out. For the past few months there were only the first two parts). Being a protoss player as well, this will definitely be something that takes some getting used to, and I struggled with it at first, but I am improving and I’m glad I stuck with it.
Now build orders, there is so much out there right? Where to start. Well right now I’m keeping it pretty basic. Luckily on youtube, HuskyStarcraft shows two great basic builds that will help get started:
Protoss vs Terran (and Protoss with some small modifications):
BUILD ORDER: (Number represents supply)
8. Pylon 10. Gateway 12. Gas 14. Cybernetics Core 15. Pylon 17. Dragoon 20. Dragoon Range 21. Dragoon 24. Pylon 25. Robotics Facility 26. Dragoon 30. Pylon 30. Gateway (make with same probe as pylon!) 31. Dragoon 34. Observatory 34. Pylon 35. Dragoon (x2) 40. Observer 42. Expand (Nexus)
42+. This is where you can break off into High Templars/Arbitor, 2+ more gateways, or Reaver.
This can also be modified to be Protoss vs Protoss. Just listen to his commentary while watching the video. But since this is a good basic beginners build, this is the one that I’m practicing with against both races, Terran and Protoss. As I get this down pat I will modify it where necessary but I need to become more comfortable with this.
Protoss vs. Zerg:
Here is where we will be using a build order called Fast Expansion. This is where things got a little uncomfortable for me because I was nervous about expanding so soon (won’t I be opening my self up defensively?). Be confident in it and trust these guys, they know how to prepare for the different scenarios. For now I am starting with the +1 Speedzeal FE build until I become more comfortable (this is copied from Liquidpedia):
BUILD ORDER:
-10 – Forge -@100% Forge - 2 Cannons -@400 minerals – Nexus -Two Nexuses pumping Probes (bring ~1/3 of your probes from your first Nexus to the second to help with minerals) -One Gateway (next to the Forge blocking the entrance to your Natural Expansion) -Assimilator at your main base -Cybernetics Core -Constant Zealots from your first Gateway. -@100 Gas - +1 Attack Upgrade at the Forge. -@100 Gas - Citadel of Adun. (hint: try to place it out of Overlord vision) -Add two more Gateways when you have 300 minerals at the same time after citadel -@100% Citadel - Zealot Legspeed. -Constant Zealots from all 3 Gateways. -@200 gas Templar Archives next 100 minerals to second assimalator -1 dt and 2 ht when Templar Archives is complete -add 2 gateways right before +1 is finished. you will have money since you will be starting High Templar next. -storm research with 200 gas following your ht building. -Robotics is not necessary until your Zealots run into Lurkers. -dragoon range after you start your first 5 dragoons. -following your High Templar is pure Dragoon/High Templar -take your third before Observers if possible if not wait until they are complete to clear Lurkers. -cut probes after your first 5 dragoons are out (1 full round) -after you put up your third throw up 3 more gateways for a total of 8.
Also, don’t forget to check into guide from the link azndsh posted earlier in this thread.
If anyone sees something that needs to be added or clarified, or if you have some basic replays to reference, it would be greatly appreciated. With all the wealth of great information here, it's sometimes like drinking water from a firehose and can be a bit overwhelming. Finally Dabba (or anyone else with skills similar to ours), if you ever want someone to play some games with, just send me a PM. Maybe we'd be able to help each other improve.
Just take a look at the two replays lazz provided in that thread and you will see how he handles the initial zerg rushes/pushes. That was one of the things that convinced me. I need to start watching more replays to learn more but more importantly I just have to get out there and play.
My bnet account might be inactive but I can create another one if you want to get some games in. Also, signing up for iccup is really easy as well. Either way, I'm game but probably won't get time to play until Fri-Sun.
This is actually a really good "getting started" thread, so congrats
fatty77's post above is really good. If you can follow those BO's you can usually get into the mid game safely. Then, it is pretty much just spending your money, and you will be able to win some games on iccup
For initial worker scouting, hotkey your worker to something really convenient (I use 1 and 2). Then, practice moving between your worker while trying to micro your probe. Obviously, in a real game you're probably better off focusing on your BO, but I think practicing worker micro vs 2x AI like suggested above is great. It isn't too hard to learn and protects you from lame rushes.
Hotkey things! If you have < 4 gateways, hotkey them 4-7. Put your two probe producing nexii on 9,0. Use 8 for gateways, robo, nexus as needed on situation. This makes it super easy to macro during a battle, and to check when units will be done so you can plan ahead to build the next round.
Attacking seige tanks with equal army on terran's terms is pretty much instalose, so that's why it is rough for new players. Your goals should be to have an extra expansion, and attack the terran on your terms (when he isn't seiged and doesn't have lots of mines). Put zealots in a shuttle, and unload the shuttle on itself (hotkey u). If the shuttle is already moving, you'll do a moving drop which is great for dropping 4 zealots upon a tank line (draws all the fire while your main army attacks).
If you have more questions/want me to watch replays/etc, feel free to message me on iccup (yoden-hf) or aim (yodenss). I'm only a c- level protoss, but I only started playing seriously in may (and took half the time since then off due to injury/life), so perhaps I can show you some of the stuff that helped me initially.
okay, heres a question which is party brought up by you hotkeying gateways and such. Whats the move effctive way to interact with ones army? i played a game with my friends before and lost more than i should have due to not moving my army well. Do you hotkey mutliple groups or what? Thanks man for the U drop tip
Protoss is called the 1a2a3a race for a reason =P Yeah you hotkey your units on 1 2 and 3, that way you can make sure some zealots run before the goons to clear mines, or goons draw tank fire so zealots can follow and make it all the way to the siege tanks before dying. But I'm a terran player, I only know what protoss do to make it harder for me, I don't really know the specifics of how they do it... I can guess though! it's 1a2a3a^^
Its hard when you have more than 3 control groups, esp when you have two arbs to escort them with. DO you hotkey the arbs too or just manually move them?
If arbiters are anything like science vessels I have them on 5. I don't see why you couldn't jsut queue the arbs with your groups though and manually select them for any spells you want. that way you don't run the risk of not having your arbiters when you'd like your units cloaked. Keep in mind that hotkeys don't have to be a static thing. In the beginning you may have 4 5 6 7 as gateways for easy production of units but in the lategame you might want to only have one gateway at your main as 6 and another batch as 7, that way you can hop to your base with 66, make a round of units and go back to look at the fighting with 11 (assuming group 1 is fighting). Either that or you can use F2-F4 to hotkey the locations of your gateways, but most players save F2-F4 for their mineral lines so they can quickly move probes away out of danger.
I agree that it's hard to hotkey all this stuff and do it more than once (since your units die), but if you keep doing it it'll become second nature. and it'll vastly improve your gameplay. I still have trouble with hotkeys (I tend to go back to my base with 66 even when I have all my factories on a seperate hotkey), and I can tell you that I often find myself thinking "damn I wish I could hotkey faster/better, then I'd be able to win this game".
I lost of course and its because im braindead slow at 38 APM. Its pretty discouraging and i dont know why im so slow. I'm awesome at FPS games like COD so id like to think i have pretty good reaction times and hand eye coordination. Pretty fed up
I lost of course and its because im braindead slow at 38 APM. Its pretty discouraging and i dont know why im so slow. I'm awesome at FPS games like COD so id like to think i have pretty good reaction times and hand eye coordination. Pretty fed up
if your apm is below 100, the most likely thing is not solely a matter of bad mechanics (which, of course will be the case) but also the fact that you don't really know what you're doing. good players tend to have higher apms because they're constantly thinking about the next 5 actions they're going to perform (well, and also the fact that it's now muscle memory for them). my guess is that you'll probably make a probe, then sit for half a second before you realize that you need to make a dragoon, and then another second later you realize that you needed to build another pylon 5 seconds ago. something that might help is attaching sticky notes to the side of your monitor, saying like "CHECK NEXUS" "CHECK GATEWAYS" "CYCLE THROUGH UNIT HOTKEYS" "SCOUT WITH PROBE" or something to that extent.
Yeah, its probably that. I kind of already got that sort of thing down with other games i guess, but im not new to SC, just this style. I won this game, and he had twice the APM, makes me feel better..
You don't use hotkeys at all, that's why you are slow. At least 10% of your apm should be using hotkeys. Your hotkey usage is like 1%. And 1% of 38 is a lot less than 10% of 120 apm. Exploit that keyboard. Force yourself to use all shortcuts and mass use hotkeys and F2 to F4.
Have a hotkey layout and decide what finger is best to use on each key as if you were a classically trained pianist. Then get the muscle memory down. You can practice this outside a game. That sounds a bit silly but since you are so new you will have to do it. It's like playing FPS with your left hand (if you are right handed) so you need to adapt first. 1a2a3a4a5a, building zealots and goons from 12 gateways in 1 second, resetting rally points, etc. You can all practice that in isolation.
Watch your last replay yourself and you'll see some of the things I'm talking about. In the beginning you actually did much better making probes fast (although you hit like every supply block out there^^; don't do that). Once there were a few things going on (2 gateways) you started forgetting to make probes again and they were all 3s too late. Then once you moved out you can just watch your minerals pile up without you producing anything. That's what I mean by not watching your units too much. Your mineral count should always stay low even when you're moving your units around, and your nexus should always be making probes, and you should never hit a supply cap. Still that game looked improved at least from an early production standpoint. The psi limits were bad though, if you had made pylons earlier you could've put up an expansion and a gateway I bet. Stuff like that really adds up and makes the possible seem completely impossible.
If you can, keep your eyes peeled on your mineral/psi count on the top right corner. that way you'll always know when to make pylons/units/buildings. Just have to make sure not to forget probes as well. Good players watch the minimap too but don't worry about that yet^^;
lol, do you want a practice partner? I'm not that good (D- on Iccup... yeah i fail x)) if you do want a practice partner PM me (: I play Terran,if you were wondering. (I can only play on weekdays though, and i usually use LAN. If you want me as a practice partner then i can send you the program im using to LAN my friends with me over the internet)
this makes me reminisce. back to D- days when i started out at 60 apm. just practice a lot. I agree with practicing hotkeys outside of the game. Back when i was playing my first 300 games on bnet before i transitioned to iccup i would spam 1a2a3a4a5d6d7d8d9z0z while waiting for the game list to appear; it helped a little as protoss i think; although i think the 1a2a3a4a part is more important than the rest..eventually you will have too many gateways to go back, but you still want to do that while in combat.
EPT
but yeh iCCup ur probably gonna lose like at least ur first 20 games. 
