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Hello fellow TL users. This is actually my first-ish post/guide. But it seems there is a lack of general, this is what a newbie should do, reading. At least that’s what it seems to me. So I decided to write down some points that I have picked up over the last few months from Day[9], the Liquipedia, and some random stuff I have stumbled on to.
Obviously there are the points Day[9] makes.
1. Make scv/probes constantly (Zerg doesn’t follow this guideline, we have to learn when to drone and when to make units with our larva) Without these units you have no income. Which means no cool upgrades or awesome units to bash your opponents face in with. So make them. A lot of them! Bar none!
2. Don’t queue - The stuff you just queued cost you immediate money without giving you immediate results. That’s really counterproductive in the long run. You might as well use that money for some more units that you probably need right now, then the thing you’re going to get later.
3. Never ever get supply blocked- And when you do, for the love of God do not make a bunch of, pylons, supply depots, overlords. Don’t do it. It might feel good at the time but you just tossed 100-300 extra minerals down that you shouldn’t have. Build one supply cap raising structuce/unit at a time. You might think but, my money is high and I can afford it. Nope. That’s a lie. What that money is: Money you should have spent on units/buildings. Not extra money.
4. Have a freaking plan! (direct quote of Day[9]) – Seriously, if you go into a game thinking. I’ll just wing it. 9/10 times you are going to get stomped. The only race that can do that is… Well there isn’t one. So don’t do it! Go look up some build orders (I’ll post a link to a great place get some at the end)
5. Know the units in the game. All of them. You can’t just play your race and be ignorant of the other guys units. You need to know what is better against what and what just plain sucks in certain situations. You also need to know how they move and what damage they do. Which is very important in the huge epic battles in the center of the map. (I’ll post a link to the units page of Liquipedia so can take a look at all of them.)
6. Don’t worry about apm.(actions-per-minute for the total newbie) – Apm is not a measure of how awesome you are or how skilled you are . It’s a measure of how far you have come along in the game. If your hands are slow then you just need to play more. It’s that simple. Pro’s have crazy fast apm because they practice allllll the time. They play constantly, if you want lightning fast 300apm then you should too.
7. Scout a lot – You need to know what your opponent is doing so you can react in time. Plus if you scout and he doesn’t then you have a HUGE advantage. It may take a while to learn the timings of scouting but the more you play then easier that becomes.
8. Expand. Expand. Expand. – The hardest thing a newbie has to deal with is expanding. It took me a while to feel safe expanding. But you HAVE to do it. You cannot sit on one base. You need to take your second and your third (your third is much later) Most build orders tell you when to take your second depending on the style of play the BO is shooting for. If you choose to 1 base it you will die to more experienced players who grabbed 4 bases while you turtle it up and didn’t expand. They will roll you over with a 200/200 food army in now time flat.
9. Replays are your friend - Watch your replays for things you did and pick out things you do wrong a few out at a time and correct over a few weeks. Don't overwhelm yourself but pick a few thing you notice and fix them. Also watch pro replays on TL or Youtube.com or w/e replay site you want. There are a dozen of them to pick from. They give you good structured play to analyze and copy. When watching pro replays all ways try and ask yourself why they did that. It will help you immensely.
Those are my basic point for the Bronze-Gold league player. I think if you practice and follow those points you will quickly be a much better player. Now there are some things I have picked up that help me play better that I’ll share with you.
1. Don’t play with sound – Which might sound odd at first but let me explain. I first heard of this from IdrA (he plays with just music.) But if forces you to check your base and the map more. You no longer get the sound que of one your units finishing or your base being attacked. You have to watch the mini map for the base being attacked. And constantly check your base for finished workers. Which in turn makes you play faster and sharpens your reaction time.
2. Watch the left hand screen - It lets you know when things have finished. Like tech structures or your +1 upgrades. Which in turn means you can move out with that doom ball of yours.
3. If you are completely new then play the computer until you can consistently beat it on medium-hard – The computer always uses a very early push that will catch you off guard if you’re not prepared. Which teaches you how to deal with early rushes and timings on when your opponent has how many units opposed to what you might have.
4. Practice your build orders against the computer on very easy – I do this a lot. Its pretty common thing to do. Because the computer on very easy, will at most throw 3 units at you all game. So you can happily macro away and hammer out a nice BO to rip off your opponents face with.
Okay now I am going to post some really helpful links.
http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/Main_Page - Main pay of Liquipedia (Newbie’s should stop here often.)
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=104154 – Day[9]’s video main page. Watch all of his stuff and tune into his cast every night! Recommended vods for newbies are - Daily #0132, Daily #0163, Daily #0164
http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/Units - Starcraft 2 Units page. Learn them. Love them. Use them.
http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/Terran_Strategy - Terran Build Order page. http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/Zerg_Strategy - Zerg Build Order page. http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/Protoss_Strategy - Protoss Build Order page.
Affter notes: If you like this, let me know. If you think I missed something, let me know. If you want a more in depth guide, let me know. I want to help new players out and make Starcraft II less frightening for the new player. So you got some questions hit me up with a PM. I;ll try my best to answer them. Also would love if some of the senior players would help. Thx TL. Later.
Credits and thanks: Day[9], Liquipedia, IdrA, Seth for his ZvP guide which helped me a ton. and TL forums for being awesome in general.
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Thx, it looked like TL needed one. ^-^
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On September 25 2010 02:42 Killswitch wrote: 1. Don’t play with sound – Which might sound odd at first but let me explain. I first heard of this from IdrA (he plays with just music.) But if forces you to check your base and the map more. You no longer get the sound que of one your units finishing or your base being attacked. You have to watch the mini map for the base being attacked. And constantly check your base for finished workers. Which in turn makes you play faster and sharpens your reaction time.
Just want to argue this. I don't care who says what. As a Zerg, sound is extremely important for both queens popping and larva inject finishing. To ignore those is plain ignorant and hindering yourself for no reason
The rest of the post looks good, just wanted to point out that because one of the best players does it does not mean it is a good idea. It's actually a horrible idea
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Yeah @OP and Pfeff - playing with the sound off seems like running a race with weights: makes you better but its harder.
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Sound can give you good information about what's going on without looking somewhere on the screen.. It's helpful..
Rest sounds good.
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Czech Republic11293 Posts
When you DO get supply blocked, it is good idea to build 2 or maybe even more supply buildings at the same time, otherwise you will get supply blocked almost immediately after the building finishes, unless you are at maybe 25 food and less. In my opinion anyway.
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i think that sound point is made for practice rather than all times playing.
And it's a very good thing to do. Sounds are often delayed or may even be lost. Important things like dropships sneaking by at the edge of vision of your things don't have sound anyway. If you train yourself to keep better watch over whats happening in the game in several ways, it WILL help you.
the other points: well there's really no arguing it. Executing is still harder than reading it up though.When you DO get supply blocked, it is good idea to build 2 or maybe even more supply buildings at the same time, otherwise you will get supply blocked almost immediately after the building finishes, unless you are at maybe 25 food and less. In my opinion anyway.
Well. Supply depends on your production capacity. If, as P, you have 3 Gateways up and maybe a second base, 8 supply will do exactly one production cycle. Finding a balance here is important, obviously just slamming out 12 supplystuffs when you go over 100 for the first time is going to cost you resources that could have instead been upgrades or units of immediate benefit.This is very much like the dont-queue-units rule.
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this post is amazing, ty so much i am mid league player so i struggle sometimes with some things, this helped abunch!
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On September 25 2010 08:24 snow2.0 wrote:i think that sound point is made for practice rather than all times playing. And it's a very good thing to do. Sounds are often delayed or may even be lost. Important things like dropships sneaking by at the edge of vision of your things don't have sound anyway. If you train yourself to keep better watch over whats happening in the game in several ways, it WILL help you. the other points: well there's really no arguing it. Executing is still harder than reading it up though. Show nested quote +When you DO get supply blocked, it is good idea to build 2 or maybe even more supply buildings at the same time, otherwise you will get supply blocked almost immediately after the building finishes, unless you are at maybe 25 food and less. In my opinion anyway. Well. Supply depends on your production capacity. If, as P, you have 3 Gateways up and maybe a second base, 8 supply will do exactly one production cycle. Finding a balance here is important, obviously just slamming out 12 supplystuffs when you go over 100 for the first time is going to cost you resources that could have instead been upgrades or units of immediate benefit.This is very much like the dont-queue-units rule.
I would still argue about the sound thing. I don't have delays at all that I've noticed, but I only really listen for the important ones (queen and larva), so I'm not really sure what you're talking about. I just find it kinda stupid to practice something that is less than optimal.
I do, however, agree quite strongly with what you say about supply. Finding a good balance is important in every aspect of this game, and this is one that is extremely important to know. You don't want to waste macro clicks building a depot, overlord, or pylon every three units, but you also don't want to be sitting at 68/120.
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Thank you, Killswitch. I'm siting at the bottom of the learning curve, and definitely appreciate the work you put into this post.
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As a zerg player I only feel the need to contest two points:
1) Playing with sound is incredibly useful. I always hear when my larvae pop and are in need of another injection. It keeps my injection reaction time down. Telling people to play without sound is like telling people to try to play without a pivotal counter to the unit the opponent is building. Yes it will force you to completely out macro and micro the opponent, but don't handicap yourself like that! Running with weights is a better example, but I like being creative.
2) When you hit the food cap at lets say 40-ish supply, it's really not a bad idea *at least as zerg* to make multiple/many overlords. Because I could have 11 larvae just finish and one overlord won't help me avoid the food cap AGAIN once I held down the "r" button to make 11 roaches. I understand where you are coming from, I've seen people make 8 overlords at once saying "HA! No food cap for me anymore!" And that's a complete waste. But I'd say use your best judgement as the game progresses.
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There's no reason to play with your sound off. The last thing I want to miss hearing is "research complete" or the sound of units completing.
Don't even get me started on how bad it is to miss "Nuclear Launch Detected."
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On September 25 2010 08:48 Darthturtle wrote: There's no reason to play with your sound off. The last thing I want to miss hearing is "research complete" or the sound of units completing.
Don't even get me started on how bad it is to miss "Nuclear Launch Detected."
Oh man I can't believe we forgot about those earlier. Yea, those are more VERY important reasons to have audible warnings
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You hit on some really good fundamental stuff. I recommend practicing vs AI to acquire that robot-like execution of worker, supply, production- until you are constantly doing it, and that little panic button goes off in your head immediately when you are not doing these things. I am myself just learning this stuff.
A couple of the mental factors I've noticed that us noobs need to push past (most of them have to do with fear):
Don't be afraid to move your units to forward/strategic positions (watchtowers!). It's really easy to contain and break a guy who is immobile and blind, so don't be that guy. An army sitting at the top of your ramp isn't earning its pay.
Lack of information causes fear, and compounds itself. Information is a resource in this game (in my current opinion the most important), and it's worth investing in. How many games do you lose when you know exactly what your opponent is doing? Not many.
Trust and test your intuition. When your gut is telling you that something's wrong, it usually is.
You may need to abandon "rules" once the game is out of the opening. Keep your fundamentals like production, scouting, etc., but at some point in the mid game, if you're a noob, your economy is going to be a bit of a mess and you'll have to adapt. These situations test you as a player, and are incredibly fun. Who doesn't love lightning-fast problem solving with explosions?
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Nice post. By the way, don't you think it's fine for a Zerg player to build say, 3 Overlords, and have a lot of unused supply for a dump of minerals on units? I tend to do that. Is that a bad thing?
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On September 25 2010 12:28 Rahlekk wrote: Nice post. By the way, don't you think it's fine for a Zerg player to build say, 3 Overlords, and have a lot of unused supply for a dump of minerals on units? I tend to do that. Is that a bad thing?
It's not as bad as getting supply blocked, but you only really want to have enough extra supply to support your next wave of injected larva. Remember, overlords do still cost the most valuable zerg resource - larva. If your overlord wound up being excessive, you technically could've had an extra drone, or whatever.
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Nice topic, as a newbie it help alot tnks
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I would like to thank all of you for your points and comments.
On September 25 2010 07:33 Pfeff wrote:Show nested quote +On September 25 2010 02:42 Killswitch wrote: 1. Don’t play with sound – Which might sound odd at first but let me explain. I first heard of this from IdrA (he plays with just music.) But if forces you to check your base and the map more. You no longer get the sound que of one your units finishing or your base being attacked. You have to watch the mini map for the base being attacked. And constantly check your base for finished workers. Which in turn makes you play faster and sharpens your reaction time.
Just want to argue this. I don't care who says what. As a Zerg, sound is extremely important for both queens popping and larva inject finishing. To ignore those is plain ignorant and hindering yourself for no reason The rest of the post looks good, just wanted to point out that because one of the best players does it does not mean it is a good idea. It's actually a horrible idea
Firstly, I suppose I should clarify the sound off thing. As many people mentioned it does make you miss quiet a bit. But that's the point. It forces you to consistently check up on your base and what your doing. Which makes you remember what your doing in the long run. Remembering things becomes easier to do because you force yourself to play at a monumental disadvantage. For the love of god do not it in anything but practice. That should have been said at the beginning of the post.
On September 25 2010 08:48 Jeffbelittle wrote: As a zerg player I only feel the need to contest two points:
1) Playing with sound is incredibly useful. I always hear when my larvae pop and are in need of another injection. It keeps my injection reaction time down. Telling people to play without sound is like telling people to try to play without a pivotal counter to the unit the opponent is building. Yes it will force you to completely out macro and micro the opponent, but don't handicap yourself like that! Running with weights is a better example, but I like being creative.
2) When you hit the food cap at lets say 40-ish supply, it's really not a bad idea *at least as zerg* to make multiple/many overlords. Because I could have 11 larvae just finish and one overlord won't help me avoid the food cap AGAIN once I held down the "r" button to make 11 roaches. I understand where you are coming from, I've seen people make 8 overlords at once saying "HA! No food cap for me anymore!" And that's a complete waste. But I'd say use your best judgement as the game progresses.
After about 40 supply and you have all the larva then yeah I do think its okay to build overlords at a more rapid pace. However it is extremely important to not spam cap raising. Its costly and ineffective.
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I think the "don't queue units" rule should be given an exception for workers. Bronze/Silver players generally have extremely low APM (I've seen as little as 15-20), and if they're not queuing a few workers they'll just end up having a terrible economy. Even current pros queue 2 workers as the game starts dragging on.
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Couple of thingzs, if your money is extremely high you can que (2k+) also you do want to make 2 supply producers if you actually get capped cause depending on where you are you may just get insta blocked again.
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On September 25 2010 08:54 Pfeff wrote:Show nested quote +On September 25 2010 08:48 Darthturtle wrote: There's no reason to play with your sound off. The last thing I want to miss hearing is "research complete" or the sound of units completing.
Don't even get me started on how bad it is to miss "Nuclear Launch Detected." Oh man I can't believe we forgot about those earlier. Yea, those are more VERY important reasons to have audible warnings you can all argue about how good sound is but lets face it, playing with "weights" improves your game faster. Sure you may lose but you will improve a lot faster.. pretty simple to understand.
This is a guide for new people to improve, they can practice without sound and play proper ladder games with it. It makes you appreicate sound more in my opinion, as you dont know what youve got if youve never lost it.
Good guide for newbz
I find all that is up to scratch for me. I genrally lose because im pretty much overwhelmed with enemy units
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don't forget day9 daily 184
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On September 26 2010 14:14 diragz wrote:Show nested quote +On September 25 2010 08:54 Pfeff wrote:On September 25 2010 08:48 Darthturtle wrote: There's no reason to play with your sound off. The last thing I want to miss hearing is "research complete" or the sound of units completing.
Don't even get me started on how bad it is to miss "Nuclear Launch Detected." Oh man I can't believe we forgot about those earlier. Yea, those are more VERY important reasons to have audible warnings you can all argue about how good sound is but lets face it, playing with "weights" improves your game faster. Sure you may lose but you will improve a lot faster.. pretty simple to understand. This is a guide for new people to improve, they can practice without sound and play proper ladder games with it. It makes you appreicate sound more in my opinion, as you dont know what youve got if youve never lost it. Good guide for newbz I find all that is up to scratch for me. I genrally lose because im pretty much overwhelmed with enemy units
For the other races maybe, but Zerg has more macro to worry about than the other two
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I've started to play with no sound and I do say that it makes you pay more attention. Sure you can't really hear nukes, but I only saw one nuke so far and that was in the practice league.
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On September 26 2010 14:14 diragz wrote:Show nested quote +On September 25 2010 08:54 Pfeff wrote:On September 25 2010 08:48 Darthturtle wrote: There's no reason to play with your sound off. The last thing I want to miss hearing is "research complete" or the sound of units completing.
Don't even get me started on how bad it is to miss "Nuclear Launch Detected." Oh man I can't believe we forgot about those earlier. Yea, those are more VERY important reasons to have audible warnings you can all argue about how good sound is but lets face it, playing with "weights" improves your game faster. Sure you may lose but you will improve a lot faster.. pretty simple to understand. This is a guide for new people to improve, they can practice without sound and play proper ladder games with it. It makes you appreicate sound more in my opinion, as you dont know what youve got if youve never lost it. Good guide for newbz I find all that is up to scratch for me. I genrally lose because im pretty much overwhelmed with enemy units
In this case, all it does is help you develop bad habits. Useless spamming because you don't know what the hell is happening with your buildings isn't the same as actually making a lot of useful actions per minute.
If you really want to train yourself at this game, don't try to handicap yourself with the illusion that you're improving. You'll still suck, but now you'll just suck harder. Later on, when you transition back into using sound as one more sense in the game, you'll have all these habits that you need to work out of your system, and you won't be used to paying attention to sound.
It's like trying to play the game with just your mouse to 'train' yourself. Sure, you can claim that your mouse control might seem to get better, but all you're teaching yourself is how to not use hotkeys.
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On September 26 2010 23:57 Darthturtle wrote:Show nested quote +On September 26 2010 14:14 diragz wrote:On September 25 2010 08:54 Pfeff wrote:On September 25 2010 08:48 Darthturtle wrote: There's no reason to play with your sound off. The last thing I want to miss hearing is "research complete" or the sound of units completing.
Don't even get me started on how bad it is to miss "Nuclear Launch Detected." Oh man I can't believe we forgot about those earlier. Yea, those are more VERY important reasons to have audible warnings you can all argue about how good sound is but lets face it, playing with "weights" improves your game faster. Sure you may lose but you will improve a lot faster.. pretty simple to understand. This is a guide for new people to improve, they can practice without sound and play proper ladder games with it. It makes you appreicate sound more in my opinion, as you dont know what youve got if youve never lost it. Good guide for newbz I find all that is up to scratch for me. I genrally lose because im pretty much overwhelmed with enemy units In this case, all it does is help you develop bad habits. Useless spamming because you don't know what the hell is happening with your buildings isn't the same as actually making a lot of useful actions per minute. If you really want to train yourself at this game, don't try to handicap yourself with the illusion that you're improving. You'll still suck, but now you'll just suck harder. Later on, when you transition back into using sound as one more sense in the game, you'll have all these habits that you need to work out of your system, and you won't be used to paying attention to sound. It's like trying to play the game with just your mouse to 'train' yourself. Sure, you can claim that your mouse control might seem to get better, but all you're teaching yourself is how to not use hotkeys.
Well what would suppose then? I would like to know how you suggest getting better if you think my advice is terrible? It is rather difficult to train yourself perfectly without accidentally having side effects. Playing without sound in practice games is legitimate. It also encourages being proactive with your base, which is not "useless" spam. Using your mouse only is a good way to play at it's simplest forms without needing to worry about the hotkeys. Which can get in the way for new players. I fat finger the b and v key all the time.
Granted you should use hotkeys always, but if your mouse control sucks then your need to work on it. Just like if your game awareness sucks then you need to work on it. If you take away the sound to help what little awareness you have then you have to address the problem. It makes you better, by forching you to only use your on memory on what is happening. Which will help you. It isn't a illusion I conjured up to try an make all the newbies play crappier. If I thought it wasn't a good Idea I wouldn't have posted it,
I challenge all the people who have shot down this sound thing to try it out. If you don't like it then don't do it. If you like it. Do it. Its that simple. It came from my own playbook of "wieghts" I put on myself to become better. It helps me. It might help you.
On September 26 2010 13:16 FC.Strike wrote: I think the "don't queue units" rule should be given an exception for workers. Bronze/Silver players generally have extremely low APM (I've seen as little as 15-20), and if they're not queuing a few workers they'll just end up having a terrible economy. Even current pros queue 2 workers as the game starts dragging on.
When I started playing SCII I had about 20-30 and I didn't have problem not queuing, But, its mostly so you don't spam 5 of em and have 200 minerals that should be there that now isn't. I agree when the game drags on then do it. But it's better to take the hard way and become better than the easy way and stay the same. If you try your hardest not to queue at all then you will be a better player. It's about the effort, and the pay off more than anything. Queuing 2 workers isn't going to turn you into a scrub, but trying not to will help you in the long run.
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I like it, You hit on some really good practice points that really helps step up your game. I kind of disagree on the queuing workers, Especially at low levels, it seems to help the production keep rolling smoothly. I can understand that this is more effective for gold+ players but as stated in the title its a "General Newbie Guide" ;]
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On September 27 2010 02:21 MOARpylons wrote: I like it, You hit on some really good practice points that really helps step up your game. I kind of disagree on the queuing workers, Especially at low levels, it seems to help the production keep rolling smoothly. I can understand that this is more effective for gold+ players but as stated in the title its a "General Newbie Guide" ;]
Lots of people have been posting on this issue, but what I think is the only acceptable time to queue villagers is if you are Protoss using Chronoboost. Simply because one boost lasts 2 probes, meaning you should have 1 building and 1 queued. Any other situation would be best handled by not queuing.
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Yeah, I disagree with the sound thing. It would be better to just restrict yourself to using hotkeys, which will undeniably make you faster.
Also, there's a notable lack of talk about replays. You learn a ton from the replays of games you lost, games from pros, and even games you won. Look at what you did wrong and can improve. Look at how your enemy beat you or how they could've beaten you.
Stuff like that makes me better and better.
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On September 27 2010 06:54 Afrocious wrote: Yeah, I disagree with the sound thing. It would be better to just restrict yourself to using hotkeys, which will undeniably make you faster.
Also, there's a notable lack of talk about replays. You learn a ton from the replays of games you lost, games from pros, and even games you won. Look at what you did wrong and can improve. Look at how your enemy beat you or how they could've beaten you.
Stuff like that makes me better and better.
Meh, I've made my point on the sound thing enough times. Either you use or you don't. However the replays is very true and I cannot believe I forget that. Dooh >,< I am going to go edit that in.
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The biggest problem I have is definitely freaking out when I get supply blocked and building 3 overlords at once. Feels nice to not have to worry about it, but then I wonder why I have no money to actually use that freed up supply lol. My next thing I'm changing is the game music. I just need to make up a good Starcraft 2 playlist now.
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So what would you TLer's think about me trying to get this on Liquipedia? As there seems to be a lack of this info there an I think it would fit perfectly there.
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On September 25 2010 08:04 Scipaeus121212 wrote: When you DO get supply blocked, it is good idea to build 2 or maybe even more supply buildings at the same time, otherwise you will get supply blocked almost immediately after the building finishes, unless you are at maybe 25 food and less. In my opinion anyway.
that's what i was thinking, it's not a good idea to spam 6 Supply Depot's, but you probably should start building at least 2, depending on the stage of the game you're at.
Perhaps you have like 10 barracks, all waiting to build a unit, build 1 supply depot, and only half of them can get started, build 2, and they all can. So you gotta weight it up, how much more supply do I need? and given this number, how many supply depot's do i need to build.
Also, playing without sound, i might actually try this, something i've been trying to work on myself lately is looking at the minimap and the completion list to the left, maybe playing without sound will help me look at the minimap more, though i wouldn't recommend always turning it off, it's quite handy, for example, when i hear 'upgrade complete' i look to the left to see what it was, theni know where to go to begin upgrading something else from the same building. Of course knowing when you're being attacked is handy too.
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On September 25 2010 07:33 Pfeff wrote:Show nested quote +On September 25 2010 02:42 Killswitch wrote: 1. Don’t play with sound – Which might sound odd at first but let me explain. I first heard of this from IdrA (he plays with just music.) But if forces you to check your base and the map more. You no longer get the sound que of one your units finishing or your base being attacked. You have to watch the mini map for the base being attacked. And constantly check your base for finished workers. Which in turn makes you play faster and sharpens your reaction time.
Just want to argue this. I don't care who says what. As a Zerg, sound is extremely important for both queens popping and larva inject finishing. To ignore those is plain ignorant and hindering yourself for no reason
Sometimes I listen to music and turn the sound off and I just use my starsense to remind me when to larva inject and queens come out. And I bet a lot of other people could too. But yeah sound is very helpful to have on.
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On September 27 2010 12:01 Crabman123 wrote:Show nested quote +On September 25 2010 07:33 Pfeff wrote:On September 25 2010 02:42 Killswitch wrote: 1. Don’t play with sound – Which might sound odd at first but let me explain. I first heard of this from IdrA (he plays with just music.) But if forces you to check your base and the map more. You no longer get the sound que of one your units finishing or your base being attacked. You have to watch the mini map for the base being attacked. And constantly check your base for finished workers. Which in turn makes you play faster and sharpens your reaction time.
Just want to argue this. I don't care who says what. As a Zerg, sound is extremely important for both queens popping and larva inject finishing. To ignore those is plain ignorant and hindering yourself for no reason Sometimes I listen to music and turn the sound off and I just use my starsense to remind me when to larva inject and queens come out. And I bet a lot of other people could too. But yeah sound is very helpful to have on.
I could also play without sound just fine if I wanted to. He titled the post for noobs
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On September 27 2010 12:03 Pfeff wrote:Show nested quote +On September 27 2010 12:01 Crabman123 wrote:On September 25 2010 07:33 Pfeff wrote:On September 25 2010 02:42 Killswitch wrote: 1. Don’t play with sound – Which might sound odd at first but let me explain. I first heard of this from IdrA (he plays with just music.) But if forces you to check your base and the map more. You no longer get the sound que of one your units finishing or your base being attacked. You have to watch the mini map for the base being attacked. And constantly check your base for finished workers. Which in turn makes you play faster and sharpens your reaction time.
Just want to argue this. I don't care who says what. As a Zerg, sound is extremely important for both queens popping and larva inject finishing. To ignore those is plain ignorant and hindering yourself for no reason Sometimes I listen to music and turn the sound off and I just use my starsense to remind me when to larva inject and queens come out. And I bet a lot of other people could too. But yeah sound is very helpful to have on. I could also play without sound just fine if I wanted to. He titled the post for noobs
Ahh I see nevermind. I thought it was a just a general tips guide.
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On September 27 2010 13:25 Crabman123 wrote:Show nested quote +On September 27 2010 12:03 Pfeff wrote:On September 27 2010 12:01 Crabman123 wrote:On September 25 2010 07:33 Pfeff wrote:On September 25 2010 02:42 Killswitch wrote: 1. Don’t play with sound – Which might sound odd at first but let me explain. I first heard of this from IdrA (he plays with just music.) But if forces you to check your base and the map more. You no longer get the sound que of one your units finishing or your base being attacked. You have to watch the mini map for the base being attacked. And constantly check your base for finished workers. Which in turn makes you play faster and sharpens your reaction time.
Just want to argue this. I don't care who says what. As a Zerg, sound is extremely important for both queens popping and larva inject finishing. To ignore those is plain ignorant and hindering yourself for no reason Sometimes I listen to music and turn the sound off and I just use my starsense to remind me when to larva inject and queens come out. And I bet a lot of other people could too. But yeah sound is very helpful to have on. I could also play without sound just fine if I wanted to. He titled the post for noobs Ahh I see nevermind. I thought it was a just a general tips guide.
Even so, I have stated that is for practicing only. Not to be used in game. Read the posts throughout the topic and you'll see my established reason on doing that.
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I'm surprised no one has mentioned this yet:
When using a build order from liquipedia, make sure you do your research and play around with it to learn what, exactly, the build is trying to accomplish.
It was easier in BW to watch 30 VODS of the same strategy and understand the flow of the strategy. SC2 hasn't really evolved "standard" play, so learnign about and playing the strategy will help you a lot more than watching "what it's supposed to be". I'm not saying DON'T watch a bunch of replays either - you need to mindfully decipher the plan of a build that isn't your own (which is still quite murky given SC2's age)
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On September 27 2010 10:28 Killswitch wrote: So what would you TLer's think about me trying to get this on Liquipedia? As there seems to be a lack of this info there an I think it would fit perfectly there.
I learned a lot from the "general concepts" and mechanics sections of the strategy wiki here: http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/Strategy
Perhaps you could add to the various sub-topics of that page? Or maybe it needs a "getting started" page for new players?
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I think newer players (like myself) who are trying to move to zerg after trying one of the "easy" races would really benefit from someone writing a guide on zerg marco.
some general and some more specific stuff.
General would be the different ways of injecting larva (backspace inject or Psystarcrafts multiple hotkey setuP)
specific would be some guidelines on when to use larva for units and when to drone hard. (just guidelines.)
and a lot of people on the forum mention the different ways of flanking with zerg, but it would be helpful to consolidate them into an Uber Zerg guide, because i think with zerg unit control is more important compared to terran or Toss, where 1a can work.
Also helpful would be some map analysis, what to look out for on different maps, I know a lot of people (myself included) learn by osmosis, and just playing a lot, but having a consolidated guide would be really helpful.
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On September 25 2010 07:33 Pfeff wrote: Just want to argue this. I don't care who says what. As a Zerg, sound is extremely important for both queens popping and larva inject finishing. To ignore those is plain ignorant and hindering yourself for no reason
The rest of the post looks good, just wanted to point out that because one of the best players does it does not mean it is a good idea. It's actually a horrible idea
Seeing as how Idra trained in a professional environment for a couple years, he would be one of the best authorities on how to practice properly.
In the first place, I think Pfeff is arguing against a straw man here. The goal is to improve the use of vision, not to limit the use of hearing. You can even train use of sound separately if you think it's such a critical skill.
This practice method is primarily meant to train one skill: using the minimap.
Most people do not make nearly enough use of the minimap. It's extremely important for tracking enemy movements and knowing where things are happening as soon as possible. In fact, this is even more essential for zerg because you should have a large presence on the map via overlords/creep tumors.
I would still argue about the sound thing. I don't have delays at all that I've noticed, but I only really listen for the important ones (queen and larva), so I'm not really sure what you're talking about. I just find it kinda stupid to practice something that is less than optimal.
You can find out that an army is approaching via the minimap before you're actually being engaged. An example scenario is if some dropships were coming for your main, and they happened to barely cross your field of vision. If you were watching the minimap, you could respond in time to handle the drop. If you are already getting the attack message, you're too late.
People have already cited weight training as a counterexample to your point about practicing under suboptimal conditions. A good training regimen will often focus on certain skill aspects, which involves removing other distractions. In this case, we are removing the crutch of sound to try and force a person to use vision more.
Besides, any information that you can get with sound, you can also get by looking at the left side of the screen and the minimap. It would be superior to use both sensory cues if only for the additional redundancy. However, if you're good enough at using vision then sound is completely unnecessary.
In conclusion: It is clear that most players are deficient in their use of vision and the minimap. This practice method is geared towards fixing this deficiency, and it is endorsed by someone who has trained with the best in the world for years. It would almost certainly do people some good to try it out.
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Very nice thread yes
I like how you summon up stuff from a few different dailies of Day9..
I would maybe suggest that you put in Day9's Newbie Tuesday as a recommended, as many players will benefit from this i guess. Myself included
Thumbs up, good work!
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I haven't thought about playing without sound and was always wondering what they listened to when playing. Thanks a lot, that's a great summary!
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RE:Queuing: As Protoss I like to queue 3 probes per Nexus then chrono boost them all, ever so often.
I also queue SCVs as Terran. While I know it's less effective than for Protoss, I find that the SCV build time is too much for me to keep a constant check on, so I like to keep the queues around 3, so if I ever forget it I got some padding.
I guess it's about "winning now because you don't have a shitty econ" versus "winning later by learning to do it right."
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Sound is useful, for example when your army is attacked by an army which has some Dark Templars in it. Then you can throw a scan as Terran.
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On September 27 2010 16:43 Servius_Fulvius wrote: I'm surprised no one has mentioned this yet:
When using a build order from liquipedia, make sure you do your research and play around with it to learn what, exactly, the build is trying to accomplish.
It was easier in BW to watch 30 VODS of the same strategy and understand the flow of the strategy. SC2 hasn't really evolved "standard" play, so learnign about and playing the strategy will help you a lot more than watching "what it's supposed to be". I'm not saying DON'T watch a bunch of replays either - you need to mindfully decipher the plan of a build that isn't your own (which is still quite murky given SC2's age)
Yeah this is very true. Anything in SC2 that has been labeled standard already is subject to change. The game is too new and it's being tweaked still. So make sure you do play around with the builds. Thanks for adding mate.
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As a newbie myself who is pretty determined to learn the game and get good at it, I'll take the liberty to add my own observations.
As far as I can see there are several stages of learning the game (at least this is how it played out for me):
- Getting to know the interface/units/abilities
This is the absolute fundamental. What hotkeys do what, what units do what, what buildings do what. Without this you're completely lost and I remember my first games going "wait, what countered maruaders again?" or "what the hell are immortals good for?".
- Getting to know the mechanics
After you know what does what the essential thing is figuring out how to get what you want. You end up learning why macro is so important and how you go about getting good macro up. This is incidentally also when I chose my race permanantly.
This is also where I learned about scouting, timings, attack moving vs. moving, focus firing and so on - basically all the general things that apply to all the races. To someone who has not played RTS before, the mechanics at first seemed very alien to me. I'm sure I spent at least a month figuring out when to expand and why the hell I needed that many drones to sustain my income.
- Refining your basics
This is what I'm currently doing - somewhere between silver and plat is when you'll be refining your basics. You'll learn sensible build orders (maybe even work out your own styles). You'll get to know the maps and get to know how to execute certain strategies. I personally believe this is the longest and hardest part of SC2 - and probably something you never stop doing. You can always refine something more, make something go a little faster
The difference is however how much you want to improve and what you take from your wins/losses. I personally find it very hard to analyze my own games and figure out what was the root cause of things going right or wrong. However I feel just that is what's necessary to get better - figure out what is going wrong and what is working.
As an afterthought to that last line, just because something works doesn't mean it can't be improved though - which seems to be a trap many people (including myself) fall into.
Don't know where things go from here as I'm still in the midst of the learning process.
What I can say is seeing my own improvement is very satisfying. When I realize: Huh, that's something I couldn't have pulled off two days ago! I feel like I got better.
To me, that's what laddering and playing SC2 is all about. Not winning but improving and experimenting - learning the game. As long as there's something to get better at, I have this feeling I have to at least try and do it better - even if I can't actually do it better at the moment.
Topics brought up already:
To the earlier debate of sound/nosound, when I played counterstrike, I actually improved a LOT by having sound off and relying on eyesight over hearing. I can see it working with SC2 as well - however I don't feel safe playing with sound off in SC2 for whatever reason.
The minimap was also brought up as an important thing. Again, drawing from past BF2 experience I remember I figured out I had to track several things at once and relying on the minimap was the ONLY way to track all of them. Let me see if I can get them all together:
- What is the team doing - Where are the enemy - Where can I be the most useful - Which vehicles are taken? - Shooting at stuff/walking/driving - What do I need to achieve my goal (vehicle, teammate etc.)
Of those 6 points (I'm sure there are more but those were the ones I can remember) the first 4 can be accomplished using only the minimap.
In SC2 I have the same feeling. Generally I macro with micro as an afterthought unless it's a very critical battle. Now, relying on the minimap is essential if I want to know what's up. I want units everywhere to scout for possible troop movement. I want (as Z) lings running back and forth to see what's up every so often. I want to see every angle I possibly can so if something moves I'll see the red/blue/whatever dot and be able to react right away.
I still fail at this very frequently but that's part of learning. I'm not entirely sure how this ties into sound/audio queues though.
My guess would be there's no reason to play without audio unless you want to specifically focus on improving minimap awareness - however I also believe minimap/visual awareness can be achieved with sound on as well.
/end wall of text - maybe someone will find something interesting in this.
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On September 25 2010 12:21 bronzeterran wrote:Who doesn't love lightning-fast problem solving with explosions?
This may be the best and pithiest explanation of why SC is so great.
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On September 29 2010 08:19 mololu wrote: As a newbie myself who is pretty determined to learn the game and get good at it, I'll take the liberty to add my own observations.
As far as I can see there are several stages of learning the game (at least this is how it played out for me):
- Getting to know the interface/units/abilities
This is the absolute fundamental. What hotkeys do what, what units do what, what buildings do what. Without this you're completely lost and I remember my first games going "wait, what countered maruaders again?" or "what the hell are immortals good for?".
- Getting to know the mechanics
After you know what does what the essential thing is figuring out how to get what you want. You end up learning why macro is so important and how you go about getting good macro up. This is incidentally also when I chose my race permanantly.
This is also where I learned about scouting, timings, attack moving vs. moving, focus firing and so on - basically all the general things that apply to all the races. To someone who has not played RTS before, the mechanics at first seemed very alien to me. I'm sure I spent at least a month figuring out when to expand and why the hell I needed that many drones to sustain my income.
- Refining your basics
This is what I'm currently doing - somewhere between silver and plat is when you'll be refining your basics. You'll learn sensible build orders (maybe even work out your own styles). You'll get to know the maps and get to know how to execute certain strategies. I personally believe this is the longest and hardest part of SC2 - and probably something you never stop doing. You can always refine something more, make something go a little faster
The difference is however how much you want to improve and what you take from your wins/losses. I personally find it very hard to analyze my own games and figure out what was the root cause of things going right or wrong. However I feel just that is what's necessary to get better - figure out what is going wrong and what is working.
As an afterthought to that last line, just because something works doesn't mean it can't be improved though - which seems to be a trap many people (including myself) fall into.
Don't know where things go from here as I'm still in the midst of the learning process.
What I can say is seeing my own improvement is very satisfying. When I realize: Huh, that's something I couldn't have pulled off two days ago! I feel like I got better.
To me, that's what laddering and playing SC2 is all about. Not winning but improving and experimenting - learning the game. As long as there's something to get better at, I have this feeling I have to at least try and do it better - even if I can't actually do it better at the moment.
Topics brought up already:
To the earlier debate of sound/nosound, when I played counterstrike, I actually improved a LOT by having sound off and relying on eyesight over hearing. I can see it working with SC2 as well - however I don't feel safe playing with sound off in SC2 for whatever reason.
The minimap was also brought up as an important thing. Again, drawing from past BF2 experience I remember I figured out I had to track several things at once and relying on the minimap was the ONLY way to track all of them. Let me see if I can get them all together:
- What is the team doing - Where are the enemy - Where can I be the most useful - Which vehicles are taken? - Shooting at stuff/walking/driving - What do I need to achieve my goal (vehicle, teammate etc.)
Of those 6 points (I'm sure there are more but those were the ones I can remember) the first 4 can be accomplished using only the minimap.
In SC2 I have the same feeling. Generally I macro with micro as an afterthought unless it's a very critical battle. Now, relying on the minimap is essential if I want to know what's up. I want units everywhere to scout for possible troop movement. I want (as Z) lings running back and forth to see what's up every so often. I want to see every angle I possibly can so if something moves I'll see the red/blue/whatever dot and be able to react right away.
I still fail at this very frequently but that's part of learning. I'm not entirely sure how this ties into sound/audio queues though.
My guess would be there's no reason to play without audio unless you want to specifically focus on improving minimap awareness - however I also believe minimap/visual awareness can be achieved with sound on as well.
/end wall of text - maybe someone will find something interesting in this. Nice, I do agree with all of that. Infact if you don't mind I would like to edit that in and give you credit.
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Thanks man, thats a lot of help. I've been watching Day[9] netcast every night and its just awesome. I think you really was able to summarize the basics.
As a ultra-newbie player, Im having more problem with the little timings and the no-no queuing issue. Sometimes I queue a little just to make sure things are coming up as i find very difficult to macro/micro/manage a lot of things all the time. I don't know if theres some technique to train that besides playing a lot!
Anyway, another issue for the newbies (or at least the UBER newbies like me) that sometimes I experienced and that Im sure others have been into is the fear of being crushed online.
I think I would add some of what Day[9] had said about it in some newbie tuesdays:
#10. losing = good = learning from it. Do not be afraid of it and just set a goal to be attained everyday: no matter what, play 3 games.
That really helped me a lot in playing more often online and in result learning more.
Thanks again, nice thread.
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On September 29 2010 12:41 Killswitch wrote: Nice, I do agree with all of that. Infact if you don't mind I would like to edit that in and give you credit.
Sure, feel free. Glad to see my ramblings aren't totally insane.
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here's my newbie sc2 mini-guide:
1. don't fight to kill the other guy, fight to control parts of the map.
2. expand to the parts of the map you control, even if it means cutting units
3. increase production
repeat steps 1 - 3 in order to
4. win game
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On September 26 2010 13:16 FC.Strike wrote: I think the "don't queue units" rule should be given an exception for workers. Bronze/Silver players generally have extremely low APM (I've seen as little as 15-20), and if they're not queuing a few workers they'll just end up having a terrible economy. Even current pros queue 2 workers as the game starts dragging on. This depends so much on the race though. As a toss, you always want to queue up 2 workers whenever you are chronoboosting, because a chronoboost lasts just about to push out 2 workers. It's just basically less work for you to queue up two, instead of being forced to check your nexus unnecessarily often. Other than chrono boosting probes though, I never queue up more than one a time unless I am expo'ing and I need those probes produced while I am doing something else, like fighting.
Those are the only real exceptions to queue'ing units if you ask me though. You can also queue if you know your unit is about to finish very soon so you don't loose production time, but that's more of a no brainer and I don't necessarily see it as queue'ing in that sense.
Most people do not make nearly enough use of the minimap. It's extremely important for tracking enemy movements and knowing where things are happening as soon as possible.
But this is also one of the things that improves over time. I am way better at noting medivac drops now, and terrans rarely get it off unless I am spending my energy elsewhere, i.e. trying to micro my units in battle. At which point the reason why I failed to notice that medivac drop was because of my inability to multitask, and that's not something turning off the sound will improve. While I agree with you that using the minimap is important, it's one of those things that improve as you generally improve.
I usually play with music on anyway, but currently my multitasking skill is holding me back, not whether I can hear sound effects or not. I doubt my multitasking skill would significantly improve by removing sound, and frankly, I think it's partially a taste-issue and what kind of learning style you have. In WoW for example, I use a lot of addons that use sound effects to announce things, because I react much better to sound than visual input. I mean, I use this addon called SexyCooldowns for all of my characters, but yet I sometimes miss maelstrom even though I can clearly see the icon on my addon bar, or that I miss eclipse even though there are big large letters on my screen. I just think some people work differently and some might work better with sound. I would love to be able to customize the sound effects for SC2 in order to make it more reactive.
To me, the logic is even reversed. If I hear the sound of the gateway being finished, I don't have to scroll over several times to check if it is, I can just wait until I hear the sound and spend time doing things that have to be done right now. It frees up my awareness so I can for example spend more time looking at my minimap than staring at my gateway waiting for it to finish. That's my experience with sounds. It frees up the stuff I have to look at but wouldn't need to, so I can look more on stuff I HAVE to look at, such as the minimap.
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You guys dont get the point, what he basically says:
If you learn to practise without sound, it forces you to watch your minimap more, and check your expensions more often. This might even increase your APM or awereness (think if drops, cordination of opponents army etc). But obviously, yes playing without sound has a disadvantage.
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Well, no-sound can be one of many techniques for improvements in some areas. Seems nice if u want to improve your visual reaction time. So why not give it a try?
I guess that doesn't mean that you will never play with sounds again. Its for training purposes I guess.
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I find that my biggest problem right now is getting smoked by drops. Especially on those novice maps where there's rocks blocking stuff that normally is open. I find that I'm often out of position or that I don't have enough drop defense, or that I'm not anticipating the timing of the drop or air attack (if playing against a Toss). I'm playing most Terran and usually I have my units rallied to my front, and if I get dropped I have a hard time cycling units back and lose a lot of SCVs. Is it better to have your troops in your main? What if they cycle back and forth between your main and your nat?
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It's nice to see that some people get what I mean by the no sound thing.
Gener- Yes drops from Terran are basically Terran saying, "I can and will rip your face off and beat you with out". Which is part of the reason I have been playing Terran a bit more in practice games. Both, from what it sounds. My suggestion is build supply depots aroung your base, as to force them to make a drop farther in. Which gives you more time to react. Whatch your mini map, and get Stim to be able to move your bioball faster.
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Before you put anything major on liquipedia you should probably run it past someone who helps run it, just ask someone on irc.
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Thanks killswitch, awesome post!
Personally, I find your point about apm quite reassuring. Although I find that when you move out with your army and are about to engage them, its better to queue some units (2-3) at production facilities than to not build any at all, as at bronze to gold people forget to build more units in the heat of battle. I've had several games where our armies would just about neutralise each other, but then i would win 3 minutes later because I built units and the other guy forgot. But, I agree, when you're sitting in your base, queuing units is a bad idea.
I think you also forgot to mention that generally, you want all your unit production structures to be constantly producing units- any units at all, unless you make a conscious decision not to (cutting a cycle to save for an expansion, saving for a key upgrade, or of course if the building is adding on a techlab or something). If you can't constantly produce units out of all buildings and keep up supply, you probably have too many production buildings. In bronze to gold, you can generally win by just having more stuff, and what better way to have more stuff than to constantly produce units?
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On October 06 2010 08:55 Meapak_Ziphh wrote: Before you put anything major on liquipedia you should probably run it past someone who helps run it, just ask someone on irc.
Okay, I wasn't sure if there was a process to it our not. I want to edit it more and add some stuff and what not so it might be a while. But whats the irc channel called?
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great post sir im just new playing sc2 hope to learn more about this game i hope some 1 can do free coaching someday
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