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Ghost Reportin
83 Posts
http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/139616-1v1-protoss-shakuras-plateau http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/139615-1v1-terran-protoss-steppes-of-war http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/139614-1v1-protoss-zerg-xelnaga-caverns and if i somehow disobeyed the rules at all I apologize for my retardedness. Guys. I need your help. I constantly read the liquidpedia and im still lost. please help. thank you for your time and kindess. team liquid fighting. | ||
ZeromuS
Canada13389 Posts
How old are you? I know some people who are 10 or 11 and love giving the game a go but their mental abilities can't allow them to get too good at this game. Older individuals, into their late late 50s+ will have a hard time learning the hand eye coordination and speed required to play this game effectively. NOTE: Pre-teen development limits physical and mental coordination needed for starcraft at higher levels even just low diamond. Older individuals who almost never play video games or didn't play many video games before sc2 will have a hard time learning the skills they need to play well due to lack of familiarity with computers and their use. Ok now that that is out of the way if you don't fall into either category then helping you will be much easier. It comes down to practice but the good kind of practice where you don't repeat bad habits over and over. The problem you might be facing is 1000 games of repitition and bad habits. I suggest you play Terran if you main Protoss currently and focus on learning one basic build order like the 3 rax stim and concussive timing and making sure you can get to 50 supply or higher in 7 minutes. If you can make scvs, and follow the build order and get a good timing out of it then you are one step closer to breaking bad habits. Use hotkeys and watch the day 9 newbie tuesday vods. ALL of them they will help you a LOT at the very least conceptually. Focus on playing against a very easy AI in order to practice good habits and as soon as you repeat a bad habit like supply blocking yourself quit the game and start again. I really don't want to be the bearer of bad news but you need to basically re-learn sc2 because after 1000 games unless you seriously tried to stay in bronze to farm portraits you need to destroy bad habits and rebuild good ones. | ||
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fadestep
United States605 Posts
I would recommend leaving your build orders and decision making to somebody else. By that I mean, look up some good builds and follow them exactly. Watch Day9/streams/replays and copy the decision making exactly. A lot of people discourage this as it can sometimes retard your growth as a player, but in your case I think just getting the feel for basic situations and what to do in them will allow you to start to grasp some of the concepts for yourself. You also go back and forth about your micro. In some threads you talk about having 200 APM, while in others you worry about not having hot keys. My advice is to hotkey your army, CC/OCs, and your unit producing structures. Don't get worried about individual control groups for different units or whatever. Stop spamming. And just concentrate on always doing something with everything you have. | ||
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Tivo
United States121 Posts
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Ghost Reportin
83 Posts
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atenthirtyone
United States88 Posts
1. Your chronoboost. Your Nexus was easily sitting at 100 energy for at least a good 30 game seconds. You generally want to spend your chronoboosts constantly unless you are specifically aiming to pump out a certain tech or unit. Every time you aren't chronoboosting, (insert natural disaster) happens. 2. Basic macro: You aren't spending your minerals. You need to constantly make units/buildings. You were really late on your first zealot. 3. Early unit compositions. Why the second zealot? I'm not a P player, but generally you want a Stalker or a Sentry after the first zealot. | ||
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nyc863
200 Posts
Try this exercise: have a fun couple of hours trying to get to 3 base 200 food inside 13 minutes against a passive AI. You only need 3 bases to do this, and just one type of unit producing structure. To achieve it, you need to be on top of probe production, and you also need to build unit producing structures as a 2nd priority ahead of their need, and they all need to be producing but not queued heavily. It is probably impossible to do this without hotkeys so that is forced as well, and you also can't get supply blocked, neither can you queue up unit production until the last few minutes. You also need to transfer probes to the expansions in a fairly efficient manner, and set good rally points. These are all vital things to learn, my bet is it takes more than a few attempts to achieve. It helped me a lot. When you see 3 full saturated bases, about 65 workers, and a 200 army at 14 minutes it helps you feel how bad your macro is slipping in a real game  | ||
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aimless
United States57 Posts
PvP: You go for a 4 gate. Then you knock down the rocks behind both bases and it take an extra ~2 minutes for you to reach his base. 4 gate is a timing attack. You completely negated its purpose (especially in a mirror match) by delaying the attack. If you had attacked his front, you could have either pressured and expanded or killed his expansion. Also, I don't think early proxy pylons are useful to win games. Maybe at your level, but at higher levels they become increasingly risky to the point of just giving away minerals. PvT: You win this game. Congrats. But even in victory, I noticed a big red flag (which should have caused you to lose). Why did you scout? You received no information and went for a 3 gate robo against a Terran that made 2 rax fast and wanted to do a big stim marine push. Those immortals didn't help at all. It would have been better spent on zealots and sentries or a rush to colossus. If your opponent had gone for a marine rush, I'm not sure you would have held. PvZ: The opponent may have been smurfing. His APM was 150+ and his timing was fairly precise. But regardless of his skill, why did you scout? You saw a spawning pool and extractor, then left. If you had swung back in, you would have seen the roach warren and had time to chrono out an immortal or build a forge and get cannons. It seems like you know what to do and generally approximate a good player, but you don't have the sense of why you do some things. You rarely looked at your scouting worker and when you did, it was usually because it was being harassed away. You could count workers, pylons, structures, larvae, nexus energy, etc. But you only barely glance, and sometimes not at all. Think how often you really gain information from scouting. It might be better to simply forgo scouting and send a small attack force (zealot + stalker) to obtain your scouting information. I get the sense that you don't vary your build much based on what you see anyway. Also, your macro cannot be good if you get supply blocked early. Not getting supply blocked is 1/3 of good macro (constant worker production and constant unit production being the other 2/3). My advice is after 30+ food, just get a pylon ahead of yourself. Always have like a 6+ food gap between where you're at and the cap. | ||
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Ghost Reportin
83 Posts
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Dhalphir
Australia1305 Posts
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Xenocryst
United States521 Posts
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panda_inc
Australia170 Posts
next i would suggest practice the basic 4 gate build while keep building probes, using chronoboosts and not getting supply blocked. Keep it simple attack and expand and add more gateways and robotics for observers. Practice keep building probes and units and plyons. People in bronze do random things so it really not possible to learn how to play the game the right way. Just keep it simple and effective while practising your macro. This way you get alot of wins quickly and boosts your confidence and will get to diamond sooner where you can start practising real builds and watching ur replays to learn how to play properly. | ||
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meadbert
United States681 Posts
Basically when trying to get good at anything it is not necessarily good to watch the experts. I would not want someone who had just picked up basketball or soccer/football in the last year to watch the experts and try to copy their moves. It is better to focus on fundamentals. Behind the back passes, dunks and bicycle kicks can wait till you first learn the fundamentals. To get out of bronze I suggest you start by working on one build order. The four gate is fine. If you prefer macro games then 2 gate robo or 3 gate sentry expand are also fine, but 4 gate is probably the easier "get out of bronze free" card. The other alternative is the 5 zealot, 8 stalker 3 gate timing attack, although that is less likely to lead to macro games. You should know exactly what you are doing with it for the first 7ish game minutes. I would suggest going as far as writing it down! Once you get this build down, determine which matchup it is worst against and choose a build good against that matchup. Then add another build. After a while you will be good at 3-5 builds and you can audible between them based on scouting, so maybe you generally prefer 2 gate robo vs Zerg, but you scout Zerg fast expanding so you audible to 4 gate. That is more advanced, but rather than trying to start with 8 memorized build orders or worse, basically making them up on the spot, you are better off with just one at first that you are good at. It is the same philosophy in basketball. Rather than trying to simultaneously learn a 3 point shot, a left handed layup and a hook shoy, you are better just picking one and getting good at it. Then once you have masted it move to the next. If you want to play macro games ban the 1v1 maps since that will deter rushing to a certain extent and since many rushers/cheesers ban the 2v2 maps you will be playing against other players looking to play macro games more often. While getting out of bronze I do not suggest relying on micro or scouting. Rather than hoping to hold your ramp with Force Fields or relying on scouting the DTs coming, it is better to just know that DTs/Cloacked Banshees show up around 7ish mins and plan on having detection at that point. Now if you 4 gate and you get to their ramp and they have a large Zealot/Stalker/Sentry army then presumably they have not yet teched to DT so it is okay to delay, but plan on the observer or cannon. Against Terran and Toss if you plan to have detection by 7-8 mins, then it is okay to massively delay a scout (still scout your own base for cannon rush) or just scout their expansion timing. Against Zerg you need to scout for 6-9 pools on 1v1 maps to know if you need to fully wall in your ramp. An alternative which will get you out of Bronze, but is probably bad practice for higher leagues is to simply open forge first with 1 cannon without walling in. That becomes an autowin vs 6 pool and if you scout the 7RR on its way you can throw down a few extra cannons. Against Zerg you also need to know if the 7RR is coming in which case you should throw down cannons and crono the Immortal (as mentioned above.) Ideally you can hold the ramps with FFs for a while, but in reality it is very difficult to micro FFs while you macro. If you go 3 gate, sentry expand every game then you will get good at it, but I would not suggest just doing that if you see Roach because you will not have the needed practice. As far as micro goes you mostly need to know when to either run away or attack move. Other things that are bonusses are keeping your zealots in front and remembering to use your guardian shield. Whenever you are forced to choose between micro and macro it is almost always better to pay attention to the macro. If you are worried about losing a battle because you are being outmicroed while you macro then just run away and macro. To spend time microing only to miss a cycle of warp ins is almost never worth it. Basically a cycle of warpins with a 4 gate is 4 units so your micro would have to have saved 4 units. Generally micro is not that good at bronze level, so you are better just staying on top of your warp ins. However many buildings the pros have you should have more. For that reason while in bronze, it is not a bad idea to actually build 5 gates if you are 4 gating or build 3 gates if you are doing 2 gate robo. The reality is pros have insane apm and are right on top of their warp ins while those of us in Bronze/Silver do leave our gates idle at times while doing other things so having the extra structure helps us catch up on spending our resources. Even the pros will build "to many" gateways. This is because only gateways can reinforce when you are attacking so I have seen ogsMC go with 1 Stargate, 1 Robo and 4 Warpgates off 1 base. He cannot possibly support production out of 6 structures off of one base, but this allows him to build a diverse army with idle warpgates and then use all 4 warpgates to reinforce. For this reason extra gateways can be very useful and help solves issues where you suddenly find you are sitting on over 1K minerals. You can just drop extra gates or if you have them start warping in extra zealots. For Bronze do not worry too much about counters. The vast majority of games you win and lose will not be because your unit configuration was countered or you countered them. Instead choose a unit configuration that is flexible enough that there are no hard counters for it. For instance just go with 1 sentry, a front row of zealots, Stalkers and Colossus with maybe an Immortal thrown in and obviously an observer. Mostly that is Stalkers + Colossus. Assign all of your nexuses to one control group and queue up probes. Because probes are so inexpensive there is very little pain in having relatively long queues for your Nexuses. Also their low build time makes it difficult to stay on top them. Basically if I saw a queue of Collossi which was 3 long I would question your competance since that is an extra 1K resources that is tied up, but if you queue your Nexus 3 deep that is only 100 minerals which is no biggie. It is far better to be sitting down 200 mins with two Nexuses constantly producing than to frequently have idle nexusses. Ideally you should only have 1 probe in the queue and never have an idle nexus, but we are not perfect so better to queue the probes. This is basically the same philosophy as the pylons mentioned above. It is better to be sitting on an extra pylon at all times thus "wasting" 100 minerals than it is to get supply blocked. Even sitting on 2 extra pylons is better than getting supply blocked. I totally agree about macroing to 200/200. It is not a bad idea to continue playing till you macro to 200 in every game you win or at least when you play vs AI. | ||
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Azzur
Australia6259 Posts
On February 15 2011 09:37 Ghost Reportin wrote:I feel like my macros okay but i get supply blocked(i have trouble knowing food to pylon ration) and i feel like im too passive and I lose ALOT early game. For the next few games, perhaps concentrate mainly on this one thing - to avoid getting supply blocked. Yes, there are other macro mechanics to worry about, but work on it one at a time. Once you get this down, then maybe focus on probe/unit production, etc. In top-level games, getting supply blocked can lead to an auto-loss if rushed. I'm guessing this is what is similarly happening to your early game as well - where you just don't have enough units to defend against the rushes. There is a reasonable thread about benchmarks: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=191745 The crux of the matter is, if you can get extra 10 supply just by executing everything better, that makes a HUGE difference. On February 15 2011 09:37 Ghost Reportin wrote:Another problem is I dont know the timing windows as to when I should attack. Don't worry about timing windows, that is for higher levels of play. My advice to you would be to build a reasonable unit composition (e.g. zealot/stalker/colossus, etc) off 3-bases, get to 200/200 and then attack. This will help improve your mechanics in the long run. For your next few games, go through the replays and note down the following: 1. Did you make probes constantly? 2. Did you make units constantly? 3. Did you get supply-capped? 4. Did you spend your minerals/gas? If you made any of those mistakes, focus on them for your subsequent games. | ||
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Leftwing
Canada229 Posts
As a fellow bronze player and former protoss player I can at least say that you simply just need to learn specifically what unit counters what. You have a good sense of the game however you are missing some key elements. As aimless said, your scouting was basically a waste of time, you could have simply just played blind than scout in those games. Scouting is key, because if you know what your opponent is doing you can counter him. This means not only do you need to pay attention and multitask while scouting, but you must understand your opponents plan for you to properly execute a counter. The best way to learn counters in my opinion is to watch this, or any sort of VoD: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=177791 While this is based specifically for zerg, by watching the match ups against protoss (ie. zvp) you can analyze the decisions made by those players who so graciously donated their time to helping fellow players like us improve our game. I also found these videos great because they often discuss the timing pushes and the time in which you should expect a certain attack by your opponent (ie. when banshees will reach your mineral line to harass, when to expect your opponent to attack). However, being in bronze league has it's drawbacks. I find fewer players like to play respectful macro games rather than the cheesy cannon rushes and 6 pool. I also find it hard to move beyond bronze, even though I have won 16 of my last 20 games, with streaks like 6-7 games in a row I cannot get out, simply because I'm losing to cannon and 6 poolers. In conclusion, follow what aimless has mentioned, remember to not get supply blocked (you need additional pylons!) and use them chronoboosts. I'd also suggest picking a build and sticking with it, like the 4gate. I recommend playing around with YABOT to find a build order that suits your play. Practice it enough and you should find yourself out of bronze league fairly quickly. http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=128752 Hope that helps! | ||
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tuestresfat
2555 Posts
I will not be on this week, but I will be on a lot the following week as it is reading break. Shoot me a message if you have time Proxy #840 | ||
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Ghost Reportin
83 Posts
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TERRANLOL
United States626 Posts
On February 15 2011 12:08 Ghost Reportin wrote: i want you guys to note that i always have 4 times as many workers as my opponent gerneally i have anywhere from 70-100 workers. so probe production isnt the problem. i play with yabot alot and it haswnt done nothing for me yet. i think itd be more help someone could analyze my replays tahts why i posted them. thanks aimless and everyone else for helping. a thousand blessings and smiles are wished upon you all Ghost, I want to help you out but I don't want to read your whole post  I'm a master terran and diamond zerg. I've been using my zerg account lately so add TERRANLOL.594 I'll help you get some standard attacks for each race so you have something to make small adjustments to. EDIT: OK lol I did read it but I didn't watch the replays | ||
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smocca
United States83 Posts
Your build is very 'slow'. Your first pylon went down FAR too late, which made you gateway late, which made you cybercore late etc. Once you gateway finished, you didn't start making a zealot until your cybercore was about done. If that is normal, then that is probably why you "lose a LOT early game". If your first zealot is later than it should be, you are going to be extremely vulnerable to any sort of early pressure. Even if you don't get cheesed out, your army is still going to be smaller than it should be especially early on. You also are not using chrono well. You don't use it at all on your Nexus and then you seemed to throw 3 chronos into your cybercore immediately (they don't stack like that FYI, you have to wait for one to end before you start the next). You also used it on your gateway to get the Zealot out quickly despite letting that gateway sit idle for like a minute. Try to hammer out kinks like that. It will make a world of difference in defending early pressure. Try to get that 9 pylon put down exactly at 100 minerals. Chrono probes out as soon as that pylon finishes. Start your gateway immediately (probably at 12 food and 150 minerals). At the start of the game nothing matters more than hitting these timings down to the very nanosecond because they have a huge effect on your position in the early game and beyond. If that pylon is delayed by 15 seconds and that gateway is delayed by 10 seconds and you don't start a Zealot for another 15 after the gateway finishes then your zealot is going to be 35 seconds late. Not to mention your cybercore will be late and so warpgate tech will be late (and so will any other tech you go for). If you have to choose between hitting your timings perfectly or microing your scouting probe always always always hit your timings. | ||
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Yoshi Kirishima
United States10332 Posts
Pre-teen development limits physical and mental coordination needed for starcraft at higher levels even just low diamond. Older individuals who almost never play video games or didn't play many video games before sc2 will have a hard time learning the skills they need to play well due to lack of familiarity with computers and their use. Really? didn't know... I felt pretty fast back when I played WC3 xD Anyways, hard to know what your problem exactly is, whether it be bad macro (you say you are decent) or some really simple mistakes in game plan, but... IT IS IMPORTANT that you know that you do not need to know build orders step by step! That's not the point! If you have a good game sense, you won't need to memorize build orders, even if your timings aren't as crisp and pretty. You only "need" these build orders if you want to practice something very specific and so you can memorize it and remember how to beat it next time. However if you become experienced at "winging" things, you will develop a good game sense with rough timings and etc. It's not at what food you do things, but the order you do them. (a golden rule, paraphrased from day9) Don't worry about the specific builds and not knowing "enough" builds. That's not the point. I play in low masters level and I can barely even remember a few builds exactly; i only remember roughly, as in the order things are done. If you don't already I suggest you watch Day9. His videos are long but even at my level I can learn something very useful (game sense wise, not like a specific build order or etc.) that will help me out. If you're at Bronze, I can only imagine you'd be learning a shit ton of new amazing stuff every time you watch his videos. Note: I also understand there is a lot of cheese in Bronze level, and cheese can be very hard to stop unless you have a strong game sense or have practiced and know what to do against different kinds of cheeses beforehand. Otherwise you won't know what to do and not knowing what to do against certain cheeses is what usually loses you the game. Is it just the cheese that you are losing to? | ||
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Ghost Reportin
83 Posts
my tag for those who want to help me is tscxosiris.216 | ||
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eth3n
718 Posts
On February 15 2011 09:44 ZeromuS wrote: Its ok I don't have time to look at replay I apologise but there are only 1 thing I want to ask first: How old are you? I know some people who are 10 or 11 and love giving the game a go but their mental abilities can't allow them to get too good at this game. Older individuals, into their late late 50s+ will have a hard time learning the hand eye coordination and speed required to play this game effectively. NOTE: Pre-teen development limits physical and mental coordination needed for starcraft at higher levels even just low diamond. Older individuals who almost never play video games or didn't play many video games before sc2 will have a hard time learning the skills they need to play well due to lack of familiarity with computers and their use. if this is true, its only for rts, 11 year old viet kids were like the bulk of semi-pro cs back in the day XD | ||
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OpAndroid
United States84 Posts
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Boundless
Canada588 Posts
The most versatile and safe Protoss build is either a 3 gate expand or a 2 gate robo expand, both with lots of sentries. Learn those, practice your macro like hell, and get good practice partners who are willing to work with you. | ||
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Joedaddy
United States1948 Posts
I decided to change races. Maybe it was just me, but I started improving greatly soon after the switch. I think that maybe I had devolped so many pre conceived notions about my first race and how to play it that I was at an impass. Changing races allowed me to start fresh from a build order/strategy standpoint while utilizing what I had learned about hot keys and basic macro mechanics. After a few months, I began to hit a wall again with the 2nd race. This prompted me to go back to my first race. In a similar fashion, I was able to climb to an even higher level than before. Maybe it was just me, but between all those changes (several months time) I went from being stuck in copper with a ton of games played to 2.8K diamond. Hang in there. Idra said once that your focus should be on mastering the fundamentals, not on winning and success will follow. | ||
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ggrrg
Bulgaria2716 Posts
There are some minor flaws like not constant production of probes, supply blocks, stacking up a little bit too many minerals, but none of those are really a problem. In fact, I'd say that you could compete on diamond level with those mistakes. However! There was one big thing that broke your neck in both games you lost that one could clearly observe. It would have even costed you the game vs terran if he wasn't that terrible. You NEVER knew what you should do! Basically, you did not scout. You just kept churning out units without caring what your opponent was doing. Let's review the games you provided: vs terran There were three things that you could/should have done. 1. Not losing your probe before a marine comes out. Just shift-queue move your probe around his base (Normally, you would leave when you see that he produces his first marine). In that game you would have seen that he built TWO barracks at the very beginning. This means that he would go heavy bio and probably rush you, so you should rush for collosus. 2. (Optional) Since you lost your probe at the start, you could have send a probe to his choke about the time when you started your robo. At this point you would have seen two barracks (one with reactor). This is another indicator that he goes heavy marines, so you should rush for collosus. 3. I'd encourage you to build an observer as soon as your robo finishes (if you feel that he might attack very early, you could produce one immortal first and then the observer). An early observer is essential in PvT. In this game you would have seen mass marines -> you make collosi. In other games you might see a banshee build -> make stalkers and another obs. Or you might see a fast expand -> you expand or you attack him. vs zerg Once again, you had no information about what he was doing. You could have stayed there with your initial scouting probe (again shift-queue move around his base) and you would have seen that he went for roaches -> you chrono your first immortal. Often times zerg would build a pair of lings early and deny your initial scout. So after he finishes his pool move your probe to his natural expo. If there is a hatch, then you might expand soon or prepare some sort of attack. If there is no expo then he will most likely attack soon, so you get prepared. side note: In the game you provided you could have saved yourself if you had a little bit better macro though, but if you had scouted you would have had very little problems with his early attack. vs toss You did not know what he was doing yet again. If you had scouted his expo when he started it you could have attacked, denied the expo and possibly even kill him right there. However, I also noticed that your build was rather bad. For PvP (and only for PvP), I'd encourage you to practice a solid 4-gate build, since even in master league, this would be the strategy you'd need the most. You would have crushed him with a 4-gate. Just build a proxy pylon somewhere close to his base and warp in units there. In case you see that you cannot kill your opponent with the 4-gate rush, you should pull back and start making some collosi as they are very important in mid and late game PvP. | ||
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Omnipresent
United States871 Posts
On February 15 2011 13:49 ggrrg wrote: Ok, I just looked through the replays you provided and must say that I was highly surprised that your macro wasn't even close to being terrible (except maybe in the game against zerg). There are some minor flaws like not constant production of probes, supply blocks, stacking up a little bit too many minerals, but none of those are really a problem. In fact, I'd say that you could compete on diamond level with those mistakes. I just watched a couple of the replays, and I have to disagree with ggrrg. The problem looks like it's related to macro. I know people always say "macro better" to get out of bronze, but it's tough to know what that means. Here are some tips. 1. Make more probes. In the PvT on Steppes, your probe production was pretty good for about the first 2:30 min, but fell off pretty steeply after that. By my rough count, you averaged missing about 1 probe per minute for the first 6 minutes, at one point chrono boosting a nexus with no probes being built. After that, it got worse. You're doing a good job spending your money, but not such a good job making money to begin with. It's pretty easy to spend all your cash from one base with 3 gate robo when you haven't been constantly producing workers and aren't fully saturated (and even when you are fully saturated). 2. Don't get supply blocked. Most of the times you got supply blocked were relatively minor, but there were a few that lasted quite a while. Every time you get supply blocked, you're limiting your army production AND your probe production. This means you're also limiting your potential income, since you're delaying workers. Each supply block has long term consequences, even if you're able to spend all the money in your bank upon getting unblocked. 3. Macro while attaching/being attacked. Whenever you attack or are being attacked, your money went up considerably. You might be able to bring it back down due to having low income or too many production buildings, but you weaken your army in the short term. Whenever you lose a game, look up at your unspent resources before leaving. Convert those resources into units, and imagine how nice it would be to have that army (1k minerals is 10 zealots...). 4. Expand. If you intend to play off one base for 10+ minutes, you should be pretty active with your units (poking, pressuring, harassing, and all out attacking). If you're not looking to do that, you can expand. You have a decisive defenders advantage in almost all situations (vs protoss is a little trickier). This means you should be able to defend against many attacks (and ALL bronze league attacks) while taking your natural. A lot of people have mentioned scouting more. This is obviously an important skill, but likely wont make much difference in your games at the moment. It's nice to have a sense of your opponent's unit composition and react to it (marines are good against immortals, so don't make immortals vs marines), but it's better to have a large army (a large army will beat a small one, regardless of composition). You don't want to be surprised by 6 Battlecruisers, but beyond that you're probably better off just working on macro and saving scouting for later (though it's always easy to be active with observers). | ||
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Simberto
Germany11505 Posts
Since you said you feel like your macro is ok-ish, and it didn't look that terrible on one base in the games you posted, i assume that you win most of the games which go to the mid-lategame? If this is the case, you obviously need to improve your earlygame, get more cheeseproof, and generally be more effective at not dying at the beginning to all sorts of 1-base stuff. A bandaid to do this would be cannoning, however i would really not recommend that, since it might help against bad people who really don`t know what to do if their 1-base push does not work, or who suicice into cannon lines. To be generally more safe, don't rush to anything. Don't do insanely fast expos, and don't do insanely fast tech. Always get at least 2 gateways before any robo/stargate/exppansion, just to be a bit safer. Also, try to tighten your build earlygame. In that game against the zerg your robo and your second gateway were insanely late. Generally, all of you early gateways should finish when, or shortly after your warpgate research finishes. If they don't, something went wrong. In this case, it was a) you getting a gas you don't even mine from pretty early, and b) you simply not starting the facilities when you had the money to do so. Also, ranged units are generally more effective at defending your wall versus early zerg stuff, so that second zealot should probably have been a stalker. Try to watch the replay everytime you lose to something early on, and find out where your build was unprecise at the beginning, what you could have had if it were not, and if you still would have a problem against it. Then, try to eradicate those problems. You said that you die to 6-pools, which should really not happen. When you scout a zerg, and see the 6-pool coming, you should still have enough time to react. There are different ways of reacting to it. I would suggest for the beginning to stay away from everything that involves fancy micro, and just build a complete wallin with a forge + another gate as soon as you scout the 6-pool. This should give you enough time to get up a cannon behind that wall, and you are instantly 100% safe from it. Then, just continue what you normally planned to do, knowing that you are ahead by a lot in economy. If you want to move out, kill one of the buildings, probably the forge. Maybe generally scouting after pylon instead of after your gateway could also be a good idea on close maps like steppes, if you still feel that you cannot get defense up in time otherwise. Also, don't wall in versus terran. It might feel safer to have that wall at the entrance of your base, but it actually hinders your forces a lot more than it hinders the terrans. Every single terran unit is ranged, so they can simply shoot over the building. But those buildings are in the way of your zealots, and also prevent you from having a very good arc on any terran units that try to come up the ramp. Also, as soon as he has some kind of air, he can simply shoot your wall from below, and there is nothing you can do about it, since you would have to funnel through the small entrace you left open, and you simply cannot attack a terran from such a position. Against Protoss, it probably also is not a good idea to wall in in most cases. | ||
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SnowSC2
United States678 Posts
I have a friend thats in the same boat, he watches vods and day9, but when he sits down to play he just.. fucken plays. thats it, and macro being one of the most important things to grasp is a great place to start. I read earlier that your macro was slipping, so just watch a pros replay and see how many probes he has at a certain time and go play and try to match it or something like that. Referencing really good players and copying them is fantastic and can really give you an idea of what your income should look like at any given time. | ||
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Doomhammer
United States2 Posts
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Zerglot
Australia229 Posts
On February 15 2011 09:44 ZeromuS wrote: Its ok I don't have time to look at replay I apologise but there are only 1 thing I want to ask first: How old are you? I know some people who are 10 or 11 and love giving the game a go but their mental abilities can't allow them to get too good at this game. Older individuals, into their late late 50s+ will have a hard time learning the hand eye coordination and speed required to play this game effectively. NOTE: Pre-teen development limits physical and mental coordination needed for starcraft at higher levels even just low diamond. Older individuals who almost never play video games or didn't play many video games before sc2 will have a hard time learning the skills they need to play well due to lack of familiarity with computers and their use. Ok now that that is out of the way if you don't fall into either category then helping you will be much easier. It comes down to practice but the good kind of practice where you don't repeat bad habits over and over. The problem you might be facing is 1000 games of repitition and bad habits. I suggest you play Terran if you main Protoss currently and focus on learning one basic build order like the 3 rax stim and concussive timing and making sure you can get to 50 supply or higher in 7 minutes. If you can make scvs, and follow the build order and get a good timing out of it then you are one step closer to breaking bad habits. Use hotkeys and watch the day 9 newbie tuesday vods. ALL of them they will help you a LOT at the very least conceptually. Focus on playing against a very easy AI in order to practice good habits and as soon as you repeat a bad habit like supply blocking yourself quit the game and start again. I really don't want to be the bearer of bad news but you need to basically re-learn sc2 because after 1000 games unless you seriously tried to stay in bronze to farm portraits you need to destroy bad habits and rebuild good ones. I disagree, I'm only 14 but I'm a 3100 Diamond Zerg | ||
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falcoiii
Canada43 Posts
Here are 2 simple goals for macro: Always build probes. Never get supply blocked. Here is how you can practise to get better: A simple exercise is to try to get to 30 probes by 6:30 - ignore everything else. Run and rerun this exercise against a very easy AI until you can do it. Then add in a goal of 30 probes by 6:30 along with 1 gateway, 1 core, 1 stalker and 1 zealot. Slowly expand your demand list to see how far you can go. As for supply - every time you warp in 3 or 4 units, build a pylon. Everytime you chronoboost a unit producing building, build a pylon. Learn your keys and key combinations: F1 - select Idle probe. b - build menu e - build a pylon So to select an idle worker and build a pylon: F1 - b - e - click Repeat this and other key sequences over and over. Make sure you know this one: w - s - click - s - click - z - click - e - click | ||
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SheerStress
84 Posts
Just watched your PvT Replay. For reference, I am low masters terran, so i watched PvT  Big Stuff: - Your probe production is inconsistent (aka noticeable amount of time with no probes made) even within the first 5 minutes and then through out the rest of the game. If you aren't getting attacked or attacking, not much reason to not have this down. - No scouting - You cant go blind 3 gate robo. know what 3 gate robo is good against, just poking a probe up his ramp woulda shown you a ton. Use obs in his base. - Army comp - If you are not scouting your understanding of army comp is not good. in this case you seemed to go some random build off whatever resources you had - Army control - Your final attack had a nice line walking straight into his ramp, was this a diamond player, i assure you woulda lost your whole army and killed nothing, gather outside his base put zlots in front. ff were soso. Final battle about 6 guardian shields used, pointless. Your first attack was also aweful. dont do that, that wuts scouting probes are for - Strange Hotkeys - I usually dont criticize this, but since you are in this situation you may want to try some new ones. 1,2 - main army. 4 - non warpgate production 5- nexus W- warpgates. Medium stuff - Not taking advantage of warp gates, despite having warp gates did not make a pylon to move them closer, I guess it was steppes of war. - chronos not used properly - first chronos you use two in a row, multiple times theres a chrono and no probes being made on the chronoed nexus your macro was above bronze level for sure, good pylon timings for the most part. scouting and more consistent probe making will make you a much better player. I feel like you should work on making probes, scouting and basic army control (not a-moving to his base without even gathering your army together and moving zlots in front). scouting aside you looked like a low gold player to me. Good luck, dont give up. | ||
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dc302
Australia576 Posts
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ProtossGirl
England123 Posts
"r u a retard or just 7??" disguised under politeness. I have nothing else to add that hasnt already been said in page 1. | ||
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TheRealzz
150 Posts
On February 15 2011 17:00 ProtossGirl wrote: lol the first reply to this thread is fucking horrible. "r u a retard or just 7??" disguised under politeness. I have nothing else to add that hasnt already been said in page 1. Angry person troll ? | ||
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Helicopter
Canada39 Posts
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Sneakyz
Sweden2361 Posts
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Simberto
Germany11505 Posts
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Helicopter
Canada39 Posts
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nalgene
Canada2153 Posts
If his eyes can't keep track of what he's doing, he's not going to be able to do it quickly and a lot of it simultaneously either... ( try spamming the hotkeys 1-2-3-4-5 with different units in each and on different parts of the map and see how quick you can go back and forth between them ) and you can try casting spells from each unit group and switch back and forth on different parts of the map... hotkeys speed everything up greatly ( try not to click the spells or menus whenever possible to save time ) add all your nexus' to one hotkey if you want ( it doesn't change anything from having 1 on each or all due to smart cast ( made easier for slow ppl )) | ||
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BatCat
Austria630 Posts
Honestly, what helped me advance is to take one simple buildorder (like the 4gate as P), execute it nearly every game and get better and better. Spend all your resources and chronoboost, watch your micro, and just try to execute the build cleanly. Eventually you will start getting better and better with the build, up to the point where you have the basics down. Then you can experiment with other stuff, longer games, etc. In fact, you should, because only 4gate is kinda lame | ||
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escobari
Finland192 Posts
1) if you are 4gate attacking dont go through back door. make so zealots too, bad control, no forward pylon. 2) you saw him going mass marines and did not tech colo? dont take 3 so early. dont go attacking with 2 zealots and 1 immortal at beginning. Do not attack up the ramp! 3) could have easily scouted 1base play. you make robo bay way too early. missed forcefield lose. Basicly your build orders need a lot of sharpening, cybercore and second pylon were always late. When your probe builds something, always shift click it back to minerals. Scout and adopt. Zero scouting in the front after first probe. You have start making mental notes not to get supply blocked. Your stategy should be always finding (safe) way to tech colo, then think about expaning. In other words making huge ass army should be your priority. Dont just attack randomly, find timings when enemy has expand or when your expansion has paid off itself. | ||
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Marooned
Norway161 Posts
I watched the pvz and pvt replay. There is alot of stuff to work on if you want to get to diamond/masters. I think you should focus on silver first, then steadily progress. If you end up in diamond now I think you will have quite a frustrating time ahead. And its a game witch is supposed to be fun, not 100% frustrating Here's my 2 cents.. 1. You didnt scout. Well you moved out with a probe against the zerg but you basically just moved it to his base, got hit a couple times, then moved back. Against the terran you were basically playing blind for the first 12 or so minutes. You made a ton of immortals against marines only. You somehow won even attacking up the ramp like that, but that is no good when you progress out of bronze. 2. Builds. Do you have a thaught prossess behind them? You went 1 gate into robo against the zerg, and you ended up loosing to a 7rr. Part of that was also because you were late putting probes in your second gas, but you would prob have been ok if you build a sentry instead of your second zealot. Then you would have had 2 sentrys to block the ramp witch would have given you more time. But why do you build your robo so early? Obs in that time of the game will not give you any more usefull info about the zerg then your initial probe scout should have given you. And blind immortals is no good. Same goes for the terran game I guess. Even though 2 gate robo is a good opening against terran, you started to mass immortals blind, instead of an obs to scout what he was up to. You were also late with putting probes in your first gas in this game. Its all about the little things when you advance up the ranks. 3. General mechanincs. I was watching your player view in both replays. I noticed missclicks. For example you were sending probes to gas but missclicked and ended up sending them far back in the terran game. You hotkeyed most of your buildings witch i good, but you didnt hotkey your army as far as I can tell. It could have cost you the game against the terran if he actually had an army, cause you didnt move your screen to your army until it was halfway up his ramp. I recomend trying out the multitasking trainer thats on here somewhere. Just use the search function. It helped me out a ton back when I was in gold and I noticed my multitasking was not on par. Also you say you have problems with food to pylon ratio. You should just sit down and think about how much food each unit types require. Then think about the requirements in relation to the ammount of unit producing structures you have. Then adapt. This doesnt take much time and it will help you if you want to get up the ranks. It is harder to do in game than to think about it, but I feel its much easier to remember if you have a general supply plan. This post is getting quite long... My advice is to work on one thing at the time. I would actually advice on working on scouting first, since you have trouble with early pressure. Then think about pherhaps reworking your builds. And start analysing your own replays. After 1000 games Im sure you can tell what you didnt do as well as you could if you just invest some time and thaught into it. Dont think to much about the fact that you MUST advance in rank. Just focus on working on your game. When you work on your game, you will get better, and as you get better you will advance naturally as your skill increases. Best of luck mate Hope my post was slightly useful. | ||
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Ghost Reportin
83 Posts
On February 15 2011 17:44 Helicopter wrote: Based on your vocabulary and grammar (and being in bronze after 1000 games) I highly doubt you're 24. look me up on facebook mark brewer. cheers. now to the rest of you - thank you very kindly for all the information. ill keep you guys updated hopefully this thread helped others in some way too. to all the people offering to practice with me ill def be hitting all of you up. if theres anymore input you guys would like to add itd be most greatly appreciated. | ||
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Marooned
Norway161 Posts
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Stamper
Germany148 Posts
On February 15 2011 15:10 Zerglot wrote: I disagree, I'm only 14 but I'm a 3100 Diamond Zerg So in how far do you consider a 14 (four-TEEN) years old "PRE-teen-developed"? Hint: "pre" means "before" | ||
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GrassEater
Sweden417 Posts
And it is as folowing (with constant probe production) 9 pylon --> scout 11 chrono 13 gateway 14 chrono 14 gas 16 pylon Chorono when nexus have 25 energy. 18 cyber How well you get this done determine how good you will hold off any early agression (6-8 minutes), and if you are going into mid-game with a disadvantage or not. Next step is to doing this (still perfect) and controlling your scout as well as possible, don't just do 10 loops with waypoints around the main building. You can do stuff in your base and locking at your scout when you becoming better at this 3 minutes. In order to see your scout more you need to do things faster when you for the short moments visits your main base. From this you will learn the main thing about starcraft 2. Make stuff at the right time. It is not hard. Requires the same apm as doing things late, but makes you a low master player instead of a bronze player. I think i can do a sc2 bot that macros a 200/200 protoss army with about 30 apm in 16 minutes. | ||
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ggrrg
Bulgaria2716 Posts
On February 15 2011 14:39 Omnipresent wrote: I just watched a couple of the replays, and I have to disagree with ggrrg. The problem looks like it's related to macro. I know people always say "macro better" to get out of bronze, but it's tough to know what that means. Here are some tips. 1. Make more probes. In the PvT on Steppes, your probe production was pretty good for about the first 2:30 min, but fell off pretty steeply after that. By my rough count, you averaged missing about 1 probe per minute for the first 6 minutes, at one point chrono boosting a nexus with no probes being built. After that, it got worse. You're doing a good job spending your money, but not such a good job making money to begin with. It's pretty easy to spend all your cash from one base with 3 gate robo when you haven't been constantly producing workers and aren't fully saturated (and even when you are fully saturated). 2. Don't get supply blocked. Most of the times you got supply blocked were relatively minor, but there were a few that lasted quite a while. Every time you get supply blocked, you're limiting your army production AND your probe production. This means you're also limiting your potential income, since you're delaying workers. Each supply block has long term consequences, even if you're able to spend all the money in your bank upon getting unblocked. 3. Macro while attaching/being attacked. Whenever you attack or are being attacked, your money went up considerably. You might be able to bring it back down due to having low income or too many production buildings, but you weaken your army in the short term. Whenever you lose a game, look up at your unspent resources before leaving. Convert those resources into units, and imagine how nice it would be to have that army (1k minerals is 10 zealots...). 4. Expand. If you intend to play off one base for 10+ minutes, you should be pretty active with your units (poking, pressuring, harassing, and all out attacking). If you're not looking to do that, you can expand. You have a decisive defenders advantage in almost all situations (vs protoss is a little trickier). This means you should be able to defend against many attacks (and ALL bronze league attacks) while taking your natural. A lot of people have mentioned scouting more. This is obviously an important skill, but likely wont make much difference in your games at the moment. It's nice to have a sense of your opponent's unit composition and react to it (marines are good against immortals, so don't make immortals vs marines), but it's better to have a large army (a large army will beat a small one, regardless of composition). You don't want to be surprised by 6 Battlecruisers, but beyond that you're probably better off just working on macro and saving scouting for later (though it's always easy to be active with observers). Those are all valid points and would certainly lead to improvement. However, none of them is the bottleneck of the OP's performance. I can assure you that with proper scouting and invoking the proper responses the OP would crush these kind of opponents even if he had worse macro. No matter how good your macro is, if you have the wrong unit mix you will certainly lose to a weaker opponent that surprises you. @OP Besides to scouting (which I still perceive as your biggest weakness) you should also try to work on Omnipresent's suggestions: 1. constant probe production 2. constant pylon production (not getting supply blocked) both are quite important 4. Expanding - you should really try to expand earlier, but you have to know what your opponent is doing to do so, otherwise you often will expand just when your opponent's push comes. as far as point 3. is concerned, it would indeed improve your gameplay, but it is really difficult to master and certainly not the reason why you are not in a higher league yet. | ||
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CryMore
United States497 Posts
Try the practice partner thread on TL, and watch Newbie Tuesday episodes on Day 9. If you have the cash you can try getting coaching from a pro, but there are tons of free resources out there with good, solid build orders (like liquidpedia). Finally, learning cheese defense is super important. I used to die to cannon rushes in PvP all the damn time, but once I learned the proper response, its pretty much a free win for me when it happens. Learning the early pool defense, the cannon rush defense, and the 2-gate defense will net you many many free wins in the lower leagues. There are many threads on TL that explain cheese defense. | ||
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Umpteen
United Kingdom1570 Posts
In short, tunnel vision keeps killing me. I'm getting better at the things I'm concentrating on, but the things I forget still kill me every time so my win rate never improves. It's a big challenge for me because I've always had a borderline autistic tendency to focus on one thing to the exclusion of all else. Having to spread my attention, run a checklist and keep an overall plan fucks me over something chronic. | ||
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Belial88
United States5217 Posts
Basically, watch a replay, and learn not just that you do get supply blocked, but *exactly* when it happens, and why it happens ie I always get blocked at 60 food because that's when I usually expand, so now I know before I expand to throw a pylon down immediately. Watch a few games, and write down when you got supply blocked, and when you stopped making probes. Then, figure out where your find was via 1st person view, and see what caused it (when I harass with my probe, I forget to throw my 15/16 pylon down. from now on, i dont harass with my probe, or I throw a pylon first). Also helps with gamesense, instead of relying on your supply count or money, you can do things like "I should throw a barracks down when my SCV gets to his base" etc. | ||
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Ghost Reportin
83 Posts
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Helicopter
Canada39 Posts
On February 15 2011 18:55 Ghost Reportin wrote: look me up on facebook mark brewer. cheers. ROFLMAO are you the black guy? User was temp banned for this post. | ||
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Ghost Reportin
83 Posts
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Juice303
United States42 Posts
I haven't looked at any of the replays but I can assume that its a major problem in your play. Biggest tips I can offer: - utilize hotkeys , learn them all - your mouse is for control/micro of units and that is it. everything else is done with left hand - produce workers/supply always - produce units while battling - rally to battles - never stop to watch the game, be active at all times - always have a game plan, but be adaptive and ready to change if needed - train your eyes to look at everything, one eye on the minimap, one eye on your econ, one on the game. If you don't have three eyes then I am sorry you can't play SC2 | ||
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Simberto
Germany11505 Posts
On February 16 2011 09:50 Ghost Reportin wrote: this is why team liquids the best site on the internet. guys thank you for your support i didnt expect so much help but you guys have basically broken my style down to a science thank you. i was wondering how can i attack and expand not lose? because maybe its my nub logic but wouldnt that leave me very vulnerable to a counter attack Basically, the point is that you do not need to commit to an attack. You just put down an expansion, move your stuff forward, look what is up, and attack if you feel like you have an army advantage there. If you don't, just fall back and be happy about a juicy expansion. There are basically two possibilities. Either he expanded before you, in that case your army at that point should be ahead of your opponents because it is not yet effected by you having expanded. Or he has not yet expanded, in that case you are ahead in economy and as long as you don't lose your whole army, should still be fine because once you fall back, your expansion is already up, and you have your reinforcements there helping you to defend it. Just don't overcommit to your attack. And attack does not need to continue until your whole attacking force is dead. To avoid losing your whole army, you can for example send a probe, which you have at the front for the proxy pylon anyways, half a screen ahead so you don't run into some kind of trap. | ||
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