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A couple of tips I've picked up.
First -- Phase 3 can be practiced without a live partner using very easy AI (Protoss), in which the AI will only build a single zealot for a very long time (at least 7 or 8 minutes). Send a scouting SCV to the AI's base about when the first depot finishes and micro it around as you finish the build. The zealot will chase you around in a fairly naive way. Keep your scout alive and still reach 50 food by 6:40. If you can do that, I submit that you will have good confidence in this technique and not lose many (lower level) ladder games anymore.
Second -- As a further/complementary training step, you might consider practicing the build on the Macro Or Die maps. The Green Tea AI used is a more advanced (fairly realistic and challenging) AI than is used in stock Blizzard maps. Also, and foremost, on these maps, if you let your resource bank get too high (in proportion to your total supply) then your mineral line gets nuked. So here, the training objective is (a) get to 50 food by 6:40, (b) avoid getting nuked, and finally (c) win the game against increasingly difficult AI opponents. This 3 rax build, executed crisply, will keep your macro well honed initially, but you also need to keep the macro going into the mid and late game. The nuke pressure forces you to prioritize macro in your multitasking, with great results. To play Macro Or Die, search custom games for '+Macro +Die' and several maps will come up (at least on the AM server).
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Does anyone bring an SCV to build a bunker? I tried this and it became so much more powerful vs P and Z. Also, what leagues are you guys getting into this way? I got to top of silver and terrans started cloak banshee rushing almost exclusively. How are you all dealing with that? I am now going 1-1-1 and still in silver. I think I am going to come back to this because my mehanics clearly still need a ton of work.
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I have been wondering something similar to Lazy8s. I'm high Gold now, can I really 3-rax my way to platinum? Anyone doing this at that level?
EDIT: I think I answered my own question, I just won 5 in a row against high gold players of all 3 races.
In the actual games though, I'm coming up 4-5 food short at 6:40, so I need to check my replays. I scout with my SCV that builds the first barracks, could that have something to do with it?
Good stuff.
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@Tuplex: Could be true, maybe you should send the first marine out to scout...? I usually send out my scv after finishing the second SD.
@Adrenaline Seed: Do you think I'm ready for phase 2 of the training? I really want to get this build down so I can focus on reacting faster and more accurately.
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After playing vs. AI a few times and sending my SCV to scout like I did on the ladder, I was still able to hit 51 or 52 supply by 6:40, so it seems that is not the reason I was coming up short when laddering. It must be my execution, going to keep practicing...
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On September 01 2011 21:53 KenDM wrote:
@Adrenaline Seed: Do you think I'm ready for phase 2 of the training? I really want to get this build down so I can focus on reacting faster and more accurately.
As soon as you have the build down start working on Phase 2. It is only going to improve your ability to execute the build in ladder. No reason to wait!
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Im happy to help out when im online
WraithIV.252 EU server
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Ill help anyone who needs practice against a zerg (gold/plat level)
Fallians.904 on NA server
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Macro-related question: When you have only 1 barracks assigned to your control group, you can see the progress of marauder/marine training and you can then press d/a on the right moment. But what if I group all my rax together (that's how I'm used to playing), what's your advise there on unit production timings?
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I think the only way is to queue one production cycle (ie, one marauder building and one queued, or two marines and two queued), otherwise you will have gaps in your production.
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On September 02 2011 04:02 KenDM wrote:
Macro-related question: When you have only 1 barracks assigned to your control group, you can see the progress of marauder/marine training and you can then press d/a on the right moment. But what if I group all my rax together (that's how I'm used to playing), what's your advise there on unit production timings?
The way I do it is if I have a scv queued and a depot building then I know I can go ahead and queue in the next line of MM. You can also just feel the timing after a while to within a few seconds.
If all else fails you can double tap your rax hotkey, then double tap back to your army. It should only take about .2 seconds to get a mental picture of where each building is in the production cycle.
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Merlin.787 willing to be practice dummy if needed, masters ranking.
If you can't use me, then no biggy. Great idea.
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On September 02 2011 05:47 Tuplex wrote:
I think the only way is to queue one production cycle (ie, one marauder building and one queued, or two marines and two queued), otherwise you will have gaps in your production.
What if you don't have enough resources?
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Then you just have to watch it very closely and start another unit as soon as the previous one finishes. But even with this tight build, I find that you can queue the next units at least a few seconds before the previous ones finish. So, if you know that your 2 marines should be coming out fairly soon, just watch your minerals and as soon as you have 100, hit a-a to queue them up. It's hard when you are not watching your base.
When you ARE watching your base, if you have health bars turned on, you can see the production status bar for all of your buildings and addons, that helps too.
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What do you guys do when you engage in battle and want to kite your marauders. Do you produce at your base or do you finish the battle or what? I usually fight out the battle (in the last game this mostly destroys my front army, I do have a small army stacked at the base for defense against surprise attacks.)
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On September 02 2011 04:02 KenDM wrote:
Macro-related question: When you have only 1 barracks assigned to your control group, you can see the progress of marauder/marine training and you can then press d/a on the right moment. But what if I group all my rax together (that's how I'm used to playing), what's your advise there on unit production timings?
This is a great question. Part of it is a biological clock, where you practice the timing so that your queuing but not too early. This will only take you so far into the mid game though where everything else causes you to lose track of these finite timings.
The important thing is that you get it right in the start game, when timings matter more than ever. It should be connected to your build, you should have an idea of when your marauders and your marines are going to finish based on what is happening for the first 7 - 10 minutes of your game.
Once your into mid game it is perfectly fine to just make sure there are 2 dots at all times (4 for a reactor). When you get to masters you might start looking at further improving this, but for now there is much more to focus on in mid game.
Something interesting that SlayerSMMA does is sets all his production buildings to a single hotkey (4) as usual but also sets his reactor rax (when he has one) to its own separate hotkey (3). This way he can tap 3 and see the progress, put 2 marines in when ready. Now he knows marauders take a bit longer than rines, so he taps 4 a moment later and ignores the structure with 2 dots as that is his reactor, and he adds 2 more marauders to the queue. He still keeps the reactor on his global (4) hotkey however so that he can get a full overview of his current production without double tapping. Eventually he re-assigns hotkey 3 when he needs it for something else, and 4 still contains everything.
On September 02 2011 20:02 KenDM wrote:
What do you guys do when you engage in battle and want to kite your marauders. Do you produce at your base or do you finish the battle or what? I usually fight out the battle (in the last game this mostly destroys my front army, I do have a small army stacked at the base for defense against surprise attacks.)
You can do both at the same time. Give it a try. If you only fight out the battle you will lose more units in production than you save from micro.
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We were doing really well with this but recently started getting our butts kicked with this build. I think about 80% of my games have been where the other person has done an even earlier rush to my base and I end up defending. Since I'm basically one-basing up to this point, when I hold it off, I expand and move out and he's already massing some huge force. The games end up going for 25 minutes and basically just negates this build entirely because of always getting forced into late game with it and trying to catch up on my tech.
Any suggestions?
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On September 03 2011 01:37 Bluemalice wrote:
We were doing really well with this but recently started getting our butts kicked with this build. I think about 80% of my games have been where the other person has done an even earlier rush to my base and I end up defending. Since I'm basically one-basing up to this point, when I hold it off, I expand and move out and he's already massing some huge force. The games end up going for 25 minutes and basically just negates this build entirely because of always getting forced into late game with it and trying to catch up on my tech.
Any suggestions?
Sounds like a perfect scenario to me. If you can defend early pushes and go into late game it is great practice. Remember it is not about winning games, it is about improving your play. Don't try to kill your opponent, try to keep him from getting a third while you secure yours and work on staying on top of production.
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EDIT:
I edited this post because I'm now out of rage mode (blush).
1 - The build: The food count for producing structures and units: If it says refinery on 13, does that mean refinery should be up BEFORE 13? Or start building refinery AT 13 food?
Secondly: I build my 2nd depot BEFORE 16 food because I'm desperate to get my wall up. How much consequences does this have?
2 - Adaptation: I lost to mutalisk a couple of times today with this 3Rax build. Any tips on how to defend? Stop marauder and produce full-time marines? Extra Rax? Or a reactor on an existing Rax? My Thors in all these games got owned by a magic box :S Any tips on how to adjust this build to certain dangerous situations would be helpfull.
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On September 03 2011 22:30 KenDM wrote:
EDIT:
I edited this post because I'm now out of rage mode (blush).
1 - The build: The food count for producing structures and units: If it says refinery on 13, does that mean refinery should be up BEFORE 13? Or start building refinery AT 13 food?
Secondly: I build my 2nd depot BEFORE 16 food because I'm desperate to get my wall up. How much consequences does this have?
2 - Adaptation: I lost to mutalisk a couple of times today with this 3Rax build. Any tips on how to defend? Stop marauder and produce full-time marines? Extra Rax? Or a reactor on an existing Rax? My Thors in all these games got owned by a magic box :S Any tips on how to adjust this build to certain dangerous situations would be helpfull.
1 - It means start building your refinery when you have 13 food. If you start your 2nd depot before 16, then it will delay your Orbital Command and/or first marine. Honestly, there's not a lot to worry about before 16 food, I don't think you need to start that second depot so early.
2 - If your attack at 6:40 doesn't succeed, and you suspect mutalisks are coming, then you could expand and put up an engineering bay, add a few more barracks, and go for heavy marines with turrets. You'll need that engineering bay anyway to upgrade your infantry, so this is an efficient way to do it.
Question for Adrenaline Seed - do you recommend rallying reinforcements to your army when you push at 6:40? Or keep them in the base?
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EPT
