@everyone Thx for keeping this up here!

@Buddhist What "masters" section? - If you saw a masters section somewhere, I think you have fundamentally misunderstood the article. PM me we can discuss

PS.: Buddhist arguing with Budha :D Gotta love it !!
PPS.: I _KNOW_ Buddha takes 2 "d"s.

Adam.Ioba

Australia25 Posts

September 30 2011 03:24 GMT

#162

Being a Warcraft 3 player, this Pyramid seems so-out-of-whack for me.

Very nice post nonetheless!

Trump

United States350 Posts

September 30 2011 07:34 GMT

#163

Beautiful.

I echo a sentiment. "TIMINGS" is more like "BUILD."

a "BUILD" is done usually for the purpose of "TIMING" an opponent. Example: 3 Barracks Build. You do it to "TIMING" attack the opponent with stim pack and a good chunk.

I move to replace "TIMINGS" with "OPPORTUNITY".

You sense weakness because your scouting revealed a low army. TIMING HIM!
You sense a rush coming because the nexus isn't glowing and he's not building workers. TURTLE!

"OPPORTUNITY" - the ability to have the best response based on a very quick glance.

could also call it "GAMESENSE"

Monkeyballs25

531 Posts

September 30 2011 07:42 GMT

#164

I think the league icons might be confusing people who think it means "you only need micro at masters level" or something, which seems hard to believe.
Also in the Control section you have

This section will also includes SPELLCASTING during engagements, like storms, fungal and stimpacks, and where to place your spellcasters inside the army.

Now to my mind those are all parts of micro gameplay.

Cibron

Sweden253 Posts

September 30 2011 10:08 GMT

#165

LEVEL UP!!
Lvl 7:
NEW FEAT: "CONTROL"
Micro +5
Macro +7

Misleading since most of the "elements" are improving continuously through your game career.

MysteryHours

United States168 Posts

September 30 2011 18:09 GMT

#166

I think people are being way too nitpicky here. It's just a guide for those seeking help that identifies what areas should receive more focus, as the levels are approximately ordered by overall importance. Even if you don't agree with the exact ordering, just reading through the descriptions for each level is pretty informative.

On September 30 2011 19:08 Cibron wrote:
LEVEL UP!!
Lvl 7:
NEW FEAT: "CONTROL"
Micro +5
Macro +7

Misleading since most of the "elements" are improving continuously through your game career.

Did you actually read the entire post, where he specifically says this is not how it's suppose to be interpreted, or did you just glance at the picture?

On September 30 2011 09:34 Buddhist wrote:
Conversely, a low level player will benefit heavily from good micro. A player with perfect macro who loses all of his colossi to vikings every time, or all of his mutas to thors every time, due to bad micro, will not get to high master level.

The point is that all other things being equal, it is more beneficial for a low level player to work on their macro before working on their micro. If your macro is much poorer than your opponent then you're probably going to lose regardless of micro. The pyramid is just supposed to illustrate relative importance, it's not saying that you can get to high masters with terrible micro.

On September 30 2011 09:34 Buddhist wrote:
Also, something entirely neglected in this, is mechanics/game control, e.g. hotkeys, screen save positions, mouse control, etc. Those things are EXTREMELY fundamental. I found it irritating to read "It is having – and keeping – the correct hotkeys during the action (don’t forget to use them!)." in the master league section. If you are forgetting to use your hotkeys, you should be in bronze, because you lack basic control of the game itself.

I wouldn't say it's entirely neglected when there is an entire section called "What about Mechanics?" that addresses this.

On September 30 2011 01:30 NB wrote:
that picture is so so wrong... my macro is horrible despite facing off vs GM time to time on NA sever.

my old roomate got from bronze to #1 gold just by learning how to use hotkeys even though he has never play RTS/blizzard game before.

Also the resolution is horrible.

If your macro is bad enough you can lose against any level opponent so I'd be interested to see what your definition of horrible macro is if you're competitive in master league.

As for your roommate you're probably not giving him enough credit, you need a certain understanding of the game to be competitive, even at gold. Learning the hotkeys alone does not make you a good player, it's just lets you execute your plan more efficiently. I guarantee you there's bronze and silver level players who use hotkeys and are still in bronze and silver so I'm not sure what your point is.

Budha

Canada60 Posts

October 01 2011 14:28 GMT

#167

@MysteryHours +1

@Trump this is actually interesting... If I ever get to updating the image, I think I just might do that!

lukeman3323

United States3 Posts

October 07 2011 02:24 GMT

#168

I hope you don't mind, but I re-posted the basics of this on Reddit. If you want to take a look, here's the post =P

http://www.reddit.com/r/starcraft/comments/l3p8q/tips_for_all_levels_of_starcraft_players/

Eye lyke teh upvotez XD Seriously though, feel free to vote it up to share it with a bigger community!

TheLongKahn

United States11 Posts

October 07 2011 05:53 GMT

#169

I love the fact that the "Pyramid" in the back ground is from Stargate the movie

Sympatico

Canada202 Posts

October 07 2011 14:49 GMT

#170

Great post and tremendously helpful for looking at the big picture, taking your entire game into perspective and working on elements of it. Knowing what those elements are is very very helpful as well!

Thank you

jdizzle588

Canada1 Post

October 20 2011 02:52 GMT

#171

This is awesome. I am a gold-platnum player myself and I have to say THANK YOU to budha, this is really a useful guide in helping to better understand the game of starcraft 2. At first i was skeptical, but as I went through the pyramid i was really blown away. Budha, on behalf of trekkkies everywhere, I salute you.

Chamie

Sweden40 Posts

November 07 2011 15:14 GMT

#172

I think this is really nice, you can't make it 100% accurate, but this is about as well put as it can be if you wanna explain the learning process like this.

Also, for you who are talking about timings... A build with specific timings on when to attack et.c doesn't mean you've understood the concept of timings at all. Understanding timings means that you can basically look at the clock at any time at the game and estimate what your opponent should have at that time with the usuall standard strats, or from whatever you expect him to have from your earlier scouting. Having a perfect understanding of timings is probaly something that is top master / GM quality stuff imo.

Geovu

Estonia1344 Posts

November 07 2011 15:32 GMT

#173

On September 30 2011 19:08 Cibron wrote:
LEVEL UP!!
Lvl 7:
NEW FEAT: "CONTROL"
Micro +5
Macro +7

Choose your perk:

Day[9] Acolyte: Constant +20% Knowledge, +5 Production, -2 Micro
Buy New Equipment: +5 Control, +5 Micro
Switch to Protoss: +10 Macro, +10 Control, +5 Timings, -5 Economy, -20 Information

decaf

Austria1797 Posts

November 07 2011 15:43 GMT

#174

Learning processes aren't pyramides, they're circles.

IMortal

Poland4 Posts

August 25 2012 19:26 GMT

#175

Wat is dusting

User was warned for this post

EsportsJohn

United States4882 Posts

August 25 2012 21:54 GMT

#176

Edit: Nevermind

jcroisdale

United States1543 Posts

August 25 2012 23:06 GMT

#177

this is great first time i have seen this thread, Im going to use this as reference for when i coach. I usually tell my students that their is always 1 deafening thing separating each league from the next. This helps put that idea into a visual form.

ThyLastPenguin

United Kingdom101 Posts

August 26 2012 00:08 GMT

#178

On August 26 2012 06:54 SC2John wrote:
Edit: Nevermind

Although a very silly post, thanks for bumping this. I lost this thread. :D
I remember back when I just started this game, I felt really lost and had no Idea what to focus on. This really helped me structure my game so I was consciously (that doesn't look right -.-) reminding myself to build stuff instead of micro.
To OP, thanks <3

SoniC_eu

Denmark1008 Posts

August 26 2012 00:11 GMT

#179

I like the way this pyramid makes me think in terms of concepts

Thanks for this!

Fencar

United States2694 Posts

August 26 2012 00:21 GMT

#180

A problem with this that I have experienced is that with Terran, you have to learn Micro and Macro at the same time: You can't learn to Macro perfectly and then suddenly learn to Micro perfectly while Macroing perfectly, you have to learn the basics of Macro and then slowly start to add in Micro while Macroing, basically doing as much Macro as you can while during the breaks(production time) Microing as much as you can.

I did it the other way, so I relied on 3CC builds constantly, but then suddenly I had to learn to micro, which with Terran you have to learn or you die to AoE (unless you play Mech), so I was stuck at low masters for a long time.