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On March 01 2012 08:53 Moda wrote:Mass MM without stim??? Do you have any idea of how much more effective this playstyle gets once "Stimpack" comes into the picture? Doesnt matter if you are in bronze, everyone can hit the "T" button 
This was my first reaction, but he clarifies in the video by stating that this build is designed to practice macro only, and stim is too tempting to begin microing with.
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Just stopped by to say i love this thread, its such a good way for players to improve and rise in league without having to cheese their way up. Should definitely help in raising the skill bar in ladder, at least for some of the leagues
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I like the idea, it's good and I think it's a good way for any bronze->gold leaguer to start getting into the habit of spending more time on macroing.
That being said I also have some problems with this, don't read the spoiler if you don't want to read some old guy ranting.
+ Show Spoiler +
Macroing in SC2 is not hard. It isn't.
In Broodwar macroing was an art form that took a LOT of practice to get even decently good at. The diffrence in macroing of one base or three bases in SC2 is minimal, in Broodwar it was huge.
So there is no reason to have bad macro in SC2 (mechanicly which is the only thing you actually practice with this build), anyone should be able to learn it reasonably fast. What is hard is timings of when your stuff gets built and getting your stuff done when you need them to be done and of course multitasking. Decision making and army management (not nessecarly micro) plays a huge role in SC2.
This is not something you learn from a build like this but should be the next step. I don't see it detrimental in any way for a bronze leaguer to add just a little more complexity to the style after about 10 games played with this basic outline.
Upgrades
Yeah, add some upgrades, learn the timings of when you can afford them and when you need your (in this case armory) started to finish at the same time as 1/1. An easy way of getting in to the habit of checking up on your upgrade status. The complexity added is minimal, the strength of your macro play is improved immensely.
Teching
Getting the timings down for when you can tech and when you can't takes a lot more practice than just building shizzle from barracks. You can still attackmove with MMM just fine,
Not a cheese?!
Wait, what was that? This is NOT a cheese?
A cheese doesn't have to be an all in.
A cheese doesn't have to happen in the early game.
Not teching and not upgrading is one of the more cheesy things you can do regardless if you do it on one base or on five.
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On March 01 2012 08:36 Enwrit wrote:
@Taerix, or anyone who's also used Halby's Mineral Drill (mentioned by kingneckbeard), how do you think these two strategies compare? Is one more effective (in terms of learning macro)?
I've tried Halby's in like 6 or 7 ladder games, but I'm inactive again (another Bronze problem lol) and this approach looks pretty good.
The idea was actually inspired by Halby's mineral drill, but there were a few things I didn't like about it. I think queuing is a really bad idea and if you practice doing it you'll build a bad habit. By practicing just a few things the right way it will help to build good habits that will stick with you. Plus I wanted to add gas and marauders to make it more powerful and more fun =)
On March 02 2012 07:45 PablosCruise wrote:
How would I apply this build concept to Protoss? I've only played about 50 games of SC2 but I'm stuck in the upper Bronze league.
That's a good question! I haven't worked up a build for Protoss yet, I plan to sometime but it might be a little while.
On March 02 2012 13:54 Outrageouss wrote:
Just stopped by to say i love this thread, its such a good way for players to improve and rise in league without having to cheese their way up. Should definitely help in raising the skill bar in ladder, at least for some of the leagues
Thanks for the support!
On March 02 2012 18:27 JulDraGoN wrote:I like the idea, it's good and I think it's a good way for any bronze->gold leaguer to start getting into the habit of spending more time on macroing. That being said I also have some problems with this, don't read the spoiler if you don't want to read some old guy ranting. + Show Spoiler +
Macroing in SC2 is not hard. It isn't.
In Broodwar macroing was an art form that took a LOT of practice to get even decently good at. The diffrence in macroing of one base or three bases in SC2 is minimal, in Broodwar it was huge.
So there is no reason to have bad macro in SC2 (mechanicly which is the only thing you actually practice with this build), anyone should be able to learn it reasonably fast. What is hard is timings of when your stuff gets built and getting your stuff done when you need them to be done and of course multitasking. Decision making and army management (not nessecarly micro) plays a huge role in SC2.
This is not something you learn from a build like this but should be the next step. I don't see it detrimental in any way for a bronze leaguer to add just a little more complexity to the style after about 10 games played with this basic outline.
Upgrades
Yeah, add some upgrades, learn the timings of when you can afford them and when you need your (in this case armory) started to finish at the same time as 1/1. An easy way of getting in to the habit of checking up on your upgrade status. The complexity added is minimal, the strength of your macro play is improved immensely.
Teching
Getting the timings down for when you can tech and when you can't takes a lot more practice than just building shizzle from barracks. You can still attackmove with MMM just fine,
Not a cheese?!
Wait, what was that? This is NOT a cheese?
A cheese doesn't have to be an all in.
A cheese doesn't have to happen in the early game.
Not teching and not upgrading is one of the more cheesy things you can do regardless if you do it on one base or on five.
Haha silly Brood War references. One of the reasons more people didn't play Brood War is because it required so much practice to do relatively simple things. While macro is SC 2 is not as "hard" as in Brood War it's still essential. Many people are stuck in Bronze because they don't really understand the impact it has or how to do it right, that's who this build is aimed at.
But you're right, the next step obviously will be more complicated and include upgrades, tech, etc.
Also...that's a weird definition of cheese. I've never heard of it described that way before anyway. I've always considered cheese to be a build that a lower level player can use to take out a higher skilled player because they didn't see it coming.
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I can only quote the oxford dictionary on cheese :
a) food made from the pressed curds of milk, firm and elastic or soft and semi-liquid in texture
b) informal the quality of being too obviously sentimental
I dont think the term cheese is really defined in Starcraft 2 Terms, to some people cheese is anything where you dont go for a 30 minute macro game with all your upgrades and tech - to some its only if you proxy your barracks in his base.
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To get out of Bronze just choose one build for each match-up and do that every time. Macro and multitasking comes naturally as you practice - using one build for every match-up is counterproductive in a sense.
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On March 03 2012 00:33 Taerix wrote:
Also...that's a weird definition of cheese. I've never heard of it described that way before anyway. I've always considered cheese to be a build that a lower level player can use to take out a higher skilled player because they didn't see it coming.
I don't think cheese has anything to do with lower skill players beating higher skill players.
Basically I think the standard definition of cheese is an all-in before the 6 minute mark or something like that, where you basically scrap all standard openings (ie 13 gate, 12 rax 14 pool etc) and go for a super early aggression, which tends to have the effect of being easy to stop if scouted or against a very safe opening, but very effective vs a greedy build which didnt scout it, winning you the game then and there, a true definition of a coin flip, which is why it can be good to bust out a cheese in a BoX series, just catch your opponent off guard and get a quick win.
Stuff like 2+ proxy rax, double proxy 11 gate etc most would consider cheese.
This is different to a normal all-in which I actually think bronze league players should do at first, say learn 1-1-1 or 3-4 rax stim push, 4 gate / 3 gate robo / 3 gate VR. Zerg is a bit more complicated, as they tend to be more reactionary but learning a roach push, baneling bust etc is probably a good place to start.
Then once you learn these builds you can gradually become more economic, going 2 rax or 3 gate into an expand and doing a 2 base timing push or all-in.
Then once you learn these, learn an econ build, then past that learn harass based builds (as these require good multitasking to maintain a thin build (ie need good timings to stay alive) whilst damaging your opponent.
I really do not recommend econ builds for anyone below gold, and I definately dont recommend the more standard econ openings of gasless, 1 gate for anyone below diamond just because you need good scouting and good timings to be able to hold a lot of all-ins, zerg again is different as hatch first is basically the standard opening.
Telling a new player to learn 1 rax or 1 gate is like taking a 4 year old and telling them to learn to swim by throwing them in the deep end and demanding butterfly stroke, its not going to happen and you're going to have a drowning kid on your hands, start with doggie paddle and build from there when you can stay afloat and move about.
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I agree. Practicing this one build for all matchups will help your macro. I agree. But you will equally help your macro while ALSO practicing good game sense and timings if you choose 1 build for each race.
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How should I apply the concept of this build to Protoss?
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Great Post! I play protoss but I was able to apply to general principal in the original post.
The most important part is continue to expand at the specified times while ensuring that all of your resources are being used efficiently. For Protoss this means ~4 warpgates per base (or 2 robo/stargates per base).
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Thank-you Thank-you Thank-you
Played 12 games with this build. Won 11 of them.
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Basically if u have any concept of macro at all you can get out of bronze. on my smurf I got to high gold using mouse only just for the fuck of it.
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This build is amazing for beginners. I got this game about a month ago (yes im a bit late to the party lol) but i had been watching casts for about a month before that so i had a general idea of the basics, or so i thought. Up until now i have only ever won games against protoss by thor rushing.
No matter which build i tried i couldnt beat many of my opponents and i would feel constantly overwhelmed by the amount of actions i needed to make that i would constantly forget literally everything, scvs, supply depots, marines, the lot lol. I almost never expanded. If i had not won in the first 15 mins it was always game over. After the first week or so i stopped playing 1v1 because i wasnt improving so i thought team games would help, but no they didnt at all. And since about week 2 ive just been playing custom games.
I saw this post today and thought to myself "hey this looks simple enough for me to follow" so hopped on the 1v1 ladder for the first time in weeks, after 2 or 3 run throughs against the comp of course. I cannot say how much love i have for this tutorial, played 8 games in a row and lost 1 and that was to a platinum player. I never realised up until now how important macro really is, more than half the games i had won with the second push.
Even when i got cannon rushed, which would usually leave me frantically trying to figure out how to stop it, i managed to get back in the lead and win. And god did i get distracted by the cannons, must have got delayed by atleast 5mins but just about held in there and managed to get my cool back and just continued with the build.
My question now though is what is the next step?
I am going to continue to run this build until i have got it almost perfect and can handle pressure without getting supply blocked or forgetting to build units. I was thinking maybe get stim and just look at my marines, stim them up, still with A-move and then return to macro? Then as i get more comfortable switching between controlling my army and macroing i should start microing more? Or maybe getting down an E-bay with the 2nd expansion and start working on getting upgrades? One of my games the enemy went with a lot of DTs and since i didnt have any detection i just used scans and stopped getting mules, was that correct?
Anyway thanks again for posting this build, its much appreciated.
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On March 03 2012 10:50 Captain Marksie wrote:
This build is amazing for beginners. I got this game about a month ago (yes im a bit late to the party lol) but i had been watching casts for about a month before that so i had a general idea of the basics, or so i thought. Up until now i have only ever won games against protoss by thor rushing.
No matter which build i tried i couldnt beat many of my opponents and i would feel constantly overwhelmed by the amount of actions i needed to make that i would constantly forget literally everything, scvs, supply depots, marines, the lot lol. I almost never expanded. If i had not won in the first 15 mins it was always game over. After the first week or so i stopped playing 1v1 because i wasnt improving so i thought team games would help, but no they didnt at all. And since about week 2 ive just been playing custom games.
I saw this post today and thought to myself "hey this looks simple enough for me to follow" so hopped on the 1v1 ladder for the first time in weeks, after 2 or 3 run throughs against the comp of course. I cannot say how much love i have for this tutorial, played 8 games in a row and lost 1 and that was to a platinum player. I never realised up until now how important macro really is, more than half the games i had won with the second push.
Even when i got cannon rushed, which would usually leave me frantically trying to figure out how to stop it, i managed to get back in the lead and win. And god did i get distracted by the cannons, must have got delayed by atleast 5mins but just about held in there and managed to get my cool back and just continued with the build.
My question now though is what is the next step?
I am going to continue to run this build until i have got it almost perfect and can handle pressure without getting supply blocked or forgetting to build units. I was thinking maybe get stim and just look at my marines, stim them up, still with A-move and then return to macro? Then as i get more comfortable switching between controlling my army and macroing i should start microing more? Or maybe getting down an E-bay with the 2nd expansion and start working on getting upgrades? One of my games the enemy went with a lot of DTs and since i didnt have any detection i just used scans and stopped getting mules, was that correct?
Anyway thanks again for posting this build, its much appreciated.
Marauders literally tear cannons apart.
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On March 02 2012 18:27 JulDraGoN wrote:I like the idea, it's good and I think it's a good way for any bronze->gold leaguer to start getting into the habit of spending more time on macroing. That being said I also have some problems with this, don't read the spoiler if you don't want to read some old guy ranting. + Show Spoiler +
Macroing in SC2 is not hard. It isn't.
In Broodwar macroing was an art form that took a LOT of practice to get even decently good at. The diffrence in macroing of one base or three bases in SC2 is minimal, in Broodwar it was huge.
So there is no reason to have bad macro in SC2 (mechanicly which is the only thing you actually practice with this build), anyone should be able to learn it reasonably fast. What is hard is timings of when your stuff gets built and getting your stuff done when you need them to be done and of course multitasking. Decision making and army management (not nessecarly micro) plays a huge role in SC2.
This is not something you learn from a build like this but should be the next step. I don't see it detrimental in any way for a bronze leaguer to add just a little more complexity to the style after about 10 games played with this basic outline.
Upgrades
Yeah, add some upgrades, learn the timings of when you can afford them and when you need your (in this case armory) started to finish at the same time as 1/1. An easy way of getting in to the habit of checking up on your upgrade status. The complexity added is minimal, the strength of your macro play is improved immensely.
Teching
Getting the timings down for when you can tech and when you can't takes a lot more practice than just building shizzle from barracks. You can still attackmove with MMM just fine,
Not a cheese?!
Wait, what was that? This is NOT a cheese?
A cheese doesn't have to be an all in.
A cheese doesn't have to happen in the early game.
Not teching and not upgrading is one of the more cheesy things you can do regardless if you do it on one base or on five.
Cheese is a strategy that loses if scouted.
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I just wanted to say thanks for the guide. I'm a mere bronze league player, and I've tried a few different macro-focused strategies suggested by similar guides and tutorials, and I like yours the best of the ones I've read and implemented. I think that the thing that helped the most is the attack timings, because that's an easy thing to lose track of when you're focused on macro (and macro isn't second nature to you yet). It's also nice because the setup/timing seems to produce a lot of wins, which isn't the main point, but which is encouraging - it can feel a little disheartening to do a marine or marine/marauder macro drill and lose in situations where it feels like your old style might have saved you. With this build, I can fend off stalker pressure (I have the most trouble against protoss) in situations where I know that my old tactics (macro-oriented but with a ton of macro slippage during combat and stuff) would have left me high and dry. Anyway, I hope this post is okay in this thread; just wanted to say thanks for the great guide!
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On March 03 2012 10:50 Captain Marksie wrote:
This build is amazing for beginners. I got this game about a month ago (yes im a bit late to the party lol) but i had been watching casts for about a month before that so i had a general idea of the basics, or so i thought. Up until now i have only ever won games against protoss by thor rushing.
No matter which build i tried i couldnt beat many of my opponents and i would feel constantly overwhelmed by the amount of actions i needed to make that i would constantly forget literally everything, scvs, supply depots, marines, the lot lol. I almost never expanded. If i had not won in the first 15 mins it was always game over. After the first week or so i stopped playing 1v1 because i wasnt improving so i thought team games would help, but no they didnt at all. And since about week 2 ive just been playing custom games.
I saw this post today and thought to myself "hey this looks simple enough for me to follow" so hopped on the 1v1 ladder for the first time in weeks, after 2 or 3 run throughs against the comp of course. I cannot say how much love i have for this tutorial, played 8 games in a row and lost 1 and that was to a platinum player. I never realised up until now how important macro really is, more than half the games i had won with the second push.
Even when i got cannon rushed, which would usually leave me frantically trying to figure out how to stop it, i managed to get back in the lead and win. And god did i get distracted by the cannons, must have got delayed by atleast 5mins but just about held in there and managed to get my cool back and just continued with the build.
My question now though is what is the next step?
I am going to continue to run this build until i have got it almost perfect and can handle pressure without getting supply blocked or forgetting to build units. I was thinking maybe get stim and just look at my marines, stim them up, still with A-move and then return to macro? Then as i get more comfortable switching between controlling my army and macroing i should start microing more? Or maybe getting down an E-bay with the 2nd expansion and start working on getting upgrades? One of my games the enemy went with a lot of DTs and since i didnt have any detection i just used scans and stopped getting mules, was that correct?
Anyway thanks again for posting this build, its much appreciated.
Looks like you're in luck. I've been using for about 16 games. Came across all bronze and one silver. Lost 10 games and won 6. I'm loosing my passion a bit. ;(.
It's just really frustrating.
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With terran I did something similar for pretty easy wins and micro, I just 1 rax expand into mass rax and get 2 gas for double upgrades stim and combat shield. Then I just expand like u said every 5 or so minutes and keep making naked rax. U attack in waves and if u think u cant kill just back away and wait for more. I think I usually attack with first 10 marines, then just every 2-3 minutes while continuously exapanding, upgrading, and adding rax. The number of orbitals and rax overwhelms low league players and ur only making 1 unit. Only works vs p and z i guess tvt u can just go marine marauder like u said cause mass marine with no micro and medivacs will lose to tanks pretty hard no matter what the numbers are unless u get amazing concave, You can go mass thor tvt and just attack when you are maxed to once again practice macro but marine marauder works. U can actually practice micro as well like vs zerg marine split and stuff and vs toss stutter step and focus fire. U can get at least plat with this, its an easy build that allows you to focus on only macro and no strategy whatsoever. Most important thing with this is make sure you dont rally to your army but to your base so that even if your attack is held your amount of production will keep you safe as well as prevent counter attacks. Its actually really fun to watch neverending waves of marines overwhelm your opponents and really goes to show that strategy doesn't matter until you have solid mechanics, the number 1 thing lower league players need to know.
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Good guide to help the people get out of bronze that just seem too really not understand the mechanics of the game- Gives them the concept on expanding and units at the same time, rather than only units!
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On March 03 2012 12:24 Kaitlin wrote:Show nested quote +On March 02 2012 18:27 JulDraGoN wrote:I like the idea, it's good and I think it's a good way for any bronze->gold leaguer to start getting into the habit of spending more time on macroing. That being said I also have some problems with this, don't read the spoiler if you don't want to read some old guy ranting. + Show Spoiler +
Macroing in SC2 is not hard. It isn't.
In Broodwar macroing was an art form that took a LOT of practice to get even decently good at. The diffrence in macroing of one base or three bases in SC2 is minimal, in Broodwar it was huge.
So there is no reason to have bad macro in SC2 (mechanicly which is the only thing you actually practice with this build), anyone should be able to learn it reasonably fast. What is hard is timings of when your stuff gets built and getting your stuff done when you need them to be done and of course multitasking. Decision making and army management (not nessecarly micro) plays a huge role in SC2.
This is not something you learn from a build like this but should be the next step. I don't see it detrimental in any way for a bronze leaguer to add just a little more complexity to the style after about 10 games played with this basic outline.
Upgrades
Yeah, add some upgrades, learn the timings of when you can afford them and when you need your (in this case armory) started to finish at the same time as 1/1. An easy way of getting in to the habit of checking up on your upgrade status. The complexity added is minimal, the strength of your macro play is improved immensely.
Teching
Getting the timings down for when you can tech and when you can't takes a lot more practice than just building shizzle from barracks. You can still attackmove with MMM just fine,
Not a cheese?!
Wait, what was that? This is NOT a cheese?
A cheese doesn't have to be an all in.
A cheese doesn't have to happen in the early game.
Not teching and not upgrading is one of the more cheesy things you can do regardless if you do it on one base or on five.
Cheese is a strategy that loses if scouted.
...So to some extent this is a cheese. I scout the lack of factory, and make colossus and sentries and A move roll you over.
On March 03 2012 02:29 PablosCruise wrote:
How should I apply the concept of this build to Protoss?
Get a build that expands you once and then masses blink stalkers and zealots in some sort of ratio. Can't fail.....except eventually Forcefields will become necessary
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EPT
