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Hey guys, I've been working on a build for awhile to help Bronze players work on their macro, build good habits, and get promoted. The build I came up with is for Terran - I'm sure similar builds could be created for Protoss and Zerg, but I haven't had time to do those yet.
Anyway I wanted to share it with any struggling Bronze players out there that don't really know how to improve and/or start winning more games.
In my experience, players who start to use this build see almost immediate results as far as win/loss goes, and also gain a better understanding of what mid to late game macro looks like.
The main purpose of this build is to focus ONLY on macro. There's no micro involved, no upgrades, and hardly any teching. At the same time I wanted it to be fun and able to win a lot of games on the ladder (instead of just practicing against the computer or something)
I've been playing on a bronze account quite a bit to test it out, and with no micro or anything I've been consistently beating Gold players with it.
That said, I would call this a training build that you can play on ladder, not an end-all, conquer everything build. So expect to lose games, but just know that every game you play your macro will be improving substantially, no matter if you win or lose. At this level it works against all races, no memorizing different builds for different matchups =)
So here's the strategy...
The main point of this build is to create ONLY SCVs, Marines, and Marauders the entire game. No Factory is built, and the only upgrade researched is Combat Shield (cause we like tough Marines)
We will expand at 7:30, 11:00, 15:00 and every 5 minutes after that. Attacks are sent out at scheduled times in the beginning, then just whenever you're close to maxing out as the game goes on. If you're following this build you're practicing MACRO, no micro allowed! Just attack-move your units to the enemy base and don't look at them.
We will be making a LOT of Barracks, half with Reactors and half with Tech Labs. Combat Shield is researched early so we have it when we make our first attack.
Here's the starting build order:
10 Supply Depot
12 Barracks
13 Refinery (3 in gas right when done)
15 Orbital Command + Marine
16 Barracks + Reactor (on 1st Rax) + SCV + Drop MULE
17 Supply Depot + SCV
18 SCV
19 Supply Depot + 2 Marines + Tech Lab (on 2nd Rax)
From here it’s up to you - Monitor your Command Center and Barracks so you always have units being produced (but not queued up!). Make Supply Depots 1 after the other with the 1 SCV.
Here’s how the rest of the strategy plays out:
@~5:40 research Combat Shield (it will be our only upgrade the entire game)
@~7:00 Attack with your Marines & Marauders (if you execute perfectly you should have 15 Marines, 5 Marauders)
Move your Supply Depot SCV to your expansion after the 7th Depot – Halt Supply Depot production
@~7:30 Build a Command Center at your expansion
@~8:00 Build 2 Barracks (1 Reactor/1 Tech Lab)
Start building Supply Depots again 1 at a time
@~10:30 Build a Command Center
@~11:00 Attack with all units
@~12:00 Build 4 Barracks (2 Reactors/2 Tech Labs)
Build Supply Depots 2 at a time until you hit max supply
(all times are estimates and just benchmarks to try to keep you on track as you play)
After you complete the build, expand every 5 minutes starting at 15 – 15, 20, 25, 30. Send all your units to attack (remember no micro!) every time you get around 180-190 food. Turn all your CCs into Orbital Commands so you can keep dropping MULES.
Keep adding Barracks on when you find it hard to spend your money. Be sure not to add them on too soon. A good rule to follow is if you can queue up 2 rounds of units in every Barracks & CC and still have money left over, use it to build Barracks. Don’t be afraid to make a lot of Barracks! You’re going to have a TON of money to spend.
That's pretty much it, I'm trying to keep it as simple as possible. Like I said before, you WILL lose games - that's just part of getting better. But if you focus on the build you will automatically be building habits that stick with you as you get promoted and start incorporating more strategies into your games.
Here's a video of the build - I do make a few mistakes but still get a solid win over a Gold player
+ Show Spoiler +
If you guys have any ways to improve the build, or questions or comments I'd love to hear em!
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I really laughed when I saw the title of the thread (by definition if one had any macro at all one wouldn't be in bronze)...but when I read it I liked it heaps! It takes ideas like Destiny and Day9 have stated and actually put it into a single consolidated idea.
This should get some feedback and a sticky (and I've never suggested a sticky before for anything).
Suggestions: 1) If you can get combat shield you can get concussive shell. Sure you can make use of concussive optimally with micro, but it's a decent buff to the marauder as an a-move unit for 50/50, especially against small numbers of zealots. It should be in the build.
2) Provide instructions for the bronzie to see the build in-game, so they're practicing their mechanics without having to try to memorise the build too. Either print the build and put it beside the monitor, or put it on a second monitor, or put Starcraft into windowed mode and alt tab to it frequently.
3) There needs to be an eng bay timing or you will die to banshees and DTs, which are the normal way to get out of bronze without macro.
4) Need a wall-off guide or you will die to 6 pools, the 3rd most common bronze escape.
EDIT: I realised that I'm basing that off an optimal 7-7:30 DT or banshee rush which a bronze player shouldn't be able to do. So disregard 3). You will have numerous orbitals before he comes with your build.
EDIT2: Your video was FANTASTIC. I especially love the scrubby opponent BM, proving the point about incorrect low-league mindset.
EDIT3: Your site is cool.
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Thanks for the feedback! I've thought about a couple of these things, but I think you're right on some of them. Here was my reasoning...
1. You're right, concussive shell is cheap and can be helpful when a-moving. But it makes players want to micro more. I was trying to eliminate every temptation to look at your units =P Maybe I'll find a good spot to throw it in there.
2. Good idea! A little printable cheat sheet would be a great thing to have at your desk while playing.
3. I agree that an engy bay would be nice, but again I was trying to keep it as simple as possible. What I've found in the games I've been playing is that scans are usually enough, but I'm a little more experienced so I know how to use them. I think I can squeeze an engy bay in right after the first expo. I'll play around with that a little bit.
4. The problem I have with walling off is if they put a drone where you need to make your next building you won't be able to place it before Zerglings are in your base. What I've been doing is a simcity around my CC and rallying my units into my mineral line. Then if Zerglings come I just swarm with SCVs & 1-3 Marines. Maybe I'll make a little video to show this.
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To be honest, Blizzard just needs to update their tutorials in game better to explain basic concepts of the multi player to new players. I have several friends in Bronze/Silver league and trying to teach them is a complete nightmare.
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On February 26 2012 10:11 Taerix wrote:
Thanks for the feedback! I've thought about a couple of these things, but I think you're right on some of them. Here was my reasoning...
1. You're right, concussive shell is cheap and can be helpful when a-moving. But it makes players want to micro more. I was trying to eliminate every temptation to look at your units =P Maybe I'll find a good spot to throw it in there.
2. Good idea! A little printable cheat sheet would be a great thing to have at your desk while playing.
3. I agree that an engy bay would be nice, but again I was trying to keep it as simple as possible. What I've found in the games I've been playing is that scans are usually enough, but I'm a little more experienced so I know how to use them. I think I can squeeze an engy bay in right after the first expo. I'll play around with that a little bit.
4. The problem I have with walling off is if they put a drone where you need to make your next building you won't be able to place it before Zerglings are in your base. What I've been doing is a simcity around my CC and rallying my units into my mineral line. Then if Zerglings come I just swarm with SCVs & 1-3 Marines. Maybe I'll make a little video to show this.
You know what? You're right (if you saw my edits to last post). A flawless 6-pool that comes exactly on time is probably not something you're going to face, and if you survive with more than 2 scvs you'll be able to macro your way back into the game anyway vs bronze, doing what you're doing.
I think instead of complex anti-cheese stuff, skip it, and instead put a short "WHAT TO DO IF!" guide that says if you get owned, do your best, and if you're still alive at the end then just...continue calmly doing what you were doing. Maybe another vod of getting destroyed down to 2-3 workers and proceeding to do the same thing you just did anyway would really help get the idea across. There's no bronze player that will cheese you and then macro properly himself, so you will almost certainly be in great shape.
My comments about walls and eng bays were more appropriate for a gold level.
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This is exactly the kind of game plan that I had back when I was still playing Terran. I started with just building nothing but marines and SCVs and worked on having all the critical upgrades by the time I decided to push. Small tweaks here and there made for a really good timing push back in the lower level and it sort of opened up my mind to other possible strategies.
Good job.
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On February 26 2012 10:16 ODKStevez wrote:
To be honest, Blizzard just needs to update their tutorials in game better to explain basic concepts of the multi player to new players. I have several friends in Bronze/Silver league and trying to teach them is a complete nightmare.
So true...
When I play 2vs2 out of the custom games list, you'd be surprised how many people just copy the Very Hard A.I., or just build an engineering bay, take both geysers, get a planetary, then build marauders tanks and turrets for 20 minutes.
Blizzard already gave the most important pieces of information you need to get out bronze in their loading screen tips (Constantly build workers to increase your production, 3 workers fill a mineral patch, expanding early is good if risky, etc.) so I don't think it would violate the whole spirit of "It's a strategy game, make your own thing up" if they were to give a small multiplayer tutorial that taught those things.
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Great stuff! Kinda embarassing how much it helped me. People tend to quit soon after I get my 3rd expansion down so playing against the very hard AI lets you practice longer. Same build works, just add 2 bunkers at the start cause the comp loves its 2 racks/roach/fast colo 6/7min attack builds which will barely kill you if you're off a bit.
Encourages people to experiement too. Adding a second gas to your bases and subbing a tech factory or a tec starport for 2 barracks allows for the same constant production and do upgrades. MM to MMMedicvac to MMM Thor. etc. Never thought I'd be able to tech to thor and win..
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Alright guys, seriously...
If you want out of bronze, here's how to do it:
1- pick a race. You can't choose korean (besides, it's korean culture that's beating us, not race. Race is dumb!)
I've played all 3 and I personally feel that protoss is the easiest to begin with. Don't worry about why, they're just the simplest to start with and have the most intuitive units.
2- pick one or two low tier units that you enjoy using. As a zerg, recently I've been using zerglings, but i use roaches in ZvZ. We'll call this The Unit.
some decent choices
-zerg: roach
-protoss: stalker
-terran: marine
3- expand quickly. If you're zerg, do a 15 hatch every game; if you're protoss, do a forge fast expand.
4- Make enough workers to support constant Unit production. Notice that unit is capaitalized: you're making the unit you chose in step 2. Whenever you hit that point- if zerglings, 30 drones seems plenty- just pump out those units and attack any openings you see.
5- Instead of watching the battles, just a-click and go back to training units.
Some notes:
-if you detect a passive opponent (90% likely), play aggressively. Do so by expanding a lot, or by attacking a lot.
-if you detect an aggressive opponent, play defensively. In bronze, at best your opponent will be good at one thing. When that one thing doesn't work, he'll fall apart- then start playing aggressively.
-if you detect that you're "safe," or in the "lead," expand.
-If ever any enemy base seems poorly defended, send a handful of units to attack it. Read as: zergling runby, zealot harass, or marine stim-attack.
-sometimes you might feel that your Unit is not working well in the situation. Well let me tell you then: zerglings SUCK HARD against thors, and I still beat thor armies with zerglings. Just make a lot of whatever you chose. Mutalisks? You can still base race with zerglings and win almost every time.
-ok, but for the sake of realism, let your mind wander a bit and think: what might work better if he goes ____. I usually include banes or mutas if lings obviously wont work. However, that's platinum stuff.
Seriously... you might not believe me, but this will get you into gold or platinum comfortably as you get good at this simple simple simple strategy.
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for protoss they need 2 do 3 gate expo into 3 gate robo and just macro from there
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@Darjir - great to hear it helped! Your totally right too, this is just a base to teach the habits of building units constantly and expanding. Once you feel like you can do more, then adding more gases and teching to higher units can be a great way to make it more fun and more deadly =)
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9 "rally worker to make depot"
10 depot "set rally back"
12 rax
13 or 14 "depot to make a wall. good. rally those scvs that are working back to minerals"
15 Orbital "Hotkey your shit, including scout."
Add rax every time you have 150 as quickly as you can, and rally back to minerals and add to hotkey group, and set a rally point for the updated barracks group.
These are the functions you have to get very fast at. It only gets more complicated. Bronze players often can't make 3 barracks perfectly without cutting scvs/marines. Midgame transitions like the add 3 barracks here will often involve swapping addons, making multiple structures, addons, tech items and upgrades. You need to get very good at this. This is macroing.
This is the kinda shit that a bronze player should take seriously. So make your 20 marines and go kill him. If not expand and try and make way way way way more bio units than him. This will get you to gold. You can now probs execute somewhat a build order and anything kinda sensible will propel you further.
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Very nice OP.
I actually went with a way different strategy for improving; Cheeze.
I would 6-rax into gold league, then started getting Marauders, Medivacs, and expanding. It did pretty well for me. I learned to Macro, Micro, and build Depots constantly. It was also fun. :D
Though this strategy is probably much better, doing a mass-marine cheeze can also be a good way to improve.
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Thanks for posting. Working great at gold league, although I'm a bit embarrassed that I did better with this build tonight (11-2) than my typical Protoss macro play. Who knew that hurling marines and marauders at enemies was so successful?
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So, I've been playing as Random and Terran is my weakest race. I've been doing crazy big Mech against Z and trying to do reaper damage against Protoss, otherwise I get owned. Against Terran, I've been having these massively long 30 minute games because I just never attack into Terran.
I watched your video and started doing this build and have won every time I've done it. Pretty surprised. It's only been about 6 times or so, but I like it. As I get better with Terran (with the help of using this build), I'm sure I'll have even more fun with it as I branch into maybe those elusive +1 upgrades, or even one day a Siege Tank !!! Thanks for the build  .
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On February 27 2012 16:03 Kaitlin wrote:So, I've been playing as Random and Terran is my weakest race. I've been doing crazy big Mech against Z and trying to do reaper damage against Protoss, otherwise I get owned. Against Terran, I've been having these massively long 30 minute games because I just never attack into Terran. I watched your video and started doing this build and have won every time I've done it. Pretty surprised. It's only been about 6 times or so, but I like it. As I get better with Terran (with the help of using this build), I'm sure I'll have even more fun with it as I branch into maybe those elusive +1 upgrades, or even one day a Siege Tank !!! Thanks for the build .
your problem was that your gameplan was way too complicated for bronze.
"build units" and "a-move with units" is the furthest lengths you ever need to go to too win in bronze and if your plan is too complicated that will make it overly difficult to focus on any one thing.
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your video reminds me of Bob Ross.
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I've started playing terran to try it out. This build works surprisingly well against protoss and terran but i have a hard time against zerg. They just make banelings and without tank support i get crushed. Its just supposed to be like that i guess?
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On February 27 2012 20:04 tiaz wrote:
I've started playing terran to try it out. This build works surprisingly well against protoss and terran but i have a hard time against zerg. They just make banelings and without tank support i get crushed. Its just supposed to be like that i guess?
Depends what league you're in. nI bronze I figure this should work fine against zerg too.
But yeah, infantry vs ling/bling is pretty hard in higher leagues. At which point you might want to start improving your multitasking to improve micro as well as macro, and possibly incorporating other units/builds.
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I'm in bronze :D Maybe i've just been unlucky cause the three zergs i've met have all went heavy baneling (even with no scouting). Though I'll keep doing this style cause its working great vT vP, and its nice to just focus on keeping resources spent! Also i've not played an immensely amount of games so yeah..
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While I play mainly zerg, I some while back got a second account for playing terran. Due to the differences of macro with terran and zerg, I never really got into the whole terran playing before watching that video off yours. My terran has been sitting in silver league, with some 15 wins total on it. It was certainly a good thing I tried the thing on ladder, crushing just about every opponent, besides on my second ladder game with this one terran that turtled up with siege tanks to clearly play tower defense with my waves of m&m.
After a bunch of games, I proceeded to alter the build a bit, by throwing in ebays, factory, starport and armory with couple more refineries to eventually play mmm with upgrades and use the factory to scout around.
Your guide certainly is a sureproof way of getting to gold, and if at some point you start to pay a small time on the army just before attacking (not running to siege lines, or be in a tight ball against banelings), it's probably going to carry the player to platinum easily. Thanks for the video, was certaily a fun experience.
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On February 27 2012 13:06 Josep wrote:
Thanks for posting. Working great at gold league, although I'm a bit embarrassed that I did better with this build tonight (11-2) than my typical Protoss macro play. Who knew that hurling marines and marauders at enemies was so successful?
No kidding right? The basic units in this game are surprisingly strong when backed by decent macro =)
On February 27 2012 16:03 Kaitlin wrote:So, I've been playing as Random and Terran is my weakest race. I've been doing crazy big Mech against Z and trying to do reaper damage against Protoss, otherwise I get owned. Against Terran, I've been having these massively long 30 minute games because I just never attack into Terran. I watched your video and started doing this build and have won every time I've done it. Pretty surprised. It's only been about 6 times or so, but I like it. As I get better with Terran (with the help of using this build), I'm sure I'll have even more fun with it as I branch into maybe those elusive +1 upgrades, or even one day a Siege Tank !!! Thanks for the build .
Your welcome! Keeping it simple definitely helps you focus on the things that matter most. Trying to get fancy unit comps and be tricky with micro usually comes at the sacrifice of macro. As you transition to upgrades and more units, be sure to stick with the constant production and expanding.
You're right! It's very similar - strong, yet simple.
On February 27 2012 16:58 phyren wrote:
your video reminds me of Bob Ross.
Who's Bob Ross?
On February 27 2012 20:04 tiaz wrote:
I've started playing terran to try it out. This build works surprisingly well against protoss and terran but i have a hard time against zerg. They just make banelings and without tank support i get crushed. Its just supposed to be like that i guess?
Depending on your league, yes Zerg can give you trouble. In the lower leagues even though Banelings will rip apart your infantry (though Marauders soak up a lot of it) as long as you produce those SCVs and expand you'll be able to out mass him in the end.
On February 27 2012 21:00 tiaz wrote:I'm in bronze :D Maybe i've just been unlucky cause the three zergs i've met have all went heavy baneling (even with no scouting). Though I'll keep doing this style cause its working great vT vP, and its nice to just focus on keeping resources spent! Also i've not played an immensely amount of games so yeah..
Yah blind heavy Banelings will be hard to beat going strictly Marine/Marauder. But as long as you're doing the macro part well you'll be building some good habits so even when you lose, you're winning! =P
On February 27 2012 23:22 Leimus wrote:
While I play mainly zerg, I some while back got a second account for playing terran. Due to the differences of macro with terran and zerg, I never really got into the whole terran playing before watching that video off yours. My terran has been sitting in silver league, with some 15 wins total on it. It was certainly a good thing I tried the thing on ladder, crushing just about every opponent, besides on my second ladder game with this one terran that turtled up with siege tanks to clearly play tower defense with my waves of m&m.
After a bunch of games, I proceeded to alter the build a bit, by throwing in ebays, factory, starport and armory with couple more refineries to eventually play mmm with upgrades and use the factory to scout around.
Your guide certainly is a sureproof way of getting to gold, and if at some point you start to pay a small time on the army just before attacking (not running to siege lines, or be in a tight ball against banelings), it's probably going to carry the player to platinum easily. Thanks for the video, was certaily a fun experience.
Glad you're getting some use out of it! I actually had a 30-40 min game against a Terran who did just what you said. Eventually ended up winning since I took the whole map and just kept sending units at his front. The units lost tab was a bit skewed though haha.
Thanks for trying it out guys! Looking forward to hearing more feedback =)
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Wow, really great guide. I also raised an eyebrow when I read the title, but it's something even a bronize can easily pull off.
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This is a brilliant idea, I just forwarded a link to this thread to a Bronzie buddy of mine, I'm excited to see him give it a shot and come rocketing upward :-D
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I like this, great idea for bronze players. I've known a few who try expanding and their win ratio goes down, so they go straight back to one base DTing or something. It's hard to explain that it may have to go down first to go up.
I think doing something structured and focused like OP would give quick enough results, good idea.
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On February 27 2012 21:00 tiaz wrote:I'm in bronze :D Maybe i've just been unlucky cause the three zergs i've met have all went heavy baneling (even with no scouting). Though I'll keep doing this style cause its working great vT vP, and its nice to just focus on keeping resources spent! Also i've not played an immensely amount of games so yeah..
That's a perfect opportunity for you to force yourself to macro even harder, marines counter banelings pretty damn hard in bronze, just make like 30ish marines, stand them outside your base, pre spread them and forget about them... go back a macro raxes, ccs, depots etc. Watch as your marines magically take care of banelings
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Banelings? At bronze, trading minerals for gas like that will work out just fine - they won't be able to get up their natural gas and will just run out. Just do the build properly and you will roll a baneling player - just don't expect to win before 3-4 base phase.
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This is great stuff. Bronze and other lower league players just tend to get heaps of flak and a whole lot of frustration as they strive to learn SC2. The more info we can give them the better, especially when it teaches fundamentals!
Having said that, for the other two races dApollo already has AMAZING video series' entitled "Working up from Bronze". They're each about 4 hrs in duration and show him starting with new accounts and using very basic, defensive, and macro-oriented play to march his way through a 100% win ratio to eventually being paired up vs Diamonds. In just 4hrs. He makes it look sooooo easy. ^_^
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let me pitch in my 2 cents from when i played as bronze (season 4 so pretty recent, I was zerg too lol now protoss)
Your build is safe as can be and will most likely win a lot of games in bronze, but the misunderstanding is really the build in that sense, safe playstyles can work but most people can get easily frustrated with them; I know people told me "zerg, pool before hatch, you should be fine" and i lost 75% of my ZvPs due to cannon rushing, 60% of my ZvTs due to bunker rushing, honestly. Safe builds didn't help me at all (i gained a far better win rate going blind 15 hatch then 11 pool 18 hatch)
its not even really scouting from what i remember tho, I would scout a lot of these but i'd still just die (eg the probe kept putting down cannons and then cancelling them and then just ended up walking away so i hadn't been mining for the past 2 minutes and he would just a-move to victory, etc. Its not really safe builds but safe playstyles; i scouted my base like naniwa and it helped a bit. Problem being how do you deal with these cheeses? eg. the rule is 3 probes per pylon to dps it down, 4 per cannon etc, but it isn't feasible to do so when your opponent can just put up 4 cannons and now 16 of your probes haven't mined for 30 seconds to make the opponent lose ~120 minerals.
I never really lost a straight up macro game from what I remember but the real problem really is dealing with cheese, its hard to tell someone exactly how to do it (i was told build a spine as i see a bunker) but then 2 marines would dps it down and i had to cancel it, but by then the bunker was up killing my drones, etc. Sure telling people a safe build kinda somewhat might help other people but i just ranted about how it didn't help me. at all. 15 hatch in bronze, all the way. (even z v z, i know)
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I'd say if a guy gets frustrated doing "the right thing" and losing to 6 pool zerglings, he might play against AI opponents. No sarcasm intended, that's what I did (because I only had a torrented version at that time). You can train your "macro" and "micro" against AI, no problems. When I started playing multiplayer I got straight into Gold, skipping Bronze and Silver, and with semi-decent macro/micro sixpool (of Gold players) was never a problem to me even if I never trained specifically against it, so it can be done and it saves you nerves and bad feelings and what not, not sure what exactly happens there in the dark depths of Bronze.
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Not really gonna get a strong macro game without upgrades.
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Anyone capable of following a build order listed with supply values will not be in Bronze. Any guide written for this level needs to be far more broad.
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Getting to silver isn't a problem. The problem is getting to masters...
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On February 26 2012 10:39 Ooshmagoosh wrote:Show nested quote +On February 26 2012 10:16 ODKStevez wrote:
To be honest, Blizzard just needs to update their tutorials in game better to explain basic concepts of the multi player to new players. I have several friends in Bronze/Silver league and trying to teach them is a complete nightmare. So true... When I play 2vs2 out of the custom games list, you'd be surprised how many people just copy the Very Hard A.I., or just build an engineering bay, take both geysers, get a planetary, then build marauders tanks and turrets for 20 minutes. Blizzard already gave the most important pieces of information you need to get out bronze in their loading screen tips (Constantly build workers to increase your production, 3 workers fill a mineral patch, expanding early is good if risky, etc.) so I don't think it would violate the whole spirit of "It's a strategy game, make your own thing up" if they were to give a small multiplayer tutorial that taught those things.
I think the biggest problem is that the AI never plays a macro game. This seems to be one of the reasons why everyone just super metagames the few AI cheeses, which would explain why so many people just cannon up one base and go void rays, among similar mediocre turtle strategies.
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No disrespect to the OP, but in my experience there are so many reasons for people to get stuck in bronze that it's just impossible to write down a guide that they will read and get out of bronze. They probably read several guides already, and their real problem is not being able to understand/implement what they are reading. Be it because they just can't use mouse/keyboard/hotkeys/etc properly, or just don't understand basic game concepts that make them unable to understand what your guide is talking about.
If someone was to understand your build order and do it properly, not only he would get out of bronze, but he'd probably go up all the way to plat if not diamond. The problem of those players is not about not finding the correct build order, but rather their inability to execute anything at all. At least that's what I seem to understand after watching some players play at the bronze-gold level.
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On February 28 2012 14:10 Jotunheimr wrote:
let me pitch in my 2 cents from when i played as bronze (season 4 so pretty recent, I was zerg too lol now protoss)
Your build is safe as can be and will most likely win a lot of games in bronze, but the misunderstanding is really the build in that sense, safe playstyles can work but most people can get easily frustrated with them; I know people told me "zerg, pool before hatch, you should be fine" and i lost 75% of my ZvPs due to cannon rushing, 60% of my ZvTs due to bunker rushing, honestly. Safe builds didn't help me at all (i gained a far better win rate going blind 15 hatch then 11 pool 18 hatch)
its not even really scouting from what i remember tho, I would scout a lot of these but i'd still just die (eg the probe kept putting down cannons and then cancelling them and then just ended up walking away so i hadn't been mining for the past 2 minutes and he would just a-move to victory, etc. Its not really safe builds but safe playstyles; i scouted my base like naniwa and it helped a bit. Problem being how do you deal with these cheeses? eg. the rule is 3 probes per pylon to dps it down, 4 per cannon etc, but it isn't feasible to do so when your opponent can just put up 4 cannons and now 16 of your probes haven't mined for 30 seconds to make the opponent lose ~120 minerals.
I never really lost a straight up macro game from what I remember but the real problem really is dealing with cheese, its hard to tell someone exactly how to do it (i was told build a spine as i see a bunker) but then 2 marines would dps it down and i had to cancel it, but by then the bunker was up killing my drones, etc. Sure telling people a safe build kinda somewhat might help other people but i just ranted about how it didn't help me. at all. 15 hatch in bronze, all the way. (even z v z, i know)
Interesting, maybe I'll put a small video series together about dealing with cheese.
On February 28 2012 15:55 naggerNZ wrote:
Anyone capable of following a build order listed with supply values will not be in Bronze. Any guide written for this level needs to be far more broad.
The problem with that though is they need to know what to do next and what's possible. If you just say "build 2 Barracks early and make Marines & Marauders" that's pretty vague. When is early? How many units is it possible to get by doing that? etc.
On February 28 2012 23:08 galzohar wrote:
No disrespect to the OP, but in my experience there are so many reasons for people to get stuck in bronze that it's just impossible to write down a guide that they will read and get out of bronze. They probably read several guides already, and their real problem is not being able to understand/implement what they are reading. Be it because they just can't use mouse/keyboard/hotkeys/etc properly, or just don't understand basic game concepts that make them unable to understand what your guide is talking about.
If someone was to understand your build order and do it properly, not only he would get out of bronze, but he'd probably go up all the way to plat if not diamond. The problem of those players is not about not finding the correct build order, but rather their inability to execute anything at all. At least that's what I seem to understand after watching some players play at the bronze-gold level.
That's a good point, mindset and understanding probably have a lot to do with it. Though there are Bronze players who know a bit about hotkeys and just feel lost while playing. Maybe I need to add more about how to execute a build. Thanks for the feedback.
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On February 28 2012 15:43 RiceBowl2 wrote:
Not really gonna get a strong macro game without upgrades.
Learn what macro means before posting.
This is a really good idea! I wish someone had told me to just make as many drones as possible when I was in silver. I was always too focused on trying to copy the pros and having good muta micro.
Also, I love the "bg" at the end of the game.
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Well im no pro , but to get out of bronze you must win and to win you must start to gain some game sense... Attack attack attack , if you guys are playing terran learn to do 1 build for each race and master it...
When i play zerg i always do 2 rax bunker rush , against toss 1-1-1 and against terran its 1-1-1 or 1 rax-expand...
Attacking is the way to go , control the map , pressure him , start to micro , problem with bronze is most games are 200 vs 200 supply A-move and then remax if your zerg , warp if your toss , pray if your terran..
Choose the most confortable race and then start to do the go-to builds , you will win a LOT of games
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On February 29 2012 00:14 tapk69 wrote:
Well im no pro , but to get out of bronze you must win and to win you must start to gain some game sense... Attack attack attack , if you guys are playing terran learn to do 1 build for each race and master it...
When i play zerg i always do 2 rax bunker rush , against toss 1-1-1 and against terran its 1-1-1 or 1 rax-expand...
Attacking is the way to go , control the map , pressure him , start to micro , problem with bronze is most games are 200 vs 200 supply A-move and then remax if your zerg , warp if your toss , pray if your terran..
Choose the most confortable race and then start to do the go-to builds , you will win a LOT of games
I agree, but memorizing 1 build for each matchup can be pretty overwhelming for a new player. That's why I tried to find a build order that is simple and good against all 3 races so they can quickly get used to doing it and see some quick results.
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On February 28 2012 04:21 vorxaw wrote:Show nested quote +On February 27 2012 21:00 tiaz wrote:I'm in bronze :D Maybe i've just been unlucky cause the three zergs i've met have all went heavy baneling (even with no scouting). Though I'll keep doing this style cause its working great vT vP, and its nice to just focus on keeping resources spent! Also i've not played an immensely amount of games so yeah.. That's a perfect opportunity for you to force yourself to macro even harder, marines counter banelings pretty damn hard in bronze, just make like 30ish marines, stand them outside your base, pre spread them and forget about them... go back a macro raxes, ccs, depots etc. Watch as your marines magically take care of banelings
Forget banelings, I played a game on Shattered Temple earlier where I literally just threw 3 armies into seige tank lines, but kept producing and expanding and won. Of course, I got upgrades because he had cloaked banshees out, but it was an easy win, albeit fairly long.
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You just doomed me kind sir, I've just been put into platinum after my qual matches using this )
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and now make one for zerg and toss :D
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I have been in Bronze for the first 4 seasons and in Silver since then. I got out of Bronze by banshee rushing but platoed at Silver. I have tried this build and played 8 games with it so far and only lost 1.
This is great!!
The problem with the "Learn one built for each matchup" is : that is just way to much to learn all at once and you will get frustrated and give up.
The problems with most other builds are :
- It takes you to the 10 minute mark and then you are on your own.
- It assumes that you can Micro your units properly (Banshees to be effective at all past Silver need to be microed (even if only a little) so you have 2 options. Micro the units and win that particular battle but your Macro suffers badly and you loose the game or don't micro the units in which case you may as well just throw the resources out the window.
- They assume that a Bronze player can execute it as well as a Master`s player. And trust me a badly executed build will be crushed even if you are in Bronze.
I like this build because it makes the game simpler. Build the Army and A-move to your opponent`s base.
What this build needs is a follow up. (what do I do when I don,t miss a single unit production cycle and have 60+ SCVs at the 15 minute mark?) My suggestions.
- Add the Marauder Slow either right after or right before the combat shield
- Add +1 Weapons and +1 Army Upgrades then ensure you have the rest still down pat. Try to nail both upgrades before the 10 [Blizzard] minute mark.
- Once you grow comfortable then just add +2+2 and eventually +3+3 and aim to tighten the time you get the upgrades finish as early as possible.
- Since you need to have a factory to get the armory to unlock +2+2 then may as well get that factory a reactor and add non-stop hellion production to the build.
- Once you get all of that down pat, you got all your upgrades really early (I don't know a good early time for it but for the sake of argument lets just say 18 [Blizzard] minutes) then add Medivacs to the mix.
Notice that at no point in time did the CRITICAL part of this build ever changed. A-Move the army to your enemies base. All I did was add basic armor and weapons upgrades to the mix, one factory that is not idle producing its most basic unit: the Hellion, and 1 (or more) Starports producing Medivacs. That being said, by the time you would be comfortable to add all that I have added to it you should be in Gold. (+1+1 should be ok in Silver)
Just ideas to consider I know I already added the +3+3 upgrades to my build but I am having trouble figuring out when i should research them and most importantly how to add them without sacrificing unit production. Medivacs are still in the distant future for me :D
gl & hf!!
PS. I realize that to ever get to Diamond I'll have to start Microing the units. So learning to Micro the units I have will be the last on my list of do to things, probably once I'm a well established Gold Player. As a wise man probably said, To learn to micro, you have to have something to micro first.
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How to get out of bronze in 3 easy steps:
1) Make workers.
2) Build Pylons/OVs/Depots
3) Spend your money.
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The problem with Bronze is that build orders aren't followed. Or they're executed so slovenly that it doesn't even matter that there was a build order. When I tried to teach my Bronze friend how to 4-gate, he'd try it once, find out that it wasn't any faster than his normal build because he's so bad, and never did the build again.
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Yeah, the only real way to get the major noobs to get a build order is to sit behind them and making them restart the game (against computer) every time they click something wrong. If they're determined enough to learn rather than get frustrated and quit, after 1 hour you will have someone capable of executing a build order. The problem is, in many cases, getting frustrated quickly and having no patience to learn anything (mostly after a couple of tries, which would take less than 10 minutes since he'll probably do something wrong within the first 2 minutes of the game for the first few tries) is why they are in bronze in the first place. So again, it's really complicated to figure out how to get someone out of bronze.
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Did something like this a while ago to get myself out of Bronze from Halby's youtube channel. Glad to see something with this emphasis pop up again.
Here are Halby's videos in case anyone is interested. I like that his didn't really have a build order at all - made me more willing to experiment with builds and do things on my own - made the game more fun
+ Show Spoiler +
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Lol I tried teaching my beginner friend and my goodness I was spent after about an hour. Good read op
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Just wanted to say that I've been stuck doing 1 base 3rax conc/stim timings in silver league and this is such a great learning tool. I've been winning all of my games but more importantly I am getting comfortable with managing multiple bases and learning to constantly build from all production buildings/keep supply depots building. Thank you so much!
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On February 29 2012 07:05 Grapefruit wrote:
How to get out of bronze in 3 easy steps:
1) Make workers.
2) Build Pylons/OVs/Depots
3) Spend your money.
Exactly.
The build in the original post is a more detailed way of completing these steps. Players who are stuck in bronze are struggling with your 3 steps, even if they are aware of them. Following the OP's build gives them something concrete to work with.
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On March 01 2012 07:08 zefreak wrote:
Just wanted to say that I've been stuck doing 1 base 3rax conc/stim timings in silver league and this is such a great learning tool. I've been winning all of my games but more importantly I am getting comfortable with managing multiple bases and learning to constantly build from all production buildings/keep supply depots building. Thank you so much!
Awesome! Thanks for sharing your success =D
Love hearing how people are using it and how/if it's helpful.
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Looks good. To bad I am not in bronze. The good ol days...
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@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.
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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
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this is actually a really nice guide. I'd recommend for any beginner. it's cool because you can add in things like ebay upgrades and medivacs as you start to master the basics.
well done!
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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
no medivacs, bro.
i do find the lack of concussive to be a bit confusing, but medivacs are what make stim MM so good
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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
not really worth using stim if you are going to a-move without any micro at all. but yes, once you master the macro, mix in some micro and stim + upgrades + medivacs will certainly push you up another couple of leagues
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Get stim. Its important and you just hit 1at then return to macro
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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.
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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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On March 04 2012 05:22 Bippzy wrote:Show nested quote +On March 03 2012 12:24 Kaitlin wrote: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.
So anything that you scout and build appropriate units to counter is a cheese in your mind ? Sorry. Also, I don't know how many colossus you would expect a low level player to have out by the time the first attack comes, but I'd say none, one if rushing to it, but then there wouldn't be much else and it would still die. Just because this is not an unbeatable build does not make it cheese. It's just a "simple" build for low levels to concentrate on what is most important. That's it.
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Thanks Taerix!!
I usually play Protos but today I thought I might try your terrran guide - just for fun. I am silver league and already in the first game (which was by far not perfect from me), I defeated a Golde league guy!!
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Yeah, like the guy above me said: They wont have colossi that fast i often win on the 7 min push in bronze..
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I have been doing this build for a while now and I crunched the numbers, thanks to SC2Gears and Statcraft.net
I'm a Silver leaguer if anyone is interested.
this build has a
55% win rate overall.
TvP = 70% win Rate.
TvT = 54% win Rate.
TvZ = 38% win Rate.
This is with approximately 50 games played. So for me fairly representative. I'm definitely on my way up to Gold but the problem is my TvZ I'd like to have a Win ratio of at least 45%.
Any suggestions as to how one can adapt this build to not be as vulnerable to ling/bling and muta?
Thanks.
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On March 06 2012 04:36 Sylvanium wrote:
I have been doing this build for a while now and I crunched the numbers, thanks to SC2Gears and Statcraft.net
I'm a Silver leaguer if anyone is interested.
this build has a
55% win rate overall.
TvP = 70% win Rate.
TvT = 54% win Rate.
TvZ = 38% win Rate.
This is with approximately 50 games played. So for me fairly representative. I'm definitely on my way up to Gold but the problem is my TvZ I'd like to have a Win ratio of at least 45%.
Any suggestions as to how one can adapt this build to not be as vulnerable to ling/bling and muta?
Thanks.
To keep it as simple of possible perhaps a more marauder heavy composition and definitely pick up those concussive shells. And when you a-move out select all your marauders first and a-move out with them first directly followed by the marines.
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Hello Im a bronze player and I tried this build after my placement match. Im up 34-6 and number one in my division.
http://sc2ranks.com/eu/2585628/Snoodles
What has killed me so far are cloaked units and Terran turtlers who use tanks.
I'm still waiting to be promoted but this is taking longer than I thought.
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On March 06 2012 05:54 serum321 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 06 2012 04:36 Sylvanium wrote:
I have been doing this build for a while now and I crunched the numbers, thanks to SC2Gears and Statcraft.net
I'm a Silver leaguer if anyone is interested.
this build has a
55% win rate overall.
TvP = 70% win Rate.
TvT = 54% win Rate.
TvZ = 38% win Rate.
This is with approximately 50 games played. So for me fairly representative. I'm definitely on my way up to Gold but the problem is my TvZ I'd like to have a Win ratio of at least 45%.
Any suggestions as to how one can adapt this build to not be as vulnerable to ling/bling and muta?
Thanks. To keep it as simple of possible perhaps a more marauder heavy composition and definitely pick up those concussive shells. And when you a-move out select all your marauders first and a-move out with them first directly followed by the marines.
IF you want to keep this build vs zerg - maurders trade well against blings so as the poster quoted mentioned, use them as an outer "wall" of your formation, if you have a layer of maurders on the outside then the blings will be rendered impotent.
Personally I think you should start learning a specific anti-zerg BO involving hellions and maurders to arrive at opponents base at 9 minutes [this hits before mutas then], by the look of your 70% vs Protoss you've already mastered this build. The truth is, the BO in the OP is just awful versus zerg. It's not you.
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On March 06 2012 06:15 Snoodles wrote:Hello Im a bronze player and I tried this build after my placement match. Im up 34-6 and number one in my division. http://sc2ranks.com/eu/2585628/SnoodlesWhat has killed me so far are cloaked units and Terran turtlers who use tanks. I'm still waiting to be promoted but this is taking longer than I thought.
I think that the purpose of this "build" is to help you get better att macroing, not getting a free promotion...
On topic: Great writeup - Im definitely gonna try it since Im only a gold scrub. Need the practice.
But - Im gonna do at least 100 games with this and see on what level this "strategy" hits a ceiling. It will be fun(nier than smurfing)!!!
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Thanks for the guide, bought sc2 a month ago and with little experience with rts games I wasn't able to make too much of a dent in the ladder and would always get overwhelmed past the 10-12min mark.
Gone 6-1 with this build so far, lost to early reaper harras that killed a billion scvs and left way behind. Amazing how quick you can build tons of unit if that's what your entire focus is on.
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On March 06 2012 06:34 Grubbegrabbn wrote:Show nested quote +On March 06 2012 06:15 Snoodles wrote:Hello Im a bronze player and I tried this build after my placement match. Im up 34-6 and number one in my division. http://sc2ranks.com/eu/2585628/SnoodlesWhat has killed me so far are cloaked units and Terran turtlers who use tanks. I'm still waiting to be promoted but this is taking longer than I thought. I think that the purpose of this "build" is to help you get better att macroing, not getting a free promotion... On topic: Great writeup - Im definitely gonna try it since Im only a gold scrub. Need the practice. But - Im gonna do at least 100 games with this and see on what level this "strategy" hits a ceiling. It will be fun(nier than smurfing)!!!
It very much is intended to get a promotion otherwise it would not be titled "How to get out of bronze"
Anyways I thank the OP because he has taught something that weeks of watching pros stream can't teach. There was a thread on Reddit a while back where a protoss player made nothing but stalkers and A-moved his way from bronze to diamond. It was a really great lesson but unfortunately that person didn't provide a tutorial on how to do it.
What this playstyle has taught me is how to pay attention to numbers and knowing when I can or can't afford something. There have been games where I can just feel my opponents frustration because theyve taken out my a-move wave and think Im vulnerable and just keep going and going for the kill. In the end it turns out I had 80-120 SCVs to their 30-40. There have been several games where I didn't have enough units to counter/kill but I had double the SCVs. I've ldeveloped an intuition where I say "Ok I've made this many SCVs and have spent all my resources on units, so X is the max size that my opponents army could be otherwise he's floating resources.
When I've run out of minerals on my first base and I scout to see that my opponent doesn't have a third, I smile because I know I'm going to win. I also see things that I didn't before in terms of budgeting. For example: "If I get this upgrade, my next expansion is going to be delayed", "if I get supply blocked, I lose 2 production cycles and collect a bunch of resources that make me look richer than I really am." My favorite games have been the ones where I've literally starved my opponent. They're on 2 bases killing my whole army repeatedly meanwhile I'm on 6 bases denying expansions and they're out of minerals.
Believe me I've learned the terminology and tried standard build orders but after a month of having the game I've learned more in two days of playing this strat than in all the build orders I've tried(like Col. Drewbies) and streams I've watched.
Thanks OP.
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To expand on my previous post, here are the limitations I've found so far: A-Move hasn't served me well against TvT's who know how to defend. When I charge at a line of siege tanks, 1-1 stim combat shield marines, marauders, and medivacs, my army disintegrates even when it's twice as large, then they just counter before I can remake my 200/200 army.
One protoss caught on early and after a couple waves made nothing but immortals and collusses, but that was just one guy and when I looked at his history I suspect he's a smurf.
I cannot disregard micro when mutalisks or cloak banshees are at play. We all know the drill where they poke and poke and come from another side and poke again. This strategy hasn't worked in those situations because when the taunter is smart he pokes off supply depots, SCV's, denies expansions, and I lose all my mule opportunities chasing him around. A also can't keep up with making workers, army, and depot while Im chasing and splitting my army from one base to another.
I'm going to keep trying to perform this build under high pressure because that's when macro flies out of the window.
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Actually day9 had a daily where he showed this variant (wiki only shows stim) where you go reactor first then shells and combat shield. If you manage to keep enough marines alive its a bit better imho... Perhaps stim is the way to go if you bring a handful of SCVs to tank some damage...?
On topic: I have collected 2 wins and a draw in gold so far ^^. The draw was vs a Toss also doing a timing attack on Meta cross pos and it seems like the pathing makes the units walk on opposite sides of the map centre 
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can i make an ebay pls. i dont like dts
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This build seems solid. Im a silver player myself and all the games I lose are against cheese or by failing to macro properly. Macro is what gets you ahead. Not any of this one trick pony business! Keep up the good work and drown your opponent ingood macro!
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Some men just wanna watch the world learn...
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I created an account just to reply to this. Very solid strategy and I had a lot of fun learning new tech while using this strategy as the basis of my early game. Should be a must read for any new SC2 players starting out in the ladder games.
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I tried it, maybe about 50% win rate bronze, EU server
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Thought i would post a little update of my progress with this tactic.
Ladder: Bronze
Wins: 40
Rank: 1
Points: ~650 (cant remember exactly off the top of my head)
EU Server
Win percentage vs Bronze players ~90% (most players seem to simply get overwhelmed by the amount of units i keep throwing at them)
Win percentage vs Silver players ~70% (main problem i have is Terrans who turtle then push with medivacs)
Win percentage vs Gold players ~50% (only played 4 or so against golds so not really accurate)
Also for anyone who didnt see my eariler post i am a noob at this game. only got it a few months ago and before using this strat had a total of 30ish career wins.
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On March 06 2012 06:15 Snoodles wrote:Hello Im a bronze player and I tried this build after my placement match. Im up 34-6 and number one in my division. http://sc2ranks.com/eu/2585628/SnoodlesWhat has killed me so far are cloaked units and Terran turtlers who use tanks. I'm still waiting to be promoted but this is taking longer than I thought.
Get 1200 points and its almost guarantee
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On March 08 2012 05:34 all3z wrote:Show nested quote +On March 06 2012 06:15 Snoodles wrote:Hello Im a bronze player and I tried this build after my placement match. Im up 34-6 and number one in my division. http://sc2ranks.com/eu/2585628/SnoodlesWhat has killed me so far are cloaked units and Terran turtlers who use tanks. I'm still waiting to be promoted but this is taking longer than I thought. Get 1200 points and its almost guarantee
Might happen a bit earlier. I just got promoted at 43 wins and just under 700 points. Just keep at it, SC2 isnt about what division im in, for me its about having fun and improving. Also have a look at what league the players you are playing are in, i got promoted after beating 10 or so silver players and some golds.
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Grats Captain. Yeah Snoodles keep at it, it takes longer than it should, but it also wants to make sure you won't be getting demoted.
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I am trying this in silver. You will lose using this if enemy manages to get many tanks/colossus. However, if you survive, you can have a really good economy so you can just make like 5 star ports and mass banshees/Vikings while making MM.
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So, i have just tried this build in some customs, and i must say it really works! First game was against a low (<50 ranked) master protoss player, who died to the third attack after taking heavy damage from the first two. The second was a top 8 diamond zerg who died straight up to the first push. LOL.
Forget bronze league, this build is sick gosu! \^_^/
Although to be fair i did micro somewhat, though none of those fancy sutter-step shenanigans.
Edit. One of the key concepts of the build to note is, that the attack and expand timings are synced, at least initially. Not only does this mean that you pressure effectively defends your new base, it also accounts for the fact that you just invested in economy. This means your army size will not increase as quickly for some time (until the expansion has paid for itself), giving your army a good strength/timing ratio for your attack.
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On March 09 2012 00:41 serum321 wrote:
Grats Captain. Yeah Snoodles keep at it, it takes longer than it should, but it also wants to make sure you won't be getting demoted.
Thanks. 800+ points and still working on it
On March 09 2012 14:56 superbarnie wrote:
I am trying this in silver. You will lose using this if enemy manages to get many tanks/colossus. However, if you survive, you can have a really good economy so you can just make like 5 star ports and mass banshees/Vikings while making MM.
This is what I was wondering. How many bases do you think it's safe to switch? When I've lot it's against protoss who defend well for a long time with cannons and then come to my bases with 6 colossus + storm guys(I know the "good" players don't let that happen but that's why I'm here). Even if I have a 200/200 army it just melts. When is a good time to switch techs?
Also, an interesting thing I've noticed with zerg is that if they try to roach or defend until they have mutalisk, they get steamrolled with this build. When the 11:00 army gets there they have a mutalisk group that was ready to go bother me has to be used for defense against a bajillion marines A guy who gets spinecrawlers for a while and then baneling + speedlings wins pretty cost effectively though. So this build feels weakest against collossi, baneling/speedling, and good tank positioning.
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Well it took 56 wins and 850+ points but I'm finally silver in EU! I know that's kind of shitty but SC2 is my first RTS so I'm content with these results. Thanks OP!
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TVP http://www.mediafire.com/?9im88u821zo986k
vx. Colossus... had to focus them down when i saw them, but it was worth it!
Thank you for the strat! I used to play like this before getting fancy, feels good to get back into a Map Control Terran sort of mode!
btw, for anecdotal stats, I'm in Gold and I'm sure the build will keep me here
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I've only tried this concept once so far... but it was a win and I really wasn't expecting it to have the effect it did. (I also screwed up - pure marines, no marauders, only one OC with the rest PFs. Insane number of rax, the only possible danger zone was when I went to land my 6th CC and found my opponent building 4 new CCs at that location.
The first push roflstomped on his natural expand - and I had to take a second to issue a-move into his main afterwards. He managed to hold his ramp with siege. I then ignored him, kept building/expanding. Around the time I dropped my fourth, he attacked me and I just selected marines and a-moved at him - his smaller force of marine, marauder, medivac, and tanks got pounded and ran away.When I hit 200/200, I a-moved my marines around the outside lane of cloud kingdom.
137 marines > everything he had - stomped on his third, his natural, then up into his main. Which was when I saw his new cluster of CCs. He lifted his main OC and tried to land elsewhere, but I just a-moved my marines on a path around the map and he GG'd. His bio had upgrades, they had medivacs, they had tank support. I thought I was toast when my marines came on his counterattack at my natural and he had 4 sieged up tanks - but they quantity has a quality all of its own.
I will be trying this more, because I saw the score screen and I had 71 SCVs. That's the best I've ever done (usually, on a "normal" build, I start to forget around 50) and losing my natural had no impact on my ability to keep all my rax pumping, building more rax, more SCVs...
(This was in silver, btw.) Concentrating on just the macro is good.
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You'll get out of the lower leagues if you're just interested enough in the game to practice multiple strategies, practice control and if you like to try out new stuff. I don't think it's good to practice just one build and one way to play. You need variety to learn. This is probably a decent method of practice but you need other methods, too. Macro is only hard while controlling your army at the same time. Anyway. Combat Shield is the only upgrade when practicing macro? IMO upgrades are crucial thing to do correctly if you want to play the macro game. I'd suggest double ebay hotkeyed after you get your third gas. And let's just say that expansions and upgrades alone got me out of silver, and those and timing attacks out of gold. At silver-gold you'll run into people you'll fight with +3 +3 upgrades...
Personally I hold some rules I never break, helps me focus and gives me time to think, sort of. And one of them is when macro, double upgrades always. Otherwise, strong 1-2 base timing attack.
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Having macro gets you out of bronze, period. In fact, having good/almost perfect macro would get you to at least gold by making just marines/roaches/stalker.
Literally no other strategy/goal/skills are required.
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4 for 4 games now. And this is just to reinforce that you don't always have to micro - you can send units and they will be okay. Kindof desensitizing, because even now when I hear the warning, I want to jump over there... and that will, to quote an actor in a movie, "Mess up my zen thing". Once I get my head wrapped around "60+ SCVs in a 20 minute game is not a bad thing, always take a second to (CC Hotkey) + s( times number of CCs), then look for the mule drop, then production hotkey + production, THEN look back... I'll go back to working on the strategies I've been using before. (Things like hellion expand, 1rax FE, marine/tank, etc, etc.)
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A good read, I stumbled upon this just to check out what you had to say to the dejected Bronze players. I was in Bronze when I started to play SC2 when it came out, but luckily quickly made my way to Platinum, and eventually Diamond. It took me a while to the transition from Plat to Diamond, but it surely is worth it when you finally make it. I think what helped me to get out of Bronze quickly was that I was a fairly good BW player, and avidly played it just before SC2. So therefore the cliched piece of advice echoes - macro gets you out of Bronze. It really is that simple, and Bronze level players just have to focus om improving macro APM and in no time they should see some improvement.
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On March 10 2012 06:04 Snoodles wrote:
Well it took 56 wins and 850+ points but I'm finally silver in EU! I know that's kind of shitty but SC2 is my first RTS so I'm content with these results. Thanks OP!
Congratulations man, just as long you are happy with your achievement, there is nothing wrong with making it into Silver. What others think does not matter even a bit. For some consolation though, being in Silver - Gold these days does not necessarily mean that you are a bad player. I have faced multiple players of that skill range in custom games on the EU server, and many of them at least had decent macro mechanics and such. Never disregard your ranking. Now onto that Gold!
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well I think this is a great build for a starting newbie on SC2.
I've just started this season this weekend, I qualified to the bronze league.
I did only 2 games today, but 2 wins with this build.
I think that on the previous seasons I got distracted trying to copy pro builds, micro etc and didn't got basics.
On this season I'm going to concentrate on macro only.
I think I gonna put effort to do the build as perfect as possible before I try anything else.
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Another small update. I have found that this build starts to suffer against gold players and some good silvers. So i have started using upgrades and it has started to work wonders again. I have basically only made one change and it doesnt put you behind or at risk early.
At the 8:00 mark where you put down the two extra barracks i found that while they were building i would be floating quite a lot of minerals. So with this extra cash i throw down 2 Ebays a bit after i throw down the 2 extra rax. I cant remember the exact timing but its basically when you can afford it. Once the Ebays are done start researching 1-1. Also when the first expansion is finished i throw down 3 refineries. About 30 seconds after starting 1-1 i throw down a factory and soon after thats finished, you have about a 30 second window, i throw down an amory. 1-1 should finish about the same time as the armory and then i immediately start 2-2, and then 3-3 once thats finished.
This has increased my win rate alot, especially if it goes to late game where before i would usually lose because he would have 3-3 to my 0-0. I also get concussive shells after combat shield and then stim after shells. Havent got any exact timings yet. I will continue to play and work out some timings. With stim all i do is as my forces meet his forces i stim then go back to macro. Also another good thing about throwing down Ebays is that i can then thow down a turret or two, with any minerals im floating, at my mineral lines to stop banshee harrasment etc. Cloak banshees were always a pain especially if i had just dropped mules.
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On February 27 2012 12:56 Fencer710 wrote:
Very nice OP.
I actually went with a way different strategy for improving; Cheeze.
I would 6-rax into gold league, then started getting Marauders, Medivacs, and expanding. It did pretty well for me. I learned to Macro, Micro, and build Depots constantly. It was also fun. :D
Though this strategy is probably much better, doing a mass-marine cheeze can also be a good way to improve.
if u 6rax u never get supply blocked ever, or miss unit production
it helps u so much if u go to a noncheese build
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This build has won me a ton of games and I've learned a lot from playing like this. Now if I'm playing a 2v2 or 3v3, I'll try a different strategy, but I still manage to not get supply blocked much, which is a big step forward. In 1v1, if the other player doesn't expand, I do really well since I have so many more units and money, but if they do expand, that's when I run into problems. I try to kill their expansions and keep pumping units in until their economy runs out, which works most of the time.
Two problems I've had are playing against a Protoss that uses an enormous amount of Stalkers and Colossi to defend whilst also expanding. I try to go for a heavier marauder composition in this circumstance and use a little micro to focus fire on the Colossi. On a small map like Korhal Compound, this works okay because I can keep the 'Toss-pot holed up, but on Tal'Darim Altar they basically get a free expo as well as the ability to see down the hills and start marring my army prematurely.Their third expo is easily defended by blinking Stalkers down there. Plus, they have plenty of spaces to expand to, so it's hard to track them all down without leaving my expos undefended. I thought, I'll just expand more than them, but on TA it's difficult to get map control on such a huge map. Do you have any suggestions for using this strategy on larger maps or against other expanding players that have too much defense built up? Do you switch strategies or transition after the first expo or just keep macroing? Should I siege up and get a few medivacs while continuing the same level of production? For now I have just taken TA off of my map preferences.
Also, in general against Stalkers and Roaches, are Marauders only good because of concussive shell or do they actually deal more damage than marines? Is it still a good idea to get equal amount of reactors and tech labs because I need the marines for DPS or should I build more tech labs because I'll take out more Stalkers/Roaches that way?
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My short history of getting out of bronze:
I started off as terran since i had almost no RTS experience and thats what i kinda learned from campaign. Went with about 50% win rate and lived in about top 50 bronze...
From watching A TON of pro games/day9/tournaments got a decent game knowledge (basics atleast). And Zerg started to look interesting. Tried it against AI and and leared hotkeys, how larva inject work etc. The i watched dApollo tutorial on youtube... GO AND F-ing WATCH IT!!!! That thought me how to scout and some very basic timings.
I always wanted to start learning with 1 build to refine but i understood that it is not efficient, so i picked 1 build for each matchup. vT 15 hatch and speedlings with bling, later mutas. vP 15hatch and roaches later add hydras. vZ 14gas 14pool lings blings. With these builds i won 12 out of 15 games and got straigth in silver.
And learned 1 valuable lesson - bronze is 90% cheese. Scout for cannon rushes and bunker rushes. None of them are executed well in bronze so thats easy win for you. get overlord in his base at about 6 min, since bronze players wont hit exact timings you should see tendency for cloaked banshies (50% terrans do this) or voidrays. If you see this just go kill him, there will not be an army to stop you. 4-gate in bronze usually come at about 7 min. So at 6 min i just start pumping roaches and maybe add a spine or 2, hold the attack with ease then counterattack while getting third up.
TL;DR SCOUT SCOUT SCOUT. as zerg spread overlords around map and you will never be surprised by a drop. And if you expect voidrays or banshies you will know where to move your queens/hydras and maybe drop an extra spore (even if it won't finish it will distract him).
Last tip - do not try to copy pro players, bronze games are nothing like their games. E.G. if bronze player makes helions he will not stop at 6 or 8, he will make 20. Although you should copy things like constantly making workers, expanding and keeping money low.
P.S. Since i wanted to see how easy it is to drop a league i tried to drop games rapidly and after 15 got back in silver. Turns out it is much harder getting out of bronze the second time - it seems that my MMR has got more stable. Anyway i still have 80-90% win rate and when i lose it is always because i did not scout enough. Worst was when i was completely surprised by voidrays - just started evo chamber when 5 of them were on their way, still i fought off for 15 min but by then he had massed up army and i lost. Losing after a fight like that feels worse that plain out losing to simple 6pool or cannonrush.
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i think with this strategy bronze-platinum players will win or lose at that 7:30 attack
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On March 12 2012 18:46 taitanik wrote:
i think with this strategy bronze-platinum players will win or lose at that 7:30 attack
In my experience: if the 7:30 attack did some damage,you're good. If it didn't do any damage, you win around 40%.
Also, it got my out of bronze. I think in about 50 games. So thank you very much for the guide!
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On March 12 2012 18:46 taitanik wrote:
i think with this strategy bronze-platinum players will win or lose at that 7:30 attack
The first attack is not meant to kill him. It is meant to hurt him BIG DIFFERENCE. That first attack is usually held, but at the cost of his army and if your lucky his expo maybe even a few production buildings. Since you are macroing while you attack and he is most likely just microing to fend off your attack, you automatically pull ahead. Good players can Macro and Micro at the same time, and I find that these players appear in high Silver low Gold but by that time you should have practiced Macro enough, with Hotkeys and such that you can Micro your battle, Stim your army and overall just make more damage then simply A-Move. (Trouble with Hotkeys? Day9 Daily 252 and practice, practice, practice).
High Silver, low Gold is also the time where gaining map awarness and scouting becomes important. Up to this point, blind build your way up and you should win more then you loose but after this point they are scouting so you should be scouting to, feel free to adjust the build to meet the circumstances, He has one base seige tanks, cool, hold the first attack and tech to Medivacs, drop him when he expos, as you drop attack the front and confuse him like crazy!.
Anyway, good luck guys and Have Fun.
P.S. in my experience this build is very weak vs. zerg (ling/bling/mutas specially). Try this build, its a lot more Micro intensive, but then again, you practiced macro for the last 50 games, time to learn some basic Micro and Harrass techniques. http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=306157 I know it says you have to be high level player to pull it off, but I can attest to the contrary and the reason it works in High Silver/Low Gold? He can not Micro and Macro as well as you can.
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this is a stim timing in tvp/tvt i sometimes use in masters. it hits around the same time but combat shield is bad.
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On March 13 2012 00:34 Mormel wrote:Show nested quote +On March 12 2012 18:46 taitanik wrote:
i think with this strategy bronze-platinum players will win or lose at that 7:30 attack In my experience: if the 7:30 attack did some damage,you're good. If it didn't do any damage, you win around 40%. Also, it got my out of bronze. I think in about 50 games. So thank you very much for the guide!
This is my experience, too. In TvT, they usually get tanks out by that time or put up some bunkers. In TvP, it happens if they do a forge fast expand. I didn't recall the build perfectly and was pushing out at 5:40 with about 7 marines and 3 marauders(not sure what the exact number is) and maps with a long distance between bases my combat shield would finish right when my marines got there. If they were massing marines as well, I might lose a small battle, but if they were teching they usually put a barracks and supply depot at the front so I could supply block them and attack again at 7:30 and expand while keeping them from expanding. After I realized I should be pushing out at 7:00, my guys don't get there until 8:00 on a big map and I started running into more problems as they would actually get tanks out or some bunkers built. Some had even already expanded by that point.
Which is better? 5:40 or 7:00?
Weaknesses I've noticed to this build for Terran:
TvT:
*They get tanks before you attack.
*They expand with a bunker and marines.
TvP:
*They build cannons and expand.
Cannons aren't too bad, but the tanks just slaughter my army.
I haven't had too many problems with TvZ in bronze, but that may be because Zerg requires more focus on macro than Terran or Protoss.
I've gotten up to rank 11 in Bronze and faced a few Silver league players, but I'm sort of hitting a wall against players with above strategies.
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On March 13 2012 04:22 imbroglio wrote:Show nested quote +On March 13 2012 00:34 Mormel wrote:On March 12 2012 18:46 taitanik wrote:
i think with this strategy bronze-platinum players will win or lose at that 7:30 attack In my experience: if the 7:30 attack did some damage,you're good. If it didn't do any damage, you win around 40%. Also, it got my out of bronze. I think in about 50 games. So thank you very much for the guide! This is my experience, too. In TvT, they usually get tanks out by that time or put up some bunkers. In TvP, it happens if they do a forge fast expand. I didn't recall the build perfectly and was pushing out at 5:40 with about 7 marines and 3 marauders(not sure what the exact number is) and maps with a long distance between bases my combat shield would finish right when my marines got there. If they were massing marines as well, I might lose a small battle, but if they were teching they usually put a barracks and supply depot at the front so I could supply block them and attack again at 7:30 and expand while keeping them from expanding. After I realized I should be pushing out at 7:00, my guys don't get there until 8:00 on a big map and I started running into more problems as they would actually get tanks out or some bunkers built. Some had even already expanded by that point. Which is better? 5:40 or 7:00? Weaknesses I've noticed to this build for Terran: TvT: *They get tanks before you attack. *They expand with a bunker and marines. TvP: *They build cannons and expand. Cannons aren't too bad, but the tanks just slaughter my army. I haven't had too many problems with TvZ in bronze, but that may be because Zerg requires more focus on macro than Terran or Protoss. I've gotten up to rank 11 in Bronze and faced a few Silver league players, but I'm sort of hitting a wall against players with above strategies.
I had the same feeling, with the hitting the wall part. Just keep going, don't let the loses get to you, you will get better and you will get there. Add some other tech when you spot the tanks, like medvacs and upgrades. Nowadays I even research stim every now and then. Nothing like catching your oponent unseiged.
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Your right, this is a good build for Low-level Bronze players to take advantage of. I wouldn't rely on it though. Just more like an example to build upon. Great job though!
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this guide got me from approx 250 points in bronze to 450 points and now i am stuck again, losing to top bronze but winning against 15 and lower bronze. i am currently sitting on a 5th place in bronze. i just finished a game where he only made marines and just attacked, and mass marines are actually better then some marines and a few marauders since he killed all my units with only marines. if i get promoted from being top 8 then its a fine guide, but otherwise it wont get u out of bronze.
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if your losing in the bronze leauge with this build, try posting a replay in this thread, im very sure its still your macro holding you back
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Just wanted to say: this build is awesome!
It is really great terran macro practice for anyone lower than diamond, imo. (I'm gold 1v1)
I used it in a custom game and was able to keep a low-level masters protoss at bay for a 25 minute game. I only a-moved my army without any micro or stim, and he only mustered the army to attack my 5th base around 23 minutes. By then, he had 5 collosi so mm became increasingly ineffective.
But doesn't matter; had macro.
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On March 13 2012 04:22 imbroglio wrote:Show nested quote +On March 13 2012 00:34 Mormel wrote:On March 12 2012 18:46 taitanik wrote:
i think with this strategy bronze-platinum players will win or lose at that 7:30 attack In my experience: if the 7:30 attack did some damage,you're good. If it didn't do any damage, you win around 40%. Also, it got my out of bronze. I think in about 50 games. So thank you very much for the guide! This is my experience, too. In TvT, they usually get tanks out by that time or put up some bunkers. In TvP, it happens if they do a forge fast expand. I didn't recall the build perfectly and was pushing out at 5:40 with about 7 marines and 3 marauders(not sure what the exact number is) and maps with a long distance between bases my combat shield would finish right when my marines got there. If they were massing marines as well, I might lose a small battle, but if they were teching they usually put a barracks and supply depot at the front so I could supply block them and attack again at 7:30 and expand while keeping them from expanding. After I realized I should be pushing out at 7:00, my guys don't get there until 8:00 on a big map and I started running into more problems as they would actually get tanks out or some bunkers built. Some had even already expanded by that point. Which is better? 5:40 or 7:00?
The 7:00 push is more powerful imo, especially if you dont micro much. Going earlier is bad. If you do it right you should have 15 marines + 5 marauders (according to OP) at 7:00. In my experience, the average bronze/silver/gold player simply doesnt have enough stuff to combat this force efficiently and looses a tank or two and some SCVs. The 11:00 attack seals the deal. My losses so far (2 out of some 15+ games with this strat) are vs Toss alone. It turns out that a 1 basing sentry heavy toss with gold league force field skills can slice that stim-less and medivac-less army in neat chunks and just gobble it up. Or make DTs...
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On March 14 2012 01:49 patrickh wrote:
this guide got me from approx 250 points in bronze to 450 points and now i am stuck again, losing to top bronze but winning against 15 and lower bronze. i am currently sitting on a 5th place in bronze. i just finished a game where he only made marines and just attacked, and mass marines are actually better then some marines and a few marauders since he killed all my units with only marines. if i get promoted from being top 8 then its a fine guide, but otherwise it wont get u out of bronze.
As weikor said it would help if you posted a replay. This build got me out of bronze easily, and was a total newb at the time with like 10 1v1 wins in my career (only got the game 2 months ago). I am now rank 3 in silver and only playing against, and 8/10 times easily beating, golds for the past 10 games or so, some of which are top 8 golds. I've made a few tweaks to the build since getting into silver but the basics are the same.
Remember, dont get supply blocked. That one scv should be making supply depots almost constantly after the first expansion. Constanly produce units (SCVs and Marine/Marauder). Don't float minerals. If i ever see more than 500 i throw down more Rax or another CC. I have found its better to have too many Rax than you can afford to produce out of than not enough Rax and having minerals sitting in the bank.
I can imagine the reason you aren't having any luck with this build is because of getting supply blocked and not constantly producing units. Dont forget to attack either. When i started i was always late on my attacks and expands and it hurt me majorly. Ive found you really need to be pressuring their expansion and if possible denying it completely. Some games i won simply by having 5 or 6 bases and keeping him on 1 by just chucking units at him, eventually he mined out and i won. He killed probably more than 4x the amount of units i killed of his but with the power of macro i had another wave ready as he finished off the one before
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Ok how are you guys faring in silver league? Has anyone gotten to gold with this strat? Ive found that this strat is a wild card in Silver league. I've beaten a few golds, but silver or gold what decides whether I win or not is if the opponent had decided on a turtle strat from the start. Be it protoss and cannons until collossi, terrans and tanks, or zerg and lots of spine crawlers zerglings and banelings. My 200/200 armies just disintegrate at late game, even when I cheat and get upgrades(which throw off the timings of the third or fourth). What happens is they will get me on the counter-attacks, before I've re-upped to another 200/200 army.
Here is a recent example where I go against a zerg who was really good for silver(he had double my apm). I did my best to stay broke and always producing. My final scv count was 95, I was largely broke, and my expansions were delayed due to pressure.
Replay:
http://www.mediafire.com/?bn2li576k656t6b
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so i have a buddy from work who has not had a computer in 3 years up until a few weeks ago, he played a little bw not much way back..
anyways, using this build he is cruisin through bronze league and already silver ^^ plus he is now useful in 3v3/4v4 matches
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On March 14 2012 06:27 Snoodles wrote:Ok how are you guys faring in silver league? Has anyone gotten to gold with this strat? Ive found that this strat is a wild card in Silver league. I've beaten a few golds, but silver or gold what decides whether I win or not is if the opponent had decided on a turtle strat from the start. Be it protoss and cannons until collossi, terrans and tanks, or zerg and lots of spine crawlers zerglings and banelings. My 200/200 armies just disintegrate at late game, even when I cheat and get upgrades(which throw off the timings of the third or fourth). What happens is they will get me on the counter-attacks, before I've re-upped to another 200/200 army. Here is a recent example where I go against a zerg who was really good for silver(he had double my apm). I did my best to stay broke and always producing. My final scv count was 95, I was largely broke, and my expansions were delayed due to pressure. Replay: http://www.mediafire.com/?bn2li576k656t6b
I am rank 3 silver at the moment with this build and my last 10ish games have been against mid to high golds (highest being rank 5 if i remember correctly). I have ~80% winrate against these golds, and probably 90%+ against the silvers i was playing. So hopefully will get promoted soon if i keep beating these gold players.
What seems to be the most deciding factor in my games is the first attack. If i havent slipped up until the 7:00 mark then i will either deny his expansion or will cause a lot of damage ensuring he wont be able to mount any threatening attacks for a while. If he hasnt taken an expansion and is going one base i just poke up his ramp and if there is way too much defense just wait in his natural so he has to fight to leave his base. (yes i know this deviates from the A move his base plan but i think the strat is more of a guide where once you get the basics down improve upon it)
I have changed the build a little bit, instead of adding 2 rax at 8:00 i add just 1rax (vZ vT reactor, vP techlab) and 1 refinery instead and slightly earlier. Then at about 8:25 i get 2 E-bays and as soon as they finish start 1-1 and start stimpack (both at about 9:00 assuming you get the E-bays down on time). Then factory at about 9:40 and as soon as that finishes start an Armory (about 10:40). I try to also get a starport at about 11:30. I want to move out and attack and expand just as 1-1 and stimpack are about to finish (just before 12:00). Start 2-2 at this time to and get 2 refineries at the natural (or earlier if i have the spare mins). At about 13:00 i get 3 more rax (even out the total amount of techlabs and reactors). Then after pumping Marines Marauders and Medivacs i want to attack and expand again as soon as 2-2 finishes which is about 15:30 and start 3-3. I add more 4 more Rax (2 tech/2 reactor) and a starport for vikings if needed. Then attack and expand again when 3-3 finishes which is about 19:30 (if it looks like im going to reach 200/200 well before that time then i will attack earlier and then attack again at 19:30). Then keep attacking and expanding at 180+ food. So far i have only reached 3-3 once or twice. Most games end with the second attack with 1-1 and stim. If they are well defensed up at the front with the third attack i will drop with 1 or 2 of the medivacs in their base as im about to attack the front.
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I've been using this strategy for the past couple days and I can say for sure that it is amazing!
I've only been playing SC2, my first RTS, for about 2 weeks and I've gone about 18-4 with it and the three losses were because of:
-After first push, he went mass immortal and colossi
-Lost to 1-1-1 after 1st push walked into 4 siege tanks
-Cloaked banshees destroyed my base right after I had called MULE's.
-Couldn't get my 3rd and 4th expos because of constant Muta harrass, also lost my entire army to banelings and infested terran
Anyway, I'm confident that I'll be back into Silver soon enough!
Interesting stories:
-In one of the guys went for a 1 base carrier push, but held it off and he decided to build MASS cannons covering his ramp. Maybe 30-40 cannons. He only had that one base, 2 carriers, and about 10 probes, which were mining gas. Eventually I had to fly a barracks into his base and kill it off using about 4-5 marines. That was a 1 hour game. If I can find the replay I'll post it. It's great humour.
-I first placed into Silver and worked my way up to #8 in my division as Protoss, but then I lost 3 games in a row to cheesing bronze players (6-pools, cannon rushes) and was demoted to #13 Bronze even though my win/loss was about 60/40 in Silver. Dunno why I was demoted, but Bronze is really easy and I've already beaten a bunch of Silvers, a couple Golds and even one Platinum player!
I'll try to post some replays so I know what I'm doing wrong.
Also, I found some posts on Reddit about his macro only Protoss play using only Stalkers:
http://www.reddit.com/r/starcraft/comments/f7e8j/seriously_guys_if_youre_in_platinum_or_below_your/
http://www.reddit.com/r/starcraft/comments/f7qw9/followup_to_macrostomping_with_mass_stalkers_more/
Might be of interest to some.
Anyway, I'll be doing this build at least until I'm out of Bronze, probably even farther into SIlver and Gold. After that, I want to try and get good at Protoss and Zerg.
Cheers!
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It would help you to link to threads that actually
Give hints on how to GET BETTER AT MACRO
You start off talking about how this build lets you focus on macro.
Yet, your followup is ONLY a build order with timely expansions and NO EXPLANATION whatsoever on how to focus on macro. I must say this thread fails to deliver because you merely present a build order that is friendly to only TERRANS who aren't to the level to begin micro practice. You don't explain macro, talk about where you attention is at in this build, and a myriad of other things.
Bad form, Taerix. You may have started with the best of intentions but you [G] Guide result is far from the macro-focused product that TeamLiquid goers would expect!
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On March 14 2012 16:29 Danglars wrote:
It would help you to link to threads that actually
Give hints on how to GET BETTER AT MACRO
You start off talking about how this build lets you focus on macro.
Yet, your followup is ONLY a build order with timely expansions and NO EXPLANATION whatsoever on how to focus on macro. I must say this thread fails to deliver because you merely present a build order that is friendly to only TERRANS who aren't to the level to begin micro practice. You don't explain macro, talk about where you attention is at in this build, and a myriad of other things.
Bad form, Taerix. You may have started with the best of intentions but you [G] Guide result is far from the macro-focused product that TeamLiquid goers would expect!
This guide isn't for 'normal' TL goers afaik.
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Your video is very effective, and show how important macroing well is, in sc2.
Anyway it could be very hard to win even with this, if your opponent is terran and making siege tanks : you will sacrifice every 5min your army for nothing :-D
When you got a lot of ressources around 15min, you could have say something like "add 2 Engineering Bays, and search passive infantery upgrades". it is not very hard to do, and you can still be focused by your scv-expand-barracks-units macro.
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I´m in bronze and I´m trying this "build" out. (I kind of see it as an excercise). Its actually not weak against almost anything, well except for tanks. I recently played a game against a six-pooling zerg, and its really easy to hold. However if he is massing zerglings like crazy, you might wanna stay in your base a while longer, you´re still in the lead.
Thank you Taerix for this wonderful, wonderful guide. Cheers to you=)
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When i read the tutorial I thought "Isn't this what all terrans do?" hahahaha, but really this is actually a really nice guide that applies to alot more than just bronze leaguers, its really solid macro practice for anyone who has trouble getting past 2-3 base or 40-50 workers (Most of gold and plat)
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You have to make sure that you're improving faster than your fellow bronze players. To do this you must win more than you lose. Try to go for a 6:4 ratio to begin with! Good luck
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what I like in the video is how, even at T1, terran has a unit for dealing with armored AoE enemy units.
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You should try to incorporate a little "crippling blow" into your play. Think of something good to do for each match up. An example off the top of my head: Hellion Drop as a counter-attack (only use when you spot an attack coming - try to hide it).
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On March 14 2012 16:29 Danglars wrote:
It would help you to link to threads that actually
Give hints on how to GET BETTER AT MACRO
You start off talking about how this build lets you focus on macro.
Yet, your followup is ONLY a build order with timely expansions and NO EXPLANATION whatsoever on how to focus on macro. I must say this thread fails to deliver because you merely present a build order that is friendly to only TERRANS who aren't to the level to begin micro practice. You don't explain macro, talk about where you attention is at in this build, and a myriad of other things.
Bad form, Taerix. You may have started with the best of intentions but you [G] Guide result is far from the macro-focused product that TeamLiquid goers would expect!
?????????
given the amount of positive feedback how do you come to this conclusion?
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If you're losing with this build in bronze you simply need to practice it more. The key points in the video are all you need to know, up to gold. I have a macro practice account that plays silver/gold people and I have a 95% percent winrate with mass ling ZvP, ZvT, and mass roach ZvZ and I'm pretty bad. Little bit harder as Zerg, but if you're doing mass ling you can just tech to hydraden or spire early as a safety net. In ZvZ if they go muta while you're going roaches, more than half the time you can just send your roaches to his base and kill him. Macro is ridiculously important and this exercise highlights it. Great job.
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I really like this build and it makes me play somewhat better already, so thanks. I haven't managed to get out of Silver yet though, cos I can't get my TvP working (but getting mostly matched against P :-/ ).
I'm constantly having problems with Protoss that don't FE, but instead get somewhat many units until my 1st push arrives. I then get forcefielded and lose the push. Then the Protoss can safely expand just like I'm doing at home aswell, while I have nothing left to keep him from expanding. So he's kind of keeping up on the number of bases then, techs up to Colossi or Templar and eventually roflstomps me, because I don't have AoE-units, but he does.
So my question is: What do I do in TvP, when my 7:00min push arrives at his base and he hasn't expanded, but has a decent force at his choke?
Should I stay there and contain him as long as possible, but risk to lose the units for not much gain? If so, should I bunker up in front of his base?
Should I retreat and push again later with more units? When?
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On March 15 2012 17:59 BurningRanger wrote:
I really like this build and it makes me play somewhat better already, so thanks. I haven't managed to get out of Silver yet though, cos I can't get my TvP working (but getting mostly matched against P :-/ ).
I'm constantly having problems with Protoss that don't FE, but instead get somewhat many units until my 1st push arrives. I then get forcefielded and lose the push. Then the Protoss can safely expand just like I'm doing at home aswell, while I have nothing left to keep him from expanding. So he's kind of keeping up on the number of bases then, techs up to Colossi or Templar and eventually roflstomps me, because I don't have AoE-units, but he does.
So my question is: What do I do in TvP, when my 7:00min push arrives at his base and he hasn't expanded, but has a decent force at his choke?
Should I stay there and contain him as long as possible, but risk to lose the units for not much gain? If so, should I bunker up in front of his base?
Should I retreat and push again later with more units? When?
Try to snipe his sentries. That worked for me.
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On March 15 2012 17:59 BurningRanger wrote:
I really like this build and it makes me play somewhat better already, so thanks. I haven't managed to get out of Silver yet though, cos I can't get my TvP working (but getting mostly matched against P :-/ ).
I'm constantly having problems with Protoss that don't FE, but instead get somewhat many units until my 1st push arrives. I then get forcefielded and lose the push. Then the Protoss can safely expand just like I'm doing at home aswell, while I have nothing left to keep him from expanding. So he's kind of keeping up on the number of bases then, techs up to Colossi or Templar and eventually roflstomps me, because I don't have AoE-units, but he does.
So my question is: What do I do in TvP, when my 7:00min push arrives at his base and he hasn't expanded, but has a decent force at his choke?
Should I stay there and contain him as long as possible, but risk to lose the units for not much gain? If so, should I bunker up in front of his base?
Should I retreat and push again later with more units? When?
If you're forcefielded at the bottom of his ramp you can do a scanner sweep to get vision and hit whatever is whithin reach. Target those sentries.
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On March 15 2012 20:11 Snoodles wrote:Show nested quote +On March 15 2012 17:59 BurningRanger wrote:
I really like this build and it makes me play somewhat better already, so thanks. I haven't managed to get out of Silver yet though, cos I can't get my TvP working (but getting mostly matched against P :-/ ).
I'm constantly having problems with Protoss that don't FE, but instead get somewhat many units until my 1st push arrives. I then get forcefielded and lose the push. Then the Protoss can safely expand just like I'm doing at home aswell, while I have nothing left to keep him from expanding. So he's kind of keeping up on the number of bases then, techs up to Colossi or Templar and eventually roflstomps me, because I don't have AoE-units, but he does.
So my question is: What do I do in TvP, when my 7:00min push arrives at his base and he hasn't expanded, but has a decent force at his choke?
Should I stay there and contain him as long as possible, but risk to lose the units for not much gain? If so, should I bunker up in front of his base?
Should I retreat and push again later with more units? When? If you're forcefielded at the bottom of his ramp you can do a scanner sweep to get vision and hit whatever is whithin reach. Target those sentries.
You really havent got the idea. DONT micro. Just total focus at macro and expanding will make him fall behind if he cant multitask, wich he probably cant cuz he´s in silver. JUST macro and a-move.
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Ok, thanks for the tips, but they don't help me right now.
I really want to keep with the don't micro idea, but I also don't want to throw away units for nothing. So the idea would be to a-move the 7:00min push into the enemies natural. On the minimap i can see, if there's anything there. If there's something, it's quite much ok that my units will fight. But if there's nothing, the chance of just getting my units destroyed for nothing from a-moving them further into his main is a bit too high imo.
I shouldn't micro, ok, but I can move the units via minimap. The question is: Should I just leave them in his natural or retreat and include them in the next a-move attempt?
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On March 15 2012 17:59 BurningRanger wrote:
I really like this build and it makes me play somewhat better already, so thanks. I haven't managed to get out of Silver yet though, cos I can't get my TvP working (but getting mostly matched against P :-/ ).
I'm constantly having problems with Protoss that don't FE, but instead get somewhat many units until my 1st push arrives. I then get forcefielded and lose the push. Then the Protoss can safely expand just like I'm doing at home aswell, while I have nothing left to keep him from expanding. So he's kind of keeping up on the number of bases then, techs up to Colossi or Templar and eventually roflstomps me, because I don't have AoE-units, but he does.
So my question is: What do I do in TvP, when my 7:00min push arrives at his base and he hasn't expanded, but has a decent force at his choke?
Should I stay there and contain him as long as possible, but risk to lose the units for not much gain? If so, should I bunker up in front of his base?
Should I retreat and push again later with more units? When?
Retreat all your guys, expect for one marine. Hide that marine behind the min field of his Natural. When he takes his natural move in for the kill. (I will probably have Collossi, so you may need to focus fire the collosi).
Regards! (This build got me in Gold, it works, just keep doing it)
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On March 15 2012 21:20 the_fixxer wrote:Show nested quote +On March 15 2012 20:11 Snoodles wrote:On March 15 2012 17:59 BurningRanger wrote:
I really like this build and it makes me play somewhat better already, so thanks. I haven't managed to get out of Silver yet though, cos I can't get my TvP working (but getting mostly matched against P :-/ ).
I'm constantly having problems with Protoss that don't FE, but instead get somewhat many units until my 1st push arrives. I then get forcefielded and lose the push. Then the Protoss can safely expand just like I'm doing at home aswell, while I have nothing left to keep him from expanding. So he's kind of keeping up on the number of bases then, techs up to Colossi or Templar and eventually roflstomps me, because I don't have AoE-units, but he does.
So my question is: What do I do in TvP, when my 7:00min push arrives at his base and he hasn't expanded, but has a decent force at his choke?
Should I stay there and contain him as long as possible, but risk to lose the units for not much gain? If so, should I bunker up in front of his base?
Should I retreat and push again later with more units? When? If you're forcefielded at the bottom of his ramp you can do a scanner sweep to get vision and hit whatever is whithin reach. Target those sentries. You really havent got the idea. DONT micro. Just total focus at macro and expanding will make him fall behind if he cant multitask, wich he probably cant cuz he´s in silver. JUST macro and a-move.
Once you get the hang of it though right when your group gets there you have your expo underway, units queued, one supply depot being built, and 2 barracks ordered. You have a few seconds to see what your units are doing with no consequence to the build, and often times focus firing one-two units or a pylon can make the difference between your units doing no damage or GG. After a while you only have to look at your base to make buildings, supply depots, and drop mules; everything else can be done with hotkeys.
Also, Ive realized that league only tells you half the story. When I get matched, I have a higher win rate against golds than I do against high silvers. The golds are somewhere in the middle of their division, sometimes top 8. As for the high silvers, some are smurfs(platinum or diamond 1v1 past seasons) and some are just plain good and working hard to get out.
This strat has done me well up until now, but I don't think it alone will get me promoted again so I'm going to practice other strats. What it has done though is teach me what I can afford, when I can afford it, and how to reach 200 supply nearly every game while staying broke the whole time. I overproduce scvs more often than I underproduce them, and I often find myself with 80-100 scvs and 4 or 5 bases losing to people who made 30-60 and teched up or meched up.
It's really funny though. I've gone to BIO HELL and seen lots of marine marauder heartbreak. I've seen my 80-100 bio bio get siege bombarded, stormed, lawnmowered by collossi, exploded by banelings, infested, and one protoss beat me twice by just making cannons and void rays
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This build works, but if you want to keep getting better, you will need to adapt, like learning to deal with cheese. Eventually you are going to find that someone has a strategy that works against you, but then you will figure out how you can tweak this in your favor and start to win a lot more fights. In TvZ, I add Ebays and Medivacs whilst using a more Marine-heavy composition. In TvP, I try throwing down a Techtory and Reactorport just after I attack and expand and get ready to build Medivacs and Tanks to bolster my Bio or my expos. This allows me to pump out Vikings if I see Colossi as well. I got to top 10 bronze now thanks to this strategy, but I cannot go any further without changing my composition and starting to micro.
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On March 16 2012 16:37 imbroglio wrote: but I cannot go any further without changing my composition and starting to micro.
Like someone said earlier in this topic to similar complaint: post a replay of your playing the OP build. If you have trouble winning with it in bronze, it is 99% guaranteed to be lack of macro (yes, there're odd cases where the other player is doing something to directly counter this, but you still win like 9 out of 10 games). This mindless build should get you to gold league easily. It doesn't matter if you don't win instantly as you're throwing double or triple the numbers against typical bronze players, and preventing them to get even close to your production capability.
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When I was in bronze I followed a simple rule where I just built more raxx if I was running high on minerals and 2 weeks latter I was in plat. Sadly I am still in diamond after all that.
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On March 13 2012 04:22 imbroglio wrote:Show nested quote +On March 13 2012 00:34 Mormel wrote:On March 12 2012 18:46 taitanik wrote:
i think with this strategy bronze-platinum players will win or lose at that 7:30 attack In my experience: if the 7:30 attack did some damage,you're good. If it didn't do any damage, you win around 40%. Also, it got my out of bronze. I think in about 50 games. So thank you very much for the guide! TvP: *They build cannons and expand. Cannons aren't too bad, but the tanks just slaughter my army.
I am going to rock your world!!! Scout for the forge and... http://www.dramabutton.com/ ...EXPAND YOURSELF or even... http://www.dramabutton.com/ ... DOUBLE EXPAND!!!. Seriously tho cannons are so useless in TvP if the protoss makes cannons you are instantly ahead.
Edit the part about SIlver having superior strategies made me chuckle
ohh and I can share what I do against bronze/silver/gold. I build only reapers and somehow still win.
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On March 15 2012 22:19 BurningRanger wrote:
Ok, thanks for the tips, but they don't help me right now.
I really want to keep with the don't micro idea, but I also don't want to throw away units for nothing. So the idea would be to a-move the 7:00min push into the enemies natural. On the minimap i can see, if there's anything there. If there's something, it's quite much ok that my units will fight. But if there's nothing, the chance of just getting my units destroyed for nothing from a-moving them further into his main is a bit too high imo.
I shouldn't micro, ok, but I can move the units via minimap. The question is: Should I just leave them in his natural or retreat and include them in the next a-move attempt?
I think you should leave them in your opponents natural expansion, because that will keep him from taking an expansion without losing a big part of his army, and he´s behind cuz you have an expansion while he don´t. If you can keep your army there for long, he´ll have to multitask really well to keep you out of his base. And while you expand and expand, his main is getting mined out. Easy victory for you. Also, when you have gotten so good at macro mechanics that you dont have to think of it, you´re just doing, you can start to incorporating some micro, lika scanning the top of his ramp and killing sentries.
I hope this was to help=)
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Finally got out of bronze after 6 damn seasons thanks to you Taerix Thanks!!
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Hi
So I've decided to play terran for season 6. Also after a long break from starcraft 2.
I got placed in silver due to rating of season 5 (stopped playing mid s5)
Anyways terran I found incredibly difficult.
after a while I started getting only bronze players...
So I started trying todo this.
It works great so far.
Only I do a few other things later.
against protoss I always research concussive shell.
I like getting a engineering bay for +1 upgrades around 12-15 somewhere.
Then I find that just having marine/marauder breaks down vs a couple of things:
storms/collosi/lotsa tanks/lotsa banelings/infestors/cloaked banshees?
So late game (25:00) I do the following:
I get 1 factory which allows me to get armory so I can get +3/+3 on my marines/marauders.
Then I build about 3-5 starports. 1 with techlab for a raven and rest reactor for medi/viking.
vikings mostly to counter collosi - medi to keep units alive longer.
I also get stim around 20:00 normally.
That normally makes it harder to break the MMM ball.
My macro is still piss poor. but I'm winning some games vs silver. And I started to supply block less
Thanx for the guide.
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This build got me to rank 2 silver and I play only gold players it seems, but I lose all the time in TvZ now. I know I'm not executing it perfectly because drone harass etc throws me off but my initial push is always thwarted by ling baneling and each subsequent push dies the same way. It also gets hard to defend later expos such as the 4th base.
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Bronze here. Tried the build yesterday on ladder, after a few practice matches against AI. One advice I can give is to keep an eye on how your opponent is dealing with your army. I was keeping myself from looking at the engagements, where at some point (which was too late) I saw that my 120/200 army (the rest was scvs, except some 20-30 M&Ms waiting for the next wave) was being slaughtered by 10-ish DTs ^^ Apparently my huge bio ball was being slayed at my opponent's ramp while I was trying my best (and being successfull) to not to look at the engagement... Watching my thousands of barracks burning down while I was laughing my a** off to my mistake was worth the loss anyway.
Apart from this fun experience, I have seen myself doing/checking things without even thinking. I guess "good habits" are finding their way into my play. Another good part was, during the replay, seeing my opponent starving on minerals as my waves was killing his/her natural. How desperate s/he was...
Thanks very much for this build, Taerix
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Hey guys I'm almost on my 100th win after starting to use this strat (#1 Silver)and let me tell you the habit that this strat forms is really, really good for you. I average around 80 SCVs per game even though I've abandoned this strat in favor of Max's Terran Tutorial because unupgraded bio spam is useless against templars and collossus. Who cares if you have 20 or 40 more supply if 2 storms can void that advantage?
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Hey again - just a suggestion to OP:
Add a small explanation (spoiler) as to why it works so exceptionally well.
I conjured up some (maybe incorrect) info to get you started:
Why it works:
1. You can support continous MM production + SCVs and depots until 7:30 and have 400 minerals saved up for an expo.
2. You stop depot production since your 7:00 attack force will die and free up supply. Because of this you can afford 2 quick barracks immediately after expansion.
3. Your first base is saturated, you have the maximum number of useful SCVs mining there, just as your expansion is finished. Moving 8 SCVs to the expansion increases your income by about 50%. Now you can afford units off 4 barracks and double SCV+depot production.
4. With double SCV production and MULES your 3rd expo can be built as early as 10:30 and is finished right as your first two bases have the maximum number of useful SCVs. You can afford 4 barracks at around 12:00, in part because your 11:00 attack force starts to die and you can halt depot production briefly.
5. When your (quite early) 3rd kicks in all hell breaks loose and you can go completely nuts.
I guess most of the high level guys figure this out more or less automatically but for bronze-to-gold scrubs (as myself) this is not immediately clear. Learned from watching my own replays lol.
Oh, and after the 4th you can begin sacking SCVs (have them tag along on one of your attacks). Keep 1-2 on each mineral patch in each base and rely more on MULES. This way you get a bigger attack force against opponents that just refuse to die.
The neat bonus that the attacks at 7 and 11 completely blows away most early expanding opponents as well as those investing in too much tech on low base count... well... no... maybe focus on the macro part Or add 2 spoilers (one about why this is good economy and one about why the attack timings are so good).
TL;DR
Plz add spoilers as to why this works so well.
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High silver here being matched up against mostly gold and even a plat player; been using this strat to improve my macro, and I feel like in only about 15 games, I'm seeing progress. In fact, I even had one game where I had to send about 30 SCVs in to tank damage because I was sitting at over 100 SCVs. That is definitely a first for me.
I've been executing this build pretty decently every time, and definitely see where I can start changing the strat for each matchup. In each matchup, there is a bane of mine:
TvT: They'll have tanks on the high ground at the 7:00 attack, negating any damage I can do. Games last a long time, and I eventually can't do any damage throwing a hundred 0-0 marines and marauders against tanks and 3-3 marines with medivacs.
My next step: If they haven't expanded by my 7:00 push, get an engi bay for 1-1 and turrets for possible banshee harrass.
TvZ: This is probably my best matchup with this strat so far, but without stim especially it is really hard to deal with muta harrass and speedling runbys.
My next step: If I can't take their natural, take an engi bay for turrets and sensor towers, and research stim.
TvP: If they don't FE, I run into big problems. They'll kill off my 7:00 push with their 1-base army, and by the time they push back, I haven't gotten enough units up to defend, even with a bunker.
My next step: If they haven't expanded by my 7:00 push, I pull back and take my third even earlier.
You'll notice that in each of my solutions, I am still avoiding higher tier units if I can. I am guessing, however, that the next step beyond what I've said above will be medivacs or 3-3, though, requiring more tech.
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You sir are a god, just played a few games with this build, result: 3 wins 1 lose
I only lost because i didnt micro at all because he had storms but nevermind.
here are the replays:
Replays Game 1-3
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Here's a replay of me using this build to beat a gold level protoss who FE.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/34206218/Macro terran strat.SC2Replay
Note that I mixed stim and 1-1 in the strat to spend some more minerals (started a factory at the very end for 2-2 and 3-3). There were a few hiccups (like forgetting to rally half my barracks at one point and leaving half my army at home... but still ending up on top). I would just hit 1t whenever I saw my units were in combat - no more micro than that. I can get smoother on my upgrades, for sure.
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So i also have problems against zerg, against terra when he goes mech i micro a little bit. My Plan for zerg is now to do the first push, with the expand, take all the gas and build factory to add siege tanks to my army. Will this work out? Mabye also a starport and do a mass drop or something. In the early mid game the zerg is easy to beat. But in the endgame he has tons of bases and creep spread all over the place.
Also im super upset if my expos get harassed by my opponent. Just drop 1-2 bunkers or should i leave a part of my army there?
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I'm sure that adding tanks and drops would make this build stronger... but it goes against the whole point of the build, since you can't really just 1a tanks and dropships. If you're looking to do that kind of stuff and take winning seriously over just improving your macro, then I'd look for a more standard strategy than this.
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On March 22 2012 03:41 KiddCabbage wrote:
I'm sure that adding tanks and drops would make this build stronger... but it goes against the whole point of the build, since you can't really just 1a tanks and dropships. If you're looking to do that kind of stuff and take winning seriously over just improving your macro, then I'd look for a more standard strategy than this.
Tanks, not so much. But you can 1a dropships. I've taken to dropping an engineering bay, then a factory during production downtime if I have the minerals, and eventually an armory and second engineeering bay. Since I was adding a factory, I'd reactor it, build a starport next to it, then swap.
Now I have marines, marauders, and medivacs, with upgrades to help keep gas/minerals low (I usually only have 3 gas geysers). Then I have a mass bio ball with the flying healbus and upgrades, and I 1a-derp that at the enemy. The only problem comes if the opponent has some massive AoE (massed tanks, templars, colossi, banelings) but if I've outpaced my opponents with expansions, I normally will have enough meat shield to get through them. And with the medivacs, banelings can be survivable unless a zerg goes for an insanely high number of them. Have to be careful with pathing sometimes (medivacs taking the straight route showing up alone doesn't help) but it works. As for any static defense, after 4 bases I have enough minerals to litter the field with PFs to accompany my OCs, surrounded by supply depots and turrets.
Of course, I'm Silver, so YMMV - and I still don't win all the time with this build, but it's doing wonders for getting me into the habit of constantly thinking and checking on production. (I have thought to myself "Crap! Why isn't that barracks producing anything? Stupid!" when there's no combat rather than "Crap! Why can't I stutter step like MKP?!?" Which, I assure you is more productive... no one can stutter step like MKP.
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I beat a Diamond Zerg player(with twice my APM!) with a modified version of this strat. Basically after the third expo and 6th barracks I start upgrading and make medivacs. The medivacs are what saves you from infestors and banelings and allow you to hop from base to base to pressure zerg. granted I'm sure it caught the diamond by suprise because nobody does this and if he had known how to prepare I wouldn't have stood a chance.
http://www.mediafire.com/?p22h1p181w07651
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I started this strategy 3 days ago and have posted some replays of when it went good and when "I" went bad. The strategy is solid and makes those little mistakes so glaring when they happen (like not repairing a 6 pool wall attack).
I've consistently moved up in my division, feel I play better AND with less stress, games are closer, it's easier to fight cheese or all-in as Terran (I struggled with 6pool as Toss) AND when I tech or micro my macro doesn't suffer like it sure would have if I hadn't started this strat. It's great at building good habits, albeit I have yet to remember to do everything. At the least, it's gotten me to pay attention to details so something that is LATE is better than before when it would have been FORGOTTEN.
The one really beneficial change to my play is now I am always expecting, pushing, planning to be the aggressor because I can continue to macro.
Thank you!
http://www.gamereplays.org/starcraft2/replays.php?game=33&show=member_replays&member_id=203794
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United Kingdom20285 Posts
On March 19 2012 06:21 Snoodles wrote:
Hey guys I'm almost on my 100th win after starting to use this strat (#1 Silver)and let me tell you the habit that this strat forms is really, really good for you. I average around 80 SCVs per game even though I've abandoned this strat in favor of Max's Terran Tutorial because unupgraded bio spam is useless against templars and collossus. Who cares if you have 20 or 40 more supply if 2 storms can void that advantage?
1rax expand gets 2 medivacs before storm finishes unless you rush to it really hard, are you really telling me with a 1 base opener you cant kill him before templar?
1 base colossus is another story, but im sure until ~platinum level you could defeat it with unupgraded marines and good macro (low idle money), maybe a flank or two on the army.
2 base colossus, well, you can simply kill him again, because honestly, even in mid diamond atm (i was too inactive, so il be around there for a few dozen games) i find that people cant macro at all, and i see them spike to 3k+ minerals when trying to manage taking a fourth and fifth base, after having shaky, questionable openings, missing any timings that they should have hit completely, leaving production idle, placing buildings late, and worst of all, not knowing WHY they are doing what they are doing.
With this you are simply building lots of marines and spending your money well so that you can attack move over about 70% of the active starcraft 2 community players (mid platinum) if you know the time in a specific game that it is appropriate to do so. Have basic game knowledge and tweak the expand/attack timings with the information from basic scouting (not sure if that is in the OP) and you are really, honestly, good for much more than silver/gold
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On March 13 2012 07:44 j89007 wrote:
Your right, this is a good build for Low-level Bronze players to take advantage of. I wouldn't rely on it though. Just more like an example to build upon. Great job though!
I agree with your point " Just more to build on", but are all bronze level players low level?. Is there a cut off in the
in Bronze say the top 25? Would you consider Silver and Gold low level,Bronze being the lowest in that group?
My average rank for seasons 3 thru 5 is 25. I am presently rank 7 in season 6. I am 16 and 5 since I started this build.
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Currently in silver, I never intended on playing terran but this macro drilling is great, not because I'm winning most of the time but rather because I can feel my muscle memory getting better and better which means my mechanics are getting better.
Thanks Taerix.
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On March 19 2012 06:21 Snoodles wrote:
Hey guys I'm almost on my 100th win after starting to use this strat (#1 Silver)and let me tell you the habit that this strat forms is really, really good for you. I average around 80 SCVs per game even though I've abandoned this strat in favor of Max's Terran Tutorial because unupgraded bio spam is useless against templars and collossus. Who cares if you have 20 or 40 more supply if 2 storms can void that advantage?
you have mobility to make up for the weaker army, drop drop drop to his death feels really good if you can do it right
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Haha.. that's interesting to see this post.
I definitely recall playing you Taerix on ladder.
I kept wondering why you kept sending huge congo lines of marine/marauder with absolutely no micro.
Fun to play against too.
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Ive been trying this build out in top silver and its working best in this order ( according to the games i played it );
1) vs Zerg
2) vs Protoss
3) vs Terran
Reasons;
1) Zerg mostly goes FE vid mainly zergs+queens+spines as defence when the first attack comes which often is not enough with the marauders in the mix so this typically results in their FE being destroyed
2) Its often abit harder do execute this build against protoss'es with decent micro depending on how fast they expand due
to they having enough zeolots to completely block and crush the first attack and then they often Counter and take out my expand which delayes everything
3) I found it very risky do execute this build at all vs Terran since most terrans in TvT dont go FE, rather teching fast and get 1-2 tanks out super fast.
Rushing marines+marauders against walled-in tanks on the highground doesnt work that well.
Overall im very happy to have learned this build since it gives very good results against Zergs and Protoss'es with alot more wins then losses but any tips on how to make it more vs Terran useful? Im currently not using it in TvT at all
Perhaps: On the first attack,Why dont just check for the FE, send some lonly marine forward to see if there are any tanks;
1) Yes he have tanks: Add a factory and a starport and convert to reactor starport. Start dropping and use the fact that tanks are slow and as he have to move his small army to defend the drops you can at the mean time break in his door and ideally take out the tanks
Other than that just execute the build as instructed
This build is macro intended i know but you can just add drop play with loading up, right click on the location on the map and then D and it will drop automatically where you want it. With the huge resources this build provides this should work well without affecting your economy to much and if you do it right it will make the opponents economy bleed and he will have to divide his army --> Make him more vulnerable to your real attacks
All in All: Start dropping in TvT and TvP
Though this shouldnt be done before the FE ofcourse
What do you guys think?
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I've had the least problems in TvT with this build yet (having it just changed a little by switching the Combat Shields with Stim and doing that little bit of micro by stimming my stuff before going into a fight and then back to macro).
However the problem with the enemy that didn't expand I know from Protosses. So regardless of your enemies' race, if they didn't expand it's imo best to run a marine up his main ramp. Sometimes you find quite few stuff there, cos he was trying something fishy, and you can run the rest up to go for the kill. If he happens to have a load of stuff there, just leave a marine at his natural and walk the rest home. Maybe even leave another one somewhere on the way home, so you can see any attack coming early enough.
So as you have expanded while moving out, you're now ahead in eco, if he didn't expand. Just go on following this guide building stuff like crazy and expanding further. If you see him take his expansion finally, go punish him for trying to get a toe onto the map.
I think everyone can put up a little bit of micro inbetween the macro. So send your army to a bit outside of the enemies base. When they arrive, jump your screen there, move all Marauders to the front and then box everything and (Stim) attackmove and go back to macro. Doesn't afford much, but Marauders are so much better meatshields than Marines. They even take a few Tankshots or Baneling hits without too much of a problem.
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Finaly got promoted to silver last week after about 40 wins using this build exlusicivly. Facing mostly Silver and some gold opponents now I find that I can still generaly still overwhelm Zerg and Protoss opponents unless the colosues count gets out of hand but my win rate in TvT is pretty bad. Now my macro is far from perfect so that is part of issue but it seems like as infuseE said alot of Terrans turtle and tech quickly to tanks basicly sending your first two pushes to the slaughter unless you retreat (and without tanks yourself it's hard to contain them) and then doom drop you in your main. I guess i'll try to start messing around drops myself.
I also notice that while you get a really instinct on how to spend minerals when I'm trying to add some gas stuff to my build I'm pretty bad at spending it efficiently (floating lots of gas) but I guess that's matter of practice.
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Hey man, here comes another big thank you for this build, finally I'm really improving my macro!
I've been in EU Bronze pretty much from release until now (apart from a brief stint in Silver which felt undeserved and made me very uncomfortable), but now I'm firmly in Silver and facing mostly Top 25 Silver and Gold, still winning about 80% of my matches Most of my losses have been due to a bad response to cheese however, so I rarely get outmacroed and win even when my units are hardcountered (banes, siege lines, colossi).
Also, today I went on the NA ladder with the intention to play until I lost a game. After 5 hours my win streak was ended by a Blue Screen of Death and a sudden pc reboot. I was at 14 wins in a row by that point. Somehow I feel Blizzard hacked my pc ^^
Anyway, thanks very much again, I have almost no ladder anxiety anymore just by doing this build with confidence, so I can finally 'just play' and improve! <3
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I've been messing with this when time allows over the past couple months, and it's definitely a nice foundation for my play. My question is -- is there some sort of benchmark to measure yourself against to know when you've hit the mark with this build and can start deviating from it? Basically, is there some sort of standard to measure oneself against since winning/losing doesn't specifically mean you are doing it "right"? For example, is there a certain point where one should hit 200 supply with a 2:1 ratio of marines/marauders? I'm not sure that's the best benchmark, as obviously there's plenty of units to be lost at that point. Is maximum efficiency met when you can support X barracks per orbital command with minimal floating resources?
I was accidentally moved into gold after moving away from SC2 as bronze, then getting lucky in my 5 placement matches a season or two ago, and now I'm back in Silver which may or may not be appropriate. I'm looking forward to diving deep in Season 7 and seeing if I can finally make my game a lot less ugly. Thanks in advance for the help!
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Hi all
I am having problems with Terran. I am beating Protoss and Zerg, but lost my last 5 games against Terran.
Teraan with tanks are destroying me. I have seen other post stating the problem,but I have not seen a workable response.
Please advise.
Thanks
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On April 10 2012 22:00 Loxon wrote:
I've been messing with this when time allows over the past couple months, and it's definitely a nice foundation for my play. My question is -- is there some sort of benchmark to measure yourself against to know when you've hit the mark with this build and can start deviating from it? Basically, is there some sort of standard to measure oneself against since winning/losing doesn't specifically mean you are doing it "right"? For example, is there a certain point where one should hit 200 supply with a 2:1 ratio of marines/marauders? I'm not sure that's the best benchmark, as obviously there's plenty of units to be lost at that point. Is maximum efficiency met when you can support X barracks per orbital command with minimal floating resources?
I don't think there's a real measure or benchmark after your first push (upto then there's not much to deviate from so the numbers are quite clear). After that you can just load the replay and check for idle production or update buildings, supply blocks... well... the macro stuff that we're learning here... and when/why it happened.
Also I think you will deviate from this build quite much automatically over time. You will start microing more as macro goes faster. Then while microing your ... off and still losing tons of marines to banelings, you will start deviating by adding tanks for example. Then you'll have to focus on your macro again, because that additional unit might mix up your macro cycles. You'll finally get things with macro and the additional unit feeling good, but then something else comes up... change something, refine it... you get the idea.
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On April 10 2012 22:22 awaller wrote:
Hi all
I am having problems with Terran. I am beating Protoss and Zerg, but lost my last 5 games against Terran.
Teraan with tanks are destroying me. I have seen other post stating the problem,but I have not seen a workable response.
Please advise.
Thanks
Most problem i've seen here so far is with Terrans that stay on 1 base and turtle with tanks for quite long. I guess that's your problem too. The response is just to expand and build more units. If you have double his bases, it doesn't matter, if you lose tons of units in tankshots. You just insta-rebuild them and throw them against his tanks again. If you concentrate on macro, you should be able to out-produce and starve him.
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Just one question from a bronze-newbie :-) Does this build really work in all three matchups? I mean I know I won`t win every game witch that build but you pointed out that this is how you can win a lot generally right?
Thanks and greets
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I mean I know I won`t win every game witch that build
Sorry typing fail :-) I meant "with" of course
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On April 10 2012 23:52 Ope wrote:
Just one question from a bronze-newbie :-) Does this build really work in all three matchups? I mean I know I won`t win every game witch that build but you pointed out that this is how you can win a lot generally right?
Thanks and greets
Having tried a similar build in silver with pure marine instead of rines and rauders, I'd say it works best against Zerg, reasonably well against Toss and poorly against Terran. In the end my winrates looked like
TvZ 80%
TvP 70%
TvT 10%
Even if it only works in two matchups its well worth learning, though. And if you get sick of getting trounced by Terran who are aware of the existence of siege tanks and have passable macro, then you can either
-work even harder on your macro
-work on flanking his army with multiple groups of MM and stimming in while he's unsieged
-add medivacs and practice using drops to get around his tanks
-try a different build for TvT while keeping the macro lessons you've learned. Marine/tank/viking needs good macro too!
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You said it works against Zerg very well, even if he`s playing Banelings? My Marinesplit is definitely bad as hell!
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On April 11 2012 03:15 Ope wrote:
You said it works against Zerg very well, even if he`s playing Banelings? My Marinesplit is definitely bad as hell!
Surprisingly, yes! Just make more marines then he has banelings.
http://drop.sc/157588
(apologies if that's not the one with the banelings, I don't have them labelled well, but you can get the idea).
Works against infestors too, for now.
http://drop.sc/153670
The reason this works against Zerg more than Terran and Protoss, is that you're costing the Zerg resources every time he suicides some banelings or spends infestor energy on fungals, so if you keep attacking he will run out of both. Whereas a well positioned colossus or siegetank force can take down masses of marines and marauders with very little casualties. So that's where the Soviet style human wave attacks stop working, and you need to get a bit more subtle.
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(but not queued up!)
I don't like this advice to players that are struggling with macro.
Yes, it's strictly true for perfect macro, but it's FAR better to have some queued SCVs than to skip production. OK, don't queue up 5 or anything, but having one or even two in the pipe helps beginning players smooth out the rough edges of their play. They can work on no-queue later when they have the rhythm of macro down well.
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It's funny how much different the experiences in matchups are. I have most problems in TvZ, because usually he runs the Lings by my Marauders and kills the Marines first so I don't have enough dps anymore. From there on it's an uphill battle for me. Although I also won games where I threw wave after wave of MM into Banelings.
In TvT I have the least problems, when the opponent goes tanks, because he just has so much less stuff to protect them. I must admit though that I micro a little to focus tanks down first.
TvP is quite ok... just had some problems here and there, if the opponent was on 1 base when I pushed the first time.
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On April 11 2012 17:07 BurningRanger wrote:
It's funny how much different the experiences in matchups are. I have most problems in TvZ, because usually he runs the Lings by my Marauders and kills the Marines first so I don't have enough dps anymore. From there on it's an uphill battle for me. Although I also won games where I threw wave after wave of MM into Banelings.
In TvT I have the least problems, when the opponent goes tanks, because he just has so much less stuff to protect them. I must admit though that I micro a little to focus tanks down first.
TvP is quite ok... just had some problems here and there, if the opponent was on 1 base when I pushed the first time.
Strangely enough I have just lost 1 TvZ with this strategy (1 base baneling bust). I send the first two waves straight to the natural and the 3rd wave I split up if I spot a 3rd base. This causes most Z to loose either the natural or the 3rd base (yes the infamous 1 army hotkey syndrome). Tbh I havent met anyone going pure mass zerglings but I can see the problem. Do you have a replay?
This game my build flew out the window since a big pack of mutas made things... interesting: drop.sc/158100 I even had to cheat (got an ebay).
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On April 11 2012 17:07 BurningRanger wrote:
It's funny how much different the experiences in matchups are. I have most problems in TvZ, because usually he runs the Lings by my Marauders and kills the Marines first so I don't have enough dps anymore. From there on it's an uphill battle for me. Although I also won games where I threw wave after wave of MM into Banelings.
In TvT I have the least problems, when the opponent goes tanks, because he just has so much less stuff to protect them. I must admit though that I micro a little to focus tanks down first.
TvP is quite ok... just had some problems here and there, if the opponent was on 1 base when I pushed the first time.
He ... ran his lings past your marauders and killed your marines? That's pretty much what you want to happen, lings should get shredded by marines.
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On April 10 2012 23:52 Ope wrote:
Just one question from a bronze-newbie :-) Does this build really work in all three matchups? I mean I know I won`t win every game witch that build but you pointed out that this is how you can win a lot generally right?
I've gradually worked my way into platinum with minor modifications of this build -- I have slowly added infantry upgrades; a bit of mule conservation around 7m vs. terran/protoss when I am worried about cloak, and a minimal amount of micro.
(Minimal amount of micro: Maybe we'll move forward a bit so the automatic attacks will target the hatchery, not the larva; perhaps a scan to destroy the dark templar; perhaps another attack-move command after the infestors fungal all my troops would help kill those defenseless infestors...)
In general, I find this works best against Zerg. Even with banelings, infestors, or countless bases, Zerg just doesn't make enough and the constant waves of troops is enough to pound Zerg into the ground. Counter-attacks and mutalisks are just not very threatening when you are always in their base.
It works so-so against Terran, even after I've stopped hurling troops into heavily defended siege lines. I do fine against non-tank strategies and I can usually win a war of attrition against a 2-base seige tank terran. But otherwise tanks + medivacs + stim usually beat me out (although usually I'm behind on my macro by that point, so I'm not saying it can't work).
Protoss -- it works well, but games usually end early. Protoss that get 3+ bases and AoE up are usually fatal.
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On April 12 2012 09:58 Klyberess wrote:
He ... ran his lings past your marauders and killed your marines? That's pretty much what you want to happen, lings should get shredded by marines.
No, actually I want the lings to attack the marauders (=meatshields) in the front, so the marines can shred them unharmed.
And btw... that's just in the first push, when the Zerg has FE'ed and has lings and spines only to defend. I'm behind, if I couldn't kill the expansion... atleast that's my impression.
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I just wanna thank you for this, it helped me progress a lot as terran !
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Bouncing between high silver, mid-silver with this build up from high bronze on the Aussie server.
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I play Toss, and I'm unsure how this build would get me out of Bronze at all in EU.
There are players in High Bronze who literally steamroll me simply with counters, higher tech or better micro.
The level I play at in High Bronze involves Specific builds, tech switching and reactivity to unit comps.
I'm guessing a build like this for Toss would involve the same expansion timings, just using the typical 9 Pylon/13 Gate/15 Gas/16 Pylon/17 Cyber/Warpgate Research + 2 or 3 Gateway build With an expand.
Ball of Stalkers and Zealots to deal with Roaches or Lings and Marines or Marauders.
The issue is, by the time the second expansion is up, if the pressure from the 7 min push hasnt crippled the opponent he will respond to the push with an expansion and a tech increase with upgrades and teir 2/3 units.
I usually play 3 Gate Robo as standard vs Terran and Zerg (When playing Zerg I get 2 Gate + Zealots + Wall-off and transition into Robo to counter tech switch to roaches), PvP is my worst matchup and will be worked on later so I tend to DT Rush that matchup
My biggest problem recently is Zerg, they seem to be going Mutas alot and harrassing my main base - its frustrating and it ruins my macro and forces me to tech to blink early and use a lot of minerals on Cannons - Is this something that can be mitigated by high macro/low micro play? I wouldve thought not unless a base race is intended to ensue.
Either way, I'll give this a go, replacing the Marines with Lots and the Marauders with Stalkers, and the Rax with Gateways, while making a few tweaks that feel right for me as a player.
I'll post feedback either way, saying either why it worked, or why it didnt.
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I would like to share some of my experiences with this build as well. I have not played Multiplayer in Broodwar and started using this training routine after first couple of games in SC2, when I was mid-bronze.
In Bronze league this training routine does exactly what it is supposed to do - it allows you to practice your macro while still winning games. In bronze this allowed me to have around 90% win ration, while still making errors. The enemy race didn't really matter, everything got steamrolled by size of my army.
I feel the a-attack enemy base was the main point here and made me realize how much focus I put on managing my army made me fall behind on my macro before. The only army managment I needed to use straight off was focus a supply depot in terran wall, as without it the army just wandered around enemy platform. As I played this (even with this high win ratio It was quite a few games I was sitting on top position in my bronze league) it learned to have enough time to check my scouting or control the army more and more, without slips on macro.
Bottom part of Silver league looked pretty much the same. When I reached top of Silver (where I am now) things started to vary a bit. Protoss are still easy to beat and it takes an exceptional (for this level) protoss to beat you. Zergs are somewhat more resiliant. I still have a decent win rate, but it is much harder than against protoss. Roach pushes or mutalisks are not a problem, but if he goes zergling/baneling heavy he will anihilate me if I a-attack over creep. And if the oponent manages to tech to Broodlords it is gg.
This does not trouble me, as I still consider this a training routine more than 'always win' strategy', and win rate against zerg is still quite decent. However, against terran this strategy is almost a certain loss at this level. If he put a bunker at front door and didn't FE your first push will do minimal damage. And if the second push doesn't cripple your enemy this is over, as when opponent has more than two siege tanks your attacks do no damage to him. If you keep the marine+marauder only routine, you eventually die to MMM + tanks.
All in all this routine allowed me to improve my macro a ton, while also getting me to top silver league (I think even with poor TvT matchup it will/would get me to gold soon enough). As time progresses I find more and more time to add additional army control, upgrades, etc. It is also clear from this point how I transition into MMM, Marine+tank, etc.
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How come the OP never followed up this in this thread?
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I'm also hitting a wall at high silver as in, when the initial push fails to cripple the opponent, it's hard to keep up with his later splash damage units (Colossi, Tanks, Banelings).
I think you can actually use this thread as follow up: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=330787
I'd recommend watching the Bronze league videos too, because you might need them for the initial build idea.
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Oh god, but you can still do it with cheese right?
Tell me you can.
*horrified face*
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Fun tip, in bronze, its likely that neither of you will be macroing during a battle, so if you do, you win. It's much harder to build production than make units while battling, so try this...
hotkey 8 of your scv's in main as any hotkey, say 8.
while you are in battle, WATCH your money, not battle, if its high, double tap 8 and you can insta-make buildings in ur main!
go back to battle and even though you didnt micro, the battle probably would have gone a-ok.
after battle you probably have double his production
mass up second round of units and win
glgl
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Two more replays. These went 30 minutes, unlike my normal 15 minute games against Protoss. I don't play that many ladder games and seem to get alot of protoss. Been practicing mostly against the computer, this past week. My apm looks like has improved, from 40 to 50 apm. Once again, I am bronze and these 2 games are against silver players.
1v1 Johny vs RiZen PvT
1st game, he didn't make a single gatway unit. Only cannons, mass Carriers and mothership. He got a ninja expand early, typical of mass air toss. He made 2 motherships, which I was able to kill off.
1v1 RiZen vs Spaniard TvP
This game the Protoss was very aggressive. Constant early attack. Normally, I am the agressor. That probably threw me off. Made a simple, but big mistake. When I made the 2 additional rax, I hotkeyed but forgot set the rally point. So I was fighting with only 1/2 of my army. Didn't even realize until after, I was maxed.
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Taerix,
First off thank you so much. This has vastly improved my game from what it used to be with 1000+ avg resource unspent, it is now down below 650 into 20 minute+ games. Of the past 15 or so I have played I only lost 4, the beginning 3 and a TvP 3gate robo where I missed my timings, and suffered with having barely any units out /faceroll.
I started in Bronze, and was promoted to Silver after playing 5 games (3 losses in a row, then 2 wins in a row) I am now a Top 30 Silver playing Top 8 Silvers, and any range of Gold ( I don't ladder too often, I'm still a bit nervous and clumsy- adrenaline sucks all the blood from my hands :X)
Since I have gone on to incorporate Stim, and Concussive Shells- as well as double ebay on top of the 2 rax as I expand for 1/1+ upgrades. The only Micro I do is to box units A-move, then when they reach destination box units click T for stim, back to macro.
It's amazing how in lower leagues, and really in general SC2 is all about just massing more units than the opponent and now that I focus on my macro it just seems so much easier, and I have gotten so much better. I never used to expand, I would always 1 base Terran, I'm now frequently on 4 or more bases by the end of the game, though I do like to keep around 70 SCVs and not more than that really as I like to pump out a good bit of army  .
I plan on incorporating Factory w/ Armory (for 2/2+), and Starport (for Medivacs) now and seeing how far that can get me. You have shown the way for a lot of gamers that just didn't know where to start, and I was one of them.
If anyone is up for it I have a replay pack for analyzation of all the games I've used this build plus or minus alterations of mine like Stim, and Concuss
http://www.mediafire.com/?67680xm6cdb5had
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I want to bump this thread for three reasons.
1) To thank Taerix once again for helping me to get where I am (currently high plat EU). Currently Filter gets a lot of terran praise (and rightfully so), but this is a very good educational tutorial as well.
2) I would recommend new players to go over this tutorial, before Filter's one. It is easier to master and is a bit more resilient in Bronze league (as you get more units early on and hit enemy faster). Additionally later on it gives you more versality, as you feel confident in two openings (1rax FE from Filter's tutorials and this 2-rax play)
3) In some recent tournaments I saw 2-rax opening pop up quite a few times. Granted it is usually proxied and hits much faster (with 3 or 5 marines), but where I stand the marine/marauder push, when used against protoss, is very powerful and can usually allow you to catch up with your economy (after being behind from not fast expanding).
Since I recently had very little success with 1 rax FE against protoss I started using this build again. On one hand if he tries to 4-gate me I don't have trouble defending with early marauders. On the other - I can hit his natural waay before collosi, storm or even a very high unit count. This allows me to play a far more equal game than from 1rax fe. The question is whether you consider it cheesing or playing like this on platinum level is considered a valid 'pressure build' (simmilar to zerg whose old 'all-in' builds are now considered 'pressure').
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It seems like people never learn from game theory, if they even know what game theory is. The idea that such a solution could exist to get out of bronze is negated by you publishing it! Why? Let's say that your advice becomes popular, and you are by far not the first person to give this advice, then what happens when you play somebody who uses the exact same strategy? Assuming it works well in the current meta-game, then it should catch on as people either read about it, or see it being used against them, thus increasing the likelyhood you will run into it during one of your games. Since they are using the exact same build as you, it will come down to tiny efficiencies in execution. You will start to loose more and more games until you settle in at about 50-50, and you will stop progressing in leagues.
Somebody will figure out that a particular cheese works really well against this build and they will win most of their games, and that will become the next big thing, until the cycle has repeated itself. This guide is no less a gimmick than cheesing is because it asks you to rely on a "trick". That trick may be macro based, but it is still a trick. You aren't learning how to play the game, your just leaning how to mass a couple units and A-move. Day9 actually had a pretty discussion about why that is a problem and how he used to do it in his pro SC days.
Anybody who tells you that you can get out of [INSERT LEAGUE HERE] by doing [INSERT BUILD HERE] is selling you snake oil, whether they intended to or not. There is no miracle build or cheese or strategy that make you win games. You have to practice, read, watch replays, and most importantly, learn to think quickly and react to the situation on the ground. If you can't react to your opponent, and you just rely on a build order or cheese, then you will never become a good player, even if you do get promoted.
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On August 09 2012 03:47 sfdrew wrote:
It seems like people never learn from game theory, if they even know what game theory is. The idea that such a solution could exist to get out of bronze is negated by you publishing it! Why? Let's say that your advice becomes popular, and you are by far not the first person to give this advice, then what happens when you play somebody who uses the exact same strategy? Assuming it works well in the current meta-game, then it should catch on as people either read about it, or see it being used against them, thus increasing the likelyhood you will run into it during one of your games. Since they are using the exact same build as you, it will come down to tiny efficiencies in execution. You will start to loose more and more games until you settle in at about 50-50, and you will stop progressing in leagues.
Somebody will figure out that a particular cheese works really well against this build and they will win most of their games, and that will become the next big thing, until the cycle has repeated itself. This guide is no less a gimmick than cheesing is because it asks you to rely on a "trick". That trick may be macro based, but it is still a trick. You aren't learning how to play the game, your just leaning how to mass a couple units and A-move. Day9 actually had a pretty discussion about why that is a problem and how he used to do it in his pro SC days.
Anybody who tells you that you can get out of [INSERT LEAGUE HERE] by doing [INSERT BUILD HERE] is selling you snake oil, whether they intended to or not. There is no miracle build or cheese or strategy that make you win games. You have to practice, read, watch replays, and most importantly, learn to think quickly and react to the situation on the ground. If you can't react to your opponent, and you just rely on a build order or cheese, then you will never become a good player, even if you do get promoted.
There's a lot of truth in what you are saying but I, as a forever Bronze Leaguer, have found is that if you want to macro out of bronze there is a build order to try and it fits in with what you've been saying.
1 Rax FE is the macro build to practice. It requires good macro fundamentals including SCVs AND Production facilities. It forces you to scout to survive and opens up a wide variety of mid-game strategies.
Having used it exclusively for the past several months I'm now playing mostly silver. My failure to progress out of bronze is mostly due to other reasons.
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On August 09 2012 03:47 sfdrew wrote:
It seems like people never learn from game theory, if they even know what game theory is. The idea that such a solution could exist to get out of bronze is negated by you publishing it! Why? Let's say that your advice becomes popular, and you are by far not the first person to give this advice, then what happens when you play somebody who uses the exact same strategy? Assuming it works well in the current meta-game, then it should catch on as people either read about it, or see it being used against them, thus increasing the likelyhood you will run into it during one of your games. Since they are using the exact same build as you, it will come down to tiny efficiencies in execution. You will start to loose more and more games until you settle in at about 50-50, and you will stop progressing in leagues.
Somebody will figure out that a particular cheese works really well against this build and they will win most of their games, and that will become the next big thing, until the cycle has repeated itself. This guide is no less a gimmick than cheesing is because it asks you to rely on a "trick". That trick may be macro based, but it is still a trick. You aren't learning how to play the game, your just leaning how to mass a couple units and A-move. Day9 actually had a pretty discussion about why that is a problem and how he used to do it in his pro SC days.
Anybody who tells you that you can get out of [INSERT LEAGUE HERE] by doing [INSERT BUILD HERE] is selling you snake oil, whether they intended to or not. There is no miracle build or cheese or strategy that make you win games. You have to practice, read, watch replays, and most importantly, learn to think quickly and react to the situation on the ground. If you can't react to your opponent, and you just rely on a build order or cheese, then you will never become a good player, even if you do get promoted.
While what you are saying does seem to make sense, you are missing a key point. EXECUTION. You are saying people should learn the whole game at once. This is simply ineffective. It's basically like asking someone to learn how to play tennis (any sport can be applied here) before they have learned to run. They may have learnt every shot and every response to every shot and how to play out the game from a certain shot but since he cannot run then they will still lose horribly.
Macro is like running. It is the base line of everything in the game and so should be the first thing you learn. Once you have good macro you can then learn game theory. It's pointless learning game theory first because you will still lose to someone who can out macro you. In low leagues you simply just need more stuff than your opponent. i remember winning games with pure un upgraded clumped non micro'd marines against banes/tanks/colossus and still winning easily.
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On August 09 2012 19:46 Captain Marksie wrote:
While what you are saying does seem to make sense, you are missing a key point. EXECUTION. You are saying people should learn the whole game at once. This is simply ineffective. It's basically like asking someone to learn how to play tennis (any sport can be applied here) before they have learned to run. They may have learnt every shot and every response to every shot and how to play out the game from a certain shot but since he cannot run then they will still lose horribly.
Macro is like running. It is the base line of everything in the game and so should be the first thing you learn. Once you have good macro you can then learn game theory. It's pointless learning game theory first because you will still lose to someone who can out macro you. In low leagues you simply just need more stuff than your opponent. i remember winning games with pure un upgraded clumped non micro'd marines against banes/tanks/colossus and still winning easily.
I understand what you are saying, but consider this, let's say that you employ this strategy and it works really well, to the point that you go from Bronze to Plat, or even Diamond. Because the strategy works, then you are just going to keep using it. However, at some point it will stop working and you will move into a league where players can beat you easily. What do you have to fall back on? Nothing. You haven't been learning the game properly. You haven't practiced micro, so your A-move army is going to trade badly, and you haven't practiced transitioning to better late game units, so your composition is going to suck. Your macro may be able to keep pace with your opponent, but everything else will be lacking. It's a similar position people who cheese their way up the ranks find themselves in, which is that the one thing they can do well stops working and now they have no other options.
You could argue that when that point comes, they can start learning other parts of the game and gradually incorporating them into their play, as you suggested with the Tennis analogy, and that would be ok, and many people have advocated that (learning one new thing per league promotion), but I think it's a violent way to learn the game. If it were a function, it would look jagged and discontinuous. You keep bouncing back and forth between doing really, really well, and then suddenly really terribly. I believe a smoother transition is better in the long run. It may be slower at first, and many people may not have the patience, but the acceleration should be rapid after a turning point.
I am in Bronze myself, which may be reason enough for people disregard what I'm saying, but I expect to get promoted out at the next season. I frequently get accused of being a smurf, usually by real smurfs who didn't expect me to put up a good fight. I have played people who use this strategy and I mow them down like hot butter. It may work against people who are completely incompentent (aka most Bronze players), but it will fall apart quickly once they start playing anybody with any skill at all. A large army of either one or two basic units, that attacks with A-move is very easy to kill. It may get you out of Bronze league, but then what? You're practically starting from square one again. Your muscle memory is conditioned to that one build, so you are going to make a lot of mistakes when you try something different, and since you haven't been using the other units and structures, you aren't going to be familiar with them. You're forcing yourself to climb a big mountain over and over agian, with a steep face instead of taking the long, easy path on the other side.
I've improved a lot in the last few months, from only getting into Bronze, to beating Gold players, and I've only played ~50 games this season. I don't rely on tricks, cheese, build orders, or any other gimmick to get me out of Bronze. I watch every replay of every game, read strategy, watch pro games, watch Day9, and practice against the computer. I feel comfortable playing people above my skill level, and I'm not thrown for a loop by any strategy that gets thrown my way, and when I lose to something novel, I try to remember that weakness and close that hole. At the end of the day that well rounded experience is going to serve me better than a perfectly executed build order that cannot possibly succeed in higher leagues.
I've rambled on for a long time now, and I hope that I've made my point. If this strategy does work for people, then more power to them. Different strokes for different folks.
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This build provides you with a tool to increase your mechanics and marco. By knowing what you need to do next, it allows
you to focus on building SCV's, supply depots, and production. When people start beating you it is time to work on other
parts of the game. You will still have the skills learned thru increase marco,and now you can work on you strategy,mirco and your transition from opening to mid-games to lategames units composition. This build is a tool for macro.
There are other thing to help you with strategy, mirco, and unit comp, that can also be practiced while improving you macro. You do not have to climb the marco mountain again, aleast not from the bottom.
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There is a serious problem with creating these kind of "builds" for new players in that to win with just overwhelming numbers you need some serious game sense. For example, my friend in diamond can smash me with only marines, but the reason he is able to do that is because he knows when to attack, when to expand, how to harrass and spread me out etc. Now a lot of people will probably say "packrat you lost because you had worse macro", but thats not the most important factor, and my friend and I have tested it.
When a mutual friend of ours got starcraft II we taught him only to macro. Just gave him a simple build order to make marines, marauders, and later medivacs. We told him not to worry about engagements and just to focus on his macro. After about a month of bronze league he was winless against zerg even while maintaining a spending quotient well within diamond level (I'm pretty sure most people know spending quotient, but if not - look it up its a good article). He also couldn't win in TvT because if someone got tanks he didn't know what to do to not die to tanks.
Now perhaps some higher level players would say that he still doesn't need micro to beat these, but he was almost doubling the spending quotient of most of his opponents and still losing. The only reason YOU can win with only marines and marauders is because of you understanding of the game, what to do if you get cheese, what to if they take too many expos', when to expand etc.
I'm not trying to say that macro isn't important. It is certainly the largest factor in advancing through leagues. But builds like this discourage learning anything else about the game, and if a new were to try to learn only through this strategy they would likely never make it past silver. Its important to teach people how to Macro without forsaking all of the game knowledge that makes macro effective. Well known tutorials like dApollo's online tutorials still teach things like scouting and basic counters even at the most basic levels. Trying to get lower level players to advance only by sheer strength of macro is a fools errand.
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You could argue that when that point comes, they can start learning other parts of the game and gradually incorporating them into their play, as you suggested with the Tennis analogy, and that would be ok, and many people have advocated that (learning one new thing per league promotion), but I think it's a violent way to learn the game. If it were a function, it would look jagged and discontinuous. You keep bouncing back and forth between doing really, really well, and then suddenly really terribly. I believe a smoother transition is better in the long run. It may be slower at first, and many people may not have the patience, but the acceleration should be rapid after a turning point.
You need to accept that improving in just about anything works like this. You will stagnate for times, take steps backwards, have highs followed by lows. Follow your own progress in sc2 and you will see it follows that pattern. To use your example, if you are bronze and learn a build order and reach diamond. Then the build stops working so you make adjustments. You start losing and end up in gold before you stabilize. In every definition you still improved as a player if you look at where you started.
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Lots of good points for and against this training technique. I happen to be for it. I'm currently in Gold and I can say that the vast majority of my advancement has come from focusing on pure macro. That is the foundation on which everything else is built. As you advance in the ladders and face tougher opponents, then massing Tier 1 units becomes less and less effective. But, since you are getting better and better at it, you can start to split your attention and focus on more advanced techniques, such as scouting, upgrades, and building higher-tier units. I do find it to be a progressive advancement, contrary to what some people here are saying. You don't just suddenly find yourself in Diamond not knowing how to do anything except a-moving marines. You start off just making SCV's and marines...after a while you do that and scout a little bit, maybe get better at defending attacks...after that you might throw in stim or some marauders based on what your opponent is making. In any case, I think it's good to have beginners focus on the meat and potatoes, allow them to win some games and build confidence, and then build upon that. There are a lot of Bronze-leaguers that focus hard on making banshees or mutas and lots of other fancy crap that only have 50 supply at 10 minutes, and they'll never get very far.
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This guide is the shizzle.. dude, I won so easily with this. Superior macro/build guide for Terran!
THANK YOU!
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Mass marines + medivacs = diamond in every match up.
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On February 19 2013 17:20 thezanursic wrote:
Mass marines + medivacs = diamond in every match up.
Even in ZvZ ?
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On February 19 2013 18:21 Grubbegrabbn wrote:Show nested quote +On February 19 2013 17:20 thezanursic wrote:
Mass marines + medivacs = diamond in every match up. Even in ZvZ ?
Maybe if mapmakers stop being so stubborn and start putting random SCVs around the map to be mind controled by infstors
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On February 19 2013 17:20 thezanursic wrote:
Mass marines + medivacs = diamond in every match up.
mass colossi zealot and and spam storm = master in every matchup
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On February 19 2013 22:25 dynwar7 wrote:Show nested quote +On February 19 2013 17:20 thezanursic wrote:
Mass marines + medivacs = diamond in every match up. mass colossi zealot and and spam storm = master in every matchup
hahaha I am pretty sure that you need to mix in stalkers once in a while...
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I think after 2 years and a half of sc2, if you're still in bronze....well im sorry to tell you that you just don't have what it takes to play an rts game. although it really nice to see so much support from the community to help bronzies to diamonds.
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On February 19 2013 23:11 crazyweasel wrote:
I think after 2 years and a half of sc2, if you're still in bronze....well im sorry to tell you that you just don't have what it takes to play an rts game. although it really nice to see so much support from the community to help bronzies to diamonds.
I think if you've been goofing off in customs and 4v4s with friends and only playing the occasional 1v1 for fun for the last three years, but now you're getting interested in the intricacies of solid 1v1 play, you deserve to be able to come looking for advice without getting condescended to as too dumb to make it.
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On February 20 2013 00:09 AmericanUmlaut wrote:Show nested quote +On February 19 2013 23:11 crazyweasel wrote:
I think after 2 years and a half of sc2, if you're still in bronze....well im sorry to tell you that you just don't have what it takes to play an rts game. although it really nice to see so much support from the community to help bronzies to diamonds. I think if you've been goofing off in customs and 4v4s with friends and only playing the occasional 1v1 for fun for the last three years, but now you're getting interested in the intricacies of solid 1v1 play, you deserve to be able to come looking for advice without getting condescended to as too dumb to make it.
I didn't call anyone dumb, you did conclude that. I'm saying some people just arent good at some types of games. probably they suffer ladder anxiety, or do not want to put th effort to leave the "clicking" adn start working finger memory of key bindings, or simply are too casuals to play an rts game. you can play starcraft as casually as you play agrybirds. but then whats the point of checking the forums for strats when you,re dat casual. rts game are games that require ALOT of playtime/dedication and im pointing out that after 3 years and still bronze maybe you just don't wanna play an rts game since you actually are anxious or too lazy to put the efforts.
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I just don't think topics like these are needed because you get out of the bronze by simply playing and not caring about your stats, that are meaningless at that point.
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On February 20 2013 01:15 crazyweasel wrote:Show nested quote +On February 20 2013 00:09 AmericanUmlaut wrote:On February 19 2013 23:11 crazyweasel wrote:
I think after 2 years and a half of sc2, if you're still in bronze....well im sorry to tell you that you just don't have what it takes to play an rts game. although it really nice to see so much support from the community to help bronzies to diamonds. I think if you've been goofing off in customs and 4v4s with friends and only playing the occasional 1v1 for fun for the last three years, but now you're getting interested in the intricacies of solid 1v1 play, you deserve to be able to come looking for advice without getting condescended to as too dumb to make it. I didn't call anyone dumb, you did conclude that. I'm saying some people just arent good at some types of games. probably they suffer ladder anxiety, or do not want to put th effort to leave the "clicking" adn start working finger memory of key bindings, or simply are too casuals to play an rts game. you can play starcraft as casually as you play agrybirds. but then whats the point of checking the forums for strats when you,re dat casual. rts game are games that require ALOT of playtime/dedication and im pointing out that after 3 years and still bronze maybe you just don't wanna play an rts game since you actually are anxious or too lazy to put the efforts.
I think that if you are experiencing such an extreme case of ladder anxiety you should stop playing stressful games over all and better yet you should probably see a doctor and get yourself checked out!
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On February 20 2013 01:51 thezanursic wrote:Show nested quote +On February 20 2013 01:15 crazyweasel wrote:On February 20 2013 00:09 AmericanUmlaut wrote:On February 19 2013 23:11 crazyweasel wrote:
I think after 2 years and a half of sc2, if you're still in bronze....well im sorry to tell you that you just don't have what it takes to play an rts game. although it really nice to see so much support from the community to help bronzies to diamonds. I think if you've been goofing off in customs and 4v4s with friends and only playing the occasional 1v1 for fun for the last three years, but now you're getting interested in the intricacies of solid 1v1 play, you deserve to be able to come looking for advice without getting condescended to as too dumb to make it. I didn't call anyone dumb, you did conclude that. I'm saying some people just arent good at some types of games. probably they suffer ladder anxiety, or do not want to put th effort to leave the "clicking" adn start working finger memory of key bindings, or simply are too casuals to play an rts game. you can play starcraft as casually as you play agrybirds. but then whats the point of checking the forums for strats when you,re dat casual. rts game are games that require ALOT of playtime/dedication and im pointing out that after 3 years and still bronze maybe you just don't wanna play an rts game since you actually are anxious or too lazy to put the efforts. I think that if you are experiencing such an extreme case of ladder anxiety you should stop playing stressful games over all and better yet you should probably see a doctor and get yourself checked out!
indeed. but you'd be surprise hwo many people are scared of the 1v1 ladder button "play"
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I've been looking to transition from Protoss to Terran for a while, I'm around Gold with Protoss but I cheesed my way for the most part, 4 gateing and such!
For the life of me I just couldn't get into Terran properly, I was trying to be too complicated to start with, learning different builds for different match ups and just basically falling apart.
I've played this build tonight, albeit against the AI just to get used to it and my macro is getting a lot better! although I do struggle to keep my minerals really low once I get onto 3 bases (I also sneak in Conc after CS is finished when I have the resources spare just to help my A.move a little)
Anyhoo, enough waffling on! Thanks for a great build to learn Terran Macro with, muchly appreciated
Zom
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Honestly, I find many things said about Bronzies, including things on this thread, to be highly offensive. I'm a Bronze Zerg myself, yet I can comfortably execute Jaedong's ling-hydra timing with double upgrades to contest the enemy Protoss' third at around 11:45. I can also execute a standard macro game vs all races. Most notably is my ZvT matchup where I play ling-bling-Muta. I'm able to control Mutas well and macro at the same time at home. Then, I just roll right over them. However, I'm still not getting out of Bronze
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you can get to diamond with such strategies but most of the newcomers dont believe it of course...
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United Kingdom20285 Posts
On December 19 2013 09:22 MutaMaster wrote:
Honestly, I find many things said about Bronzies, including things on this thread, to be highly offensive. I'm a Bronze Zerg myself, yet I can comfortably execute Jaedong's ling-hydra timing with double upgrades to contest the enemy Protoss' third at around 11:45. I can also execute a standard macro game vs all races. Most notably is my ZvT matchup where I play ling-bling-Muta. I'm able to control Mutas well and macro at the same time at home. Then, I just roll right over them. However, I'm still not getting out of Bronze
If you make a thread and post a replay or two asking for critique of your macro/mechanics/strategy, i'm sure lots of people would be willing to help you - depending on how well you have strategy down, you can just improve macro/mechanics and go to diamond-gm, if you can comfortably execute like you say then you will fly up
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EPT
