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Building pylons as Zerg? What?
Thanks for analyzing my mistakes without knowing my play though.
And once again you just assume a FFE toss will just do nothing and let you macro till 8 minutes and just let you hit 200/200 at 12 minutes. I simply don't get how you assume that 6/7 gates are just that easy to hold off. What if it hits you at 8:15 or even earlier? Well at least you have perfect saturation. What if he hits you with 3 or 4 Zealots and a probe at 7:30? That is usually the problem in the lower leagues, random stuff will just hit you, and a lot of people tend to overreact (like building 8 lings or a spine at your third and nat each), of course they won't hit 70 supply at 8:00.
Even a silver player should be able to hit 200/200 at 12 minutes given no pressure at all, the 12 minutes max is just that terribly easy. That is assuming you don't get pylon blocked at natural and 3rd. I don't see how taking a third is any harder than just dealing with two bases, then going for some whatever build, and then taking the third. You just expand one more time? Let's not even talk about this build requiring any high apm. It doesn't. It requires coordination, which the examples you mentioned lacked completely.
If you can't manage expanding once more and then just hitting injects/building roaches/lings, you most likely can't handle FFE with just 2 bases too.
We should stop throwing bronze in with gold though, the difference between those leagues is huge. I wasn't even going to argue with you about that build, all I ever tried to say is the things you want people to focus on are required to not get kicked out of the respective leagues.
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i have some pretty glaring issues with this guide as a masters zerg on NA (also offer coaching occasionally) your advocating not scouting before gold? no tech till gold? bronze and silver known for having very common cheese play and ur telling people to not scout? if they dont see it coming they lose 99.9% of the time especially at that level. only ling roach is alittle bit bad... especially if ur not geting upgrades. not spreading overlords to watch for drops? how is a bronze player supposed to defend if they dont at least have warning.
while i understand what ur trying to do i think you are grossly underestimating alot of important aspects of the game and overestimating macro. u honestly cant just 1a with ling roach as zerg and ever win if ur opponent is either A being defensive or B has a good counter army (for example zerg with banes and roaches if u 1a into that ur gona lose with just ling roach 100% of the time) starcraft is too complex of a game to simplify the game down as much as you have in this guide. if a new player follows ur guide he will actually never break silver get past gold level. he will get demoted before he is able to learn the "new" parts of the game once he finally breaks into gold. in SC, the ability to multitask is the best thing to learn. Learn to macro and learn to multitask instead of just learning to macro u have to learn to do it while still playing the game. learning to macro should be done in custom games against the computer (if ur goal is to actually develop as a player and to get better).
you actually shouldnt be looking at ur base much at all in a game of sc2 the more u look at ur base the worse ur doing everything else base vision should only be to build depots/production/tech buildings and injects/chronos/mules. the rest of ur macro really should be done with hotkeys while ur posturing ur army around the map, scouting for drops/expandsions, or just controlling areas of the map. you can not just stare at ur base and learn proper mechanics u just learn how to build shit and die to alot of stuff.
your guide's major flaw is it starts by teaching bad habits (1a'ing, staring at base, not scouting, not doing proper builds, not learning unit control.) these things are to hard to break. when if first started playing zerg i would never hotkey my queens for injects while i still progress from diamond to masters i eventually hit a wall and had to spend 4-5 weeks forcing myself to learn to hotkey my queens and use them. this guide is great in theory, teach them to focus on important macro stuff, and gradually ad more as they progress but the problem is its realistic and not a practical way to get better.
i like the idea of your guide but i just dont think its the best way to learn starcraft
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On June 12 2012 04:56 Tevian wrote:
Building pylons as Zerg? What?
Thanks for analyzing my mistakes without knowing my play though.
And once again you just assume a FFE toss will just do nothing and let you macro till 8 minutes and just let you hit 200/200 at 12 minutes. I simply don't get how you assume that 6/7 gates are just that easy to hold off. What if it hits you at 8:15 or even earlier? Well at least you have perfect saturation. What if he hits you with 3 or 4 Zealots and a probe at 7:30? That is usually the problem in the lower leagues, random stuff will just hit you, and a lot of people tend to overreact (like building 8 lings or a spine at your third and nat each), of course they won't hit 70 supply at 8:00.
Even a silver player should be able to hit 200/200 at 12 minutes given no pressure at all, the 12 minutes max is just that terribly easy. That is assuming you don't get pylon blocked at natural and 3rd. I don't see how taking a third is any harder than just dealing with two bases, then going for some whatever build, and then taking the third. You just expand one more time? Let's not even talk about this build requiring any high apm. It doesn't. It requires coordination, which the examples you mentioned lacked completely.
If you can't manage expanding once more and then just hitting injects/building roaches/lings, you most likely can't handle FFE with just 2 bases too.
We should stop throwing bronze in with gold though, the difference between those leagues is huge. I wasn't even going to argue with you about that build, all I ever tried to say is the things you want people to focus on are required to not get kicked out of the respective leagues.
Alright my friend.First off I'd like to note that it was you who said, "It is ridiculous to assume that anyone in gold or even lower will hit max at 12 minutes. Completely without being pylon blocked and rushed, maybe. " I thought by pylon blocked you meant supply blocked. Even then, I get pylon blocked every game my friend. Simply do this build: 15 pool, 18 2pairs of lings, 21 hatch, 21 hatch. Boom, you won't ever get pylon blocked again because your lings kill it and you're still just fine in your macro.
The funny thing is, you are saying things like "you just assume a FFE toss will just do nothing and let you macro till 8 minutes and just let you hit 200/200 at 12 minutes" and "What if he hits you with 3 or 4 Zealots and a probe at 7:30?" as if I don't understand these things and in reality it is impossible to hit 70 supply at 8 minutes because clearly my league is easy and only in your league can players pull out great timings with hard stuff to deal with.
I'm not trying to be rude, but in Masters league the 1000+ pt protoss players that I play are a LOT better than any protoss player you have ever played, and thus their 6/7 gates hit MUCH harder. Not only can I hold a 6/7 gate you have never had a chance to even play against before, but I can do it and still reach my benchmarks. I'm not asking gold level players to beat a masters protoss 6/7 gate (That would require some actual unit micro and a lot more apm), I'm asking them to hold off a gold level 6/7 gate (which over the course of my coaching I have witnessed numerous times and let me tell you it can be beaten without scouting and just straight up macro.
As for taking a 3rd, it is very different because 2 bases requires only a certain amount of ground to cover while a 3rd base doubles the space needed to be defended plus it adds more everything. Sit down and write out all of the 1 base builds. Now write out all of the ways you expand upon that once you can go to 2 bases (it should grow exponentially), now write out all of the ways you expand upon that once you go to 3 bases, 4 bases, etc. More bases, More resources, More ground, More decisions. It's something you have to learn by taking steps 1 at a time. You don't train for a marathon by running workouts you can't handle. You start easy, build up your conditioning, and eventually you work your way up to those intense workouts.
I'm all open for discussion, but please don't come in here shouting off nonsense about the difficulties of gold that I've clearly never faced in Masters League.
On June 12 2012 06:38 psychotics wrote:
i have some pretty glaring issues with this guide as a masters zerg on NA (also offer coaching occasionally) your advocating not scouting before gold? no tech till gold? bronze and silver known for having very common cheese play and ur telling people to not scout? if they dont see it coming they lose 99.9% of the time especially at that level. only ling roach is alittle bit bad... especially if ur not geting upgrades. not spreading overlords to watch for drops? how is a bronze player supposed to defend if they dont at least have warning.
while i understand what ur trying to do i think you are grossly underestimating alot of important aspects of the game and overestimating macro. u honestly cant just 1a with ling roach as zerg and ever win if ur opponent is either A being defensive or B has a good counter army (for example zerg with banes and roaches if u 1a into that ur gona lose with just ling roach 100% of the time) starcraft is too complex of a game to simplify the game down as much as you have in this guide. if a new player follows ur guide he will actually never break silver get past gold level. he will get demoted before he is able to learn the "new" parts of the game once he finally breaks into gold. in SC, the ability to multitask is the best thing to learn. Learn to macro and learn to multitask instead of just learning to macro u have to learn to do it while still playing the game. learning to macro should be done in custom games against the computer (if ur goal is to actually develop as a player and to get better).
you actually shouldnt be looking at ur base much at all in a game of sc2 the more u look at ur base the worse ur doing everything else base vision should only be to build depots/production/tech buildings and injects/chronos/mules. the rest of ur macro really should be done with hotkeys while ur posturing ur army around the map, scouting for drops/expandsions, or just controlling areas of the map. you can not just stare at ur base and learn proper mechanics u just learn how to build shit and die to alot of stuff.
your guide's major flaw is it starts by teaching bad habits (1a'ing, staring at base, not scouting, not doing proper builds, not learning unit control.) these things are to hard to break. when if first started playing zerg i would never hotkey my queens for injects while i still progress from diamond to masters i eventually hit a wall and had to spend 4-5 weeks forcing myself to learn to hotkey my queens and use them. this guide is great in theory, teach them to focus on important macro stuff, and gradually ad more as they progress but the problem is its realistic and not a practical way to get better.
i like the idea of your guide but i just dont think its the best way to learn starcraft
I understand what you're saying but I think you are thinking in terms of a masters player too much. Of course in Masters league I rarely look at my base besides when I need to build a building or inject, but at a lower level this simply is foolish because they will get way too caught up in their units and their macro will fail, hard. Go watch bz-gold players and see that everytime they have units selected and are moving them around, they are making absolutely nothing back home. I've seen this go on for MINUTES while they micro an army vs another army. The point is, had they just been working on their macro the entire time, they would actually have more units than they saved trying to micro
I think I'm going to also recommend you to go watch FilterSC on youtube. The dude will literally build a CC, make about 10 barracks, and make marines. Then he will 1A marines right at his opponents base (straight into banelings too, no micro allowed) and still absolutely crush his opponent because the sheer number of units overwhelms them.
And I do advocate the use of hotkeys. Hotkey your queens, your production facilities, and your army. I never said anything about not hotkeying queens because that is actually a very important part of your macro.
one big quote that you said is "if they dont see it coming they lose 99.9% of the time especially at that level"
The point is, I'm trying to get them out of that level. I think the reason they stick in that level is because they don't have a good base and instead are focused on just scouting for everything all the time and getting the fancy infestor broodlord army or whatever. Build your macro, you build your base, all of the sudden you can handle a lot more because you have a lot more.
I agree you need to learn to multitask AND Macro, but if you can't do 1 of them alone, what good is it to try and do both at the same time? Juggling and riding a unicycle would be awesome to do at the same time, but if I can't even juggle, why should I bother trying to do it while riding a unicycle? I'm never going to learn it at that rate (or it will take me forever).
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i think you missed my main point was that learning proper macro is about learning to mulitask, the actual learning of building probes and pylons constantly producing and all should be done and mastered before even going on the ladder. im just saying teaching bad mechanics in order to have better macro isnt how to get better at the game. i also said i agree with ur idea but disagree with how you do it. make ur bronze players scout with a probe but have them just run into the base click the oppenents main nexus and run back, this way they are still used to the action of scouting but just taking it slowly. make them use thier hotkeys to produce units while watching their army teach them the feel of proper mechanics early just staring at the base all game is a breeding ground for bad habits (ie boxing queens to inject instead of hotkeys, or clicking on barracks instead of the hotkey) im saying ur guide is just to simple for a player that is actually trying to get better at the game and anyone whos not isnt going to have fun playing like this anyways and probally doesnt even care. FliterSC 1aing marines into banes and winning is cool and all but really relevant. what im saying is that ur cutting out too much of the game for lower leagues which will hinder their growth in the long run
to go off ur juggling metaphor, what im saying is learn to juggle one ball then learn to do it while on a unicycle then learn 2 balls on the unicycle if that makes sense?
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I've gotta say, I agree with MrLlama as a lowbie player. I made it to plat league once, took a long break and am now solidly a silver league player as I try to get back into SC2.
Thing is, I still have the knowledge from when I used to play at a plat level, and occasionally when I'm really on a roll I can at least get the macro back that I used to have. I can't multitask when macroing like that, I can ONLY macro.
I had a game recently against T on Cloud Kingdom where I just made ling bane on 3 base, and my apm was so low that that macro was consuming all my attention, I even forgot really key upgrades like ling and bane speed.
I tried a bit of muta harass, it failed because I couldn't pay attention to the mutas, and I just 1a'd my troops into the terran. I CRUSHED him. It was completely one-sided. Slow lings and slow banes, off creep, and I rolled through his army, through his nat full of bunkers, and into his main without really slowing down.
Why? Because I had been hitting my injects with about a 6 sec gap between them on 3 bases (according to SC2 gears) and keeping up with droning and making units, not getting supply blocked.
He had marines w/ combat shield, +1 attack (and maybe armor?), stim, marauders w/ concussive shell, the works. If he'd had anything near my supply he would have destroyed me, but I had something like 3 times his supply so I just rolled him.
I'm going to keep practicing that macro, and work on getting my APM up to the point that I can actually do stuff outside my base while keeping that up, and I think I'll be in a good place. Seeing this thread confirmed that for me, and I think it was good, league-appropriate advice.
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Nice guide. By the way as Terran, you don't need to add multi-prong attacks until master league. It's possible to use solid builds and just rely on good engagements to win without doing a single drop.
Also you should note that you should keep working on mechanics in Master league. Even in masters people float money, far more than people would expect.
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On June 12 2012 07:20 psychotics wrote:
i think you missed my main point was that learning proper macro is about learning to mulitask, the actual learning of building probes and pylons constantly producing and all should be done and mastered before even going on the ladder. im just saying teaching bad mechanics in order to have better macro isnt how to get better at the game. i also said i agree with ur idea but disagree with how you do it. make ur bronze players scout with a probe but have them just run into the base click the oppenents main nexus and run back, this way they are still used to the action of scouting but just taking it slowly. make them use thier hotkeys to produce units while watching their army teach them the feel of proper mechanics early just staring at the base all game is a breeding ground for bad habits (ie boxing queens to inject instead of hotkeys, or clicking on barracks instead of the hotkey) im saying ur guide is just to simple for a player that is actually trying to get better at the game and anyone whos not isnt going to have fun playing like this anyways and probally doesnt even care. FliterSC 1aing marines into banes and winning is cool and all but really relevant. what im saying is that ur cutting out too much of the game for lower leagues which will hinder their growth in the long run
to go off ur juggling metaphor, what im saying is learn to juggle one ball then learn to do it while on a unicycle then learn 2 balls on the unicycle if that makes sense?
I get what you're saying but I think Drascus really proves the point I'm making. Multitasking is good but learn to multitask by making pylons, building probes, and making units on time (use your hotkeys but it really helps if at first you can see all of the buildings as they are good reminders). Example: sometimes in masters I'll forget to upgrade baneling speed for a little bit. If I was ever just watching my base, I would see my baneling nest and it would remind me to get baneling speed. If a zerg is watching his base and sees the larva moving, it can remind him to not have larva and to spend it. If instead he is out of his base watching his scout drone or a moving overlords around for spread or watching an engagement, he is going to get caught up in that and simply forget at least 1 thing back home that he could have done if he were just watching and making sure. Eventually you can wean yourself off of this and that's why I say as you move up leagues you should slowly start to make these changes, but starting out trying to do too much is killer, and I think for a bronze level player even sending the worker to the base and back is 1 too many actions (plus it hurts their macro because that guy isn't mining minerals and then they are worrying about scouting timings and the sort).
On June 12 2012 08:56 Fencer710 wrote:
Nice guide. By the way as Terran, you don't need to add multi-prong attacks until master league. It's possible to use solid builds and just rely on good engagements to win without doing a single drop.
Also you should note that you should keep working on mechanics in Master league. Even in masters people float money, far more than people would expect.
Yeah I think you can be right there. I just feel like by diamond league your APM should be at the point where you can shift click a drop to the back of their base and then focus on pushing at the front. At this level there is a decent amount of variability and I think you should only try and reach the next goal if you are doing everything else beforehand.
And yes to the masters thing (yes x1000). This is why I say start at the bronze goals and work your way up from there, no matter what league you are in. So many masters players float money or get supply blocked a lot or do too much worker harass and miss building timings and it's all unnecessary and self-damaging if you can't take care of everything back home.
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I like the points you brought up.
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Yeah I think you can be right there. I just feel like by diamond league your APM should be at the point where you can shift click a drop to the back of their base and then focus on pushing at the front. At this level there is a decent amount of variability and I think you should only try and reach the next goal if you are doing everything else beforehand. I think you can definitely get in the habit of setting your hotkeys up for a drop, just remember that that usually doesn't work against an opponent on few bases, and you will often lose the drop for little to nothing if it flies into a bunch of static defence.
Another thing you should note that I figured out recently, is that with a strong mid-game timing push you can easily win games up to high diamond without the push being all-in, and you can easily take a third and later on a fourth behind it as well as adding on a ton more production.
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It would really help if the bronze-diamond leaguers accepted suggestions from high masters players and not argue about it.
It's like if you're in school and trying to tell your math teacher about math and what you think is right.
Listen. Please. Just listen. Accept it. Do it.
Phoenix was high masters and even GM in Korea building ONLY lings and drones. He crushed Archon Zealot comps with it because he had fucking amazing macro. He virtually never even scouted because it just didn't matter. So please listen to advice from people better than you. Yes, your opinion matters, but your opinion only matters if you have a clue about what you're talking about. Probably the masters player is right, dear gold leaguers. Just probably.
If you spend your ressources (including larvae), take expansions, saturate bases early, and build tons of stuff and it still doesn't work for you in gold losing 50%+ of your games, come back here. You won't, I promise. (And please do look at your replays and look if you really did.)
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On June 12 2012 08:46 Drascus wrote:
I've gotta say, I agree with MrLlama as a lowbie player. I made it to plat league once, took a long break and am now solidly a silver league player as I try to get back into SC2.
Thing is, I still have the knowledge from when I used to play at a plat level, and occasionally when I'm really on a roll I can at least get the macro back that I used to have. I can't multitask when macroing like that, I can ONLY macro.
I had a game recently against T on Cloud Kingdom where I just made ling bane on 3 base, and my apm was so low that that macro was consuming all my attention, I even forgot really key upgrades like ling and bane speed.
I tried a bit of muta harass, it failed because I couldn't pay attention to the mutas, and I just 1a'd my troops into the terran. I CRUSHED him. It was completely one-sided. Slow lings and slow banes, off creep, and I rolled through his army, through his nat full of bunkers, and into his main without really slowing down.
Why? Because I had been hitting my injects with about a 6 sec gap between them on 3 bases (according to SC2 gears) and keeping up with droning and making units, not getting supply blocked.
He had marines w/ combat shield, +1 attack (and maybe armor?), stim, marauders w/ concussive shell, the works. If he'd had anything near my supply he would have destroyed me, but I had something like 3 times his supply so I just rolled him.
I'm going to keep practicing that macro, and work on getting my APM up to the point that I can actually do stuff outside my base while keeping that up, and I think I'll be in a good place. Seeing this thread confirmed that for me, and I think it was good, league-appropriate advice.
I agree with this. As a bronze with no rts experience, this advice helped me quite a bit. Trying to emulate pros is great and all, but laying a solid macro foundation is much much more important. I'm winning like 75% of my games now simply because I'm way ahead on supply, just like Drascus said. Thanks for the quide.
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Definitely appreciated, especially the race specific stuff.
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I don't know. If I give back story in season 1 and 2 I worked my way from bronze to diamond as Protoss in season 1 and season 2 I was bronze. I learned to make probes, scout etc.. got up to 1400 pts in diamond.
I stopped playing until about a month ago and started as Zerg this season. I got placed in silver demoted to bronze and I'm now high silver playing mostly golds.
Now I gotta say the difference between season 1 and 2 and now the caliber of lower level players is better. Back in season 1 anyone trying to learn was always told to scout make workers I can't see why now you wouldn't say the samething. Everyone was basically 1 base all ins season 1 and 2. Zergs where mutalinging like no tomorrow in ZvP. Terrans where 3 raxing, Protoss was 4 gate wars.
I just think unit composition is really important and you have to know that by scouting basic info. It's not hard to 13 drone scout shift click around a base and go back to yours to macro letting your drone die by being idle. I pylon in the main with a gate and cyber and one at the natural with a forge is huge.
Your preparing for a 630-7min 4 gate to hit you or a 9:30ish 6-7 gate.
I think at least scouting is doable in silver and bronze IMO.
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On June 12 2012 23:42 oZii wrote:
I don't know. If I give back story in season 1 and 2 I worked my way from bronze to diamond as Protoss in season 1 and season 2 I was bronze. I learned to make probes, scout etc.. got up to 1400 pts in diamond.
I stopped playing until about a month ago and started as Zerg this season. I got placed in silver demoted to bronze and I'm now high silver playing mostly golds.
Now I gotta say the difference between season 1 and 2 and now the caliber of lower level players is better. Back in season 1 anyone trying to learn was always told to scout make workers I can't see why now you wouldn't say the samething. Everyone was basically 1 base all ins season 1 and 2. Zergs where mutalinging like no tomorrow in ZvP. Terrans where 3 raxing, Protoss was 4 gate wars.
I just think unit composition is really important and you have to know that by scouting basic info. It's not hard to 13 drone scout shift click around a base and go back to yours to macro letting your drone die by being idle. I pylon in the main with a gate and cyber and one at the natural with a forge is huge.
Your preparing for a 630-7min 4 gate to hit you or a 9:30ish 6-7 gate.
I think at least scouting is doable in silver and bronze IMO.
Or at least you should leave a single unit at the nearest watchtower, and a single unit parked outside their base during that whole, "No rush because we're terrible and trying to macro" stage of the lower leagues.
Then you can see right away when he moves out (if you look at the minimap).
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On June 12 2012 23:42 oZii wrote:
I don't know. If I give back story in season 1 and 2 I worked my way from bronze to diamond as Protoss in season 1 and season 2 I was bronze. I learned to make probes, scout etc.. got up to 1400 pts in diamond.
I stopped playing until about a month ago and started as Zerg this season. I got placed in silver demoted to bronze and I'm now high silver playing mostly golds.
Now I gotta say the difference between season 1 and 2 and now the caliber of lower level players is better. Back in season 1 anyone trying to learn was always told to scout make workers I can't see why now you wouldn't say the samething. Everyone was basically 1 base all ins season 1 and 2. Zergs where mutalinging like no tomorrow in ZvP. Terrans where 3 raxing, Protoss was 4 gate wars.
I just think unit composition is really important and you have to know that by scouting basic info. It's not hard to 13 drone scout shift click around a base and go back to yours to macro letting your drone die by being idle. I pylon in the main with a gate and cyber and one at the natural with a forge is huge.
Your preparing for a 630-7min 4 gate to hit you or a 9:30ish 6-7 gate.
I think at least scouting is doable in silver and bronze IMO.
I get this, I really do. But the past 2 replays that I have watched for my stream of silver league players, both of them scouted a Forge fast expand and threw down a spine crawler. Not only that, but one of them threw down a roach warren, made roaches and lings, and started preparing for a 4gate it looked like.
A lot of players can't identify builds at this stage and I don't think they should even waste the time trying to. Sit at home and macro your butt off (and throw down a couple spinecrawlers if ya want, your macro should be miles ahead of your opponent).
The reason I say don't scout to prepare for the 4gate or the 6/7 gate is because if you are just on 2 bases (I don't recommend the fast 3rd yet in bronze/silver vs a FFE unless you are playing way above your level with awesome macro), you should be able to hold either one with just stellar macro. Throw down 2 spinecrawlers blind and then if he tries to hit you with a 4gate you can have a bit of time to react and get some units out. If he goes for the 6/7 gate that won't come until 8:15+ (probably later) in which case you will have moved out of droning (I'd say about around 55 drones or so) and into units with your spines so you have a good chance of defending it.
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On June 13 2012 00:14 MrLlama wrote:Show nested quote +On June 12 2012 23:42 oZii wrote:
I don't know. If I give back story in season 1 and 2 I worked my way from bronze to diamond as Protoss in season 1 and season 2 I was bronze. I learned to make probes, scout etc.. got up to 1400 pts in diamond.
I stopped playing until about a month ago and started as Zerg this season. I got placed in silver demoted to bronze and I'm now high silver playing mostly golds.
Now I gotta say the difference between season 1 and 2 and now the caliber of lower level players is better. Back in season 1 anyone trying to learn was always told to scout make workers I can't see why now you wouldn't say the samething. Everyone was basically 1 base all ins season 1 and 2. Zergs where mutalinging like no tomorrow in ZvP. Terrans where 3 raxing, Protoss was 4 gate wars.
I just think unit composition is really important and you have to know that by scouting basic info. It's not hard to 13 drone scout shift click around a base and go back to yours to macro letting your drone die by being idle. I pylon in the main with a gate and cyber and one at the natural with a forge is huge.
Your preparing for a 630-7min 4 gate to hit you or a 9:30ish 6-7 gate.
I think at least scouting is doable in silver and bronze IMO. I get this, I really do. But the past 2 replays that I have watched for my stream of silver league players, both of them scouted a Forge fast expand and threw down a spine crawler. Not only that, but one of them threw down a roach warren, made roaches and lings, and started preparing for a 4gate it looked like. A lot of players can't identify builds at this stage and I don't think they should even waste the time trying to. Sit at home and macro your butt off (and throw down a couple spinecrawlers if ya want, your macro should be miles ahead of your opponent). The reason I say don't scout to prepare for the 4gate or the 6/7 gate is because if you are just on 2 bases (I don't recommend the fast 3rd yet in bronze/silver vs a FFE unless you are playing way above your level with awesome macro), you should be able to hold either one with just stellar macro. Throw down 2 spinecrawlers blind and then if he tries to hit you with a 4gate you can have a bit of time to react and get some units out. If he goes for the 6/7 gate that won't come until 8:15+ (probably later) in which case you will have moved out of droning (I'd say about around 55 drones or so) and into units with your spines so you have a good chance of defending it.
I always try to look at both sides in a discussion so I see what your saying also. I do agree with you in terms of zerg its about drone numbers more so than food counts like toss and terran. That was difficult for me to grasp as its not so much about grabbing a build and going with and more in your base you actually do have to worry about. I will give your method a try I have been doing practice maps on my own just making drones microing a single drone around and injecting to get faster and help multi task. I dont get hung up on ladder I rather have a good foundation as I learn zerg. So Ill give this technique a go and just macro focus on injects and creep and just make lings and roaches doesnt hurt to try your method to see how it works 
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Good post!
The only thing I might say is that coming from a silver protoss, it can be helpful to scout in lower leagues on a basic level.
For example you either scout or dont scout a 6 pool, which is quite common in bsg.
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Love it! Haven't read a lot of breakdowns that get that specific about what skills to focus on at each level.
Really well done. Thanks a lot! =]
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On June 12 2012 20:53 Mahtasooma wrote:
<...>
If you spend your ressources (including larvae), take expansions, saturate bases early, and build tons of stuff and it still doesn't work for you in gold losing 50%+ of your games, come back here. You won't, I promise. (And please do look at your replays and look if you really did.)
See my replay on page 2 (post 36). Granted I'm Platinum, but my opponent was Gold so your hypothetical Gold player could end up playing him.
That said, I generally agree with you - I pretty much followed this advice and it was enough to get me out of Gold and into Platinum, where I've stalled. Now I have Plat level macro (sometimes better) and Bronze level engagements, as you can see from the replay. MrLlama says I need to improve them to advance (I agree) and that it will be easier for me than improving both macro and engagements at the same time. Maybe it will be, but I can't help but feel that it would have been a less frustrating process if I'd given them some more attention before now. The replay I posted is nothing special or unusual - I played countless games like it in Silver and Gold where I 1A-ed a bigger army at my opponent and lost it all for little or no return. At the time it was obvious that my biggest problem in those particular games was not macro, and it frustrated me that when I looked at threads like this one I was being advised not to fix it. I followed the advice anyway and it eventually worked, to the extent that I had such a macro advantage over other Gold players that it offset some pretty major flaws in the rest of my game. However, I do feel like I'm behind in learning some other fundamental skills. To that extent I agree with a lot of the points raised by psychotics (page 4 of the thread).
The thing I like about the Platinum section of MrLlama's guide is that he states that Platinum players need to do more than just improve their macro to advance. That's quite unusual to see in threads like this, where the prevailing view is usually that if you're below Diamond, your problem is macro and you shouldn't bother about everything else. I always found this frustrating because I felt like my issues with engagements (for example) were so bad that no amount of macro superiority was going to compensate, at least in Platinum. So I would spend a while working on my engagements and my macro would drop off. Then I'd read posts like yours, feel guilty that I was second-guessing Masters advice, forget about engagements again and go back to macroing. It hasn't been working very well, but I wasn't sure if that was because I was right about needing more than macro, or because I was wrong and had been allowing myself to get distracted from the proper improvement approach.
Based on this thread I have a simple short-term goal: improve my engagements against all races while keeping the same or better level of macro. I still lose games due to macro so I don't want to let that slide, but I can generally tell from the replays or even the post-game stats screen which was which. I feel like this addresses the main problems I've been having and is simple enough for me to work on effectively.
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On June 13 2012 08:00 oZii wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On June 13 2012 00:14 MrLlama wrote:Show nested quote +On June 12 2012 23:42 oZii wrote:
I don't know. If I give back story in season 1 and 2 I worked my way from bronze to diamond as Protoss in season 1 and season 2 I was bronze. I learned to make probes, scout etc.. got up to 1400 pts in diamond.
I stopped playing until about a month ago and started as Zerg this season. I got placed in silver demoted to bronze and I'm now high silver playing mostly golds.
Now I gotta say the difference between season 1 and 2 and now the caliber of lower level players is better. Back in season 1 anyone trying to learn was always told to scout make workers I can't see why now you wouldn't say the samething. Everyone was basically 1 base all ins season 1 and 2. Zergs where mutalinging like no tomorrow in ZvP. Terrans where 3 raxing, Protoss was 4 gate wars.
I just think unit composition is really important and you have to know that by scouting basic info. It's not hard to 13 drone scout shift click around a base and go back to yours to macro letting your drone die by being idle. I pylon in the main with a gate and cyber and one at the natural with a forge is huge.
Your preparing for a 630-7min 4 gate to hit you or a 9:30ish 6-7 gate.
I think at least scouting is doable in silver and bronze IMO. I get this, I really do. But the past 2 replays that I have watched for my stream of silver league players, both of them scouted a Forge fast expand and threw down a spine crawler. Not only that, but one of them threw down a roach warren, made roaches and lings, and started preparing for a 4gate it looked like. A lot of players can't identify builds at this stage and I don't think they should even waste the time trying to. Sit at home and macro your butt off (and throw down a couple spinecrawlers if ya want, your macro should be miles ahead of your opponent). The reason I say don't scout to prepare for the 4gate or the 6/7 gate is because if you are just on 2 bases (I don't recommend the fast 3rd yet in bronze/silver vs a FFE unless you are playing way above your level with awesome macro), you should be able to hold either one with just stellar macro. Throw down 2 spinecrawlers blind and then if he tries to hit you with a 4gate you can have a bit of time to react and get some units out. If he goes for the 6/7 gate that won't come until 8:15+ (probably later) in which case you will have moved out of droning (I'd say about around 55 drones or so) and into units with your spines so you have a good chance of defending it. I always try to look at both sides in a discussion so I see what your saying also. I do agree with you in terms of zerg its about drone numbers more so than food counts like toss and terran. That was difficult for me to grasp as its not so much about grabbing a build and going with and more in your base you actually do have to worry about. I will give your method a try I have been doing practice maps on my own just making drones microing a single drone around and injecting to get faster and help multi task. I dont get hung up on ladder I rather have a good foundation as I learn zerg. So Ill give this technique a go and just macro focus on injects and creep and just make lings and roaches doesnt hurt to try your method to see how it works
I mentioned it a couple times before, but yes zerg is much harder to grasp because of the way the race works. If you're a terran and you have 60 supply by X minutes, you're doing well. If you're a zerg and you have that, well how much of it is drones? How much energy is on your queens? What about your expansions/macro hatches since that's where you get larva? It is just a lot different and has it's own unique challenges. And the problem is I can't say "Make units and drones constantly" because that's not how the race works. To a terran I can say "make scvs and marines nonstop" and it's fine but zerg is all about knowing WHEN to get drones. The problem is, as a bronze-silver league player I don't want them to even worry about that yet because they are still in the process of floating money and larva and not making anything. Of all 3 races, zergs trying this will probably lose the most but they will also learn a lot about their race and start to really develop the high level mentality of good times to drone, good times to build units, etc.
On June 13 2012 08:18 AnonymousEmu wrote:
Good post!
The only thing I might say is that coming from a silver protoss, it can be helpful to scout in lower leagues on a basic level.
For example you either scout or dont scout a 6 pool, which is quite common in bsg.
Sure I can understand that, but half the people I know who have scouted a 6 pool either spent too much time watching their scout unit in the base to where they forgot to wall off/build stuff back home to protect them or they never even checked the scout so it didn't matter.
On June 13 2012 08:28 Chutoro wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On June 12 2012 20:53 Mahtasooma wrote:
<...>
If you spend your ressources (including larvae), take expansions, saturate bases early, and build tons of stuff and it still doesn't work for you in gold losing 50%+ of your games, come back here. You won't, I promise. (And please do look at your replays and look if you really did.)
See my replay on page 2 (post 36). Granted I'm Platinum, but my opponent was Gold so your hypothetical Gold player could end up playing him. That said, I generally agree with you - I pretty much followed this advice and it was enough to get me out of Gold and into Platinum, where I've stalled. Now I have Plat level macro (sometimes better) and Bronze level engagements, as you can see from the replay. MrLlama says I need to improve them to advance (I agree) and that it will be easier for me than improving both macro and engagements at the same time. Maybe it will be, but I can't help but feel that it would have been a less frustrating process if I'd given them some more attention before now. The replay I posted is nothing special or unusual - I played countless games like it in Silver and Gold where I 1A-ed a bigger army at my opponent and lost it all for little or no return. At the time it was obvious that my biggest problem in those particular games was not macro, and it frustrated me that when I looked at threads like this one I was being advised not to fix it. I followed the advice anyway and it eventually worked, to the extent that I had such a macro advantage over other Gold players that it offset some pretty major flaws in the rest of my game. However, I do feel like I'm behind in learning some other fundamental skills. To that extent I agree with a lot of the points raised by psychotics (page 4 of the thread). The thing I like about the Platinum section of MrLlama's guide is that he states that Platinum players need to do more than just improve their macro to advance. That's quite unusual to see in threads like this, where the prevailing view is usually that if you're below Diamond, your problem is macro and you shouldn't bother about everything else. I always found this frustrating because I felt like my issues with engagements (for example) were so bad that no amount of macro superiority was going to compensate, at least in Platinum. So I would spend a while working on my engagements and my macro would drop off. Then I'd read posts like yours, feel guilty that I was second-guessing Masters advice, forget about engagements again and go back to macroing. It hasn't been working very well, but I wasn't sure if that was because I was right about needing more than macro, or because I was wrong and had been allowing myself to get distracted from the proper improvement approach. Based on this thread I have a simple short-term goal: improve my engagements against all races while keeping the same or better level of macro. I still lose games due to macro so I don't want to let that slide, but I can generally tell from the replays or even the post-game stats screen which was which. I feel like this addresses the main problems I've been having and is simple enough for me to work on effectively.
I would like to highlight the best thing I think someone has said in this thread so far.
"Based on this thread I have a simple short-term goal: improve my engagements against all races while keeping the same or better level of macro. I still lose games due to macro so I don't want to let that slide, but I can generally tell from the replays or even the post-game stats screen which was which. I feel like this addresses the main problems I've been having and is simple enough for me to work on effectively."
This is how you improve in starcraft 2. keep everything the same and just set ONE more goal at a time.
Everybody simply tries to do too much. They want to scout and macro and blink their stalkers and counter with zealots to the third and get a deathball and it's so many things that they just get all messed up and miss out on the important things like making probes and pylons and warping in units every cycle they can.
your goal is perfect. Keep that great macro, and then the next time you are engaging for a battle, use 5 more apm to send half of your army around to the side for a good surrounding engagement. Then back to your macro.
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