EPT[G] TheStaircase - An Alternative Improvement Method - Pag…
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Soxes
31 Posts
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JaKaTaKSc2
United States2787 Posts
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Borgbilly
United States21 Posts
Lets face it: rushing straight to battlecruisers without making a marine shouldn't work past mid-silver. Anyone that sees 0 marines 6, 7, 8 minutes into the game is probably going to take whatever army they have right then and end the game before you get a single battlecruiser out. Even if we're allowed to build marines to not instantly die to 1 base all-ins, taking and holding a 3rd/4th with nothing but marines and a small handful of battlecruisers is going to be nearly impossible. Furthermore, it's almost impossible to balance out an economy building nothing but ravens without taking 7 gas bases (which we can't hold thanks to above). We need some kind of mineral dump in order to not stack 5k minerals/0 gas. Finally, some units are simply bad by themselves. Let us take High Templars as an example. High Templars, although extremely powerful, are also extremely fragile. They die if you sneeze at them. They need some sort of meatshield so that they don't immediately die, and they also need something that's able to clean up small amounts of units without using storm (no single roach harass). Broodlords are another outstanding example of something that is extremely fragile on its own. A player learns nothing from building 12 broodlords only to have them die to mutalisks because the zerg isn't allowed to build anti-air on the step that he's on. I know it was a long post, but I really believe that the new monobattle format is detrimental to the staircase, especially to those players that like to practice it in 1v1s. | ||
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Juvator
Netherlands199 Posts
I'll leave it to the creators. | ||
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JaKaTaKSc2
United States2787 Posts
I completely agree. Monobattle style was only one of the options we were considering, and after your post I'm definitely taking it off of the table. I think Duobattles is still an interesting option however. Its simple enough to grasp very early on, but doesn't make it impossible to balance an economy or get to high tier units. Also, we could do something like this: Tier 1 Step 1 - Mineral Only Step 2 - Marine Only Step 3 - Marauder Only Step 4 - Any 2 units from tier 1 or 2 repeat until all units are learned from these 2 tiers Step 5 - Any 3 units repeat until all units are learned I'd have to find a way to explain it in a simpler way, but what do you think? | ||
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Borgbilly
United States21 Posts
I completely agree. Monobattle style was only one of the options we were considering, and after your post I'm definitely taking it off of the table. I think Duobattles is still an interesting option however. Its simple enough to grasp very early on, but doesn't make it impossible to balance an economy or get to high tier units. Also, we could do something like this: Tier 1 Step 1 - Mineral Only Step 2 - Marine Only Step 3 - Marauder Only Step 4 - Any 2 units from tier 1 or 2 repeat until all units are learned from these 2 tiers Step 5 - Any 3 units repeat until all units are learned I'd have to find a way to explain it in a simpler way, but what do you think? I like this setup. I assume that everything after step one allows micro following the previous proposed plan for the Staircase 6.0, correct? Also, I'd kind of like to see gas allowed for step 2, even if is just the same mineral units as allowed in step one. I think it'd allow for a much greater range of strategies to be employed (+1 zealot timing vs. zerg, etc.), and stimmed marines/ speedlings are much more interesting to micro than their slower un-upgraded counterparts. For step three, I think the marauder, roach, and stalker should be the next set of units. Each of them are non-terrible by themselves, and fairly balanced minerals to gas wise. For steps 4 and 5, I would consider throwing out a basic set of T1 units and allowing them to not count as part of the "picked units". For example, I might say that I can make 1 bunker of marines without it counting towards my units total, or that I can open zealot stalker sentry without it cutting into my unit count, simply because this amount of units is made in almost every game regardless of endgame unit composition. I'd say that is fairly pertinent because it allows us to focus more on the endgame unit composition we want to build rather than trying to get to midgame using as few unit types as possible. Let us take an example of why I believe this is important: Terran Mech play. At any decent level, we need to make at least a few marines in order to live through any kind of shenanigans like early reaper play or 1 base all-ins. Every good mech player does this. I don't think it should count against our unit type diversity though. If it does, then the only things we get to practice are marine/hellion, marine/tank, etc. We don't actually get to see the synergies of a mech army because we can't actually use enough units with each other for these things to become apparent. Now I understand if some of these might make things overly complicated, especially for our friends that are more in the "stuff league" than I am, but these are my observations and thoughts about what would make this very viable well out of the bronze/silver/gold region. | ||
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JaKaTaKSc2
United States2787 Posts
 Simplicity is very important for TheStaircase. Something like certain units not counting toward your unit count complicates things too much. Something like proper mech play isn't something that TheStaircase is designed to teach. It is supposed to guide exploration to the strengths and weaknesses of each unit, but something like proper mech play would be post-TheStaircase IMO. I think going 2 units at a time (with the exception of the first unit) might be the best way to go. Step 1 - Mineral Only Step 2 - Zealot Only (aside from observers and workers) Step 3 - Choose any 2 units (aside from observers and workers) repeat until all units are learned. Repeating units is allowed | ||
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MinimalMagic
Denmark21 Posts
As a returning player after a 6 months break coming back for HOTS I wanted to know if this guide is still viable for HOTS and where should i start as a newcomer to ths guide? I used to play Toss in WOL in Gold-Plat should I just continue with the goals set for that level or should I go for a lower, or perhaps another race? Thanks in advance and great job! | ||
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JaKaTaKSc2
United States2787 Posts
This is viable for HotS and will be viable for LotV as well, because it is based on the things in Sc2 that almost never change, as opposed to something like the meta game. League goal is a long term thing. Think about how much time and focus you have to spend on Sc2 and what league you think you will plateau at considering the time and focus you will be spending. Even for a beginner, a Masters or GM league goal isn't too difficult on the first step because there are so few decisions to make. | ||
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SupaTech..313
United States17 Posts
So I have moved onto Step 5 for the zerg and have noticed my SQ going way down. I get max supply with the ultra and my money just piles up because i can't make anything else and I am running on like 5 bases. I find it difficult to keep my sq high when i use Tier 3 units. My sq is great when I just throw lings and blings and roaches and hydras away, wave after wave. I have also noticed that my matches against terran AI go extremely fast and easy when I just use bane and ling composition. When I used just ultras and lings the game went terrible but I still had good SQ. | ||
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Juvator
Netherlands199 Posts
 and just not feeling a good flow in my play. | ||
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JaKaTaKSc2
United States2787 Posts
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MinimalMagic
Denmark21 Posts
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JaKaTaKSc2
United States2787 Posts
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Air.SWP
United States112 Posts
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JaKaTaKSc2
United States2787 Posts
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Phenro
United States5 Posts
JaKaTaK, thank you so much for doing this. I have been referring all my friends that I coach to go watch the videos at the very least and, if they have the time, read the thread. Thanks. | ||
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JaKaTaKSc2
United States2787 Posts
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Orbry
Russian Federation3 Posts
Great job, keep it on (: | ||
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JaKaTaKSc2
United States2787 Posts
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