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So early last week, I could do no wrong. In a two day stretch I went 14-3 with platinum/low diamond level players using the same basic strategy of rushing to attack with my first zealot and a probe, and then sending a solid stream of zealots from a pair of gateways to my opponents base to keep him distracted... whilst teching to voids in the back of my base. The zealots almost never killed them, but it put them off long enough that when 2-3 voids showed up at their mineral line it was usually GG.
Well this weekend, I did just incredibly awful. Including team games I probably went 5-12 or so (still in the same plat/low diamond area). First I tried mixing it up and getting away from my strategy, because I know that at some point I'm going to be facing players good enough to counter that no problem. My goals to better myself failed miserably for 5-6 games. No matter what I did I just could not win a game to save my life, it seemed the opponent always managed to have the perfect counter or things always went their way. So I went back to my strat, and maybe I'm just messing up the build order now, but even that isn't working very well. With my old strat I managed to go like 1-2, and the victory wasn't nearly as decisive as they usually be (I had to chase a probe around and blow up a bunch of pylons while he was out hunting for my hidden expansion with his remaining troops). Worst of all in team games with my friends, I'm like the weakest link. Even if I'm doing just fine or just as good as they are, the enemy tend to group attack me, or cannon rush me, or anything and I just always manage to fall for it.
So basically, what do YOU do to get out of a slump similar to this? I'm thinking about mixing up the races a bit...
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Back away from the game and let your mind rest. You're getting frustrated and making mistakes. Although, beta is closing soon so I don't know if you want to take my advice lol.
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Well once you get more points you verse better players, who could probably stop that strategy. If you are making dumb mistakes go to 2v2 or 3v3 or 4v4 or even custom games to ease your mind.
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Customs. I play nexus wars or team micro arena or something for a little while, then start it up again. If I'm still slumping, I just take a break.
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When I'm in a lose streak I just take a break. The following day it's just gone.
It's not like I was a pro gamer who can lose his confidence for weeks. I'm just playing ladder for fun, so my lose streaks are mostly about being nervous after too much games.
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As Day[9] said, relying on a "Trick" to win the game isn't going to get you extremely far.
However, who knows, maybe 2 Gate into Void Ray is a really reliable strategy. However, you need to go watch your replays and learn why you lost exactly, not just say "Well damn, my gimmick didn't work, let's try again". Go see which part of your plan failed.
"Well, because of my early zealots, he was extremely heavy on marines and marines will wreak Void rays given there is enough of them. If I See he's got a lot of marines, maybe Void rays isn't the best tech path to choose."
From there, experiment, play with what you feel comfortable.
"Well since I'm pressuring him, maybe I Should set my own expansion, or maybe I Could get a Robo and get some Immortal to either Break his front, of Tech to Collosus because I Forced him to get a lot of marines. I Could also abuse Blink stalkers and attack at 2 places at the same time"
The time spent watching the replay is usually the time you need for a small break, I Often go for a small walk after a lose and analyze the game in my end a bit.
And usually, players will find suspicious that you are sending only zealots from 2 gates and nothing else, they will know something is up.
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practice, motivation, intuition , drive...... relax =)
meditate 
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You are probably not good at standard play. While your initial build is hardly cheese, I'm sure you didn't have a follow-up and counted to win each and every time. If you want to get good, start practicing one safe and solid build for each match-up. (same build for multiple match-ups are better) A lot of good gamers say this.
I believe a 3 Gate Robo Push (expanding while pushing) is a good Toss strategy for each match-up. It is predictable, but it works and helps you practice the fundamentals of the game.
For your 2v2 troubles: I think Protoss have the hardest time if they get double cheesed. A wall-in blocks a 6 pool, but a fast Stalker blocks a proxy Reaper. It is hard to get both. Try to do a 10 Gate Pressure build and have your partner do an aggressive (but not cheese) build too. This is good against cheese and good against turtle players.
As for mixing up races, I would try it in case you naturally feel better with another race. If you just outright hate the race though, I wouldn't pursue.
When you're in a slump, try finding out what is going wrong. I was in a slump recently. I noticed that I was just constantly losing to all-in pushes. I practiced that and now I'm doing well. If it is just everything, try taking a break.
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When I was doing it early last week, that strategy was incredibly effective. All three losses were to terran who had properly walled off/made enough marines to beat the voids.
But if a terran didn't wall off properly/quickly enough, that first lot/probe would win the game. One lot will take out 2-3 marines, even when kited. Steady stream and he doesn't get his wall up, you win. If he does though, I'm usually already in the void tech tree so I stick with it, and its about 50/50 from there.
Now the strategy DOES leave you open to being able to continue to tech elsewhere (usually while attacking with the voids you have plenty of money so I throw down a robo and another gateway). But I've never gotten past that. Either I win with my voids, or they counter and win.
Though like I said, it hasn't exactly been going swimmingly well the last few days. But then again, I had been trying other strats for the most part.
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If you really like your zealot into Void Ray plan, then you need to stop and think about what you're losing to. How can you make what you're doing more robust against the things that you're losing to. Look at the replays. Why did you lose? Did you invest too much in tech and they didn't and their large army destroyed yours? Should you not stream Zealots but build up a particular amount of them for a larger, more potent attack? Did you expo? Should you expo? Did they expo? How should you adjust what you do for that?
If you're not reacting to what your opponent is doing then your strategy isn't very robust. Your "plan" isn't bad, but it's unrefined. Now that you're losing you have the data you need to start to refine it. You can't refine something when it's just beating people, but when you start losing you can start to figure out why and how to adjust it.
That's the only true way to break out of a "slump," fix what you're losing to. It'd be different if you were playing very standard and losing because of a series of bad micro mistakes or boneheaded mistakes (like making a Reactor as Terran instead of a Tech Lab in a major tournament game). Then you might just need to clear your head with some fun team games or custom games, or something outside of SC2.
What you describe though isn't a slump, it's just the very first step in refining a strategy.
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Beta's going down today and no one will get to play for about a week. Then, the game will be released, but you'll probably be more interested in the campaign for the first few days.
By the time you're ready for multiplayer again, you'll have forgotten about your bad luck streak and the influx of new players will lower the general skill level by such a degree that you won't have to worry about another unlucky run.
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Confidence can be a bad thing.
If you're trying something new that you're not used to executing you're not gonna magically know what to do in every situation. Usually if you're not getting frustrated and making mistakes because of that you can keep playing and experimenting, otherwise just chill and take a break its suppose to be fun not increadably taxing
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Yeh i have been going 3 gate to robo just about every game. It really helps to just get the fundamentals down so when you do lose you wont be so frustrated and flustered going into the next game.
Just have a specific Build order and use it over and over until it feels natural then you can learn to branch off that and do some more creative and varying strategies.
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Watch Day[9]. Slump cured next day.
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Dont assume your build (trick?) will win outright. Up to a certain level of opponents it probably will, but you cant expect to just win agains good Terrans with this.
Try to figure a way to play after your push, likely involving expanding.
That said, I think more than 1 VR at the start is a bit cheesy. I dont know about PvP or PvZ, but Terrans can definitely hold with marines and then push you to death.
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I don't know how to stop if I lose. I get upset, and I hit Find Match again. If I win, it's much harder to keep going, but if I lose, I always play again.
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The higher ELO you go, the less using a single strategy works. You opponent will scout you and respond to you accordingly. What you need to do is be very versitile in your play and playing to counter your opponent instead of using your own strategy and hoping your opponent doesn't counter you.
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Getting off is what I do.. sometimes I just am being a retard not checking proxies / getting supply blocked 24/7 and stuff so I get off.
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I play some FFAs where I mass battlecruisers into mass nukes. 5 nukes dropping on every nexus at the same time makes me love starcraft again after a horrible losing streak.
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it's not a slump, you're experiencing a dive in your play level because you are learning new things and timings that you are not used to.
Every time you go back to your comfortable build order, you're not going to improve any further or learn anything new, except about timings related to that build.
You just have to take the losses and keep plugging through trying a new style/build order over and over. Same thing happens to me quite a bit when I begin to play a different style or a new build order - you'll lose many games from not knowing certain attacks were possible at that time vs your new build or unit composition, but that's how you learn - doing it over and over again.
if you go back to your 1 build, you're not going to improve any, which will in effect further your slump even longer term. So stick with it and if you are trying something new keep testing it until you think it's either obsolete or you know the timings better.
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I'm having the same problem and i switched up races but that still didn't help since i went like 2-5 with protoss :/ but i wanted to switch it up and im slowly learning the timings of all the races. So i just recommend trying something new (custom games, play vs a,i, swap races, weird stratagies).
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Playing other races actually helped me in certain parts of my Toss game. Always helps to get a fresh perspective and kills some boredom and repetition.
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I hop around in boxers blaring "I don't feel like dancing".
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usually i go about 60% win so win-loss-win-loss-win-win etc
yesterday i went 0-6, took a break, played some LoL, went to the pub, came back 3-1 my next 4 games before getting some sleep and going 2-1 this morning before work.
Slump over.
The answers in bold btw...
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On July 20 2010 00:17 Paramore wrote:
take a break
Well said. I take the time to collect myself, and contemplate about strats and gameplay.
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EPT
