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On December 16 2010 01:46 KevinIX wrote: I would say:
Gold - I know what unit composition I want. - I know the build order I am following, but I am sloppy at executing it. - I know in general a good time to attack, but sometimes I miss it. - I know in general a good time to expand, but sometimes I miss it. - I know about micro, but I am still sloppy at unit control. - I still have a hard time multitasking. - I know how to counter the enemy, but I don't scout.
Platinum - I know the build order I am following, and I am getting crisp at executing it. - I know a good time to attack, but my game depends on the outcome of this attack. - I know a good time to expand, but sometimes I forget. - I am getting good at micro, but often, I forget to macro while I'm fighting. - I counter the enemy when I scout him, but I often spend long periods of time in the dark between scouting. - My late game army composition often gets skewed one way or another. .
This is much more accurate IMO and definitely hits the nail on the head where I sit at. I'm stuck at top 1900+ gold (yes, embarrasing >_<) and am constantly trying to improve enough to go up. One of the biggest obstacles for me right now is recognizing my timings. I'm always attacking too soon, too late, or sometimes just downright not doing anything when I can easily march in for the kill. Even though my macro mechanics seem to be better than most people I play against, my decision making is always my downfall...
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On December 15 2010 07:29 TheToast wrote:Show nested quote +On December 15 2010 07:15 Chill wrote:On December 15 2010 06:46 TheToast wrote:This however I do take major issue with. There are no such things as "counters" as Day9 has said there is only forcing and responding. can benefit from reading stuff on the strategy forum here at TL. Honestly I think you are better off watching Day9, pro-replays, and user streams. That's retarded, of course there are counters. I don't think you really understood the point he was making when he said that. There are no such thing as "hard counters" that is, no one unit is ultimately good against another. Yes colossi are good against marines, but if terran has 150 marines to your 4 colossi then terran is probably going to win. In this case the player with more stuff will win even though he is being "countered". Now if P void ray rushes, then he can force T to respond with marines. But marines are not a counter to void rays. Even if T has 20 marines to P's 2 void rays, effective void ray micro can inflict considerable damage to T's forces. This logic that if your opponent has lots of X unit, then you should get unit Y doesn't hold up and proves to be cyclical. If T has marines, then Y will get banelings, then T will get banshees, then Z will get corruptors, then T will get marines... and so on. Focus should be on getting the right unit composition, not which unit counters which. As Day9 joked the other day, using this logic floating buildings should be considered a "counter" against zerglings.
Day 9 isn't saying that counters don't exist, what he means by joking about that is ripping on the people that watch a replay, see banelings kill marines, and go, see banelings counter marines. People that give up their analysis of a replay at that moment thinking, ah to beat marines I need banelings, without realizing that there is a timing window of when to do that, and that the marines can be microed, or he can put like 1 or two marauders in the group in front to lessen the damage, and so forth. Unit to unit there are counters, but it is NOT the focus of the game. You can use countering units in your play. I mean even in his most recent Daily, the one focused on banelings, he talks about the person's unit comp not being equipped to deal with ling muta baneling. The player had only Marines, Banshees, and Medivacs. Obviously if he had tanks and a few marauders he would be 10X more effective versus that unit comp.
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I'm in Bronze and now am completely stomping players with only decent macro. My suggestion is like what other people said. Get one build order that is good at everything (mine is 3 gate robo), and just focus on getting workers and army. You don't need to harass at all, you don't need to do some fancy micro tricks, all you basically need to do is get a bigger army. I've been sticking to this plan and have been doing VERY well. I'm now playing Silver players and not slowing down at all.
Here's my match history: http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/profile/1572768/1/Mahatma/matches#filter=solo
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You guys, just becuase Day(9) says there are no such things as 'counters' does not mean there is no such thing. I'm not taking anything away from Day(9) as I watch him as well, but there are such things as 'counters' he just calls them 'responses'. If you respond to Mutas with seige tanks, than you probably picked the wrong 'counter' or 'response'. There is an appropriate 'response' or 'counter' to any situation and often times, more than one, but regardless of how you want to label them, counters/responses do exist.
You would be a complete fool to counter hydra's with phoenix. How is that different from 'responding', incorrectly, to hydra's with phoenix?
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On December 15 2010 06:21 farseerdk wrote:Gold League - "Finally some strategy"+ Show Spoiler +1) Basic knowledge of terrain and how to use it (chokes vs. open areas) 2) Basic micro (ling surrounds, marauder kiting) 3) Ability to macro off 2 bases and keep money low while not attacking. It's ok if you slip while trying to multitask. 4) Basic knowledge and application of map control and map awareness 5) Basic knowledge on how to transition to 2 base play 6) Basic ability to decide on when to attack and where to attack by looking at your opponent 7) Basic ability to "read" other people's openers.
Now you're finally going to (try to) progress from the whole 1a, 2a, 3a thing you've been doing in bronze and silver. It's ok if you're not very good at it, but you should have the basics down, like keep your zealots in front of your stalkers, don't run head first into a row of tanks etc. Your ability to "remember to do stuff" needs to be further developed. The most important thing at this level is you be able to look at your opponent and derive more information that just what to make. You don't need to know precise timings, but you should be able to tell something like "he has 4 gateways, he is going to attack soon" or "that guy made 4 crawlers, it should be safe to expand now".
Hm. I got placed into gold, and don't have much free time, so I've only played 40 or 50 games so far. (I've had the game since October...) I'm hovering just below a 50% win rate, and have watched enough pro games that it *feels* like I'm playing really damn poorly when I'm actually in-game. So I guess that's a start, I know I need to just work on macro at this stage in the game, and then I can worry about map control and using blink and storm properly and so on... My money stays low, but I feel like I always have a small army. I think I consistently try to tech too fast, since I'm nearly always sitting on tons of extra gas and no minerals to make units with. I DO make a point of always building probes and pylons, but I feel like I forget to make units after that...
This thread seems awesome, as so far, it pretty much lines up with my limited experience exactly. Occasionally I lose to silver players, and then proceed to kick myself when I watch the replay and notice how many obvious errors there were. I probably belong in silver, but whatever.
My main question is on #5. And this sort of bleeds into #6. How DO you know when to transition to 2-base play? I know the general answer is "when you push out, or when you defend his push, etc" since then you have a window where you're relatively safe from attack and can sit back until an expo kicks in, but I can't seem to pull that off in practice. The vast majority of the games I lose go like this:
I try to 4-gate or 3-gate immortal (you know, as well as a mid-gold player does, i.e. poorly), and push around 7 minutes. I break their ramp and we trade initial armies. Warp in a wave of reinforcements, and eventually get repelled. Attempt to build up an army just outside his natural. He eventually pushes out and kills that army/pylons. Now I have no units, and he has a reasonable force. Go go gadget panic mode, try to raise an army outside my main. OH CRAP I have 40 probes in my main, and can only make 8-10 units a minute. It's basically over at this point. If I expand, I can't make a defense force. If I don't expand, I can hang in there for another 5 or 10 minutes and then die.
Now that I take the time to type it out, it seems obvious -- don't get greedy and go for the early win, just fully retreat once the initial damage is done and expo right then. Is that the right move? Thanks to anyone who responds, and sorry if this doesn't really merit a post...
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Bronze/Silver/Gold/Platinum/Low Diamond - I don't follow an efficient build order. - I can only concentrate on one thing at a time (the battle, unit production, scouting). - I don't know when to expand. - I don't know when to attack. - If I micro, it tends to be sloppy. - I have a hard time judging the strength of my army compared to the strength of my opponent's army.
Mid Diamond - I know the build order I am following - I know a good time to attack, but my game often depends on the outcome of this attack. - I know a good time to expand, but sometimes I forget. - I am getting good at micro, but often, I forget to macro while I'm fighting. - I counter the enemy when I scout him, but I often spend long periods of time in the dark between scouting. - My late game army composition often gets skewed one way or another.
This more what I would consider to be accurate from watching others play and from my own play.
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On December 16 2010 00:34 farseerdk wrote:Show nested quote +On December 15 2010 21:25 Mr.Brightside wrote: I am a high Plat window licking mouth breather :D and according to the definitions of what is important to do in each matchup I probably sit in between Silver and Gold. Half of the games I play are against Diamond players as well. I think it's a good checklist but perhaps a bit too optimistic for each league, I will say that pretty much macro only got me to where I am from Copper in the beta. Perhaps also that I have 2Gate Robo practiced pretty well and it can combat a lot of builds pretty well in the lower leagues, having a build against each race such as OP stated is an important point.
I think for the players that are struggling with the confusion of timings and what the hell your opponent is doing in the lower leagues, just ignore things like timings and impressive micro and focus on your macro. Most of my wins come from me just having more units and from playing many games having a fair idea of whether my army will beat the other player's army if I engage. My observation is that in the lower leagues it is more important to how you play by focusing on what you are doing, in the higher leagues it is more important to how you play by analysing what they are doing. What in particular are you suggesting is too optimistic? Note that it's "basic micro". When I say basic, I don't mean fancy pants FF splitting, or marine stutter step or whatever. I mean things like keeping zealots in front of stalkers, being able to attack move correctly and being able to run PAST 2 hellions with a bunch of zerglings and then pressing "stop" as opposed to just clicking one hellion.(Ok maybe the last one is a bit more difficult since I was playing a high plat friend of mine while off-racing as zerg and he WTF'd when I destroyed his 2 hellion push with a flank of speedlings...) Also, like 90% of the things listed there are macro oriented, so it's not like what you're saying disagrees with what i posted.
Yeah your OP is pretty accurate with what you have to do, it's just that what you say for Gold is more like what is going on in Plat. Everyone at the lower levels have things which they lack in so it makes sense that obviously not everything on your list will be ticked off for respective leagues but for me personally I have no idea whatsoever about timings. The best timing I can think of is breaking down a T wall when my first immortal pops, and I have no idea when that will be in terms of minutes. I don't know any of the timings of what they may send either. I only know what to expect from what I scout and if I can't scout effectively for a majority of the game 80% of the time I will lose because that also leads me to not knowing when to expand. I have no idea what timing I should expand, just that if I have a successful attack then I should probably expand or if they are expanding I should expand soon. Sometimes I just expand because... that's what you do, it feels right and if they attack during this time or soon after it will often send my macro rather spastic.
So I guess I have ticked/missed boxes from silver-plat. My micro is pretty poor as well but it does vary for units and relates directly to how well my macro is going. I guess I do try and do basic things like keep zealots at the front or micro colossii back. It is not uncommon for me to go above 1000 minerals off 2 bases while I am trying to do that though, sometimes it can cost me the game. A forward pylon is a really good way to remedy that actually as I have recently learnt.
The statement I made in bold in my previous post is just my general opinion on how playing the game works. I think at Plat you start to get a mix of focusing on what you are doing and analysing what the opponent is doing.
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Very good topic! It's kinda a check-list for "what I need to improve in order to become a better player". I just think that "controlling well 2+ bases" should be at Silver.
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+ Show Spoiler +On December 16 2010 11:10 Fission wrote:
Bronze/Silver/Gold/Platinum/Low Diamond - I don't follow an efficient build order. - I can only concentrate on one thing at a time (the battle, unit production, scouting). - I don't know when to expand. - I don't know when to attack. - If I micro, it tends to be sloppy. - I have a hard time judging the strength of my army compared to the strength of my opponent's army.
Mid Diamond - I know the build order I am following - I know a good time to attack, but my game often depends on the outcome of this attack. - I know a good time to expand, but sometimes I forget. - I am getting good at micro, but often, I forget to macro while I'm fighting. - I counter the enemy when I scout him, but I often spend long periods of time in the dark between scouting. - My late game army composition often gets skewed one way or another.
This more what I would consider to be accurate from watching others play and from my own play.
I think this is very accurate. Around 2k is where the players get really good one/two base macro, and can do reasonably good micro. It is difficult to really distinguish between Bronze to Platinum players as well, because everybody has different flaws. Some are not that bad in macro, but simply do stupid stuff. Some can do one buildorder reasonably well, but nothing beyond that. Some have a good grasp of the game already, but their macro is just bad. Most just have bad macro though.
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Bronze: play a little better > Silver: play a little better > Gold: play a little better > Platinum > play a little better > Diamond.
Macro is only one part of the game. Game sense, good rts thinking and just good knowledge of the game are also important. I agree that most people should focus on macro first but most of you are taking it much too far, it ends up not being that useful when people come asking for advice and all they get is "I didn't watch the replay but I bet your macro sucks".
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