EPTWritten by cactusjack
I have read a lot of posts recently from silver to platinum players who claim they have a hard time improving. I have compromised a list of tips and techniques that will hopefully get you to that next level of play.
Practice tips and playing against the AI
1) You need to learn your build solidly. If you cannot execute your opening flawlessly, start practicing now. You can find plenty of information on this website for build order timings.
2) After you think you have mastered your opening, begin to work on your opening while simultaneously circling a probe in the opponent’s base. This exercise will be VERY tedious at first but your mechanics will begin to get tighter the more and more you do this. Learn to hotkey your probe and start to think of him (yes, all mining units are male) as an essential part of your opening. If you can flawlessly hit the timing on your builds while circling the probe in the opponent’s base without queuing up more than 1 circle at a time you are already 100 times better than when you first started playing. This will not only teach you how to scout but will teach you how to jump back and forth between your base and a unit somewhere else on the map WITHOUT SCREEN SCROLLING. This will enforce the importance of hot keys and mechanics.
3) Do not convince yourself that your build order timing is flawless if it is not. I really don’t see how lying to yourself will get you better at this game. If you watch the replay and notice you are missing pylons and probes, just go back to step 1, it’s not the end of the world.
4) After you feel very comfortable with steps 1 to 3, that is that the tasks have become less tedious, I advise you take your developing mechanics to the ladder to see how you perform under pressure. If you find that you were hitting the build while scouting perfectly against the AI but couldn’t effectively do so on the ladder, you just need more practice working under pressure. No Problem!
5) You can use this to practice your mid to late game macro as well. Instead of circling a probe hotkey portions of your army and have the move around the map without shifting commands. You will be surprised how well this technique works. If you can do this without missing a probe or pylon will constantly producing out of your structures you are in great shape to improve your game on the ladder.
1 Build is really all you need to get a good UNDERSTANDING of the game
A lot of people silver to platinum level players seem to feel very shaky on when they should move out with their army. An easy technique to evolve your understanding of the game is to use the same opening/build every time. For example, when I first started playing I used to open 4gate against every race EVERY GAME. I quickly found out that if I was playing a terran who opened with some sort of cloak banshee play that not only was my 4gate risky since id have no detection but that the timing window was a lot smaller to attack. If I didn’t win with the initial push and immediately kill off the tech lab on the starport, I would be in a lot of trouble. From this I was able to conclude that the 4gate wasn’t the safest of builds against terran and that a 2 or 3 gate robo was much more viable. Of course, someone could just tell you that it’s not the safest build but finding these things out on your own is much more beneficial to you. Some of you may be asking, “Well, did you not scout?”. I want to stress that as much as scouting information is essential that learning the timing and adaptability of YOUR build first is more important than worrying about what the opponent is doing. Unfortunately with this method you will have to lose a lot. If you cannot deal with losing I promise you will NEVER get better.
If you are a gold player who cannot get better but knows 5 different build orders loosely, please take some of the advice posted in this thread.
Some words on aggression
Do not be afraid to get aggressive early . There is a reason why early aggression is very powerful in lower levels. Most people become so flustered with any sort of aggression that they become completely thrown off from their game plan and don’t respond well (floating minerals, adding unit producing structures, etc). They are forced to make hard decisions, such as pulling scvs, in order to survive. of course I do not recommend you get overly aggresive to the point that you cannot manage your base at the same time. However, It is much easier to be aggressive because of the fact that your only decision is committing or running. As you begin to move up in skill, you will notice the players respond better to aggression and that it doesn’t throw them off their game plan as much. That is no coincidence. The player putting on the most pressure while maintaining their economy the best usually wins at these levels. Yes, it is important to note that at lower levels macro is most of the time is going to win you the game. However, learning to be aggressive and macro at the same time is not something you should hold off learning how to do. The sooner you learn how to do these things the better off you will be. By constantly being aggressive you will develop the sense of when a good time to attack is or not by poking and retreating.
Note: I am not telling you to build 5rax as terran and pump marines into their base all game (unless that is the game plan). All I am saying is to stick with your build but to USE your units to apply pressure. By constantly poking in and out you will develop a sense of when to attack or retreat which is much more beneficial than copying someone’s timings. Day9 made a great point that no good strategy ever revolved around building unit X for defense.
I am very surprised that people complain about how they can’t get better if they have flaws in their macro while playing against an AI. Yes it is not the same thing as playing against someone 1v1, but the same rules apply in each case. One will just make you feel more under pressure than the other. If you find yourself plateauing just always remember the phrase “back to the basics”. If you are losing the game to strictly micro problems during battles, you are most likely masters or borderline professional. I cannot imagine a platinum player watching a replay and saying “well my macro was flawless, but my micro lost me the game”. If you are someone like that, you are most likely delusional about your sc2 skill and really need to start watching your replays better.
Thanks for reading! hope some of these tips will help some lower level players who feel they have plateaued!
