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Hello fellow TL users. This is actually my first-ish post/guide. But it seems there is a lack of general, this is what a newbie should do, reading. At least that’s what it seems to me. So I decided to write down some points that I have picked up over the last few months from Day[9], the Liquipedia, and some random stuff I have stumbled on to.
Obviously there are the points Day[9] makes.
1. Make scv/probes constantly (Zerg doesn’t follow this guideline, we have to learn when to drone and when to make units with our larva) Without these units you have no income. Which means no cool upgrades or awesome units to bash your opponents face in with. So make them. A lot of them! Bar none!
2. Don’t queue - The stuff you just queued cost you immediate money without giving you immediate results. That’s really counterproductive in the long run. You might as well use that money for some more units that you probably need right now, then the thing you’re going to get later.
3. Never ever get supply blocked- And when you do, for the love of God do not make a bunch of, pylons, supply depots, overlords. Don’t do it. It might feel good at the time but you just tossed 100-300 extra minerals down that you shouldn’t have. Build one supply cap raising structuce/unit at a time. You might think but, my money is high and I can afford it. Nope. That’s a lie. What that money is: Money you should have spent on units/buildings. Not extra money.
4. Have a freaking plan! (direct quote of Day[9]) – Seriously, if you go into a game thinking. I’ll just wing it. 9/10 times you are going to get stomped. The only race that can do that is… Well there isn’t one. So don’t do it! Go look up some build orders (I’ll post a link to a great place get some at the end)
5. Know the units in the game. All of them. You can’t just play your race and be ignorant of the other guys units. You need to know what is better against what and what just plain sucks in certain situations. You also need to know how they move and what damage they do. Which is very important in the huge epic battles in the center of the map. (I’ll post a link to the units page of Liquipedia so can take a look at all of them.)
6. Don’t worry about apm.(actions-per-minute for the total newbie) – Apm is not a measure of how awesome you are or how skilled you are . It’s a measure of how far you have come along in the game. If your hands are slow then you just need to play more. It’s that simple. Pro’s have crazy fast apm because they practice allllll the time. They play constantly, if you want lightning fast 300apm then you should too.
7. Scout a lot – You need to know what your opponent is doing so you can react in time. Plus if you scout and he doesn’t then you have a HUGE advantage. It may take a while to learn the timings of scouting but the more you play then easier that becomes.
8. Expand. Expand. Expand. – The hardest thing a newbie has to deal with is expanding. It took me a while to feel safe expanding. But you HAVE to do it. You cannot sit on one base. You need to take your second and your third (your third is much later) Most build orders tell you when to take your second depending on the style of play the BO is shooting for. If you choose to 1 base it you will die to more experienced players who grabbed 4 bases while you turtle it up and didn’t expand. They will roll you over with a 200/200 food army in now time flat.
9. Replays are your friend - Watch your replays for things you did and pick out things you do wrong a few out at a time and correct over a few weeks. Don't overwhelm yourself but pick a few thing you notice and fix them. Also watch pro replays on TL or Youtube.com or w/e replay site you want. There are a dozen of them to pick from. They give you good structured play to analyze and copy. When watching pro replays all ways try and ask yourself why they did that. It will help you immensely.
Those are my basic point for the Bronze-Gold league player. I think if you practice and follow those points you will quickly be a much better player. Now there are some things I have picked up that help me play better that I’ll share with you.
1. Don’t play with sound – Which might sound odd at first but let me explain. I first heard of this from IdrA (he plays with just music.) But if forces you to check your base and the map more. You no longer get the sound que of one your units finishing or your base being attacked. You have to watch the mini map for the base being attacked. And constantly check your base for finished workers. Which in turn makes you play faster and sharpens your reaction time.
2. Watch the left hand screen - It lets you know when things have finished. Like tech structures or your +1 upgrades. Which in turn means you can move out with that doom ball of yours.
3. If you are completely new then play the computer until you can consistently beat it on medium-hard – The computer always uses a very early push that will catch you off guard if you’re not prepared. Which teaches you how to deal with early rushes and timings on when your opponent has how many units opposed to what you might have.
4. Practice your build orders against the computer on very easy – I do this a lot. Its pretty common thing to do. Because the computer on very easy, will at most throw 3 units at you all game. So you can happily macro away and hammer out a nice BO to rip off your opponents face with.
Okay now I am going to post some really helpful links.
http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/Main_Page - Main pay of Liquipedia (Newbie’s should stop here often.)
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=104154 – Day[9]’s video main page. Watch all of his stuff and tune into his cast every night! Recommended vods for newbies are - Daily #0132, Daily #0163, Daily #0164
http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/Units - Starcraft 2 Units page. Learn them. Love them. Use them.
http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/Terran_Strategy - Terran Build Order page.
http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/Zerg_Strategy - Zerg Build Order page.
http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/Protoss_Strategy - Protoss Build Order page.
Affter notes: If you like this, let me know. If you think I missed something, let me know.
If you want a more in depth guide, let me know. I want to help new players out and make Starcraft II less frightening for the new player. So you got some questions hit me up with a PM. I;ll try my best to answer them. Also would love if some of the senior players would help. Thx TL. Later.
Credits and thanks: Day[9], Liquipedia, IdrA, Seth for his ZvP guide which helped me a ton. and TL forums for being awesome in general.
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Thx, it looked like TL needed one. ^-^
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On September 25 2010 02:42 Killswitch wrote:
1. Don’t play with sound – Which might sound odd at first but let me explain. I first heard of this from IdrA (he plays with just music.) But if forces you to check your base and the map more. You no longer get the sound que of one your units finishing or your base being attacked. You have to watch the mini map for the base being attacked. And constantly check your base for finished workers. Which in turn makes you play faster and sharpens your reaction time.
Just want to argue this. I don't care who says what. As a Zerg, sound is extremely important for both queens popping and larva inject finishing. To ignore those is plain ignorant and hindering yourself for no reason
The rest of the post looks good, just wanted to point out that because one of the best players does it does not mean it is a good idea. It's actually a horrible idea
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Yeah @OP and Pfeff - playing with the sound off seems like running a race with weights: makes you better but its harder.
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Sound can give you good information about what's going on without looking somewhere on the screen.. It's helpful..
Rest sounds good.
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Czech Republic11293 Posts
When you DO get supply blocked, it is good idea to build 2 or maybe even more supply buildings at the same time, otherwise you will get supply blocked almost immediately after the building finishes, unless you are at maybe 25 food and less. In my opinion anyway.
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i think that sound point is made for practice rather than all times playing.
And it's a very good thing to do. Sounds are often delayed or may even be lost. Important things like dropships sneaking by at the edge of vision of your things don't have sound anyway. If you train yourself to keep better watch over whats happening in the game in several ways, it WILL help you.
the other points: well there's really no arguing it. Executing is still harder than reading it up though.When you DO get supply blocked, it is good idea to build 2 or maybe even more supply buildings at the same time, otherwise you will get supply blocked almost immediately after the building finishes, unless you are at maybe 25 food and less. In my opinion anyway.
Well. Supply depends on your production capacity. If, as P, you have 3 Gateways up and maybe a second base, 8 supply will do exactly one production cycle. Finding a balance here is important, obviously just slamming out 12 supplystuffs when you go over 100 for the first time is going to cost you resources that could have instead been upgrades or units of immediate benefit.This is very much like the dont-queue-units rule.
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this post is amazing, ty so much i am mid league player so i struggle sometimes with some things, this helped abunch!
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On September 25 2010 08:24 snow2.0 wrote:i think that sound point is made for practice rather than all times playing. And it's a very good thing to do. Sounds are often delayed or may even be lost. Important things like dropships sneaking by at the edge of vision of your things don't have sound anyway. If you train yourself to keep better watch over whats happening in the game in several ways, it WILL help you. the other points: well there's really no arguing it. Executing is still harder than reading it up though. Show nested quote +When you DO get supply blocked, it is good idea to build 2 or maybe even more supply buildings at the same time, otherwise you will get supply blocked almost immediately after the building finishes, unless you are at maybe 25 food and less. In my opinion anyway. Well. Supply depends on your production capacity. If, as P, you have 3 Gateways up and maybe a second base, 8 supply will do exactly one production cycle. Finding a balance here is important, obviously just slamming out 12 supplystuffs when you go over 100 for the first time is going to cost you resources that could have instead been upgrades or units of immediate benefit.This is very much like the dont-queue-units rule.
I would still argue about the sound thing. I don't have delays at all that I've noticed, but I only really listen for the important ones (queen and larva), so I'm not really sure what you're talking about. I just find it kinda stupid to practice something that is less than optimal.
I do, however, agree quite strongly with what you say about supply. Finding a good balance is important in every aspect of this game, and this is one that is extremely important to know. You don't want to waste macro clicks building a depot, overlord, or pylon every three units, but you also don't want to be sitting at 68/120.
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Thank you, Killswitch. I'm siting at the bottom of the learning curve, and definitely appreciate the work you put into this post.
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As a zerg player I only feel the need to contest two points:
1) Playing with sound is incredibly useful. I always hear when my larvae pop and are in need of another injection. It keeps my injection reaction time down. Telling people to play without sound is like telling people to try to play without a pivotal counter to the unit the opponent is building. Yes it will force you to completely out macro and micro the opponent, but don't handicap yourself like that! Running with weights is a better example, but I like being creative.
2) When you hit the food cap at lets say 40-ish supply, it's really not a bad idea *at least as zerg* to make multiple/many overlords. Because I could have 11 larvae just finish and one overlord won't help me avoid the food cap AGAIN once I held down the "r" button to make 11 roaches. I understand where you are coming from, I've seen people make 8 overlords at once saying "HA! No food cap for me anymore!" And that's a complete waste. But I'd say use your best judgement as the game progresses.
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There's no reason to play with your sound off. The last thing I want to miss hearing is "research complete" or the sound of units completing.
Don't even get me started on how bad it is to miss "Nuclear Launch Detected."
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On September 25 2010 08:48 Darthturtle wrote:
There's no reason to play with your sound off. The last thing I want to miss hearing is "research complete" or the sound of units completing.
Don't even get me started on how bad it is to miss "Nuclear Launch Detected."
Oh man I can't believe we forgot about those earlier. Yea, those are more VERY important reasons to have audible warnings
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You hit on some really good fundamental stuff. I recommend practicing vs AI to acquire that robot-like execution of worker, supply, production- until you are constantly doing it, and that little panic button goes off in your head immediately when you are not doing these things. I am myself just learning this stuff.
A couple of the mental factors I've noticed that us noobs need to push past (most of them have to do with fear):
Don't be afraid to move your units to forward/strategic positions (watchtowers!). It's really easy to contain and break a guy who is immobile and blind, so don't be that guy. An army sitting at the top of your ramp isn't earning its pay.
Lack of information causes fear, and compounds itself. Information is a resource in this game (in my current opinion the most important), and it's worth investing in. How many games do you lose when you know exactly what your opponent is doing? Not many.
Trust and test your intuition. When your gut is telling you that something's wrong, it usually is.
You may need to abandon "rules" once the game is out of the opening. Keep your fundamentals like production, scouting, etc., but at some point in the mid game, if you're a noob, your economy is going to be a bit of a mess and you'll have to adapt. These situations test you as a player, and are incredibly fun. Who doesn't love lightning-fast problem solving with explosions?
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Nice post. By the way, don't you think it's fine for a Zerg player to build say, 3 Overlords, and have a lot of unused supply for a dump of minerals on units? I tend to do that. Is that a bad thing?
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On September 25 2010 12:28 Rahlekk wrote:
Nice post. By the way, don't you think it's fine for a Zerg player to build say, 3 Overlords, and have a lot of unused supply for a dump of minerals on units? I tend to do that. Is that a bad thing?
It's not as bad as getting supply blocked, but you only really want to have enough extra supply to support your next wave of injected larva. Remember, overlords do still cost the most valuable zerg resource - larva. If your overlord wound up being excessive, you technically could've had an extra drone, or whatever.
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Nice topic, as a newbie it help alot
tnks
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I would like to thank all of you for your points and comments.
On September 25 2010 07:33 Pfeff wrote:Show nested quote +On September 25 2010 02:42 Killswitch wrote:
1. Don’t play with sound – Which might sound odd at first but let me explain. I first heard of this from IdrA (he plays with just music.) But if forces you to check your base and the map more. You no longer get the sound que of one your units finishing or your base being attacked. You have to watch the mini map for the base being attacked. And constantly check your base for finished workers. Which in turn makes you play faster and sharpens your reaction time.
Just want to argue this. I don't care who says what. As a Zerg, sound is extremely important for both queens popping and larva inject finishing. To ignore those is plain ignorant and hindering yourself for no reason The rest of the post looks good, just wanted to point out that because one of the best players does it does not mean it is a good idea. It's actually a horrible idea
Firstly, I suppose I should clarify the sound off thing. As many people mentioned it does make you miss quiet a bit. But that's the point. It forces you to consistently check up on your base and what your doing. Which makes you remember what your doing in the long run. Remembering things becomes easier to do because you force yourself to play at a monumental disadvantage. For the love of god do not it in anything but practice. That should have been said at the beginning of the post.
On September 25 2010 08:48 Jeffbelittle wrote:
As a zerg player I only feel the need to contest two points:
1) Playing with sound is incredibly useful. I always hear when my larvae pop and are in need of another injection. It keeps my injection reaction time down. Telling people to play without sound is like telling people to try to play without a pivotal counter to the unit the opponent is building. Yes it will force you to completely out macro and micro the opponent, but don't handicap yourself like that! Running with weights is a better example, but I like being creative.
2) When you hit the food cap at lets say 40-ish supply, it's really not a bad idea *at least as zerg* to make multiple/many overlords. Because I could have 11 larvae just finish and one overlord won't help me avoid the food cap AGAIN once I held down the "r" button to make 11 roaches. I understand where you are coming from, I've seen people make 8 overlords at once saying "HA! No food cap for me anymore!" And that's a complete waste. But I'd say use your best judgement as the game progresses.
After about 40 supply and you have all the larva then yeah I do think its okay to build overlords at a more rapid pace. However it is extremely important to not spam cap raising. Its costly and ineffective.
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I think the "don't queue units" rule should be given an exception for workers. Bronze/Silver players generally have extremely low APM (I've seen as little as 15-20), and if they're not queuing a few workers they'll just end up having a terrible economy. Even current pros queue 2 workers as the game starts dragging on.
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EPT
