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Hey TL,
I've been a long-time reader of the site, and wanted to contribute a bit to those of you who have asked "how can I get better at SC2" and almost instantly get a knee-jerk response of "Spend your money, always be making workers, and watch Day[9] Dailies. The purpose of this thread is to offer bullet-point strategic insights gleaned from a very few of Day9's dailies, and perhaps give you a sense of why it's valuable to watch the Dailies, but also perhaps to give a bit of a Cliff Notes version of some of the better Dailies from this summer.
DAILY 137: QXC on Comebacks
- If you get behind in a game (e.g. a bad engagement, got hellion-dropped, etc.), focus on playing for the midgame-- start UPGRADES and to HARASS. You are weaker than your opponent right now, so focus on closing the gap so you're equal or at an advantage in five minutes.
- On Tech Switches: QXC can tell if a tech switch/unit change is coming based on army composition. If he sees an army of hydras, roaches, and infestors, he's not worried "What if my opponent tech switches to mutas?" because there's simply NOT ENOUGH GAS for his opponent to be switching to mass muta. It's intelligent scouting just by seeing what units he has. By the same token, if you only see marines from an early Terran, or lings from an early Zerg, alarm bells should be ringing-- where is he spending his gas?
- Focus on saving units and be willing to pull back; if you see that a battle is not going to end in your favor (e.g. immortals are streaming down his ramp just as your roach attack is beginning), PULL BACK. There is no shame/defeat in a strategic retreat; in fact, you'll win more games doing so.
- Poke/harass constantly with survivable unit groups (e.g. a medivac with MM or speedy units like hellions at an expansion; don't harass with a bunch of hydralisks off-creep in his main, because they probably aren't going to make it out alive.)
- KEEP IN MIND: What will you do against your opponent if the game lasts 45 minutes? What's your endgame? You should be flexible, but keeping an endgame in mind will help you to set it up earlier in the game (e.g. if you want to end up going Carriers, you can be upgrading air attack in the game earlier than the 40 minute mark).
DAY 138: EU v. ASIA
- ANTICIPATE your opponent's moves! (This has been very useful for me) If you crush your opponent's army in an attack, keep an eye on the gold expansions and watch for drops/cloaked units-- he's behind, so think: how does he plan to catch up? If you pylon-block a Zerg to deny the natural, scout with a probe soon after to see if he randomly expanded somewhere else to try and sidestep the economic blow of your block-in.
- Put some thought into building placement: You can derive great, FREE advantages out of doing so. Make a ring of pylons around your base-- you can scout Nydus Worms, spot incoming medivacs, warp in units on the low ground, see if units are walking towards your base on the low ground, spot reapers before they get to your mineral line, etc. Can you place your buildings in such a way that there's only one entrance into your mineral line, so that reapers can't kite your units as easily? Put a supply depot next to destructible rocks to spot attacks before they can get into your base.
- Understand and take advantage of your opponent's expectations of what you are doing. A Zerg can harass his Protoss opponent's destructible rocks (Scrap Station, Blistering) and force the P to invest in static defenses, as he will be expecting a big frontal attack-- and then plant a nydus worm inside the base. BOOM!
- A strong build siphons off time/money from one area to bolster it elsewhere. A 6-pool sacrifices economy to generate incredible early offense, while a Fast Expand sacrifices early offense/defense for economy. Though you can be clever with openings, keep in mind that every build is sacrificing in one area (tech, units, economy) to bolster another part. Exploit those weaknesses. A 4-gate is much more likely to succeed against a teching Terran than a 3-Rax Terran. If a protoss forge-fast expands, as Zerg, consider double-expanding in response-- he has no units to attack you with!
- There are more nuanced weakness to builds also: If you see a Terran going for mass marauders, Banshees or Void Rays are going to be very strong (he's sacrificing unit variety/tech for lots of one specific unit... which doesn't shoot up). If a Protoss is fast-expanding with cannons, drop a Nydus, because he has so much base area and so very few units to spot vision with.
- Be relentless with air/harass/cloaked units. Force your opponent to put down expensive, static defenses, or else burn scans, and in general be more paranoid. 1 cloaked banshee can force an opponent to put down 4 turrets at his main and expo + waste scans. PERFECT! You don't have to kill lots of SCVs for the Banshee to be worthwhile; forcing those turrets slowed down your opponent, reduced the number of units he has, and made him paranoid.
and the famous Daily #132: Back to the Basics: The Mental Checklist
- You need a good memory of what to be doing at all points in time. Have a circuit running in your mind as you play "Am I making probes? How's my money doing? Am I going to be supply-blocked anytime soon? What's my next move? Also, am I making probes? How's..."
- Don't think about what you're doing right now; think about what you need to do next
- APM is NOT a measure of hand speed; it's a measure of how much you are remembering to do
- Create consistent hotkeys and get in the habit of using them (e.g. Nexus on 4, so that when you need to build a worker, just tap 4e, and go on your merry way)
Daily #121: Plugging Leaks in Silver Play
- Always build as soon as you have the minimum amount of money to build something. I move my probe off mining at 65 minerals while at 9 food so that it reaches my ramp to drop the pylon at exactly 100 minerals, for example. Doing that faster makes my gateway faster, which makes my Cyber faster, which makes Warpgate tech finish faster... you see the point. Be crisp in when you drop a building, at 110 minerals, pull your probe from mining to drop the Gateway at exactly when you can afford it(150 minerals).
- Keep up your macro during battles! If your opponent comes out slightly on top during a battle, but totally neglected to make workers/do upgrades/etc. for 90 seconds, you can actually come out of the battle with an economic advantage! Keep making workers during battles, no matter how spectacular the battle looks.
---
I hope these were of help, and if you were on the fence, that you are going to try and see some Dailies consistently. When I first played in Beta I was placed in Copper League, today I regularly beat ~ 1800 Diamond or above players, and while a lot of that is practice (no amount of Dailies/GSL-watching will make you truly "good" by themselves), Day9's dailies have kept me entertained and also closed a lot of the little leaks in my play. Check them out, and good hunting!
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Good stuff. I generally find myself re-watching dailies to find things I missed, but now that I have less time this is a good reminder for pros/good players/newbies alike.
Thanks.
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Snaphoo, want to be a TL hero? Bullet every daily in this fashion. I will paypal you 20 bucks >:D
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@ reikai: Glad it was of use!
@ eth3n: I feel like doing this for every single one of the Dailies would be a bit too adventurous an undertaking for me since I'm in grad school at the moment, but perhaps others in the community can continue this work?
Would welcome if this thread could become a general posting ground for bullet-point-format insights gleaned from Dailies.
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I would certainly be willing to help condense the dailies into bullet points. Seems like a perfect idea.
Maybe a group of us should get together, and spread the workload around. There's alot of stuff to review ^^.
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I was thinking about this weeks ago wondering: I wonder if anyone takes notes while watching Day 9?
If you need help taking notes on Day 9's videos, I can help ya out. :3 Pass me a private message.
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Daily 224
*An expansion is immediately a NET LOSS until it starts mining and slowly earns the investment back-400 dollars GAWN at that point
*Look at a slice of time, and judge clearly who is at an advantage and who is at a disadvantage JUST based on that slice of time (ignoring past game happenings)
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Great writeup, somehting I have been thinking someone should do but never got around to do my self!
A kinda important note though, Im one of those "jerks" that usualy tell ppl to build SCVs, in the very same thread that Snaphoo posted in less than 24h ago too!
There is a realy important point behind this though. All those slightly more involved day9-quotes are great. However, what usualy happens in those thread Snaphoo mentions, and this is the bigger tragedy, is that someone, out of context, sugest something from this very writeup. "Hey, just make sure you harras! Its super important against zerg" Its true, but out of context its no good.
A bronze-gold level player most likely still has fundamental flaws in his/her basic macro! Trying to force harras when that causes you to stop macroing for a full 2 min while you do your drop is not the way to go. Harras IS important against zerg but to just throw that out there is taking it out of context. That is why this Writeup is very good, its not too short and it got a reference to the actual video.
So, when you do give advice, either do a good job with the tactics involved like this one, or stick to fundamental and essential truths (lets be honest, bronz-gold players DO have a lot of work to do on their macro, been there). Telling someone to go mass voidray against a roaching zerg because "they cant shoot up" wount help a players whos macro is so bad that he cant kill the roaches faster than they kill his mineral line. Neither will any other tactic or strategy, no matter how sound.
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Hey, I'm thinking that the OP could hide the notes as "spoilers" to each daily (and title) so that it could look more organized and condensed. Then you can come back every so often and add any new contributions to the OP.
I'm also down for contributing to this thread.
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On January 17 2011 18:14 JabbaDaButt wrote:
Hey, I'm thinking that the OP could hide the notes as "spoilers" to each daily (and title) so that it could look more organized and condensed. Then you can come back every so often and add any new contributions to the OP.
I'm also down for contributing to this thread.
Done :3 I did a quick-edit of his first-post and minimized everything to look efficient and clean. Hope this helps out~
On January 17 2011 11:49 Snaphoo wrote:Hey TL, I've been a long-time reader of the site, and wanted to contribute a bit to those of you who have asked "how can I get better at SC2" and almost instantly get a knee-jerk response of "Spend your money, always be making workers, and watch Day[9] Dailies. The purpose of this thread is to offer bullet-point strategic insights gleaned from a very few of Day9's dailies, and perhaps give you a sense of why it's valuable to watch the Dailies, but also perhaps to give a bit of a Cliff Notes version of some of the better Dailies from this summer. DAILY 137: QXC on Comebacks+ Show Spoiler + - If you get behind in a game (e.g. a bad engagement, got hellion-dropped, etc.), focus on playing for the midgame-- start UPGRADES and to HARASS. You are weaker than your opponent right now, so focus on closing the gap so you're equal or at an advantage in five minutes.
- On Tech Switches: QXC can tell if a tech switch/unit change is coming based on army composition. If he sees an army of hydras, roaches, and infestors, he's not worried "What if my opponent tech switches to mutas?" because there's simply NOT ENOUGH GAS for his opponent to be switching to mass muta. It's intelligent scouting just by seeing what units he has. By the same token, if you only see marines from an early Terran, or lings from an early Zerg, alarm bells should be ringing-- where is he spending his gas?
- Focus on saving units and be willing to pull back; if you see that a battle is not going to end in your favor (e.g. immortals are streaming down his ramp just as your roach attack is beginning), PULL BACK. There is no shame/defeat in a strategic retreat; in fact, you'll win more games doing so.
- Poke/harass constantly with survivable unit groups (e.g. a medivac with MM or speedy units like hellions at an expansion; don't harass with a bunch of hydralisks off-creep in his main, because they probably aren't going to make it out alive.)
- KEEP IN MIND: What will you do against your opponent if the game lasts 45 minutes? What's your endgame? You should be flexible, but keeping an endgame in mind will help you to set it up earlier in the game (e.g. if you want to end up going Carriers, you can be upgrading air attack in the game earlier than the 40 minute mark)
- ANTICIPATE your opponent's moves! (This has been very useful for me) If you crush your opponent's army in an attack, keep an eye on the gold expansions and watch for drops/cloaked units-- he's behind, so think: how does he plan to catch up? If you pylon-block a Zerg to deny the natural, scout with a probe soon after to see if he randomly expanded somewhere else to try and sidestep the economic blow of your block-in.
- Put some thought into building placement: You can derive great, FREE advantages out of doing so. Make a ring of pylons around your base-- you can scout Nydus Worms, spot incoming medivacs, warp in units on the low ground, see if units are walking towards your base on the low ground, spot reapers before they get to your mineral line, etc. Can you place your buildings in such a way that there's only one entrance into your mineral line, so that reapers can't kite your units as easily? Put a supply depot next to destructible rocks to spot attacks before they can get into your base.
- Understand and take advantage of your opponent's expectations of what you are doing. A Zerg can harass his Protoss opponent's destructible rocks (Scrap Station, Blistering) and force the P to invest in static defenses, as he will be expecting a big frontal attack-- and then plant a nydus worm inside the base. BOOM!
- A strong build siphons off time/money from one area to bolster it elsewhere. A 6-pool sacrifices economy to generate incredible early offense, while a Fast Expand sacrifices early offense/defense for economy. Though you can be clever with openings, keep in mind that every build is sacrificing in one area (tech, units, economy) to bolster another part. Exploit those weaknesses. A 4-gate is much more likely to succeed against a teching Terran than a 3-Rax Terran. If a protoss forge-fast expands, as Zerg, consider double-expanding in response-- he has no units to attack you with!
- There are more nuanced weakness to builds also: If you see a Terran going for mass marauders, Banshees or Void Rays are going to be very strong (he's sacrificing unit variety/tech for lots of one specific unit... which doesn't shoot up). If a Protoss is fast-expanding with cannons, drop a Nydus, because he has so much base area and so very few units to spot vision with.
- Be relentless with air/harass/cloaked units. Force your opponent to put down expensive, static defenses, or else burn scans, and in general be more paranoid. 1 cloaked banshee can force an opponent to put down 4 turrets at his main and expo + waste scans. PERFECT! You don't have to kill lots of SCVs for the Banshee to be worthwhile; forcing those turrets slowed down your opponent, reduced the number of units he has, and made him paranoid.
- You need a good memory of what to be doing at all points in time. Have a circuit running in your mind as you play "Am I making probes? How's my money doing? Am I going to be supply-blocked anytime soon? What's my next move? Also, am I making probes? How's..."
- Don't think about what you're doing right now; think about what you need to do next
- APM is NOT a measure of hand speed; it's a measure of how much you are remembering to do
- Create consistent hotkeys and get in the habit of using them (e.g. Nexus on 4, so that when you need to build a worker, just tap 4e, and go on your merry way)
- Always build as soon as you have the minimum amount of money to build something. I move my probe off mining at 65 minerals while at 9 food so that it reaches my ramp to drop the pylon at exactly 100 minerals, for example. Doing that faster makes my gateway faster, which makes my Cyber faster, which makes Warpgate tech finish faster... you see the point. Be crisp in when you drop a building, at 110 minerals, pull your probe from mining to drop the Gateway at exactly when you can afford it(150 minerals).
- Keep up your macro during battles! If your opponent comes out slightly on top during a battle, but totally neglected to make workers/do upgrades/etc. for 90 seconds, you can actually come out of the battle with an economic advantage! Keep making workers during battles, no matter how spectacular the battle looks.
--- I hope these were of help, and if you were on the fence, that you are going to try and see some Dailies consistently. When I first played in Beta I was placed in Copper League, today I regularly beat ~ 1800 Diamond or above players, and while a lot of that is practice (no amount of Dailies/GSL-watching will make you truly "good" by themselves), Day9's dailies have kept me entertained and also closed a lot of the little leaks in my play. Check them out, and good hunting!
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tip from daily 125- change your name so it begins with Liquid-jk actuallly nice post and i think this would be really helpful if all of day 9 pointers got added to it over time
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On January 17 2011 11:49 Snaphoo wrote:
Hey TL,
I've been a long-time reader of the site, and wanted to contribute a bit to those of you who have asked "how can I get better at SC2" and almost instantly get a knee-jerk response of "Spend your money, always be making workers, and watch Day[9] Dailies. I have another reply: Don't lose the fun of playing.
I noticed that it seems a general consensus that everyone must try hard to get better at SC2. Then the league is designed in a way that you still will win 50% of the games regardless if you get better or not. In my opinion, it should be ok to be a scrub as long as you have the fun while you play. Only when you feel the need to get better because you want to, not to be on par with the skill level of your friends, you can try to improve.
Day[9] gives a lot of good advise, but it can also feel overwhelming to watch just a single daily. All those details! I am glad that Day[9] now gives more general advise. Some of it sounds so logical that it hardly looks like an advise at all, but those things turned out to be the best for me. Earlier Day[9] dailys look to the beginner from a professional point of view and giving too many high-level details.
For example the exact probe warp-in timing is too high level for Silver. The silver player (like myself) must draw a lot of attention for a single exact timing but then is overlooking too many other things which are more important than to save probe off-minerals time.
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On January 17 2011 19:27 [F_]aths wrote:Show nested quote +On January 17 2011 11:49 Snaphoo wrote:
Hey TL,
I've been a long-time reader of the site, and wanted to contribute a bit to those of you who have asked "how can I get better at SC2" and almost instantly get a knee-jerk response of "Spend your money, always be making workers, and watch Day[9] Dailies. I have another reply: Don't lose the fun of playing. I noticed that it seems a general consensus that everyone must try hard to get better at SC2. Then the league is designed in a way that you still will win 50% of the games regardless if you get better or not. In my opinion, it should be ok to be a scrub as long as you have the fun while you play. Only when you feel the need to get better because you want to, not to be on par with the skill level of your friends, you can try to improve. Day[9] gives a lot of good advise, but it can also feel overwhelming to watch just a single daily. All those details! I am glad that Day[9] now gives more general advise. Some of it sounds so logical that it hardly looks like an advise at all, but those things turned out to be the best for me. Earlier Day[9] dailys look to the beginner from a professional point of view and giving too many high-level details. For example the exact probe warp-in timing is too high level for Silver. The silver player (like myself) must draw a lot of attention for a single exact timing but then is overlooking too many other things which are more important than to save probe off-minerals time.
Well, pick the show that suits you. Day9 dailies generally helps the mid diamond player I would say. Watching day9 as a silver league player probably in the very most cases won't give you all that much.
Honestly in my opinion watching day9 is probably not the right way to start improving your play in sc2. For me just a build order and one simple truth (Always build workers) helped a bunch.
The reason to why I'm saying this is because when I say bronze friends play, they make say 3 supply depots before 20 supply, orbital command at 50, gas at 25 etc.
If you don't have a decent opener, general advice such as harassment etc wont mean anything.
There are tonnes of other streams on youtube like forcestarcraft and stuff like that, that can help out the average bronze, silver, gold player who wants to get better.
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On January 17 2011 19:50 Euronyme wrote:
Well, pick the show that suits you. Day9 dailies generally helps the mid diamond player I would say. Watching day9 as a silver league player probably in the very most cases won't give you all that much.
Honestly in my opinion watching day9 is probably not the right way to start improving your play in sc2. For me just a build order and one simple truth (Always build workers) helped a bunch.
The reason to why I'm saying this is because when I say bronze friends play, they make say 3 supply depots before 20 supply, orbital command at 50, gas at 25 etc.
If you don't have a decent opener, general advice such as harassment etc wont mean anything.
There are tonnes of other streams on youtube like forcestarcraft and stuff like that, that can help out the average bronze, silver, gold player who wants to get better.
I disagree with that statement, Day[9]'s Daily 132 about the mental checklist should work hand-in-hand with one set build order at that level.
In my humble opinion, players at a lower level should stick with a super basic aggressive (but not necessarily cheesy) build, such as a 3 Rax Stim, 4 Gate, etc. All of the timings, such as 10 depot 12 rax 13 gas 15 OC should be followed to the best of their ability. This should help them learn proper timings of when to build depots/pylons as well as how much buildings and units one can produce with one base play.
When the opener is finished and the mid-game is starting, that is when the mental checklist starts to kick in as you learn to remember macro basics while also engaging in battles.
Having that mental checklist accompany you throughout your progress as an SC2 player really helped me out. I started off in the lowest of lows in Bronze league, and now I'm on the verge of making it to Diamond league. 
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The tips from Day[9] are often good, but to a noob like me it often sounds like the thing which will enable you to improve a lot.
In my experience, only practice through mass-gaming improves you much.
The gas consideration the OP noted from a daily is a very good tip. High-level, but good. Knowing his current army composion and vespene income tells you a lot. Why did I never think about it before? May be because it is not the cause of why I still in Silver.
Day[9] hints are very well thought-out. I admire him even more for being able to phrase complex things in a way everyone can understand it than I admire him for his deep game understanding.
But therein lies a trap: Hearing and (somewhat) understanding Day[9] makes you think that you have a good knowledge, too. Without enough games played by yourself, it is just theoretical thougn and not applied. Then you look for excuses: "Ah, that guy 4-gated me just because he can play all day long while I have limited spare time and thus cannot show my real game skill/knowledge".
The OP cliff notes are very useful: There are 200+ dailies right now, but with this thread it is easy to get to the one you need to watch (or to watch again) to learn some (more or less) basic stuff.
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You may want to contact those running the site http://day9fan.com/, they are identifying what each daily includes, though they provide much more concise bullets (I prefer your style).
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Thanks for this, I'll be sure to forward it to my RL bronze league buddies ^^
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EPT
