EPT
I went to extreme measures like cleaning out my recycling bin, some junk files, anything that could help Sc2. I even went so far as to close windows explorer(no shortcuts, no toolbar at the bottom, basically just a background with nothing clickable) and opened Sc2 through windows task manager which I think might have helped it a little. Through this method I get 19-20 FPS through the first 5-10 minutes and then it slowly dips into the 13-16 fps range past the 10 minute ish mark.
Really I feel like I should be diamond since I'm a BW player and all BW purists naturally say stuff like "I tried sc2 for 2 weeks and it was terrible. I got to diamond with protoss. It's so easy." That began my ambition to finally go up the ladder despite the difficulties ahead. What I found was a constant switching of all 3 races never deciding on what race I should do and constant disappointment at my inability to get to diamond.
I'm a Zerg player in Sc1 so naturally you'd think I'd be Zerg in Sc2 as well but the reason I went Zerg in Sc1 is because I manage to be decent in all 3 match ups. I don't really have a strongest matchup either having my win/loss rates against all 3 races panning out as 50 percent across the board from my days of laddering at iCCup. Zerg vs. Zerg in sc2 is some kind of different beast. You either go Muta vs. Muta or Roach/Hydra/Infestor vs. Roach/Hydra/Infestor which isn't ideal to be in since I want to make the game short.
I find myself going rushes and cheeses with 1 base plays. For some time I just used Protoss for the majority of Gold League and went 4 gate and sometimes 6 gate all zealots. When I got to platinum I found marauders and stimmed marines frustrating to deal with so I switched to Zerg, and then Terran, then to Protoss, and then to Zerg.
Using cheese and all ins is really funny when you're in platinum because most of the time people don't think you're going to cheese in such a high league game and just assume you're going to go with a more macro oriented build. Many times I've had success using baneling/speedlings busts and roach rushes with just a hatch and queen. Very nice but not a good way to win consistently.
6 pool is powerful on 4 player maps since your opponent doesn't expect for someone to 6 pool on a 4 player map where spawn points aren't predictable. Many a ZvZ have I won where the Zerg went hatchery before pool as their face cringed and bellowed before the sight of 6 almighty zerglings pecking away at his drones....and a proxy Spine Crawler to top it off built right under his nose.
Whenever I went Protoss I was absolutely awful at playing PvP. 3 gate proxy would do the trick most of the time and for PvT...I went 2 gate immortal hoping the terran went fast command center after a gasless rax. Quite effective. PvZ if I wasn't doing some proxy Voidray build I'd be doing a FFE, randomly stop making Probes at whatever time seemed comfortable, mass Gateways, get blink, and then win. There was no sense of timing, just really winging it.
To sum it all up my variety of builds orders was limited to 6 pool, 1 base speedling/baneling bust, 4 gate, randomly timed Blink Stalker all ins, and maybe 3 rax stim all in.
This strategy caught me up to rank 3 of platinum league(woohoo) and after losses and wins I managed to shovel out a winrate beginning at 60.2 percent climbing down to 59 percent. I got some help from a sc2 user named Firefly who informed me WoL platinum/diamond league had gotten tougher since 2010 which I assume was caused by lack of saturation which is a similar case to iCCup. I think I topped the end of the week's games with 110 something wins and 75 losses. Really sad I never got into diamond.
I tried getting long win streaks(longest I got was 6) and whenever I played a diamond player I thought I'd get a promotion if I beat them(I never did beat any of them, so I never would know...) I've decided to just call myself a 2010 diamond leaguer since that's the range I'd be around in. Even with my comp's lack of blast processing I still feel confident I could make do with what I have and go for diamond league through constant grinding. I'm kind of tempted to continue laddering on Sc2.
I was but a breath away from diamond, but constantly as I feel myself getting closer the reality presents itself as a futile attempt. Until the next time, stay gold, Starcraft....stay gold.
