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Today I want to bring up a little discussion about the importance of build orders. I've been wondering about some of these questions for quite some time & never really found any recent discussion of this now in 2019.
So, to start this off I just had this one thought. When a new players starts playing starcraft the most common advice i see is usually "Learn a build" "Practice a build" "Start using build orders"
Makes sense right? For many players this is a great approach to learning the game and getting better. You can start off with a 1 base build to learn how to properly macro off of 1 base & then move over into more complex builds as you get better at the game. In other means, most people seem to agree that following & using build orders is essential to becoming "Good" at starcraft.
When I started playing starcraft in 2011, I too started off with a very simeral approach. I watched day9, and found a build. Wrote it on a piece of paper and started practicing it against bots.
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Then i got bored, and I thought to myself "Why is this neccesary?" I shouldn't have to play in a particular way to get better just because someone said this is how you get good at this game... I was bronze at the time so I could play as bad as I wanted without having any kind of performance anxiety. I didn't have to use a particular build, so I played whatever strategy/style I wanted. Without using any builds.
That was 7 years ago. I still don't use any kind of builds. I'm currently a diamond Protoss sitting at 4370mmr (4996 peak back when I was zerg main)
So what do I do instead of using builds? I use ideas, pure and simple.
I only use ideas when I play ladder. For example. I might get into a PvZ on ladder and say I wanna kill this guy on 2 bases with chargelot/immortal. The route & execution of that style is different in every game I play, because I deliberately alter how I accomplish the route to this strategy/idea by observing how my opponent plays. In other words my "Chargelot/Immortal allin" is never done in the same way. If the zerg is overly aggressive, I'll wait until I have a certain amount of units and then go for the kill. Should he play greedy, however, I might skip the miscellanious units (for example a second immortal) and go a little earlier. Not to mention that I literally change my playstyle a little bit for each loss i get. I lost to a nydus the other day while pushing due to my ignorance of my enemies overlord placements, solution ended up being me making 2 stalkers & putting them in a warp prism and traveling around eliminating everything I found from the matches from there on out.
Or I'll get into a PvT and say hey, well... This game I want a ground-based style focused around collosuss. Once again, execution & path towards this unit composition is never the same. Occasionaly I'll deviate from what I want to play if I scout or get the feeling that something's coming.
A few days ago I had a pretty bad day on ladder, where I lost a lot of points. Then I got into a match and decided I wanted to do a troll game, I went for proxy natural into mass carriers against a terran. A completely ridiculous strategy that should never work, but it did. I beat him convincingly. This to me was just further evidence that at my level of play, builds & even just compositions don't matter much. It's the genuine understanding & gamesense that matters. Not to mention that this wasn't the first time for me. that mass carriers on 2 base had worked.
but now I must get to the point and stop talking about myself. my POINT is only, that when I started playing I felt like build orders was a must have to get anywhere in RTS, but I strongly feel that that's not true unless you are going for high masters/GM & above.
Perhaps the most interesting thing to me, is how different all starcraft players are. People have different goals & different ways to accomplish what they want. Nobody's approach to competitiveness is the same.
The real question I want to ask all of you is what is your approach to build orders? Do you have a list of specific build orders that you follow from others? Do you create your own builds? or do you rely solely on intuition. Or perhaps you keep up with & follow the pro-meta?
Additionaly, did you utilize specific builds from others when you were new?
I hope I get som answers, I want to know how you guys play starcraft :D
+++ I did not check for grammar errors. Sorry if something is difficult to read due to poor structure or wrong use of words.
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Hey Jan1997,
I believe most will agree that build orders are not a be all, end all, below Master league. I too just did a lot of one base play in Wol because I was always concerned with what my opponent could do. I watched the YouTube videos and joined a clan and I understood that if I wanted to climb the ladder quickly build orders was a good place to start, but scouting and understanding what you were scouting for helped me the most(ex: Did my opponent expand?). I followed Day9's advice that you really only need one build to get pretty high up the ladder so I usually go with reaper expand, but not for TvT. What I also noticed is that if you can nail down this simple build into say a 1-1-1 you can pick up on the pro builds with ease.
You can really do what ever you want on the ladder, but at a point your path may take to long and your opponent could exploit it. If you look to do some tournaments going in without a build or two could be an easy defeat.
As for playing vs the AI the reason they call it a grind is because all you do is the same thing as perfect as possible to give yourself the best chance to win at the highest level. Time is the enemy in StarCraft 2. If you are late that could mean your opponent is already at your door with more stuff. This is were build orders come into play.
So I use builds to be as efficient as possible to accomplish the goal for that game. Usually harassment style. I do not have a list, but I have used builds from pro's such as Maru, TY and Gumiho. I do not create my own, but have found some great ideas here on the forums, YouTube or other sites. I would say I use the meta the most, but is not always the case. When I was new I just learned the reaper FE it is the staple for Terran to master.
In closing, I play pretty serious as to win the games I que so I stick to the meta for the most part. If winning is the only goal then builds would be your best bet. There are of course some exceptions to this, but they are very few. Just enjoy the game how ever you choose to play it in Victory and Defeat.
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I don't get this rant. You can't play w/o a BO. Ever. Theoretically. Your BO could vary, it could be optimal/suboptimal/plain bad/not optimised/etc, but it's always a BO. So technically you are not "playing w/o BO", as you put it, you just use a random one every time. It's just a character trait. Let me guess - you are not good at studying? (no offense).
Another important thing to mention is that it actually doesn't matter how you aproach the game: studying a specific BO very hard or playing "on the fly", "intuitively". It the end all your experience just piles up in your "subconsciousness", so your play becomes more refined and solid regardless of your playstyle. So, don't force yourself. But in my opinion, players that rely too much on intuition in SC, usually fall behind in a long perspective. Yes, they may look more agile in chaotic/nonstandard situations, but eventually it becomes more and more hard for them to catch other players offguard.
p.s. IMO protoss and terran are races that rely on BO veeery much. Zerg may suit your playstyle better.
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If you are a begginer and wanna hit the ladder it's kinda usefull to have 1 BO. In this way you won't be demoralized after you get crushed in the first 5-10 games. The nice thing about playing on the ladder is that even if you lose x amount of games, you will most likely start to see some paterns: hey no natural taken by opponenet at 3-4 min into the game, hey the terran is building 3 barracks, hey why does the P have 3 GW building and no expansion, hey look , its a forge and 1 probe is at my natural,... This kind of pickups cand be learned without any youtube guides or whatever, you can learn this just by playing. In the upper leagues the timings get more and more important as in order to spot an incoming attack, lets say cloack banshee you will need to actually know and understand this BO to understand what you scout for. Game sense appears IMO after lots and lots of games. If you wanna get competitive and take every single game serious, BO know how is a must. The most important thing is that all these combined: BO know how, game sense, mechanics, positioning,...etc equals also FUN. So basicaly BO is one of the pillars thet makes this game FUN.
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According to my experience BOs help me structure and polish my play. It's way harder to macro when I'm not playing according to a plan and have to improvise on the fly. Sc2 is just hard on mechanics and if I have to multitask the map, macro and think about when to build what I'm bound to screw up. I might f.e. throw a gas down too early, not have enough mins to keep my worker production cycled and then get out of the worker building rhythm, which leads to more screw-ups. And while I'm waiting for my mins to hit 100 because I'm supply blocked because I built my gate 1 worker earlier I miss the Zerglings streaming past wall-in.
I don't enjoy things more when going by a buildorder and figuring stuff out on your own definitely is a fun aspect, but Sc2 is a game where small fuckups lead to game-loosing scenarios, especially early on. If I wanted to play sc2 hardcore I'd likely play the same BO over and over again until I've mastered it and then start to experiment with little timing changes.
Tbf I played a lot more formless when playing Zerg, Z can react much faster and usually has better information than other races.
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It's a semantics argument a little bit, but no matter what you do in a game, it is technically a build order. But what you mean is you do things on the fly and try to just make them work. This doesn't really work in the higher leagues though. I play vs 5.1k-5.5k players consistently and you have to have well refined play to have a chance because the timings are so tight, and that's why people stick to a build order script really. And the better you get the more deviations that build order has based on what you see, and it's important to play as optimally as you can execute.
That said, I firmly believe there is a level / mmr range for everything in SC2. If you want to mass void rays against Terran, there is an MMR level where that is possible. If you want to play purely on the fly with no build, there's an MMR that's possible. SC2 can be whatever you want it to be, and the system will place you appropriate to your playstyle. Not everyone wants to be ultra competitive cutthroat GM semipro, and that's totally fine and acceptable. At it's core, SC2 is still a game that should be fun. Some people take it more seriously than others, and some people don't. So while you may not get to GM playing the way you do, as long as you have fun and the games are good by your own definition, enjoy it :D
To answer one of your questions, I find a standard build that I enjoy the framework of it and refine it to my own taste / playstyle. Maybe I struggle to deal with early drops in PvT so I get an extra round of stalkers, or I struggle vs ling floods on my third in PvZ so I get an extra few batteries.But it's generally always based around a standard idea.
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Build orders ARE ideas. They are just just heavily tuned and optimized to achieve a particular idea as efficiently as possible, while breaking down and becoming less specific the further into the game you get.
Also, as noted before, technically whatever you do is a build order.
I personally use all sorts of build orders. Sometimes I try and create my own, I try out new ideas and tune them to be more efficient. Sometimes I'll try to copy something I've never done and it goes horribly wrong. Sometimes I'll mix and match builds and end up in a similar place in the midgame. A well built and executed build order can be a thing of beauty and it feels like your opponent is just worse than you. When you are playing people equally strong and you are just winging it, every game often feels like a struggle.
Build orders will always take your game to the next level.
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Following a basic opening never hurts, but it highly depends on your level if you're able to make the correct adjustments. It also depends on the type of BO you're playing.
I play around 5k, there are tons of players who have memorized some builds very well, but completely fall apart in a late game management situation. This does NOT mean that their playstyle is bad, sticking to tight BOs / timings is completely valid. There are GM cannon rushers and they're really good at their craft. They know every little deviation there is and can win around 50% of their games comfortable @ 5,5k and higher.
Personally, I like having a really solid opening. I'm a macro zerg, which is why I need to know lots of timings to react properly. Nailing a builld helps me in surviving the early game. I also like mixing in some timings and I've practiced some builds to a decent level, because laddering becomes really exhausting if you're playing the same macro style every game. (This especially is true vs. passive P / T players.)
The "ideas" idea you explain will lead to builds in the long run. Pro players have VERY precise builds with a lot of little adjustments. Watch Lambo for example.
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Northern Ireland20726 Posts
I suck, granted I haven’t played in like 5 years until recently.
Playing without builds at least to a point I think is just a bad approach. There’s obviously optimisation benefits, I think another is actually giving you room to improvise, because you have a solid baseline that after repetition you don’t have to think about. SC2 is really taxing mentally without having to add improvisation into your build, automating at least a bit of it frees you to think more about army positioning or what your opponent is doing and what gaps you can exploit.
Stock builds are there for a reason, but I do think you have to understand them properly and how they flow and intersect with your opponent’s as well.
Being a build order drone also sucks though. My biggest frustration in ladder isn’t losing to anything in particular, it’s losing to players who just are obviously copy pasting a build and executing it blindly.
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Northern Ireland20726 Posts
I like to think of great SC2 play as being like a great jazz instrumental, improvised but around a pre-existing structure and plan.
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Build orders are developed because they are the most efficient ways to reach a certain milestone/timing. That is why they exist.
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One idea that hasn't been mentionned here is that BO also give you easy milestones, benchmarks, to evaluate your play objectively.
Let's say I play purely "by ear". I feel like my macro is good, but how will I know for sure ? Of course I can check the replays and analyze them thoroughly to see if I have any gap in SCV production, unit production, supply blocks, etc. But that is long, tiresome, complicated and prone to misinterpretations. With a BO, the analysis is much much simpler: you know you have to have "x" amount of unit at T time. You know you're supposed to have Y upgrade at x time. If you're 30s behind, you know you've messed up and you're not as good as you thought you were.
For the record, I also like playing without a build. I think both approaches shouldn't be opposed but really are complementary: playing without a build let's you train your "game evaluation" skills. You have to know if you're ahead, behind, if you can sit back, if you have to make something happen, etc. Playing with a BO let's you focus on your mechanics by allowing easy comparison with the best players of the world.
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the thing is, below masters u need "basic understanding" thats why people give build orders so people make whats "right" most of the time so they get used to it tring to understand the game, having a bad build that makes u autolose makes learning the game harder and higher then that, well lets be honest to be rly good with OWN builds you need 2 things TALENT and TIME. most people dont have both xD so using a build thats already known to be good is just easier and then most people TWEAK it for her preferences to make an own build thats competetiv working you need so much time and willing to lose A LOT and most people arent
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If you execute a BO perfectly, you win.
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On April 24 2019 04:35 Russano wrote: Build orders ARE ideas. They are just just heavily tuned and optimized to achieve a particular idea as efficiently as possible, while breaking down and becoming less specific the further into the game you get.
This.
Also doing a specific build order can be good for beginners, as they work like a supporting wheel. A new player wont have sense or even ideas what is going on, so a given build order can be an assisting tool to learn the game and get a grip on it. Playing without official build orders in the first place just increases the time for new players to find a good way to set up first buildings and units before getting overwhelmed by the enemy army in the first five minutes, in my opinion.
Thats why beginner builds are adviced to beginners to get a first glance of what to do and to get into the game, and more complex builds are adviced when a player has the understanding and technical abilities to execute them and why to do them, as they are more specific.
Later on the equation is a sum of different types of what defines skill. Build order is one aspect, sense is one as it is apm and so on. So a player can lack in on section and be really good in another to win in his overall skill range, for example gold league.
I also understand where the intention of the topic is coming from and this was also discussed many times that being too much focused on build order, when it takes away the fun through grinding timings, is not the best way to enjoy a game. Thats where regularly cheese comes into play, to have some variety.
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The build order is the distilled version of the idea. They are not different ideas, one is just well mapped out and the other isn't. When you do a proxy nexus into carriers you are still executing a build order and with repetition and some thought you'd undoubtedly improve it and defeat stronger opponents with it.
Having a clear idea of where you're going and what you're doing is very important, but it also matters how long you take to get there.
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The main benefit of build-orders is that you're outsourcing the low-level optimization of the early game.
You don't need to replay the first two minutes of the game a hundred times to find the ideal opener, someone else has already done it for you.
After a certain amount of games, intuition makes that optimization less crucial, but still valuable, and the longer the build order takes, the more diminishing returns you get. I've never learned a build that goes beyond the first player interaction for that reason.
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I think build orders are a good way to improve your muscle memory during the early game. But it's important to have goals and milestones that you work towards. You can see the build order as the ideal way to reach a milestone.
But things will go wrong, they cheese you, harass you, do unexpected things, you make forced and unforced mistakes. Your ideal build order will be interupted and you need to adjust to still work towards your goals. And sometimes you need to completely let go of a milestone and work towards the next. If you lose your early game units then going through with your build order may result in a timing window where they can kill you.
When I see long build orders that last for 5+ minutes and have everything timed out to the second then I think; when will this ever happen like this? Your opponent is not going to let you do whatever you want.
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OP feels like a lowkey brag about the fact he made 5k mmr with protoss without a build order :D
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On May 01 2019 06:02 DieuCure wrote: If you execute a BO perfectly, you win.
Bold statement.
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