[G] Bronze to Masters, Improving Mechanics

Platinum Terran here. Starting the videos from the very beginning and it has definitely helped a lot. Of course I know that worker production is always really important, especially for terran without chrono boost or making 15 drones at once like zerg can. But when I took the time to play a few games against AI, and simply focus on scv's and marines, it makes a big difference. Definitely going to continue watching these videos and practicing the benchmarks you've laid out. Very helpful guide that I'll try to expose to as many people as I can. Thank you!

Nuclease United States. April 22 2012 03:44. Posts 664

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This HAS to go on the recommended threads!

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YMCApylons Taiwan. April 22 2012 05:12. Posts 342

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On April 22 2012 01:27 Captain Marksie wrote:
Okay so at the moment i can hit the Gold league benchmarks consistently against the computer.

What should i do now? Should i practice it on the ladder and see if i am still able to hit the benchmarks under the pressure of an actualy game? Or should i first have a go at the platinum "taking a third" benchmarks in custom games so i have a general idea of what i should be doing after the first attack?

Im in gold league btw

I did something similar to this, but with Protoss, when I was gearing up to play again (after a long hiatus and three or four patches later). My goal was to max on three base with a 2-2 or 3-2 army around 16~18 minutes, against a VH computer, which would give one decent early game push, followed by two less-than-useful suicide attacks before I maxed.

Playing the computer is going to hurt more than help after some time, because you're going to learn bad habits that you will need to unlearn. You'll start unconsciously optimizing your race-to-100-food or race-to-maxed build around the AI timings, look at the minimap less, and have sloppy building placement because you're not thinking about drops or muta harass. VH-AI is decent to get some mechanics practice, but if that's what you're doing, be diligent and use a build order tester.

As others have said, you can be plat and have low-master macro. The difference is in crisis management, scouting and reading builds, and micro. After you start laddering, you'll be surprised by the amount of weird crap people will try to pull. Some dudes will go crazy aggressive 1 base 5 gate, 1 base roach rush, or go the opposite way with 15 CC or something like that. Then there are the cheezers, cannon rush, banshee rush, DT rush. Don't get tempted to fight fire with fire. The goal here is to stick with solid, macro play, and try to use micro to plug in those holes. Make your standard macro play more cheese-proof.

If you visualize a specific build order as a road, these videos are teaching you the main path...what you should do if everything is "normal". But as you ladder, you'll build-out branching paths that split when you get a bit of information. If you see an early pool or baneling nest, a 6-minute third nexus from a Protoss (true story!)...you need to go down one of these detours to address the threat. Then have these detours loop back onto the main road, so that you're back on track.

So just go out there and ladder, which is my advice to anyone.

You must construct additional pylons.

Filter Canada. April 22 2012 06:33. Posts 589

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YMCApylons pretty much nailed it, the ladder will throw some really weird stuff at you. There will be games where things throw you totally off your roadmap, and learning to deal with these is where experience comes in. If you're able to consistently hit the gold league stuff you'll be in great shape. When things start to throw you off just watch the replay and figure out why you lost, if it's as simple as you fell apart and were floating a ton of money while not getting to your goal buildings/production then you need to double focus next time on that. If it was some super insane aggression that flat out killed you, despite near perfect play then look for that hole and plug it up.

The answer to plugging the hole is not simply making extra bunkers though, that will slow you down. You need to look for ways to scout what he did that killed you, and defend after the knowledge that early pressure could come.

Live hard, live free.

Mathematics Belgium. April 22 2012 07:05. Posts 23

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Great series!!

Watched the vods twice and on the ladder my game has improved greatly.
Now I'm even able to find out faster what I'm doing wrong in certain stages of the game!!

Thank you so much and keep it going, you're doing an amazing job ;-)

Last edit: 2012-04-22 07:06:13

Applemiester April 22 2012 10:33. Posts 9

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Bronze Zerg here. Watched the vids and jumped straight on ladder and hit all the timings no problem and won. I don't know if other Zerg players feel the same but but Marines are just sooo good its unbelieveable. You don't even have to scout. My question is, I want to play Zerg so how can I do this with Zerg ? Mass queens? There is no reliable Tier 1 unit that can hit ground and air like marines.

Marodox United States. April 22 2012 10:43. Posts 80

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These videos are really just one of a kind and really approach improving in the best way IMO. I think many people would really appreciate as much as I would if you made these same types of videos for the other 2 races.

AlphaDotCom United States. April 22 2012 14:29. Posts 43

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i think it would be really difficult to do the same with other 2 races, ud just die a lot. Like for pvp and zvz this is impossible because the macro builds and builds vs mirror are so different. If you try a macro build in a mirror I feel like u will die starting at plat.

everything is ez when ur terran

Appock United States. April 22 2012 14:37. Posts 22

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I'm looking forward to what you suggest for protoss to practice a similar approach. I've been in gold since season 2 and am really starting to get discouraged with my game. Something like this could help me break down my game to basics.

Recently I've been just playing against VH AI and working on using my money and expanding to work on macro skills.

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Natespank Canada. April 22 2012 15:10. Posts 448

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You know, I might switch to Terran for a week or two to try this stuff out

Natespank Canada. April 22 2012 15:11. Posts 448

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nah, not until Diamond. I play 15 hatch macro in ZvZ in Platinum and I do fine for the most part. It's getting tough though: by diamond I'd need to change things up.

Natespank Canada. April 22 2012 15:12. Posts 448

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Roach/Hydra, or ling/bling, depending on the matchup. Hell, you can just make roaches with corruptors as backup if they go air until plat...

setmeal April 22 2012 15:27. Posts 162

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I really think this deserves to go on the spotlight. This may be very easy and straightforward for the good players, for for newbies, this is invaluable

enigamI Canada. April 22 2012 15:39. Posts 380

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On April 22 2012 15:27 setmeal wrote:
I really think this deserves to go on the spotlight. This may be very easy and straightforward for the good players, for for newbies, this is invaluable

I agree. Would love to see this spotlighted.

Last edit: 2012-04-22 15:39:41

YMCApylons Taiwan. April 22 2012 16:14. Posts 342

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On April 22 2012 14:29 AlphaDotCom wrote:
i think it would be really difficult to do the same with other 2 races, ud just die a lot. Like for pvp and zvz this is impossible because the macro builds and builds vs mirror are so different. If you try a macro build in a mirror I feel like u will die starting at plat.

This is definitely true. This "let's-learn-only-macro" approach works best with Terran because they don't need to scout much, and the three matchups are similar. With scans, you can fight-off DTs, banshees, and burrowed stuff, so you're pretty cheese proof. Even cannon rushes are easier to deal with because your first unit is ranged and can pick-off the probe more easily.

On April 22 2012 14:37 Appock wrote:
I'm looking forward to what you suggest for protoss to practice a similar approach. I've been in gold since season 2 and am really starting to get discouraged with my game. Something like this could help me break down my game to basics.

Recently I've been just playing against VH AI and working on using my money and expanding to work on macro skills.

You could look at this post for suggestions.

You must construct additional pylons.

Filter Canada. April 22 2012 16:48. Posts 589

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I think Terran is the "safest" macro only race, however I do think you can effectively play the other races with a similar approach. A really good Terran player relying on macro can probably have a below masters winrate of 90%, a really good zerg/toss player relying only on macro would probably be closer to 75-80%. I do believe that all races get punished for poor mechanical skills in different ways. Zergs die all the time with no larva, a huge bank and energy on their queens. I often look at a game and go well, if he hit his injects I would have lost that one. Protoss is a bit different, with warpgate and the ability to quickly sink gas/mineral surplus into very strong units (zealots/archons, colossus with chrono) it's not quite as obvious. When a protoss player has bad early/midgame mechanics he gets killed though.

I would be very interested to see what would happen if you gave a silver player from each race and gave them three saturated bases which race would end up doing the best.

Live hard, live free.

PurpleBebop United States. April 22 2012 17:00. Posts 25

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Very good stuff.

GET OUT CHILL

Piquick France. April 22 2012 18:41. Posts 5

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This is invaluable. I'm trying to switch to terran after a long time without playing and this is precisely what i needed. Thanks a lot.

Culioz Canada. April 22 2012 19:06. Posts 10

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Easily on the of best posts I've found, I've been looking for something like this for ages. Great work!!

zefreak United States. April 22 2012 19:11. Posts 2613

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This should be spotlighted, stickied and posted on the front page of TL. I have watched videos from Apollo, Day9, the mineral drill, that popular 3rax macro build, and none of them were as helpful as these.

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