[H][L] Can anyone offer advice for improvement?

On July 27 2012 12:04 BoatsandJoes wrote:
Your impression isn't totally wrong, but a player telling another player to leave the game is considered much worse manner than a player choosing to play out a losing game. Never tell an opponent that he's lost. If you're right and he already knows it he'll ignore you (and to end the game, you'll have to destroy his buildings), if you're right and he doesn't know it yet you'll still have to prove it to him (by destroying his buildings), and if you're wrong, you just look like a doofus (and you still have to try to destroy his buildings anyway). Basically, just skip the typing step completely and destroy his buildings that much faster: trust me, it's better that way. And try to remember to say gl hf in the future, too.

That's mostly what I wanted to say (and it looks like DaPhinoXX created an account just to say it), but I have some playing advice for you too. I am a Terran who hasn't had much time to play, but I've been rocketing through Silver League in the last month and I'm starting to beat people in Gold. About the stutter step micro: you don't need to use it. Beyond that, you actually shouldn't: it will actually hurt your play. Your APM is pretty close to mine and I can tell you that while stutter stepping does grant a small advantage in close fights (if done properly), it comes at the expense of not doing other things that will grant you a much larger advantage (more on that in a bit). It can be fun to stutter step, but as you say you are looking to improve it's best to forget that the technique exists for now: just use a-move. Rarely do you even need to watch the battle: there isn't too much to control (be honest: are you actually controlling your army or are you just staring at it?) and your time is better spent making sure things are building in your base.

Your push is actually quite powerful and fast and you seem to have a decent grasp of the game so I'm going to direct you to this video. Honestly, Filter's voice almost puts me to sleep whenever I listen to it, but his series really does teach you everything you need to know to get better at the game. This will not teach you good strategy (to the contrary, the strategy is terrible), but it will teach you what you need to know to execute a strategy well, once you find one you like. If you can meet the benchmarks that Filter sets (they sound hard but if you focus only on them they really aren't), you might almost feel like you're cheating because you'll have such a huge advantage over all of your opponents in Bronze and even much of Silver. Past that it won't carry your game for you, but unlike if you proxy 2-raxed your way up the ladder you'll be able to build on these skills to get even better with almost no ceiling, which is the whole point.

Finally (and this is what I have trouble with), try not to worry about winning or losing: just think about how you can get even better. Usually this is by playing lots of games, then analyzing the replays (by yourself or with others) to identify things to improve, then playing lots more games, and repeat. Good luck on the ladder!

EDIT - The specific reason I think this series could benefit you is that although your push is quite good, if it doesn't win the game or nearly win the game you don't have enough infrastructure or income to become a threat again. This is mostly due to the fact that around 5 minutes you stop building workers, you also never expand to your natural and you never build any additional structures past your 2rax, one factory, and one starport (not to mention you aren't quite producing out of all of those constantly either). If you can improve your foundation, not only will your push hit harder, but you'll also be able to keep an edge if it doesn't work out.