CecilSunkure Profile Blog Joined May 2010 United States 2829 Posts Last Edited: 2012-06-15 20:35:00 #1



Downloadable PDF

V1.1 - Last Update: 6/15/2012





Thanks to Hot_Bid for hosting the file for me on TL <3

CecilSunkure Profile Blog Joined May 2010 United States 2829 Posts Last Edited: 2011-07-05 17:35:31 #2 + Show Spoiler [Q/A] + Questions and answers!



On April 05 2011 05:12 mamuto wrote:

Cecil, how many games have you played on the ladder? Just wondering, you mentioned you went silver to masters, trying to figure out how long it took you to get better. I myself started off in bronze and am currently high diamond ^.^



fellow brotoss btw

I think I played 2500 games, plus more recent custom games as I joined a team I practice a lot with:



On April 05 2011 12:42 Dhalphir wrote:

Here's a question I've actually been wondering for a while.



How do you deal with the fact that the same situation comes up during ladder play so infrequently? For example, if I face a particular Terran build, lose to it, and have some ideas for how to beat it, unless I can find a practise partner good enough at Terran to replicate the build decently (not always possible) my chances of being able to replicate the game to try different things are pretty difficult.



For you I imagine this is quite simple having the team access that you do, but what do you recommend for those who don't have this option?

Practice partner thread is I feel your best answer. Back when I wasn't on a team I'd go there and add like 15 people at a time, then msg all the ones online for practice games.





On April 05 2011 23:27 syva wrote:

Hey, first-post bronze-leaguer here



Thank you very much, very grateful for this guide; will be putting all this to practice this evening.



I am, however, confused by one issue. You suggest putting all nexuses onto a single hotkey, but how can I then ensure workers are only being created from a specific nexus. I wouldn't want to be creating workers at a nexus where the mineral patch is already saturated. Sorry if I have missed something here. Hey, first-post bronze-leaguer hereThank you very much, very grateful for this guide; will be putting all this to practice this evening.I am, however, confused by one issue. You suggest putting all nexuses onto a single hotkey, but how can I then ensure workers are only being created from a specific nexus. I wouldn't want to be creating workers at a nexus where the mineral patch is already saturated. Sorry if I have missed something here.

After hotkeying all your nexuses onto one hotkey, rally all your workers the base with the least probes





On April 05 2011 23:58 rastaban wrote:

I have a question as I am stuck on the first section regarding goals.

You mentioned setting clearly defined and measurable goals rather than saying I just want to improve. I guess it seems most of the measurable goals, say "Get into masters" If I really meant it I feel I would be best served by learning a very effective cheese strat and perfecting it as this method seems the fastest way to rank up until the higher levels (ala bitbybit.prime.we).



How do I set a measurable goal that involves deepening my understanding and focusing on being a more rounded player? do I just set the goal above and then try to go about in a different manner? or should I be looking at goals like "play a 30 minute game while keeping money below 450" or something like that.



Thanks,

You should be thinking like this: I want to play at a Master's level of skill by playing focusing mostly on my macro. I say later on that lower Master's players are the only players on the NA that have basic macro down, so you should read the whole guide then go back and focus on the macro portions.





On April 06 2011 07:29 Neosta2 wrote:

Can you also comment on the graphic settings?



I know many pros play on lowest settings - however I found it hard to spot cloak units and also force fields on lowest setting

I play with everyone on lowest! :O





On April 15 2011 07:45 kawaiiryuko wrote:

Using windows 7, I turned off "Enhance Pointer Precision" which seems to have the same effect as turning off mouse acceleration. Is this the same thing? If so, it seems a lot easier than doing a registry edit, no? Or am I confused?

Yes actually, it is the same for SC2. However some other games require a registry edit. I suggest just following what I wrote, and if all else fails go ahead and just uncheck that box.





On July 05 2011 23:49 IstandAlone wrote:

Hi Cecil ! Thanks for this great piece of work.

I have however another question about mouse settings that I don't think have been answered (i've read the whole thread).



I use a razer mouse with sensitivity settings. Should I temper with those ? Or leave the slider on middle position ? I actually feel more confortable with the slider all the way up while having SC2 setting on 51.



Sorry if this is a dumb question.

Basically, you want a 1:1 ratio between what movements your mouse reads and what movements your OS has your cursor move. To do this in windows, you set your mouse sensitivity slider to 6/11 (halfway). Then to adjust your sensitivity you change your DPI readings on your mouse. So if the razer lets you move some slider to adjust the Razer's readings sensitivity, then go ahead. However, in all scenarios it's ideal to have your SC2 slider at 51%, and windows slider at halfway, with only the mouse's DPI settings being changed. I think I played 2500 games, plus more recent custom games as I joined a team I practice a lot with: http://kiwiclonearmy.sadlife.net/ Practice partner thread is I feel your best answer. Back when I wasn't on a team I'd go there and add like 15 people at a time, then msg all the ones online for practice games.After hotkeying all your nexuses onto one hotkey, rally all your workers the base with the least probesYou should be thinking like this: I want to play at a Master's level of skill by playing focusing mostly on my macro. I say later on that lower Master's players are the only players on the NA that have basic macro down, so you should read the whole guide then go back and focus on the macro portions.I play with everyone on lowest! :OYes actually, it is the same for SC2. However some other games require a registry edit. I suggest just following what I wrote, and if all else fails go ahead and just uncheck that box.Basically, you want a 1:1 ratio between what movements your mouse reads and what movements your OS has your cursor move. To do this in windows, you set your mouse sensitivity slider to 6/11 (halfway). Then to adjust your sensitivity you change your DPI readings on your mouse. So if the razer lets you move some slider to adjust the Razer's readings sensitivity, then go ahead. However, in all scenarios it's ideal to have your SC2 slider at 51%, and windows slider at halfway, with only the mouse's DPI settings being changed.

oPPRoBe Profile Blog Joined April 2010 United States 199 Posts #3 O_o Looks like a boss thread.



Reminds me of the guide ver wrote a while back for BW. I'll be sure to keep this bookmarked and will read it. Thanks for your effort! lmlm

Ydriel Profile Blog Joined September 2010 Italy 450 Posts #4 Oh my god. Bookmarked. I'm sooo gonna link this to some of my noob friends.

Awesome job! <3 SC2 <3<3 Dota 2. Steam ID: HellS

lazydino Profile Joined October 2010 Canada 321 Posts #5 Guide is very knowledgeable, very good ready :D "I have this moron thing that I do, it's called thinking" - George Carlin

Zachatron Profile Joined October 2010 United States 33 Posts #6 I'm about half way through so far, and this is really goddamn cool. I particularly like your definition of mechanics. As a jazz artist, that definition rang with me, similarly to how i work on my ability to "realize" a melodic line in improvisation. That was a very solid way to generalize the concepts of mechanics. I have a question though. Will this be available in PDF format? I would love to have a down-loadable version =D

Gecko Profile Joined August 2010 United States 516 Posts #7 this is good stuff

setmeal Profile Joined March 2011 162 Posts #8 I will be sure to recommend this to all my friends. Thanks very much for the guide!!

WriterLee Profile Joined March 2011 Andorra 12 Posts #9



User was warned for this post



User was temp banned for this post. Starcraft 2 is gay as shit anyway. Play a real game like BLOPS. derp

space_yes Profile Joined April 2010 United States 548 Posts Last Edited: 2011-04-03 05:03:00 #10 Exceedingly well written post summarizing many different elements of gameplay for new players. I like that you included a discussion on binding a screen location. When playing BW this was essential to my macro and as soon as it was possible to remap the fkeys in SC2 I did and it gives me much better reaction time and overall economy management than a lot of players who move the screen or click the map (especially during battles).

QuothTheRaven Profile Joined December 2008 United States 5512 Posts #11 Woah huge guide. Looks interesting . . . nevermore

ElusoryX Profile Blog Joined December 2010 Singapore 2041 Posts #12 you can write a book about this man o.0 xd

kzn Profile Blog Joined June 2007 United States 1216 Posts #13 Guide is excellent.



However, I am uncomfortable with advising people to change mouse grips, certainly on the basis of opinion alone. Mouse grips are, for most people, something that has been a constant for many years, and they seem to be unconsciously chosen.



The fundamental point about your mouse is that you be able to accurately perform the necessary actions at speed, without having to think about it, after sufficient practice. Based on my experience and observation, as long as you're comfortable with the grip it doesn't matter what the grip is.



And on top of that I use a palm grip and I have no idea why razer says the shoulder is the pivot ~_~



Like a G6

AirbladeOrange Profile Blog Joined June 2010 United States 2368 Posts #14 This looks like a huge undertaking. Lots of great information in here. Thanks so much!

World_Ender Profile Joined March 2011 China 40 Posts #15 Thanks a ton! I read about 60% of it today, well written and helpful advice about mechanics and thought process of improving. and i must echo what Zachatron said:



.PDF version please! So i can read this on my kindle at work hehe! Shoot, you can probly pop this onto Amazon's storefront and charge a few bucks. :D When in doubt, Google it

EliteReplay Profile Blog Joined November 2010 Dominican Republic 913 Posts #16 thanks for this YO, u are so kind if play random i can't call any race imba?

CecilSunkure Profile Blog Joined May 2010 United States 2829 Posts #17 Yeah, I'll be creating a PDF after some time. I need to not read a single portion of the document for a while so I can distance myself from it, and then read it with "virgin eyes", or at least as virgin as I can get them. Once I have a more finalized draft I'll put it all into a PDF format

13th Marine Profile Joined January 2011 United States 342 Posts #18 That was a great read, thank you for writing it up. Clears up many things.



Are noobs allowed to ask questions about applying this?



If so: I've been trying to improve in this way, albeit in a way less refined form, but have recently hit a brick wall of sorts. Specifically, once I finally got over my denial of getting placed in Bronze League and made it my goal to take a game off a Master League, I chose MarineKing's 2 Rax FE as the single build I would work on as I improve my macro, micro, and mechanics. I had the most fun watching MKP in the GSL, knew it worked in many situations at a high level of play, and found it fun to play as well once I got started.



But then as I started getting a little bit better and got promoted to Silver, and now to Gold, I've entered the territory of players who, at least in my experience, love to 4-Gate or Baneling Bust, or Cloaked Banshee Rush, and can actually execute the builds reasonably well compared to the Bronzes. At first, I was randomly matched against Terran and Protoss only, so at that point I told myself that I would just make the build work. And eventually I learned how to stop them, even though a lot of those games just felt weird for whatever reason. But once I finally started getting matched against Zergs, I've lost all but one game to Baneling-based play, since they always seem to hit me during that very vulnerable moment when my expo has just gotten up. Should I still try to make the build work, or should I add a second build? That one win against a Zerg was actually using MKP's Mech-based play instead...



And how will I know when I am ready for additional builds?



Thanks again! Bomber | BoxeR | Dear | Flash | fOrGG | HerO | INnoVation | Jaedong | Life | MarineKing | Maru | MMA | MVP | NaDa | Polt | Taeja

nobbob1 Profile Joined August 2010 Canada 145 Posts #19 amazing work i have not read it yet but will for sure in the morning. why do you play the race you play? IdrA- cuz artosis is fucking retarded

nttea Profile Blog Joined July 2008 Sweden 4142 Posts #20 On April 03 2011 14:46 13th Marine wrote:

That was a great read, thank you for writing it up. Clears up many things.



Are noobs allowed to ask questions about applying this?



If so: I've been trying to improve in this way, albeit in a way less refined form, but have recently hit a brick wall of sorts. Specifically, once I finally got over my denial of getting placed in Bronze League and made it my goal to take a game off a Master League, I chose MarineKing's 2 Rax FE as the single build I would work on as I improve my macro, micro, and mechanics. I had the most fun watching MKP in the GSL, knew it worked in many situations at a high level of play, and found it fun to play as well once I got started.



But then as I started getting a little bit better and got promoted to Silver, and now to Gold, I've entered the territory of players who, at least in my experience, love to 4-Gate or Baneling Bust, or Cloaked Banshee Rush, and can actually execute the builds reasonably well compared to the Bronzes. At first, I was randomly matched against Terran and Protoss only, so at that point I told myself that I would just make the build work. And eventually I learned how to stop them, even though a lot of those games just felt weird for whatever reason. But once I finally started getting matched against Zergs, I've lost all but one game to Baneling-based play, since they always seem to hit me during that very vulnerable moment when my expo has just gotten up. Should I still try to make the build work, or should I add a second build? That one win against a Zerg was actually using MKP's Mech-based play instead...



And how will I know when I am ready for additional builds?



Thanks again!



You are ready for additional builds once you can identify when the build you are using is not working! Try to decide however if it's actually your build that's letting you down and not other things, you might for example get better at identifying that the zerg is going to be agressive with alot of banelings and make a barracks wall in response.



This guide is sick good btw! I'm a low master league player and i feel it can help even me^^

You are ready for additional builds once you can identify when the build you are using is not working! Try to decide however if it's actually your build that's letting you down and not other things, you might for example get better at identifying that the zerg is going to be agressive with alot of banelings and make a barracks wall in response.This guide is sick good btw! I'm a low master league player and i feel it can help even me^^

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