Even though I haven't been on the ladder for a week or so I've been meaning to write this particular post. And since I used up my first bad mood killing tactic (Dr. Who Binge-Watching) yesterday, I figured today I'd write about stuff I like until the creeping ennui dissipates. Which could mean there'll be a gajillion new posts on this thing before the day is out. Who knows! Alright, then.
I'm finally getting the mechanics down well enough to start concentrating on memorizing build orders, and since then my win-loss ratio has been extremely heartening. A buddy of mine in a much higher league than me even hinted that maybe I'll get promoted soon. Which would be amazing, but I'm trying not to think about it. Remember that part in "Ender's Shadow" where Bean schools all his classmates on being foolishly obsessed with their teams' ranks when there's an army of alien bugs waiting to slaughter them all? And so he convinces them to throw a blanket over the rankings board if the teachers won't take it down? They subsequently start practicing incredibly unconventional tactics without caring about how their teams are ranked because if that's your focus you'll just stagnate. I wish there was an option to hide your league ranking because I really wish I could go into every single game only trying to improve my macro and not care if I win or not. But I see the ranking and I can't help but care and get excited because omigod I'm almost in the top 8..... and then my macro suffers and I lose. Damn excitement hormones. Oh, and if you haven't read "Ender's Shadow", go do that. Read that whole series. It is awesome.
Since I'm getting the mechanics down, I'm starting work on a build for each matchup. I'm not good enough really to have more than one build going for each race, so I've been sitting myself down with the AI to practice the builds I've chosen over and over again. Which is really kind of relaxing. Not really going to talk about my PvZ because even though its much better than before I still have a tendency to get my FFE up and then my brain says "bluuuuh, what now captain?" and I freeze. So more practice there. But PvT has really been my friend because I sat down after losing a bunch of times to huge armies of Marine/Marauder/Tanks/Medivacs because that's what most everyone builds in Bronze. What I needed was something that could kill the Terran before they can get too many Tanks and Medivacs up, and it came to me that the Colossus melts tiny biological units if there aren't a bunch of Tanks back there killing them in their huge bloated faces. So I hit the vs. AI mode and practiced a build where I early expand and rush for Colossus until I could run up there with two or three Colossus at the 12 minute mark with some backup from a pylon by the watchtower. And then the winning started. It was AWESOME. Granted it doesn't always work - if there's early marine pressure I would pretty much die if I didn't see it coming. I even had a dude a while back who tricked me into thinking he was early expanding and then killed me with marines. I didn't scout very well.
As for PvP, there is something I have found in the Bronze league to happen, as Aristotle says, always or for the most part. I have this mental flow chart for it. First, check for the cannon rush. I've gotten really good at blocking the cannon rush and I haven't lost to one in a long time. But what I've found that is if someone tries and fails to cannon rush, if they decide to stay in the game, they almost always turtle in one or two bases and build void rays. And if there's no cannon rush? Its a 4-gate. Seriously, 90% of every PvP match I've ever been in has been one of these two scenarios. Still need to work on my defense against the 4-gate early game, but once I get that down I've decided my build is going to be full on Skytoss. Its worked in its larval form against a cannon-rush-switch-to-effing-VOID-RAYS very effectively because usually my economy is better and since I've been practicing against the AI I can get a lot of air units out pretty quickly. But I'm still working on the defense vs. the 4-gate. THERE ARE SO MANY PLACES TO HIDE PYLONS, you guys. But once I can get that early game defense down, it will be awesome. Why Skytoss? Isn't that borderline cheese? Maybe. But both these build orders have been helping me with the macro because they give me a regimented set of things I need to do in a loose order and so my money spending has been improving. And neither of them will work if my macro is bad. So there's that.
I realize the "Ender's Shadow" metaphor doesn't exactly work because Bean was advocating using seat-of-the-pants tactics that might lose and I've been talking about regimenting my thinking into narrow lines. But I'm using it anyway because I really do wish I could throw a blanket over my ladder ranking. And I'm regimenting my thinking so I can get better, not necessarily for winning. ... Oh god, that was a total lie. I love winning. But I like improvement too.
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