Because I've been playing Minecraft, I sort of took a break from trying to be so serious in StarCraft II.I have still been practicing the Silver build from filterstarcraft, but I stopped worrying about the timings and whether or not I hit the benchmarks or not. I don't think hit the benchmarks, but soon after Season 8 started, I made Gold division.

I lost my placement match, but then won my next four games after that. It was really weird, because I jumped from 7th place in Silver to 4th place in Gold. I'm 6-5 in Gold division, so I think it's about right. I haven't studied the Gold division build that filterstarcraft wrote, so I probably need to do that at some point. I'm still doing well, regardless, in Gold division. I cobbled together a build by adding an engineering bay and just adding barracks when I have money, but I'm sure that with a tighter build, I probably could do even better.

Here's his Gold division build: http://youtu.be/y3YQGubGR_4

I'm happy for now, though.

Because I've been playing Minecraft, I sort of took a break from trying to be so serious in StarCraft II.I have still been practicing the Silver build from filterstarcraft, but I stopped worrying about the timings and whether or not I hit the benchmarks or not. I don't think hit the benchmarks, but soon after Season 8 started, I made Gold division.

I lost my placement match, but then won my next four games after that. It was really weird, because I jumped from 7th place in Silver to 4th place in Gold. I'm 6-5 in Gold division, so I think it's about right. I haven't studied the Gold division build that filterstarcraft wrote, so I probably need to do that at some point. I'm still doing well, regardless, in Gold division. I cobbled together a build by adding an engineering bay and just adding barracks when I have money, but I'm sure that with a tighter build, I probably could do even better.

Here's his Gold division build: http://youtu.be/y3YQGubGR_4

I'm happy for now, though.

i don't see the advantage to not scouting thought... its fine to have builds and things to work on as you work up and get better, but not scouting at all just seems like a bad idea and an easy way to loose games you didn't need to loose...

:/

@baldgye: It's because the presumption is that at those low levels, scouting will be more of a distraction than a benefit when players need to focus more on their macro than on getting enemy intel. He even says that if you lose to some kind of cheese, it's no big deal because the focus should primarily be on hitting the benchmarks he sets.

@FluxWaveZ said:

@baldgye: It's because the presumption is that at those low levels, scouting will be more of a distraction than a benefit when players need to focus more on their macro than on getting enemy intel. He even says that if you lose to some kind of cheese, it's no big deal because the focus should primarily be on hitting the benchmarks he sets.

yeah i guess, but if your getting into high gold and playing vs plat players your base mechanics and builds should be good enough for you to scout at the same time and to partially adapt what your doing.

Loosing to cheese isn't at all important really as it's a coin-toss as to if it will win or not, but I do think that the further into Gold you get and the closer to plat, the more important scouting becomes. It's one thing that helped me alot when i got into plat man moons ago

@baldgye: Scouting is obviously important and yes, better scouting was the one thing that pushed me from gold to platinum a while ago as well. Losing to cheese is significant if you want to play seriously as the only way to stop that kind of stuff is basically proper scouting. But I'd say macro fundamentals are more important as I didn't have a proper grasp of it in platinum (I'm still lacking in that aspect) and that's what got me from platinum to high diamond. Once you do well in those mechanics, the secondary stuff like micro and scouting can be added on.

@FluxWaveZ said:

@baldgye: Scouting is obviously important and yes, better scouting was the one thing that pushed me from gold to platinum a while ago as well. Losing to cheese is significant if you want to play seriously as the only way to stop that kind of stuff is basically proper scouting. But I'd say macro fundamentals are more important as I didn't have a proper grasp of it in platinum (I'm still lacking in that aspect) and that's what got me from platinum to high diamond. Once you do well in those mechanics, the secondary stuff like micro and scouting can be added on.

but i really think that scouting, and managing apm is at high plat just as important as macro... basically you need alot of things in balance, and simply focusing on a build isn't enough, becasue you'll just get hard countered and learning to scout against people who can scout and macro at the same time, without loosing there scv/probe is pretty important....

@baldgye said:

i don't see the advantage to not scouting thought... its fine to have builds and things to work on as you work up and get better, but not scouting at all just seems like a bad idea and an easy way to loose games you didn't need to loose...

:/

Not scouting is what will eventually get you knocked down to Bronze. I'm not going to say everyone should be in Grandmaster League, but in order to even see the sky, you need to scout.

@baldgye: I agree. I badly worded it when I said that micro and scouting can be "added on" to good macro as I really meant "can be further focused on". Filtersc's method of not scouting, though, has obviously worker in Bronze and Silver leagues since he's posted videos of him doing exactly that with his Terran and Zerg guide videos, so maybe it's a safe way to teach instead of overwhelming new players with a whole bunch of different things when they can just focus on a few things to advance at lower levels.

@ck1nd said:

@baldgye said:

i don't see the advantage to not scouting thought... its fine to have builds and things to work on as you work up and get better, but not scouting at all just seems like a bad idea and an easy way to loose games you didn't need to loose...

:/

Not scouting is what will eventually get you knocked down to Bronze. I'm not going to say everyone should be in Grandmaster League, but in order to even see the sky, you need to scout.

no it wont

@FluxWaveZ said:

@baldgye: I agree. I badly worded it when I said that micro and scouting can be "added on" to good macro as I really meant "can be further focused on". Filtersc's method of not scouting, though, has obviously worker in Bronze and Silver leagues since he's posted videos of him doing exactly that with his Terran and Zerg guide videos, so maybe it's a safe way to teach instead of overwhelming new players with a whole bunch of different things when they can just focus on a few things to advance at lower levels.

Yeah true, but thats because in bronze and silver people basically have no idea how to build an economy, let alone 'macro'... I have a bronze account and in PvP I can literally forge fast expand and hold off any attack with probes from my natural and still be ahead in workers.... even vs a 4gate... and thats vs silver/bronze.

But as soon as you get to maybe mid/top gold, scouting and APM actually become vital in progressing.

Actually, the "no scouting" that filterstarcraft does in the video is a self-imposed handicap. He's just using it as an example to show that you don't NEED to scout and micro to win games at the gold level if you have good macro. He isn't expecting me (the sucky player) to give up scouting and micro, but was using the handicaps to demonstrate how strong good macro play is. I think he mentioned it explicitly in one of the earlier videos in his series.

I made it to the top ten in my gold division. My timings for the gold build are still way off, though, but I think I could do a lot better if I was hitting the 10-minute mark benchmarks more consistently.

I have started scouting to see what my opponent is doing, and noticed that even though I see something interesting (like I know that he's four-gating or he doesn't have gas as a Terran player) I don't know what I should be doing to modify my build. Some of the stuff is obvious (starport with tech lab means I should get turrets up) but sometimes I think I'd be better off just hitting the ten-minute mark and attacking. Scouting and map control are the two subjects for the platinum videos, so I figure I'll start on those once I have the gold build consistent.

Also, my APM is around 50 in the replays, so I'm not particular fast.

@Shinji_Rarenai said:

Also, my APM is around 50 in the replays, so I'm not particular fast.

My average APM is relatively lower than 50, I'm a Zerg player and I'm high diamond recently going up against masters players. It kinda sucks because people say that your APM increases the more you play, but I've not been noticing that great of an APM improvement. Maybe it's because I don't spam or something to get a high APM when the only units on the field are workers like other players of my level seem to do?

the APM argument is really hard to judge because some people just like to press buttons, others only do what they can at any given time, because of this I usually top out at around 70apm, I'm sure I could do more if I just skipped between units all the time.

EPM is the actual way to mesure your actual APM... as APM isn't becasue lolblizz

and I usualy get about 100-120 apm during a ladder game, I spam alot and spammed alot in the past, but the more you spam the more you can then put that to good use. And I've beaten top dia zergs (pvz is by far my worst match-up) becasue I can just out control/multi-task them.

But I think that being able to multi-task is one of the most important things you can do in sc2, builds arn't super important and you should just start with an opening and go from there off scouting. Scouting with my probe and trying to have HuK control with it, while never missing a chrono etc is something that helped me more than anything, and some times gives you a free win.

I remember when I was in low plat in a PvZ I managed to delay his hatch, and then got my probe into his main, and put it on attack move next to his gas and killed all his drones on his gas, which won me the game.

@baldgye:In the game I played last night, I realized that I could have used more APM. I was playing Terran against Zerg, and I survived his assault, so I countered with the remainder of his army. I took out his expansion, and I saw that his drones ran to the west. I spent all my time building more units and trying to spread out my army as I pushed up towards his main. If I was able to, I would have sent my two hellions to the west to try and figure out where his other expansion was. I knew I should do that, but I just didn't have the time. I figured it was more important to keep reinforcing my army and making sure it didn't group up and die to banelings. I won the game anyway, but that's where I realized that there was stuff that I could do if I was just a little bit faster.

Maybe I should have gone for it anyway - sacrificed a little control of my army to get more information and to practice multitasking to get better.

@Shinji_Rarenai: I am with you in the need for more apm I know what i need to do when i need to do it it is a matter of executing and multitasking.