Im new. Is there any way i can get good fast?

Hi, im really new to starcraft 2, and i feel like if I play online, i will get smashed by everyone. I really wanted to have someone help me out, or maybe give me some links to videos. I kinda feel like i want to be a Terran (I think thats how you spell it) player. IF YOU COULD HELP ME THAT WOULD BE MOST APPRECIATED

 

Oh my god please reply.... anyone!! HAHAHAHA

 

It all depends. Some people pick up the game quickly, some do not.
But either way, only way to get better is to practice, watch pro videos, then play again.

I have friends who just decided "I want to get better..." 3 weeks later they improved significantly.
Stay dedicated and you'll get better. Of course, dedication is the hard part, and a part I lack

*goes off playing WoW for a few hours*

 

Are there any important phrases, or words that i need to know? One word that i keep on seeing is Cheese

 

Ahh the word "cheese." Its definition varies between player to player. I consider "cheese" to be an early all in move. In other words, a 5-7min strat that if fails, you most likely will lose.

Micro = Positioning of your units to make the best of use. Or better yet, overall control of your units.
Macro = Working on economy, unit production, teching up, etc.

With good micro and a proper unit composition, you can destroy an opponent with a much larger army than yours.

However, as a new player... I would focus on macro the most. What's the use of being able to control an army well if you can't produce anything, right? With enough practice, you'll be able to multi-task (controlling your army as well as "macroing" up).

If you've never played SC1 at all, try the tutorial. Play the campaign if you wan't. But note, strategies from the campaign don't really work for multi-player. Stick around the practice league until you feel like you understand what each unit does, then move on to customs or placements.

Oh btw, try not to double post. Just giving you a heads up

 

Cheese is considered anything like photon cannon rushing your opponent(building a forge as early as possible as the protoss and then going to your opponent's base and building the cannons there) building a couple of voidrays as fast as possible as the protoss, doing a reaper rush,6 pool zergling rush(pool being spawning pool for the zerg, you start with 6 and can go up to 200 food, you start with 6 workers and zerg players go straight for the spawining pool and building zerglings without building additional workers, then rush your base). All of these strategies is what I would consider cheese, and is really frowned upon by alot of starcraft 2 players.

 

Ok, things I didnt understand in that last post: Cannon Rushing, 6 pool zergling, 200 food

 

Cannon rush = A protoss strat where you build a fast forge. The build a pylon in your enemies base and attack him with Photon cannons.

6 pool = This is for zerg where you do not make any drones, wait until you have 200 minerals to make a spawning pool. You then wait to make zerglings and attack ASAP.

These are considered cheese. They are usually looked down upon as they are somewhat cheap ways to win without using proper strategy.

I advise you to not do these starts, esp when you're still learning. However, I do cheese starts vs my friends b/c its funny.
Some professionals do it in competitions, but they deserve to. These pro-players have already established a superior status compared to us. Even if they cheese, we all love them b/c they're somewhat famous and know they're better than us already, haha.

 

I thought I had explained that to him? Must have not explained well enough.

Also food is how many units you can build. Each unit has food they use such as protoss, each probe(builder unit) is 1 food, a zealot is 2 food and so on. you have to build pylons(for protoss, terrans its supply depots, and for zerg it is overlords) to increase how many more units you can build, and it maxes out at 200.

 

Hey man,

I want to let you know about a couple of things.
1. Starcraft 2 has a high learning curve. It has so many aspect of it that makes the game great
2. I definitely recommend watching pro commentaries and strategy videos from youtube so you have a good idea of what is going on.
3. learn a couple of build orders and strategies of Starcraft 2 pro players. This will give you a head start as to what to do in the game.
4. Practice a lot of games and try out each build order. Make sure you have a good understand of each race and abilities of each unit. Don't be afraid to learn all the hotkeys and understand each Sc2 unit.
Too be good at the game, you need to be good at all aspect of the Starcraft. Oh, if you like, you can check out my strategy guide on my signature. That could give you ahead start for some starter strategies.

 

If your very very bad (new >>) this video would probally be bad for you however

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQe6UqvCOT4

Try to copy that general idea especially the first 2 minutes and you'll see a big improvement. Try to play against the AI alot to!! very easy ->easy ->normal etc

 

Yeah, I always watched starcraft pro videos, thats what made me start playing. I dont even know why i like them so much, i must have watched maybe like 50. Im also in love with hotkeys, ive memorized them, and they help alot. But thanks for the help guys, its been much appreciated!! If there is anything else youd like to add, go ahead!

 

lemme add this.
learning curve? big gigantic learning curve? Scvrush has OBVIOUSLY never read BLIZZARD's (note NEVER activision bliz, you'll find me to hate them so much) StarCraft I strat guide. ok, given, its not made by bliz, but still.
Last time I read a a few years back
"StarCraft is a game that takes minutes to learn, but a lifetime to master".
God how I wish to be 8 years old and dominate players on ladder again.

No seriously tho. Starcraft 2 is even EASIER to learn than sc1 (becuz its made by the retarded morons at activisionbliz). You'll have not much trouble learning. in fact, you'll probably do better than me. Since I learned sc at an extremely young age, I never used build orders. actually thats not true. In sc1, i've stuck to 7 probe - pylon for years, and in sc2, i make a pylon at 9 probes and gate at 13 ^^

also, add me as a friend on forums and on sc2 (if u have the north-american version)
1n5an1ty 149

I'm a better critic than I am a gamer.

 

STARCRAFT DEFINITIONS

SUPPLY - the number refers to your "supply" in the top right corner. When a zerg player starts, they have 6/10 supply. Meaning that they can make 4 more drones until they are supply capped at 10/10. If they make an overlord at that point, their supply cap goes up to 18, so their supply cap will be 10/18

6 POOL - The 6 refers to the supply count, so a 6 pool is when a zerg player makes a spawning pool (allowing them to get zerglings out) before they even make a single drone. This means the zerg player will be WAY behind on economy, but if the zerglings can kill all their enemie's workers, it'll pay off. This is also called a "zerg rush"

CHEESE PLAY - Calling something "cheese" means it's a cheap tactic. Some consider zerg-rushes to be cheese, almost everyone considers building cannons inside someone's base to be a cheese tactic. But other tactics, like rushing for banshees with cloak or dark templar is sometimes considered cheese. Taking all your workers into someone's base and hoping to win with just workers is considered cheese. It's OK to cheese, but just know that people usually don't consider you to be a "good" player if you cheese, just a 1-trick pony. If your opponent spots you preparing the cheap tactic (scouts the cheese) they will counter it and win.

RAX - This is just another word for Barracks. So 10 rax means you build your barracks at 10 supply. 12 rax means you build it when you have 12 SCVs working for you, ect...

TOSS - another word for protoss.

DT - An abbreviation of Dark Templar, a perma-cloaked unit.

200/200 - This refers to absolute maximum supply. You can build supply-granting buildings/units (supply depots, pylons and overlords) as much as you want, but at some point you will reach your maximum supply. This number is 200. So you could have 200 workers mining, or 200 marines, or 400 zerglings (they only take 1/2 of a supply count). But bigger units cost more supply, so the most battlecruisers you could have would be 33, because they cost 6 supply each. Keep in mind, your workers who gather minerals/gas for you cost supply too, and yet you want to keep those guys, so you will never have 33 battlecruisers or 400 zerglings.

UNIT COMPOSITION - Building only one type of unit doesn't work, out well. For example, zerglings can't hit air, so if that's all you got, you'll lose to air units. Unit composition just means "What is your army made of?" Mixing different units for different reasons works well sometimes. The most popular unit combo is Marine/Mauradier/Medivac. In that case, if the army is facing more air units, they make more marines, and if they see more armored ground units on the battlefield, they reinforce with more marauders.

VR - Void ray, a protoss unit that can attack ground and air, and charges it's beam up to do heavy damage on single targets. Dies easily to small units like marines, does great against battlecruisers and heavy units.

CASTER - Each race has a unit or two that can "cast" spells. For the protoss, it's the High Templar who can cast spells like Psionic storm. For Terrans, they have Ghosts which can call down nukes and use "emp shockwave" to remove shields from protoss enemies.

 

Strategy

I'm also new, but this is a winning strategy that will work unless the other player is using it as well, it hasn't failed me yet! Please note, this will only work if the opponent is playing as the Zerg.

Basically what you want to do is to play as the Terran and as soon as possible start making a whole load of marines.

All the time you want to keep making your limit of troops as you upgrade your supply bases whilst keeping all of your marines at your base.

If they are playing as the Zerg, then it is likely that they will send some zerglings to fight you, or scout your base.

If they send in a small amount of zerglings(1-10) then don't do anything but keep maxing out your troops with marines.

When they send in the big attack of zerglings(about 30-40) then finish them off, replenish thirty seconds worth of troops whilst moving your marines to the enemy base using the attack command so that your marines will stop and fight along the way, to ensure that they can't sneak around you whilst you're charging.

When you get there, because they just sent a whole load of zerglings to fight you, it is likely that they were either buying time, or literally just had zerglings.

If they literally just had zerglings(or enemies that are about as threatening) then proceed with the attack, first making sure to destroy any means of summoning more troops and you've won!

If were buying time and have amassed a large number of powerful units then turn and run back to your base.

After sending the command to run back to the base start building some more powerful units and try to keep the enemy away whilst they are being prepared.

If the enemy send more zerglings then hide your powerful units so that they don't know what to counter against whilst you are building them up.

Once again wait for a large amount of zerglings(about 40-50 this time) and launch another counter attack, with your powwer troops taking the lead.

Make the marine attack second because if you are fighting a nooby enemy they will attack whatever comes first, namely the powerful unit you are using to counter them, and won't bother with your marines.

After destroying their power units with your power-counter units clean up the rest of the lesser units from the base and you've won!


Mostly you will be playing on the defensive so only use this strategy if you don't mind playing as the defensive type but this strategy hasnt failed me and I was able to win my first game in only 9 minutes with this strategy.

Hope it helps,
Azerothen.

 

I was just thinking after reading this thread... Why make an ID with such a short lifespan? You can't be newtostarcraft for long...

 

I think many people refer to strategies or builds as cheese if they have never went against it or thought of a way to counter it. It is generally a good idea to just look at some popular builds, up to the first 4:00 or so gametime, and just copy it and go from there. Another good reason to look is to get an idea of what your opponent could have at the same time.

The thing that helped me alot was watching the replays, especially the ones when I lost. I know it is not fun to watch yourself lose, but it is really the best way to learn. Figuring out what you did wrong and how it happened. The second thing that helped was watching replays from great players. Although we may not have the APM or the wealth of knowledge they possess, but watching it will help you realize good ways to counter certain strategies. Watch the replay once, then watch it from the winner's camera view only. It will help you see the decisions they made and the impact it had.

 

Im new to starcraft too and the best way i found to get better is to take a look at a few channels on youtube which have commentaries on pro players to see how they play. Watch the videos that relate to the race you want to play as and you will start to see things repeating themselves in games.

Another MASSIVE thing that i dont think is emphasised enough is hotkeys. I didnt use hotkeys for my first 30 odd games on starcraft 2 but when i started using them i noticed a huge improvement in the game. (What i mean by hotkeys is pressing buttons on the keyboard that allow you to quickly carry out actions without having to click) This means you can easily build troops or drones without even looking back at your base and can therefore focus more on whats happening in the battle.

 

Yeah, hotkeys are generally a good idea to learn for when you play online.

Just a question: How good is the AI in custom mode compared to SC 1?

EDIT: Some general tips:

Zerg: Large numbers of individually weak soldiers. Big armies. Omnomnom.

Terrans: Medium numbers of middle-ground troops. 1-on-1 better than Zerg, but that never hapens.

Protoss: Small armies of generally powerful units. Learn how to macro well if you're gonna play 'toss. The basic unit (Zealot) costs 100 minerals (remember the Terran Marines cost 50 and the Zerg Zerglings cost 50 for two)

Like I said above, if you're gonna play Protoss, you'd better know how to macro well.

 

Have you tried performance enhancement drugs?

Other than that, watch Day9 either on Youtube or his blip stream. He is essentially the StarCraft guru.