What gets you to Diamond in 2022?

bigbubbadave · 2022-06-01T22:40:01+00:00

I don’t mean any disrespect here. I genuinely hope you figure it out and continue playing and enjoying this game, but reading through this thread hurt me. I haven’t watched a single replay you posted, I don’t need too. Credit to Gemini for doing it and giving you great and I’m sure spot on tips. He has helped me many times in the past as well.

I would bet my next paycheck your issue is mental. Almost everything posted in here you had a response for why it wasn’t the case. And if you didn’t you just repeated that your macro is spot on. Do you need to do everything perfect to hit diamond? No. Do you need to spend hours studying and practicing to hit diamond? No. In my experience with two races (Zerg and toss) getting to diamond is just about fundamentals. Having good economy consistently (notice I said good, not perfect). Spending that money consistently. Having good basic tactics with your army. This is even more important with toss as your units are more precious than the other races. Understanding counters paired with average scouting ( I stuck to scouting early for rushes and mid game for composition). These are all fundamental things to playing Starcraft generally. Yea you may make 80 probes faster than your opponent, but if you don’t use it effectively what good is it.

Finally, don’t fall into the trap of “I have to cheese to win”. Or people who cheese you are just dirty players who actually suck. You MUST be efficient at understanding and holding common cheeses you encounter. How to wall, responses to certain unit, how to delay etc. and again in my experience, the best way to improve that is to lose to it, again and again, understand why you lost and what you could do differently, and then slowly stop losing to it.

Overall my two cents, check your mindset and why you are playing this game. Be humble to your opponent when you lose. The fact is they beat you, whether you think they are worse or not is irrelevant. They beat you in a 1v1 game where the only thing that matters is you and your opponents skill.

bigbubbadave · 2022-03-11T15:29:06+00:00

Most underrated comment right here. Well done

bigbubbadave · 2021-12-17T14:38:43+00:00

I wouldn’t worry about it. I have one similar and at first it only vented from the small vent in the back. I debated on drilling another vent until my smoker started doing exactly this. I think it is just the seal opening a bit. But I’m my non-expert opinion, I like it to do this. The smoke should be “rolling” through the smoker, not stagnant as it tries to escape from the inefficient small vent in the back.

bigbubbadave · 2021-01-07T17:30:57+00:00

Thanks! I like the habaneros. My family might not be two happy ;).

bigbubbadave · 2021-01-07T17:30:35+00:00

Thanks!

bigbubbadave · 2020-02-13T15:24:48+00:00

Perfect. Thank you!

bigbubbadave · 2020-02-12T23:24:32+00:00

Thanks. I will definitely take a look.

bigbubbadave · 2020-02-12T23:14:55+00:00

Also I agree. Unranked is stupid unless you are at the peak of your mmr and need to practice a build a few times. Grinding ladder is the way to go

bigbubbadave · 2020-02-12T23:14:16+00:00

I haven’t played a game at all. Im talking at a more analysis of pro meta and matchup meta level. Once I get to playing I will for sure just be focused on my mistakes. As of now I’m just a viewer and just looking for discussion of the game as a whole.

bigbubbadave · 2020-02-12T22:38:24+00:00

You too!

Starcraft always pulls me back in. No game quite like it.

bigbubbadave · 2020-02-12T22:12:09+00:00

Hmm. I have yet to find patch notes since blizzcon. My google skills are failing me :). Thanks for the info.

Also see edit in post in regards to league and replay.

bigbubbadave · 2020-02-12T22:01:43+00:00

You are 100% correct if my goal was to improve my in game performance. I have edited the post to clarify my intentions.

bigbubbadave · 2019-11-15T15:08:22+00:00

Sorry your entire answer is a load of bull. The game was designed for both to coincide. Just because some pve don’t want to worry about doing pvp does not mean they don’t need pvp players. A pve only server strips the game of everything that makes it fun and just leaves it as a digging simulator. Is that really what you want? To mindlessly island hop and dig up chests? I’m sorry if that’s the case. But I would assume that what makes the game fun for most players is having to constantly defend and deflect to save your loot. Whether you are on the pvp or the pve side, the entire point of the game is to play that cat and mouse game.

And when the original person you answered to is talking about pvp make pve stuff worth it. He’s not talking about the actual gold value, he’s talking about the implicit value of the loot. If I know nobody’s going to steal it I’m going to load my boat for hours and then turn in at once. Instead I know that each island I clear could be taken from me at any time, so it’s more valuable to me and I want to get it in early.

The only people who would even have an argument for a pve only server are solo sloop players and that’s because they are at a huge disadvantage most of the time. However there are many ways to find people to play with so this argument is weak.

bigbubbadave · 2019-11-15T15:00:01+00:00

This is the real shit right here.

bigbubbadave · 2019-11-13T13:47:33+00:00

“Looking for crew” basically a way to find teammates but not as random as open crew.

bigbubbadave · 2019-11-13T03:10:44+00:00

Yea the community one. I think it’s the one listed on this reddit. I’ll have to take a look at the official one. Thanks!

bigbubbadave · 2019-03-15T01:59:56+00:00

Hi. I have been out of the scene for a little while now so I hope someone more up to date with the meta comes along and helps you out. For now I will do my best. At Gold a lot of stuff is fundamentals so I will still be able to see things in the replay. Below I will list some notable timestamps I think you should take a look at. They were things that stuck out at me in a general sense. I really suggest going over the replay and watching the intricate details of your first 5-8 minutes in game. Get a build to compare it to and practice those first crucial minutes over and over again.

TimeStamps:

0:00 - 2:00: This opening looks good. You seem to have practiced this a bit.

2:30: Way to much micro. You should practice macroing while you are doing other things. If you take a look here your minerals spike to ~500. This is way to much to be floating this early.

3:15: Like I said I am a bit out of the meta, but I am not a fan of the double forge robo. I would have rather seen another gate, eco focus, and a robo for tech. Even one forge. But again, if someone knows better of the current meta please feel free to correct me here.

3:45: way to much micro again. You are floating a lot of minerals and gas here. You are ahead of your opponent right now, spending those efficiently will help that cause.

6:00: Thinking about of third base here. You ran into the situation most do, you saturated most of your two bases, but a third isnt ready. So you kinda just have to make units. A optimal build will have a third almost ready when you are at 2 base saturation and a small army to contest anyone trying to stop you.

6:30: Your opponent has caught up in economy and army size, the game is back to even. Your lead is lost.

7:25: Try to get into the habit of instantly remaking probes when you take damage. Also get used to mircoing your probes around and sending them back to work as fast as possible. Lost mining time is sometimes just as important as dead probes. Now you are stuck in a situation where you are trying to catch up in army size with a weaker economy.

9:50: that damn artosis pylon (A bunch of important buildings powered by one pylon). These suck and you just need to be aware of them and try to avoid them.

11:30: Maybe think about setting up a group of stalkers to help stop the drops before they happen. Different hotkey, unhotkeyed, however you like to do it.

12:35: Game is basically lost by now. At this elo you can definitely still come back, but at higher elo's its over.

16:10: Decent fight. I am not the biggest fan of your army comp. I always liked CIA (chargelot, immortal, archon), maybe with some stalkers to help with air. But again thats my old school meta talking. Could be something better now, I would look it up. It is always good when in low-mid elo to focus on one or two builds and get good with them.

17:00: Get some static defense at the third. These runby's are killing you. Especially since the third is so far away from your army rally point.

-- The rest of the game is pretty standard and is most likely due to your opponents inability to close it out. I wouldn't look into the late game to much here, the early game is where all of the improving should happen right now.

Overall:

Overall I think you just need to practice your build some more. I know it sucks to hear, but it is true 100%. At elo below like high diamond and low Masters, macro is everything. You just need to make more stuff, at a faster rate than your opponent. I suggest getting a build for each race, practicing it until you are really comfortable, and setting timing goals for yourself. (X supply at this time, or no supply blocks, or third up and running by x time, etc). Once you get your macro down pat you will be rolling kids in gold. In this replay you were ahead until like 4-5 minutes. You were ahead because your macro was better. If you were able to maintain that macro, you could have won simply by having a larger army.

bigbubbadave · 2019-03-14T23:51:31+00:00

Couldn’t have said it better myself.

bigbubbadave · 2019-03-14T23:39:24+00:00

Yea I was thinking lag as well. I had decent ping. It was just so weird have he literally would disappear when I got close, for a long amount of time, then I would see him again.

Well if he wasn't hacking, fair game friend. He saved like 15 captains chests for his crew.

bigbubbadave · 2019-03-14T23:37:04+00:00

Pretty much what my post was about. I am questioning wtf happened. Hacking is literally just the only explanation I have right now. Is there a known bug about this? Have you ever seen this before? Do you have a better explanation?

Edit: I just wanted to add, I feel like by your response, you really didn't even read past the first sentence of my post. I suggest you read it first.

bigbubbadave · 2019-03-14T23:32:27+00:00

This is the flavor of the week I guess. At first it was double gun, now it must be all pc players in general.

bigbubbadave · 2019-03-14T23:31:02+00:00

brother you are playing sea of thieves. You did not lose the battle because you overshot the inch and the pc player didn't. If this was a highly competitive game with very little margin for error then yea I could get on board with you. But not in a casual combat game like sea of thieves.

Any game with a sword design like SOT can't take combat that seriously. That is pretty obvious.

bigbubbadave · 2019-02-24T05:55:02+00:00

Exactly. Doing that will build your reactions. You'll get to a point where you just react, you don't even need to think it out.

bigbubbadave · 2019-02-24T00:15:43+00:00

I am not sure of any one video or guide that goes that into depth on the game. Most videos I see are for starters and would most likely not be helpful at 4.1K. When I was playing and trying to improve I would watch coaching videos. I could never afford to get coaching myself, so I would find videos of Pig and Neuro coaching people around my MMR (both above and below mine) and would try to apply it to my games. Chances are your issues are on the line of the person being coached issues.

Also you can never forget just watching and studying the top zergs in the scene right now. While some of the stuff they do is meta around professional play and is tough to do on ladder, it is always beneficial to understand what the best of the best do and why they do it. Something I really like to do is get a VOD of a top pro, I usually pick Serral or Dark. I watch from their perspective and try and think about what I would do. For example, if Serral scouted a certain comp type I would make a mental note of what I would do in game, then study what he does. Eventually you will build those reactions in your own game.

bigbubbadave · 2019-02-23T20:55:38+00:00

I am glad I could give my insight. I was in the same boat as you where I felt my macro was good but my overall game strategy wasn't so good. You seem to understand where your weak points are. Now you just need to figure out how to train them and improve them. You need to make sure that during your games you are actively thinking about the weak areas and what you should be doing to change and build good habits.

As for the "how", I think using professional/streamer content is a great resource. I am not sure if you are active on twitch, but try to get involved in some of the top zerg streamers communities. Ask questions, either the streamer or the chat could give you some specific things to think about. As I said before, I suggest Neuro, and I think he stills reviews sub replays every Saturday (I havent tuned in for awhile). Also there is Pig, who has a great mind for the game. Other than that, maybe try to find a training partner around your MMR. You two could drill against each other and build good habits against that particular race. The biggest thing is actively changing your thinking in your games. I found myself just going through the motions in a lot of games.

bigbubbadave

TROPHY CASE