1) Hey John thanks for giving us this interview. To start things off could you tell us a little bit about yourself & your starcraft 2 strategy guide?

Well I started off playing the original Starcraft back in 8th Grade and I’ve been playing it ever since, so when I heard Starcraft 2 was
coming out I got my hands on a beta key and haven’t stopped playing it since. I wrote my guide to help players learn the fundamentals of the
game and how to become a good player in Starcraft 2. Just like in any sport you have to get the basics down first and then once you have
them down you build from there, which is what I try to do with my guide.

2) How did you initially get into starcraft? What experience do you have with the original and the newly released starcraft 2?

As I stated earlier I started playing the original when I was in 8th grade and I remember I used to take the Starcraft book that came
with the game to school everyday and study each unit and think of different play styles and build orders. My friends and I were consumed
by the game and we never really got out of it. Now that Starcraft 2 has come out we have just transitioned from the original to Starcraft
2 and what I love about it is that it feels really natural and a nice progression from the original game.

3) What is the backstory with the creation of Shokz Guide?

Since I was the one out of all my friends who would really study the game of Starcraft, I ended up always having to teach them things
and help them improve their game and APMs so I figured that I could write a guide to help players really understand how to play on a
competitive level and compete with Diamond level players.

To be continued

How Do I Raise My APM?

Learn The Hotkeys

The easiest way to improve your APM is to learn all of the hot keys for the race you intend to play competitively. Not only does it allow you to react faster, but it will allow you to multitask very easily. Actually learning every single hotkey is very difficult. I used this training method to learn them within a few days.

1. Join a Co-operative game against a medium-very hard computer, and select a race of your choice.
2. Once that game starts force yourself only to use the keyboard hot keys to build buildings or units. Beforehand you could’ve checked up on some of the basic hotkeys, if you haven’t it is okay you will figure them out quickly.
3. Now you will probably be tempted to use your mouse to build buildings or units, but refrain from doing so. I know it is difficult to do at first but after a few games it becomes second nature.

Work Your Way Up

Every game set a APM goal for yourself, and through the game try to reach the certain goal. Slowly but surely your APM will increase if you keep raising your goals.

Do not spam clicks to reach your goal, this does help the process of improving your APM. The only reason you should ever spam APM is when you need to warm yourself up before a game. I actually do it occasionally when im feeling sluggish, but other then that it doesn’t serve a purpose.

Stay Open Minded & Use Control Groups

When you are playing a game of Starcraft 2 it is very important that you dont focus to much on any single thing. In order to effectively play you have to learn to multitask under extremely straining situations, and manage many different things at once. So how exactly are you suppose to get around the map at lighting speeds?

By assigning control groups. A control group is pretty much anything that you select that is assigned a number of your choosing( 1-9) which can be accessed at anytime by hitting the number you assigned. If you ever watch Pro Games you can see the pro’s control groups directly above the toolbar in-game.

By using control groups you can quickly go back to a selected point without having to scroll all the way there, build units without looking at the production facility, or control a army while managing your base.

It Comes Natural

Eventually by playing many games your APM will increase naturally. You cannot completely change it overnight and expect it to stick. In order to improve your APM drastically you need to play Starcraft 2 consistently and learn from your mistakes. I know that sounds difficult but every player improves little by little even if they don’t know it as these changes are very subtle.

In South Korea pro Starcraft players push themselves to extremes by playing every single day for many hours at a time, and their APM reflects that with some of the best players reaching 250-300 actions per minute.

TERRAN

BASIC & ADVANCED BUILDINGS (B & V)

C – Command Center
S – Supply Depot
B – Barracks
E- Engineering Bay
U – Bunker
T – Missile Turret
W – Sensor Tower
F – Factory
G – Ghost Academy
A – Armory
S – Starport
C – Fusion Core

BUILDING ADD-ON’s

B - Orbital Command
P – Planetary Fortress
X – Tech Lab
C – Reactor

UNITS

S – SCV
E – MULE
A – Marine
D – Marauder
R – Reaper
G – Ghost
E – Hellion
S – Siege Tank
T – Thor
V -Viking
D – Medivac
R – Raven
T – Auto-Turret
D – Point Defense Drone
E – Banshee
B – Battlecruiser

UNIT UPGRADES

W – Infantry Weapons
A – Infantry Armor
H – Hi-Sec Auto Tracking
N – Neosteel Frames
B – Building Armor
W – Vehicle Weapons
V – Vehicle Plating
S – Ship Weapons
P – Ship Plating
T – Stimpack
N – Nitro Packs
C – Combat Shield
I – Infernal Pre-Igniter
S – Siege Tech
A – Caduceus Reactor
R – Seeker Missile
T – Corvid Reactor
D – Durable Materials
C – Cloaking Field
M – Moebius Reactor
C – Personal Cloaking
W – Weapon Refit
B – Behemoth Reactor

General Tips

• Don’t forget that you can lift off buildings. Remember that you can safely fast expand to a island or build your Command Center in your own base and land it at your expansion whenever you see fit.

• Turtle meat tastes good. As much as I hate saying this, but turtling can be a very effective way of building up your army and crushing whoever you may be playing against. Just watch to make sure they dont mass expand or atleast keep some pressure on them with drop ships.  If you plan on turtling check out “how to beat a turtled terran” and watch out for the counters.

• Don’t throw away Reapers. Even if your reaper harass failed , keep um as scouts and use the Xel’Naga Watchtower Trick.

Terran v Protoss Tips

• Marauder’s completely own Zealots… I strongly recommend you learn how to kite Zealots. I play alot of Protoss myself and the one thing that pisses me off more then anything is well micro’d marauders. You simply cant kill them with zealots.

• Always keep DT’s in mind. I cant tell you how many games i’ve won from a single dt destroying a one based terran who forgot to add missle turrets or ran out of scanning energy. So remember to atleast build a few turrets near your mineral line to help defend against DTs, Drops, and many other types of harass.

• Learn to spot a rush. When you scout and only see a nexus and a forge then most likely your about to get cannon rushed. If you see the gateway getting chrono boosted then your probably in for a early zealot rush.

Terran v Zerg Tips

• Run Ling Run. If you see a ton of Zergling’s being produced don’t be afraid to produce hellions if you are going a biotic build order. If you see lings during mid game then most likely they are going ling muta so make sure you have enough anti air.

• Don’t let Zerg Expand. Turtling can be great but if you decided to turtle against a zerg player then you have to make sure that you constantly harass making it difficult to mass expand. Otherwise they can easily overrun you in the near future.

• Stop the Creep. One trademark of a good zerg player is one who spreads the purple gunk across the map. I keep a handy raven with my army to kill the creep tumors to stop the spreading.

Terran v Terran Tips

• Mindsets. Before you even start playing look to see who is favored. If your opponent is then he will more likely feel confident and play more aggressively.

• Scan bunches and bunches. Scouting in general is extremely important in starcraft, and even more so in a TvT matchup. Hiding important buildings is much more difficult for terran players so scan will reveal exactly what your opponent is doing. Make sure to counter their strategy aswell.

Here are some great terran counter matchups…

1. Marine vs. Marauder/Thor
2. Marauder vs. Hellion/Thor
3. Reaper vs. Marine
4. Ghost vs. Marine
5. Hellion vs. Marine
6. Siege Tank vs. Marine/Hellion/Thor
7. Thor vs. Viking/Banshee

Tha Xel Naga Watchtower Trick

General Tips

• Chrono Boost like a animal. Don’t shy away from chrono boosting upgrades, units, or probes out during the mid/late game. A trademark of a good protoss player is one who chrono boost’s the hell out of everything.

• Be a ninja. I usually scout after I put up my first gate. Once I see what my opponent is going for I take the scouting probe and place a very good proxy pylon near my opponent’s base. I use this proxy for my first push and it’s very useful for warping in reinforcements.

• Sentry’s are cute. If you are planning a 4 gate timing push always have atleast one sentry in the mix. The Guardian shield and Force Field abilities are amazing to have in your arsenal.

• I’m a sucker for Dark Templars. I can’t tell you how many times one simple DT has won a game for me. So many new players are so flustered throughout the game they forget to grab detection. My DT’s enjoy wrecking shop. If you find a ton of gas on your hands don’t hesitate to grab DT’s.

Protoss v Zerg

• Zergling rushes are overated. I’ve noticed that around 90% of zerg players rush with lings. If you get a zealot or stalker to late it can be very difficult to get rid of the zerglings. To stop a rushing zerg player simply block of your ramp. I usually leave a little space for my probes to get through so I can expand in the future, but I block it with a zealot so the lings can’t harass my workers.

• Confine the Zerg or prepare to expand. Zerg expands easily. Chances are if they outnumber you in bases the more likely you are to lose. So if you see zerg expanding either confine them to one base by killing the expansion or expand yourself.

• T-Rex’s can be sneaky. If you see a Zerg player transitioning into mutalisks it’s always a good idea to throw up a few cannons behind your mineral fields. My economy has been destroyed numerous times by a few mutas.

Protoss v Terran

• High Templar vs MMM= Ownage. Many terran players go the biotic route and make massive Marine, Marauder, and Medvac balls. One way to completely dominate a player who has the MMM compisition is to grab a few High Templars. One well placed storm can desolate your opponent and win you the game.

• Scout for the Tech Lab. Watch out for a early reaper harass. Scout out the barracks to see if there is a tech lab being added. If i see this I usually chrono out some zealots and grab a quick stalker.

• What to do against a turtle? Check out how to deal with a turtled terran.

Protoss v Protoss

• Prepare for a rush. In alot of PvP matchups you’ll see a very early rush. I usually prepare for the rush with one or two cannons and counter attack when the last of their zealots are killed off.

• Don’t Force Things. If you find yourself ahead of your opponent don’t rush in with all your units, until you have scouted out everything they might possibly have.

• Watch for Void Rays. Always try to keep some anti air units within your armies main composition. Void Ray Builds are really popular now a days.

What to do Against a Turtled Terran

• Is that a Turtle? First you actually have to see if the terran player is actually turtling. Send a probe/drone/scv to check out what your opponent is up to. If you see him grabbing both gases and blocking the ramp with most of his buildings then there is a good chance he is going to turtle.

• Mineral Defense is key. If he is indeed turtling the first thing I usually do is put up some cannons or some type of defense near my mineral patch’s. Alot of turtles like to drop units behind your mineral field ruining your economy. That’s never fun.

• Expand then expand some more. If you have 3 bases and your lame turtle opponent only has 1 then you will most likely be able to produce a billion more units then him. If by some miracle he kills your main army, then you will be able to rebuild your army ALOT faster then he can rebuild his.

• Be Sneaky. Dont be afraid to drop units behind is mineral line, or possibly warp in some units in a far unseen corner. If you are playing Zerg Nydus the crap out of the turtle.

• Keep a eye on everything. See what your opponent is doing. If you see him building tons of marines you should be building tons of roaches.

• Turtles aren’t allowed 2 bases. If you see the turtle expanding shut it down as soon as possible. Your main goal is to starve the turtle of minerals. Keeping a eye on everything will help you spot any new command centers.

What Not to do With a Turtled Terran

• Don’t stay 1 base with the turtle. If you don’t expand then the turtle will most likely win. Terran can successfully stay on one base and be very effective. It is much harder to do that with protoss and zerg.

• Don’t attack his front door with everything you got. Siege tanks pretty much can kill anything very easily. So your whole army runs up that small little ramp and gets stuck then they will most likely die.

• Don’t stick with only one unit type. Countering is the name of the game. Don’t purely make stalkers. Try to integrate your army with alot of units that can take out armored units.

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A Changeling is a scout unit that disguises itself (for a limited time) as an enemy unit when it gets near an enemy. This allows the changeling to stick with your opponents army to scout out exactly where and when he is attacking. Sounds great and all but there are a few easy ways to spot a changeling. One being that you cannot select them or that they seem to move without your permission.

Changeling Tips & Fun

• The Zerg player I spoke of above used this little trick very often and was successful around 50% of the time. Simply send in a zergling to attack anything that would distract your opponent and at the same time send in the changeling to be apart of their army.

• When the changeling is part of your enemy’s army the best place for it to be is near the back. If the changeling is in the middle and your foe selects his army as one it will stick out like a sore thumb.

• If your up for a good nydas network one promising way to find a good location is by using a changeling to scout the base of your opponent.

• Meat shields are always great to have, whether it be in Gears of War 2 or Starcraft2. In the video below see how a cunning Zerg player uses his changeling’s in a epic manner.

How it’s Done

The extractor trick is very simple and allows you to get one extra drone while your overlord is building. Whenever you reach 10 supply build a extractor and then immediately after build one drone. Then cancel the extractor and build a overlord. Your supply should now be 11/10. It’s really that easy. If you want to see more of how it’s done watch the video below from Naruto Starcraft.

STANDARD QUICK EXPANSION BUILD ORDER
10 Extractor Trick and use the 11th drone to scout
10 Overpool (Overlord then Pool)
13 Drones
14 Extractor
14 Lings
15 Queen
17-18 Lings
Lair with first 100 gas

Now as you probably can see build orders can quickly become confusing. They are very short and to the point. But once you understand everything behind them they soon become extremely helpful by condensing what could be a huge build.

Build Orders Explained

Alright, the numbers on the left are the supply count (food count). They pretty much tell you when you need to build something. So with the build used above it says “14 extractor”. This means at 14 supply you should have enough minerals to build a extractor. At the same time you should also be building 2 lings because it is mapped at 14 supply.

Now your probably thinking, what do I do after I build my lair? It doesn’t say on the build order right? The build order doesn’t continue because after that point there would be no use for it. At that point you need to be countering what your opponent is doing and that isn’t the build orders purpose. Instead it is used to guide you to what your initial units will be or in this case a quick expansion.

What do you think of build orders? Would you like me to post one after all my strategy’s?