Hey guys! This is my first guide for beginners so I wasn't quite sure how to make it, please let me know whether you thought it was too in-depth or not in-depth enough so I can make it better next time :) Make sure to ask all your silly goose questions below, after I wake up I'll try to answer as many as I can

Thanks to UThermal I went from 3.8k mmr to 3.6k!

Raise your hand if you do fewer SCVs than you should 🙋‍♂

Now I'm going to do my placement matches as Terran. It's time boys, my pool first days are over. THE AGE OF THE 3 RAX IS UPON US

I think a good addition to any type of tutorial like this is to have a keyboard widget on screen (something that shows what keys are being pressed).

It don’t matter how many tutorials are online, it’s crucial to keep adding new ones , even repeating the same thing, especially every player provides his own hints and trick and lure new players in, and I love such content as well 💪

lets go! Finally I can beat my father in law at sc2

I haven't played SC2 in years, and I don't intend on playing any time soon, but I still found this really enjoyable to watch.

The thoroughness of your job in teaching us freeloaders here is kinda proportional to how much what i'll say now is correct. -the priority order is: having a constant production, then following your main army, then build new structures. -always use hotkeys, not negotiable. -the initial order is: depo, racks, gas, orbital, reactor, cc, depo; then +2 rac-lab-stim-lab-shields, orb whenever cc finishes, at least 1 SCV constantly making depos, f2-a-move whenever stim is about to finish, then factory-ebay-+3 gas-+2racks-starport-reactor-switch-lab, then medivacs and tanks. -go trial and error on this up until you close up to hitting the first stimpacked attack in 5 and the medivac/tank reinforced one in 8 mins with 160 supplies (units lost considered). Then, a little insight by my humble self being a maths teacher which fell in love with the game and now wants to challenge himself on it: The actual bunch of possible variations you can make may be confusing in the first episode, and the brain here already has a lot to process since these are the first steps, the ones that will become instinctive and automatic in the future: save the "when you feel confident enough" for the actual guide ment for the ones who feel actually confident enough, and end the lesson on a "when you feel confident enough that you notice falling off vs terran, or you see that you first hit at 5m and get 160 supplies at 8m, check the next episode where we will see how to scout and how to adapt the builds on the opponent's race". You already have the interest of the people who watched until the end, we dont need to see how this can evolve, we need to be sure of what the key points are, so a quick recap of those would be great instead. Thank you for your hard work, this is already better than many of my colleagues effort! And forgive my english, still improvable. Hope you have a great day. - An italian random nerd maths teacher

I just came back to sc2 after years away. This is very digestable and nice.

After watching a bunch of your challenge videos, I decided to install the game again for the first time many years. When I open my match history it said my last game was more than 12 years ago! It was fun to play again after all this time :)

Uthermal really made the game 50x harder for Protoss and Zerg now

This video is an absolute gem! This helped me realize a bunch of mistakes i've been making in my build orders. Also, covering information about hotkeys is immensely helpful. I feel like I struggle a lot with my APM because I'm rubbish with hotkeys. Thanks a bunch for this video Marc!

I haven't played SC2 since Wings of Liberty and usually main Protoss, but it was awesome watching this guide and an in-depth look at how the 3 rax build works. Love the content!

Love this type of content - thanks! I was a plat/diamond in WoL but haven't played since then ... but have been watching your videos for the last year or so. And I've been wanting to get back into it but didn't know how to start. So this is perfect for me!

Great guide! Feels like what's needed with a number of cool tips! First impression - it's made as deep as it should be! Second impression after I thought a bit - maybe would be cool to have even a little bit more details/explanations, regarding what/why/when to do in the builds, especially for beginners. It's still a bit of a mystery - how to multitask - like scout and macro at the same time.

Ty for making this, I took forever to beat the story modes bc I was so bad at the bare essentials of the game, (now trying to get into pvp) but this gives me a frame of reference + an actual build to start from.

oh man, you've fuckin done it. I just reinstalled sc and made 5 game in a row w the 5.00 3rax. Jesus, it was about time (10 years)!

Was watching your videos for some time (maybe a year). Now I understand what are you talking about when streaming/doing challenges! :) Also thank you for tutorial! Always wanted to level up my strategy game skills (not only starcraft).

This was great, im looking forward to see more of these kinds of videos!

Excellent video, thanks uThermal!

Never played StarCraft but I’m a big fan of RTS. Guide makes me feel like I could learn it fairly easily enough to get into it. Thanks for that even if I never decide to try! 😅

Haven't touched this game in 5 years until 2 days ago after watching some (more like all) of your videos. Had a ton of fun and look forward to relearning this game. Thanks for the content brother.

I'm so happy to see you making a tutorial ! makes me want to try Terran once more with this build and see what rank i can get. The only thing i'm not sure is the F2 button, it can quickly become a bad habit but i guess it's still ok for a beginner to RTS

The video is great, please make a similar basic video about general macro goals and approaches. I remember when I started playing I was just blindly copying the pro builds (usually timed-pushes with 2/4/6 tanks or 2 tanks 2 vikings etc which were completely destroying everybody till Diamond league). At the end I found myself in the diamond league with very little understanding of how to actually play (each time my opponent has performed a group of viking landing on my base or multiple simultaneous drops - it was almost an insta GG for me, because I was completely lost then, I didnt know how to split the army properly, how to rebuild and what in general should be the ratio to look for - how many factories/starports per base etc - how to rebuild if parts of your production were destroyed). Thanks for this great series!

Hey uThermal thanks for the video, I am happy You decided to start with tutorials now. Fighting against each race takes knowledge of many different strategies. If You happen to make a series I would sure watch it all! Could You please guide Us through the first 10 minutes of the game against each race, mentioning important timings like : If I play against protoss, when to scout for mass Stargate and how can I predict a 4gate push. Or similliar when I play against zerg and I see roaches early but not sure if the enemy transitions. Maybe something like 3 different scenarios against each race?

Great guide, looks like reasonably easy to follow for a beginner.I really suck at multitasking so keeping it to two bases seems like a good idea

Love the video, been watching you videos for a long time but never played the game. These kind of videos makes me want to try it out.

Thank you for this guide, hope to see more guides

Yaaaaaaaaaaay! So happy to see new sc2 guides coming from you :D

Thanks Marc, this is great! Questions for you and the uThermal community: when you get stuck doing micro during a battle and then see you have a bunch of minerals or gas in the bank and the trades were favorable… - How do you decide whether to invest in army, production, or expansion? - What are easy ways to dump resources? - I’ve seen you make 3-4 command centers at once in the mid-game. This seems like a good “expansion” investment. Can you describe that one as an example?

I played Brood War extensively and played a lot during Wings of Liberty. After being away from SC2 for so long it's incredibly intimidating to return to the game. I've been wanting to jump back into ladder but found myself just going through the newer campaigns and never getting the courage to jump back online. I watch every video you upload and this one may finally be the little push I needed to give it a try again, thanks!

So I've literally never played Starcraft in my life, yet I watch all your videos on both channels and have done for longer than I can remember. I've no idea about using hotkeys, how to group armies together, tab between different views on the map or anything! But boy do I know the power of mass reapers and a planetary rush! Super curious what a newbie like me could achieve on their first ladder run :). uThermal, you've somehow made a fan of someone how hasn't downloaded the game. I really enjoyed hearing you actually talk about the simple mechanics of playing the game. I'm probably in the minority but I loved this episode.

Even as a Master player, I still watched this and followed along. Making sure your basics are still down is always useful and humbling. If you're going to move up the series though, if/when you get to Master-ish, would be great to hear some stuff about ways to engage and how to think about the game and what-not. I got to where I am on copying builds and having decent execution and now I feel like there's this massive wall of understanding between me and GM+

great guide. interested to see second part

Great video Marc. Thank you :)

That's what I've been waiting for! ❤

I think it was great! Another build for my tool belt, I like the early marine push. 💰🔥 I’ve been taking a second gas with the extra rax and then pushing on first 2 medivacs 🐷

Keep this up! Great series

Tip about hotkeying the upgrade: You can hotkey the structures with your CCs (or hatch or nexus) and then easily see if they are still researching when ever you select them.

I've been waiting for this series!!!

Thanks for this! I haven´t played SC2 in a long time and am kind of exited now to try again. Back then I was also most "successful" (meaning low platinum league) with a 3 rex build. But I would always just build one tech lab on the first barracks and then hit the first attack with stim finishing. This means it was a bit quicker but obviously missing combat shield. However if this first push was not succesful I mostly lost because I suck at macro.

I'm in 2.6k MMR, and this guide clearly showed me some tips I didn't know (like how to make fast medivacs on a 3-0-0 opening). Hopefully I'll continue watching videos of uThermal!

This is the build I started with last year. I’m not super high (Plat 2), but it still works against Protoss. And yes, it did get weak against Terran the earliest. By gold 2 or 3 everyone had tanks on the high ground. Keep it comin

Been watching StarCraft 2 videos for about 7 years now. I just learned what the 16 thing means. Haven’t played StarCraft 2 since 2015(custom games and campaign). I think I first started playing StarCraft in 2001. I played a lot of Warcraft 1, 2, and 3. I still wish for a day when they come out with a “Universe of StarCraft” game.

Nice guide Marc thanks, It's gonna help a lot of guys to climb up into gold and plat 100%

I actually learned something. I never made enough probes/drones (I don't play human). Can't wait for the weekend to try apply these lessons.

Perfect guide :D

Protoss player branching out to learn the other races and this is the perfect starting build order for me, thank uthermal.

This guide looks pretty good. I mean I'm sadly more used to the build wheel but it explains what you build and what it gives you. Is there a way to see that info mid battle?

I love this! It makes me want to play a few games as terran. Any chance you'd be up for doing something similar for zerg and protoss? I know your main thing is terran, but you know so much in general and it would be super helpful to have basic builds for those too :)

I'm definitely going to try it! What I noticed (I'm a Gold-league Zerg-Main) is whenever I try Terran, I try to get to three bases relatively early (I'm Zerg, so I'm just used to taking bases), but on the other hand, I forget to build more than 2 Rax (I often catch myself being on 2-1-1 after 10 minutes), and often enough, I just am like "why do I have like only 45 workers while I am just building my fourth CC?". So long story short: I'm going to see if I can take your advice and order myself a little bit more. =3

I like this content, ive been playing with friends regularly since release and i think its time i break some bad habits ive had since warcraft 1.... One thing id love is just a tutorial on mircoing units... I see people micro their marines and their reapers and ive just never taken the time to learn it. Im assuming uts just alternating between move and attack commands really quickly?

Could you explain the purpose of the early push a bit more? What am I trying to achieve there? Should I rally my next units to meet up with the push? Or should I let them wait and gather a large mass for the next attack?

Great tutorial ! Maybe you should do one or two ladder matches (with new account ?) to talk about possible variations/adaptations on the fly

Thanks for this, made we want to reinstall SC2 and give multiplayer a go. Will you also do similar videos for Zerg and Protoss?

started playing 2 days ago. was switching between playing some campaign and practicing macro with a dabble of micro. I can execute macro up to 8 minutes pretty well I think without missing SCV production or getting supply blocked(usually) but been having trouble with anything past that. after that I just start floating minerals. I'm guessing it's because I was just winging builds to get to specific unit combination that I wanted to try asap and didn't have enough actual production going. but might be something else. I've been having trouble with managing attacking and doing macro at the same time. I either start messing up the macro or unnecessarily lose a lot of units I could have saved. I guess I just need a some more practice with the macro so I don't have to think about it as much. This shit is hard. but looks so much fun.

very diff to deal with the scout reaper IMO by making the reactor 1st

Build order as text format: 16 - barracks 16 - gas 19 - orbital, reactor 19 - cc 20 - barracks 24 - barracks 30 - tech lab 35 - stim, tech lab 46 - combat shield factory, ebay 5:00 - stim a-move attack gas x3, barracks x2, starport x1 factory reactor swap with starport barracks reactor x2, factory tech lab

I doubt I ever play this game up ever again. Its too stressfull, but watching Uthermal play and teaching me is always a joy

thank you so much!!!!

I would love a follow up video where you do the build, but quickly a couple of times. When trying it, i find that I'm often very low on minerals and gas, creating gaps in my marine production. I'm guessing I'm building it in the wrong order, but it's hard to know what I'm doing wrong because you're doing everything so slowly in this video. Maybe you could also write down the build as a reference while playing?

Man ! Watching your video make play to SC2 again. I use to be silver , now I am top gold , playing against Platinium !!! Thanks to the crazy Battle cruiser and mine ;)

THANK YOU, DUDE!

160 at 8:30 - will try to - thank you for this guide

Awesome! Now I need one for Protoss 😂

Nice one!

Thanks!

Finally my colleagues have no excuses like saying that learning sc2 is too difficult :)

@uThermal for hotkeys, I think the grid layout is a lot more newbie friendly as it maps what you see on the screen to key locations. So initially, you can "cheat" and look at the bottom hotkey and location, so you build a mental image mapping between the buttons and the hotkeys. What is your experience on this from your coaching?

Good guide

Wow, Marc, I haven’t watched the video yet, but I’m already superhyped.🎉

Good vid ty

please make more of these

Marc, D3 here and I think it's an awesome and rather hard guide to climb to D3. Right now D3 is already very match-up specific and requires a lot more than this. To climb higher I'm currently diving head-deep into your build order videos and scouting guides. Those help a lot. I remember I got from silver to gold with a proxy reactored cyclones build back when they were machine guns. And when I stuck in gold I found Bomb's one-base marine-tank-cloaked banshee timing. And this got me to D3 instantly. It gave me better mechanics, a stable build to start with, more opportunity for harassment with a cloaked banshee. Even two-base builds were too difficult until I got to D3. In Diamond people tend to scout one-base aggression quite well and defend well vs banshees and harass, so it was a good time to start exploring race specific macro openers. So what I'm trying to say, perhaps practicing a one-base marine-tank-banshee is the best way to climb fast to a certain point (in D3 it became significantly harder for me) and then this build would be a great follow-up to learn more about macro and stuff before you check different openers. Also, Marc, I know you had many crazy challenges and all, but what about marine-tank-medivac in all match-ups to GM? :) May sound dull at first, but interested in what you think.

This is a video that i lacked when i started playing in november last year, I was struggling to read any build guides and to get further than normal difficulty AI. Then I found uThermal (I love your attitude for this game, hopefully your attitude to life is the same) and my skill started to grow instantly. Half a year later I'm still not confident enough to play with ppl, so I play just with AI, but I'm getting to a point where Insane AI is predictable, so I hope next month or at least until end of this year I will hit silver/gold league. Is there any possibility that You can tell me (and others ofc) what hotkey binding could be good for terran players? Or maybe some hotkeys work for any race? (like camera setting, which I'm still not using because I can't use fast enough to be efficient for me)

Great video! I have a question: When you have for example two CCs under one hotkey and you want to scan some area with both CC "marked", then both CC uses their energy or just one of them? I guess same goes for a group of BCs - when I have marked for example 12 BCs and hit Yamato cannon on a unit that requires two yamatos to kill - does all BCs shoot or just two?

When I used to play C&C and Starcraft way back when it came out I thought that I was a reasonably good player, after watching yourself I now know that I wasn't even a beginner :D

Do you think you could make a tutorial on defending against some common cheeses? I feel like especially in gold to plat a ton of players rely on cheese (I used to be one of them) but if I go for a more macro build I always struggle.

What was purpose of 2 tech labs on the two barracks? I saw stim researched on the one, but wasn't sure what the other tech lab was for. Thanks

I love this. makes me consider going back to the torture chamber that sc2 has been.

I'm currently top 10 Diamond 3, and still enjoyed this vid. I struggle to keep building SVC's/Probes/Drones like I should. I often forget to Mule when playing T and have trouble harrasing my opponent. I've done a few 5 racks reaper builds lately per one of your videos and have had good sucess with it.

Not only did this video cause me to play SC2 again after years, I upgraded my NVidia 980 card to do so!

One of the main differences between common players & elite players (like uThermal) - Common players build up an army over time so as to attack at a moment… Elite players build up the resources and facilities over time so as to produce an army at a moment of their choosing.

Can you make a video on mechanics like drop ship while moving , mine drop with burrow keys sequences

New player here, silver rank. Was practicing build very close to this, happy to see it is not bullshit :), but with 1-1 upgrade+steam and shield timing around 5:45min. Played two games on ladder won against zerg, but lost to turtle terran, guess my micro sucks.

new tutorial series let's gooooooooo

Glad you teach the newbies

The very first seconds of the build order is/are (idk my brain at 3am can't do grammar and words now): 2 scv supple depot 2 scv Barracks Gas (3 to gas) 2 scv When the barracks is done make orbital and reactor 19 Command Center 20 supply depot 21 Barracks etc...

I started grinding ai to build my macro game just so I could try to compete and I only started because I liked uThermal and his ability to climb the ladder with any build

Are you going too do ones for protass or zerg?

@uThermal, in TvP, what is the ratio of gas that can support continuous production of marauders, tanks and medivac ?

Is there a build order list somewhere in the comments? It helps me a lot if there is a list of things I need to complete by a certain time or supply :D

Hello et bonsoir 😊 le one / one / one expand into etc ! est il toujours viable pour les terrans ? Merci pour ta réponse 👌

Very cool.

Time to see how the PiG zerg guide I've been using will hold up against all the new ladder Uthermies.

Hi i'm a noob that just started playing. This guide is really good. The problem I have is I'm not sure exactly when I should move out to attack. Sometimes something happens in the game like they rush or their scout gets in and causes chaos, or something. So I get behind a few seconds and then I have some marines but now its later in the game and I kind of freeze up and never attack at all till like 40 minutes in. Like obviously at some point you dont want to attack if you get behind, but when do you attack at that point?

When you drop your mules should you not drop them to less mined mineral patches first? When you dropped mules in your natural expansion you kept dropping them on the bottom right patch that you already had SCV's mining. The minerals will mine out quicker and cause a small mining efficiency drop.

So the way priorty firing works with some units can be exploited... So beyond mastery play is, the best terran ground support or air, is having atleast 3 barracks at the front of your army.... like most Rts's from experience. COmmand and conquer, dogs, in teh game and units infront of your tank line, will catch/ soak up tank and vehicle shot fire, allowing you to trade extremely well, where 5 tanks can easily destroy an army of twleve becasue they can't shoot through the line of fodder. (dogs are chosen over infantry because they once shot other infantry and move at the same speed as the metal line typically. Not sure how dogs give vision in any game becasue we can't logically speak dog, lol, but I guess they have a video collar or something.) This also works in Starcraft. Terran has a significant advantage in engagements that is often not utilzed. So units that fire up can be exploited, hydras, marines and stalkers, thus forces a heavier load of micro. A barracks life with armor upgrade gets + 2 armour early on which is paramount.. So having them fly ahead of your army in an engagement and or even landing, can significantly reduce your unit force. 150 minerals value is like 3 marines... Single barracks although it doesn't have any weapons it can get 3 armor early and can soak up 10 times more damage than three maries.. Its the best use of fodder, and if you win an engagement you cna also simply land them and create a forward movement, its also map dependent... having three with your army and attackign while its being attack you are bascially if you see the barracks taking direct fire damage its doing its job, while your attacking. The flight of buildings is annoying to target udnerneath because of layering which is somethign I ranted in sc1 about, long ago. in a composition of a 200 army supply system have 9 barracks for proxy and side support is pretty good... great vision.. the speed is a bit slow but its also dependent on what you are doing. Fodder tactics are nto usually utlzied in Sc2, because it is not as apparent in its benefits, and terran again domiante in this benefit by priorty of attacking... if you land htem to soak up say marauder or colli, fire just don't stop your movement, and the logic is simple, you have it infront of your army where you want to go. if done correctly... marauders benefit so much with concussion, because the stutter step of stalkers is voided and hits the barracks if in the lead first unless micro'd to a specific unit, you cna kill more stragglers iwthout risk of loss. So fodder adds to your suppyl total by soaking up damage. when used properly... one barracks imo, is valued on adverage ata moderate effeiceint level at about 5.6 marines and more towards 7-8.6 at a better use... Expendable units in sc2 are not hte best fodder unit. we have seen this with evo chambers. Typically fodder buildings are best against... melee units on ground or units that can attack air and ground. IE cyclones... and cyclone hitting a barracks is way better then hitting or targeting a unit in your army because you cna keep moving forward without management of your forces to retreat the targeted unit. AOE2... fodder typically isn't a win condition, but total HP of your unit military typically wins even when countered. Buildings still work. (C and C series i speak about is REDalert 2) Thats my tactic in battle training its typically a terran benefit, and not used that much in sc2. there's many other weird benefits of layering and targeting that can cause problems. I would consider this advanced teqnique... I remember being trained by someone in RED Alert two as a 13 year old. I would win a lot simpyl with visio, speed and map control. Then when shown the fodder tactic, my winning became much easier... and less apm intensive.. so sheer speed and knowing helps win, but over all knowing the mechanics, makes the game less apm intensive and easier ot manage through understanding those tactics. if you have the later already adding fodder and mechanic udnerstandings of blocking data and movement only further increases your gameplay value per apm. Rather then look at me I click everywhere.... to get 600 apm... hotkeys reduce apm clicking, be increase apm precision and effect. Aoe2 has a qwerty setup... which some peoepl don't like, but it can be useful becuase then your mind is slot oreintated, but meh, hot key are important... Simply... print out all available hotkeys for a game, and then pick what you want, and test it out... less clicking more hot keying... Imo....if you are clicking 90% of the time you are a newer player.. if you are clicking 60% of the time you are getting better. if you click... 20% of the time, except in battles, probably better. Hotkeys fly around the map, center on units, Clicking because shift chain commands. and then it frees up your clicking and vision to micro your army, typically marco can auto itself when your hotkeys are set up... sometiems it sucks imo, to spend... 20 seconds at home fixing hotkeys and then macroing while your army is off, because you made an error, but meh its pretty rare. I would say if the power of terran was truly understood, no other race would stand a chance... but I do prefer zerg becasue of its demand and intensity in the game of clicking, and spell caster hotkeys etc... but meh... take what I say as a grain of salt.

Suggestion: Put Reactor Barracks and Tech Lab Barracks in different hotkeys, because if you try to make Marines with Reactor when they're in the same hotkey, the marines will overflow into the other barracks' before filling up the Reactor Barracks.