In the somewhat long and varied history of StarCraft2Forum.org, we’ve tried our best to bring you knowledge of StarCraft 2. Within our limited scope, we’ve provided tips on gameplay, opinions on balance, and as the beta has progressed, we’ve started to give you winning strategies and guides (mostly for Terran since that’s what I play).


It’s become pretty clear that there’s no way that I can be an expert on all three races. I like to think that I’m a very knowledgeable and talented Terran player, but in order to keep my level of play high with one race, I have to skip the other two for the time being.


That has left a gap in the knowledge I can provide to our users. That’s why I’ve always taken the suggestions of various community members to hear when they’ve asked me about guides. I’ve heard a lot of guides downplayed because they were useless, and I’ve even taken a look at a couple (Joana’s Guide and Star2Pros) and completely disregarded them because they were ridiculously expensive for what they provided.



So last week when Shokz StarCraft 2 Guide approached me about a review I was a little apprehensive. But hey, I’m willing to give anything a shot once. After reading the guide and talking with its owner, I’ve been convinced that it is a useful tool in any StarCraft player’s arsenal. While I don’t necessarily recommend the use of guides in general for more advanced players (because you become reliant and more of a copy-cat player) I would definitely suggest a guide for new players who are just starting out with StarCraft 2 or are new to the RTS genre in general.


The Shokz guide covers the basics, and does it well. There is a large amount of material that is presented in an easy to understand format that is improving as we speak. I was particularly impressed with the Unit Guides in which Shokz outlines the strengths and weaknesses of each unit in the context of other units it will encounter on the battlefield. This is often the area which is the easiest to learn but some players are slow to pick up to the point where they can detect the correct counter in situations where it will win them the game. His collection of build orders and unit-specific tricks are also very helpful (I even learned something—who knew scanning instead of getting MULEs could hurt you so bad? I’m also going to start using his Barracks trick for scouting).



So what’s my advice here? If you’re new to the Starcraft universe (that includes WarCraft 3 players) I would suggest taking a look at his guide. Whether it’s worth the $37 lifetime subscription is ultimately up to you, but it couldn’t make you worse, right? Good luck out there!


Click this link to take a look at the Shokz Guide!

Know much about that portion of it?

One of my main critiques of his site were the spelling mistakes. He's promised to fix those.

Thanks for the post. I bought this guide, it's pretty good. What do you think about other guides like those? Especially Joana's Guide. Please share thoughts on that.

I also researched about such guides and found out that there are like 4-5 guides. Difficult to know about each of those but http://starcraft2-strategies.com has kind of reviewed each and ranked each of those.

Can you also post such a review for Joana's guide?

Edit: Hurry up guys its 27$ right now and going to be 37$ soon lol..

I actually just went ahead and bought the guide because of your review and it is great so far, I can't wait for tonight to use some of the things I've learned!

And Funk909, I had purchased the Joana's Starcraft 2 Guide a couple weeks ago and did not care for it. It is just a big Unit guide telling you what units are good against one another and the Shokz Guide has a unit guide on top of all the other content.

I like how Shokz lets you request and vote on what new strategies he will put out next so I hope my strategy requests get put out soon!

Aspect, how much did they pay you to say that?

Don't fool me, you're a newcomer with 1 post. The chances of you stumbling here, immediately reading Jon's post, taking his word as a complete stranger, and buying the tutorial is NIL.

Well, I bought the guide when it was $27. It was decent, but I wouldn't say it was worth the $27. The request a strategy may be useful, but I've yet to see any strategies I've requested posted. So far, here's basically what's included in the guide (don't trust the on-site information):

Beginner Tips
Mission 1 of the Campaign
General guides (map control, scouting, hot keys, etc.)
Unit vs unit strengths/weaknesses

It also includes a few build orders and tips from all three races, but nothing standard. Basically, it shows you how to cheese. The only standard build on there is for Terran and it came off this site.

All in all, well put together, and if it gets better than it is now, it may eventually be worth the current price of $37. But as for now, there's nothing exciting that you couldn't find elsewhere. The "secrets" they promise is all hype.

A friend of mine who is completely new to starcraft got the guide and shared it with his brother, and its funny how the results turned out.

My friend was a complete newcomer to SC, and he basically learned how to cheese from the guide.

His brother though had played a bit beforehand and it actually helped him out a good amount.

Since it was two of them that split the cost, they say it was worth it but I think that people should be wary of it because it looks to me like it shows specific strategies rather than skills.

Although I really liked the unit summaries, much better than what blizzard provides in the "help" section

Apparently he's planning on offering replay analysis for people who have purchased his guide as well in the future. He contacted me about helping him with some Terran strategies. I don't see why not!

How much has he made off of these guides? Must be controlling a rather large sum of money by now.