If you haven’t taken a look at Orb’s Post “How To: Four Steps to Diamond”, do so. It’s a bit long, but is a great read. It got me thinking about how I do my hotkeys . . .
Hotkeys can be used for basically everything you do in a game. First and foremost, you have to learn the hotkeys for building your base. I’m not going to go over that here, but it should definitely take priority. Secondly, use hotkeys for actions. The less time you spend clicking on things, the more time you will have to focus on other areas such as unit micro. You can also set hotkeys to select units and buildings, and that’s what I’d like to focus on here. By using hotkeys (and a surprising number of players don’t) you can harvest, build units, or attack without ever looking away from your army. I’d like to get ideas from the community here on things that maybe I’m not doing or haven’t considered yet. Here’s a summary of what I usually do for all three races:
Terran
1 – My main army, typically an MM ball or mech ball.
2 – Support Units, usually Medivacs
3 – Casters or air units, usually ghosts or vikings. Occasionally a Raven or something.
4 – Command center(s). As I add more orbital commands, I group them here as well, then I can call down as many MULE’s or scans as I need without fumbling through hotkeys.
5 – Barracks
6 – Factories
7 – Starports
That’s all I usually do for Terran. Having the medivacs on a separate key allows me to micro them much more easily. I use tab if tanks are grouped up and I need to siege them.
Protoss
1 – Zealots, maybe DTs if they don’t have detectors
2 – Stalkers
3 – Varies between colossi, immortals, void rays, or phoenixes. I don’t think I’ve ever built a carrier.
4 – 1st nexus, for Chronoboost
5 – Gateways until I transition into warpgates, then it’s my 2nd nexus
6 – Robofacility(ies)
7 – Stargate(s)
0 – I use this one for an observer, sometimes for a warp prism if I’m trying to sneak in behind.
Zerg
1 – my main army, usually lings, roaches, or hydras.
2 – Support or ranged units, usually banelings or hydras
3 – Air or Casters
Here’s where I think Zerg is harder, because you have queen micro. I like to hotkey each queen individually. The plus is that you only have one type of production building, so I will hotkey all of my hatcheries/lairs/hives as well.
4 – Queen
5 – Queen
6 – Queen
7 – ALL of my hatcheries, set to a common rally point. This way if I want to build units, I hit 7, and if I want to center on a given hatchery, I just double-tap the hotkey for the corresponding queen.
That’s what I do – any other thoughts?
I think an important distinction that should be made is that of hot keys and control groups. Control groups can definitely affect your gameplay depending on what you give yourself access to and how quickly you can take advantage of your units and structures.
Hot keys, the predefined buttons Blizzard has bound to most units and actions are equally important and anyone who is eager to become better at the game owes it to themselves to learn the bound buttons. It’s a rule that transcends just one game. “Clickers” in WoW are at a disadvantage too due the sheer mount of things that needs to happen in rapid succession. Starcraft is just, if not more, reliant on performing multiple things quickly and seamlessly.
Yeah, that is an important distinction – I just am lazy and call them all hot keys. I think you can edit the default hotkeys, and control groups are a MUST for any serious Starcraft player.
If you haven’t taken a look at Orb’s Post “How To: Four Steps to Diamond”,
Do you have a link to Orb’s post? I googled it and couldn’t find it. Also, I noticed you don’t like using the #9 or #0 keys and make do with just 4 keys on some builds. Why not use all 10?
I thought I had embedded the link – it’s in the post now.
I don’t think my micro is good enough to justify having more than 3 control groups for my armies, and I also think there is something to be said for having as many control groups as possible within reach without moving your hand.
That’s something I used to do in WoW – I had every ability in reach with some form of shift or alt + a button. I figure it saves time and reduces mistakes.
I know any button farther than 6 is a conscious effort to hit. 7 I can hit easily but anything past that I feel like my button press margin of error goes up significantly.
Here’s a question for you… So I have a deathadder mouse, it has 2 extra buttons on the side. Would I be able to set one of those to a hotkey such as chronoboost?
Um, not using the in game settings, but I believe there are custom utilities you can use to do it, such as the one here.
Haven’t tried it, though