Starting out with hotkeys

Starting out with hotkeys - fifth entry

pestilenz

Denmark379 Posts

May 13 2011 22:29 GMT

Hello Hello ^^

Between all the "old" replays I have, I found a game in which I use six hotkeys! Six hotkeys is quite many I think. Today I usually use between 6-9 each game, but to think that I would try doing something like that back then is incredible! The weird thing though is that every other replay I have before that I have a maximum of 2-3 hotkeys - 1: army and 4: nexus and 3 for something else.

The thing I think happened, was that I must have watched one of the replays where day9 talk about having a hotkey for a forward pylon to warp in from, and how important it is to hotkey your tech-buildings or units.

I know that day9 made the daily, Gold: fixing the little things, the 10th of August. And I know that I watched it twice (the second time a week or so after) because I found it so informative and helpful with my gameplay, but I simply do not get why I only use hotkeys "properly" in this replay!? I have many replays before this one, but NO!!! Only the Mothership-replay is worthy of day9's gosu teachings!

[image loading]

<3 The Mothership

It is like writing an sms while walking on the sidewalk, and then without noticing it, banging your head against a light pole... Really stupid -__-
And for the record, that is actually something I have done before, more than once

So perhaps it just lies in nature for me to suddenly figure out something obvious :D

This is the last replay I have before a ~~black hole~~ vortex appears in the replay archives

Which makes it pretty interesting to look at the replays after this one, but no reason to rush it - a cute little game this will be, and it is okay to spend time with cute things

The game is on scrap station, PvT, playing against the ever so gosu Azurewrath! And I must say that I always think about names when I see then in-game. Why chose one over another, and nowadays I sometimes even ask about peoples character names, why they chose it, how or maybe what it means and etc. And in this coincidence I still keep on thinking that he is a player that makes wrath to be certain to appear. Azurewrath = A sure wrath - makes lots of sense to me after I realized that he also never:

SPOILER ALERT!
+ Show Spoiler +

says g.g.

At some point I doubt that you believe how epic a game this is, so I put up some stats about him and me, so you indeed will know that this game is of very high standard without even having watched the replay ^^

Stats:
Azurewrath
+ Show Spoiler +

Average apm: 30
Supply blocks: 4
Highest supply: 83
Base count: 1
Static defense count: 9
Max harvesters: 22
Hotkeys used: 3

Pestilenz
+ Show Spoiler +

Average apm: 40
Supply blocks: 5
Highest supply: 171
Base count: 3
Static defense count: 0
Max harvesters: 34
Hotkeys used: 6

Let me guide you through the action!

We start out with Azurewrath spawning in the three O'clock position and me in the twelve O'clock position. Both with a fairly similar start (looking away from the fact that I play protoss and he plays terran), with this I mean building harvesters from the very beginning of the game. To the people who do not know, bronze and silver almost literally is a cheese-fest, because that is the most potent way of playing if you want to win when not having good mechanics..... -__-

But anyways! Standard openings with standard follow up ^^

As you all know void Rays are epic, especially the pre-patched voidrays = <3 (and perhaps a bit op

) And on Scrap air is almost the obvious choice, like it was obvious to go colossus on Kulas Ravine - it was a great harass unit imo

I started out with some void ray aggression, which did not turn out so well - got repelled. I cannot say why it did not work, I believe it was due to his worker production cut on 16.

I at some point must have figured that it would be nice having my stargate and air units hotkeyed. Because I had already decided that I wanted to go void rays, and I also wanted to be able to move (to) them fast - so a hotkey must have been quiet convenient, thank goodness I thought of something so brilliant

Now that I had mastered the usage of using more hotkeys, I must have gotten a bit overeager... Last time I checked stimmed marines outnumbering Void Rays 5 times stats Void Rays pretty much -.-

All in all he repelled my attacks very well. But who would expect any less from someone that gosu! :O The only problem after this was that he underestimated the power of hotkeys. I was able to warp in units and building in my base while loosing almost all my Void Rays, which meant that I could repel his counter attack with ease^^

Before:

After:

After the early game we both transitioned into some more one basing with lots of good scouting
+ Show Spoiler +

Nothing to report!

, until I decided to expand - just as it was finished he decided to attack! This would have been a clear loss, If I had optioned for this particular build order - as you can see we where on the same level, but my build order simply hard countered his. And seriously, how was he able to know that he had to build an orbital command in order to see my units?!?!

This put me so much ahead that I felt secure enough to go for a double pronged attack! This, Azurewrath clearly had figured out, and decided to make some missile turrets to help defend which later caught me off guard.
+ Show Spoiler +

The usage of hotkeys was now so tuned into my way of playing the game, that I started hotkeying a forward pylon - a nice thing that I still use just as a screen capture instead. This would prove to be the key to my victory (looking away from the fact that I was almost a hundred supply ahead due to the direct build counter

) along with the attack from both air and ground at the front and back.

Where does it say that guardian shield does not stack???

That was it! ^^ I won the game! ^^

Joking aside. I apparently suddenly knew how to use hotkeys and at some point macro besides from the slight over-saturation of one base and lack of producing workers

But actually, I was a bit surprised of how much I try my best to bounce back and forth between my base (nexus and Stargate) and void rays. On the follow camera it is clear that I really tried my best - which nowadays makes me kinda happy ^^

Next post: A month or two gone by - improvements?

DomiNater

United States527 Posts

May 13 2011 23:37 GMT

I'm glad you found joy in one game. Just yesterday I had a Terran double Bunker below my ramp and kill off my FE hatch. I wanted to rage quit so bad, but I trucked on, broke the contain, hid my spire as he wasted roughly 4-5 scans trying to find my tech path. Infuriated him with Mutas as I finally got my 2nd up. Killed his Tank/Rine push and he leaves without a GG.

That was the only game I played yesterday. I didn't want to play anymore games because that one was so epic that it couldn't possibly be topped by another win... or loss.

I just sat back and watched my replay a few times and gloated. That's kind of the feeling I'm getting from your post. It's those really special games where you are trying to improve badly and you feel like you made great strides in that one game. You just want to sit back and enjoy your victory a bit.

Congrats man! That's one of the reasons I love this game!

pestilenz

Denmark379 Posts

May 14 2011 06:31 GMT

I <3 "those" games. And it is nice to hear that everyone experience them^^

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