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Blogs > TZLRazer
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TZLRazer
Profile Blog Joined February 2012
United States40 Posts
October 10 2012 02:46 GMT
#1
Because only butthurt people spend days talking about one silly little personal thing.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I want to know some views on control group hotkeys.

Everyone has their own sense of style, flavor, and dexterity that they bring to the SC2 community. Thus, no person's layout could ever match another's completely.

But, for transparency and to encourage discussion, here are mine [as protoss]:

Don't know if it's relevant, but I'm a righty, btw.

1 - scouting probe, transition to main army
2 - building probe
3 - auxiliary, used for scouting obs, proxy pylons, warp prisms, etc
4 - all nexuses
5 - bay
6 - stargate
7 (`) - upgrade buildings/ really expensive units
8 - rarely used
9 - rarely used
0 (Caps) - upgrade buildings

w remains as the key for all warp gates.

I play with several other people who range from bronze to diamond, and one grandmaster in hots beta.
While all of our control groups differ, no one really argues for/against a point. The conversation gets nowhere beyond

A: My hotkeys are this and this

B: Well my hotkeys are this and this

No one really says why.

I wanna hear your layouts, for any race, and to explain why they're optimal for your gaming purposes. Or, if you could come up with a suitable layout for all 3, I'd love to hear it.

On a side note, any ambidextrous players here? Are you guys as OP as I would guess?

**
I'm a protoss player who makes good impersonations of zerg units. No, I am not Day9.
AnachronisticAnarchy
Profile Blog Joined July 2011
United States2957 Posts
October 10 2012 03:10 GMT
#2
For most people, controls groups are just a matter of consistency. For me, 1 just sort of "felt" like zerglings and stuff should go there, and so zerglings and stuff went there. I did a bit of optimizing here and there, but by and large I just worked on whatever felt right until I got it down.
Did you know quite a few pros still use horrendous hotkey layouts despite the fact they can change them now? It's because they believe (and rightly so) that the best hotkeys by far are the ones you are used to.
For others, there are the bat shit crazy, ultra-optimized hotkey sets like theCore (which I switched to). If you want optimized hotkeys at any cost, you can go for theCore. Apparently, they analyzed data like key distance, amount of key presses by high-level players over hundreds of games, wrist and finger movement and other stuff to try and make the Ferrari of hotkey layouts. It's hard as hell to learn, but you'll definitely be far, far better off than you were before if you master this.
"How are you?" "I am fine, because it is not normal to scream in pain."
MysteryMeat1
Profile Blog Joined June 2011
United States3291 Posts
October 10 2012 03:15 GMT
#3
i put my nexi on 0. and switched the 0 hotkey to Q since you don't really use it for anything. 1-4 is army 5 robo 6 stargate or forge 7 forge.

W is warpgates.
"Cause ya know, Style before victory." -The greatest mafia player alive
TZLRazer
Profile Blog Joined February 2012
United States40 Posts
October 10 2012 03:17 GMT
#4
q is last unit selected or something, right? or was it idle workers?
I'm a protoss player who makes good impersonations of zerg units. No, I am not Day9.
Jumbled
Profile Joined September 2010
1543 Posts
October 10 2012 03:55 GMT
#5
On October 10 2012 11:46 TZLRazer wrote:
On a side note, any ambidextrous players here? Are you guys as OP as I would guess?

There are a lot of left handers who learn to use the mouse right-handed just because it's such a standard setup. General it just means you can easily switch from one setup to the other, and probably that your precision is slightly inferior with both.
MysteryMeat1
Profile Blog Joined June 2011
United States3291 Posts
October 10 2012 04:46 GMT
#6
On October 10 2012 12:17 TZLRazer wrote:
q is last unit selected or something, right? or was it idle workers?


I don't really remember exactly, alot of my hotkeys are switched to suit my personal preference. All upgrades are asd and i sometimes use camera hotkeys but very rarely. Also my spells are switched around to so that Forcefield and storm are both F.

It just makes it easier for me to use this setup. I started off playing standard and then just felt that making some slight changes here and there were beneficial to me.
"Cause ya know, Style before victory." -The greatest mafia player alive
Visage814
Profile Joined April 2012
United States109 Posts
October 10 2012 07:50 GMT
#7
1-3 is my army, 4 is nexii, 5 is gates, 6 is robo, y is starport, h&n are usually observers, or sometimes something weird like DTs

I play using grid, and found yhn a lot easier to hit than 789, so thats why I have them bound to those keys ^^
Ikidomari
Profile Blog Joined August 2011
Australia485 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-10-10 09:55:44
October 10 2012 09:54 GMT
#8
1 is CC's , 2 is Barracks, 3 is starports, 4 is factories
Q, W and caps (8, 9 and 0) are army
edit: Why i do it that way, i was in the bad habit of CC on 1 barracks on 2 when i first learned to play, and couldn't break it. but i really do like having my army on q w caps, it's easy to hit
Just break the rules, and you see the truth.
Ender2701
Profile Blog Joined January 2012
United States581 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-10-10 18:54:04
October 10 2012 18:53 GMT
#9
1 nexus
2 zealots + immortals + colissi
3 sentry
4 stalkers
5 high templar / gateways early game
6 robo + stargate
7 air units, observer if no air units'
8 observer/warp prism
9 warp prism
0 forge

I like to keep my army on separated hotkeys because that lets me micro better and quickly split my units. 2 has a bunch of units on it because I mostly just a move those units and they're not really harass units. Also because I ran out of hotkeys.

1 is nexus because I wanted to have my units all together and I used to use 1234 for nexus and 5 for units and it was more natural to put all my nexus on 1 after I discovered location hotkeys since that used to be my first nexus. The reason I had my nexus all separate initially is that I didn't know about MBS when I started sc2 as I played BW but didn't really follow the scene at all.

7-9 were added unit hotkeys when I started using air units as harass instead of just a move units, and I feel that having observers on a separate hotkey is really useful.

I also have F2 F3 F4 F5 as bases, and I make sure to put my forge next to nexus so I can chrono/check ups by going F2F3F4F5. I try to do the same for my robo/stargate too because in the mid game I occasionally cut out checking my robo/stargate/forge in my cycle in favor of more focus on units and keeping them next to my nexus makes it easy to check when doing drop defense or what not as I'll be cycling through my bases anyways.

In HoTS the new units are going to fuck up my hotkeys. I've been considering making a more dynamic hotkey setup and just organizing units differently based on the phase of the game, and therefore moving my phoenix down to 5 or something, as usually I don't have phoenix and high templar at the same time. I also want to have more hotkeys for obs/air units that are lower on the keyboard.
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