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Hello guys, I have always wondered, how do all the pros use their keyboard efficiently and how do they manage their units in the shortest time possible. Im currently a plat player and i must say i am still not very good at using the keyboard.
I have a few questions that i hope you guys can share with me and help me improve on my overall gameplay.
1. How to send 3 probes to the gas fast? What i do is that i create a small box that mostly gets 3 probes and move them to my nexus and then shift click to the gas. Sometimes however i get 2 or 4 probes and that waste a few seconds of my attention on the game. Im sure theres sth im missing because i watch the pros they do it almost too easily and with perfection.
2. How should i group my expansions? I want to know how do i force only my expansion nexus to build probes while my main remains because what i do is that i group my nexus together and if i build a probe, it will build for the main instead of expo. Do you use the backspace to constantly check on ur expos?
3. How should i group my army better? Right now i group my units all in 1 and i force my zealots out in front before engaging, and from warcraft 3 experience that is not good, so do you guys group zealots in grp 1, range in grp 2, and perhaps colossi in grp 3? if so, how to A-attack all 3 groups at once fast ? do i have no choice but to practice 1 a-click, 2 a-click, 3 a-click?
4. I would like to know what u guys use for production. Currently i use 4-nexus, 5- gateways, 6- robo, 7-stargate. Is there a more effective way? and do u guys hotkey cybernetics core, forge and robo bay too? cuz for these upgrade buildings i just click on the building to upgrade.
I would like to share some phoenix micro tips to you guys too. Im sure a lot of you have noticed but phoenix harrass micro technique could be to press g and click on worker, then hold down shift, and press g and click as many workers as possible, this makes the phoenixes pick up the workers one at a time and killing them off.
I thank you all in advance for sharing with me your macro/micro key style!!!
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I'm in silver league, played a handful of games but nothing major. What I do is 1 for units that attack ground-only (zlots, immortal), and 2 is units that attack air (sentries, stalkers), and then 3 is any casters or air, or colossi, depending what build I did.
I don't know if that's the best idea.. I did that in wc3 because the AI wasn't good when telling a group of units to attack air when some of them only attacked ground.. but I think in sc2 the AI might actually be smart enough to keep the ground units attacking.
Also, i actually start gateway as 3, but that eventually becomes irrelevant since warp gates become W so quickly. Robo as 4, Nexus's as 5. Scouting observer as 0.
As far as your switching between Nexus's issue, that's a good question I'm curious about as well
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For your question #1:
Pretty easy, just box a few probes, deselect until you have 3, click on the gas, and immediately click on "C". "C" tells the probes to return their current cargo (if any) to the Nexus before going to gas. So if all 2 of your 3 probes were carrying minerals, those 2 would first drop off their minerals and then go mine the gas, and the 3rd would go straight to gas.
Alternatively, I'll just manually select 3 probes using shift-click. That way I can make sure I select the ones that close to the gas and aren't just about to get minerals (i.e. they aren't on the mineral patch with their laser thingy showing but not yet having received the mineral for the patch).
Note that you can send probes to your gas even before your assimilator is done, and the probes will start collecting once the assimilator warps in. There are only a few situations where I'd actually do this though (usually in late game when I'm macroing, or if I'm Zerg and know I want to rally my next 3 drone cocoons to my extractor that's still building and may or may not be done by the time the cocoons hatch).
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I like to use the grid hotkeys, I suck at memorizing things, and the grid setting is just the best way to go, imo. Unless you have old hotkeys burned into your memory anyway.
I tend to start with nexus on 5 and my scout on 1.
Later 1 becomes my first control group, and 2 becomes gateways.
As the game goes on and I up to warpgates 2 becomes another group key.
When expanding I put other nexuses on 5 as well, and tab through them as needed.
Just how many groups i use for units depends on what I'm using. Things Like air or HTs pretty much always get their own groups. Usually 1-3 is enough though.
So I end up with something like
1. units 2. units 3. air.
4. robo, stargate, or both
5. nexuses
6+ rarely used.
I havent started working in the cam keys yet, but I think my first use for them would be to set them in the area of my enemy.
PS: I'm not sure what the fastest way to select 3 probes would be, but you could try holding shift, clicking 2 or 3, then sending them to gas.
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#1: I box as well but you need to be precise and it need practice
#2: for my nexus, in earligame i have my main nexus hotkeyed 3, expantion 4(after i have my warpgate done if not my gate is 4 i put my gate on 5 only if i FE vs zerg), mid game same 3 main and 4 for other expo, then late game 0 main/nat( or other mine out base) because i dont want to make more probe from, and 4 for my other mining base
#3 I use to hotkey like this 1-melee 2-range 3- HT ( because this is my style i prefer going HT instead of colosus but in PvP its for colosus) and yes you need to do 1a2a3a fast like in scbw
#4 3-4: nexus 5: robo 6:stargate 7:forge and other upgrade to do 0:nexus w:warpgate
and don't forget the F keys are back, far but back
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On April 30 2010 06:07 Nitron wrote:
if so, how to A-attack all 3 groups at once fast ? do i have no choice but to practice 1 a-click, 2 a-click, 3 a-click?
omfg hahaha
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On April 30 2010 06:44 Saracen wrote:Show nested quote +On April 30 2010 06:07 Nitron wrote:
if so, how to A-attack all 3 groups at once fast ? do i have no choice but to practice 1 a-click, 2 a-click, 3 a-click?
omfg hahaha
Damn straight. Whatever happened to having to move 10 control groups of shit and use F keys for macro. You couldn't ever a-click. You have to move 10 control groups then a-click to get a nice wave instead of a continous line of fail. God we had it rough eh? 
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what are the F keys used for and what are the grid keys? i played BW before but i completely suck at it, and one of the reasons is the micro problems having to have so many control group lol, im more of a warcraft player
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3. How should i group my army better? Right now i group my units all in 1 and i force my zealots out in front before engaging, and from warcraft 3 experience that is not good, so do you guys group zealots in grp 1, range in grp 2, and perhaps colossi in grp 3? if so, how to A-attack all 3 groups at once fast ? do i have no choice but to practice 1 a-click, 2 a-click, 3 a-click?
This depends on what you are facing. If i KNOW for a fact that i am facing an all ground army, then i will group my melee in 1 group, ranged in 2nd group, BOTH in a 3rd group.
If im going vs a mixed ground/air army, i will put GROUND attacking units ( think zeals/immos ) in grp 1, anti air in grp 2, everything in grp 3. It is good to know that even if you have everything selected and you tell them all to try to attack an air unit, if it is a ground only unit, it will just ignore this command and treat it like an a click.
If i'm doing something special, like say a frontal attack group of zeals/sentries/stalkers and also doing a 2-3 void ray from behind at the same time type deal, then i might do 1 for front group (zeal/sentry/stalker) and 2 for air from behind group, 3 for all, or 1 for melee, 2 for ranged, 3 for air, 4 for all.
Colossus usually get their own seperate control group, however i do group them with everything else on a seperate control group to have my entire army a move.
Another quick tip: make sure you have health bars set to on at all times. When you are fighting (especially with rushes) make sure you micro your units well by pulling back injured ones and pushing in fresh ones. An example of this is something that i used to do alot vs terran with going for a very hard zealot rush with 8-10 zealots off of 2 or 3 gates. Now youre saying, well theres not much point to that because a terran would have a wall off and only about 4-5 of those zealots would actually be able to hit anything at a time anyway, much less the single supply depot needed to actually make a hole for the rest to get in. True, but the key is to have them run in and have 3-4 focus on 1 supply depot. As each zealots shield wears off, pull it back and bring a fresh one in. Keep rotating them in until the wall is broken, at which point your orginals will have regenerated some of their shield. Unless he was going mass marauders/marines and had a tone up already, you can many times win with this push in silver/gold league. Your zealots will take a beating, but once they get inside its pretty much over.
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icic Opti, so you have a hotkey that selects all units and a seperate one to micro them. Thats is a very good idea. I also have my health bars set on at all times, i used to press alt but it is harder to micro when i am stalker dancing.
Zealot rush wise, quite a risky move as most terrans get marauder heavy and they totally crush the zealots hard, and micro becomes ineffective once he gets concussive shells up. In any case thats besides the point anyway that is just strategy.
Thanks for ur input i guess its easier to move melee in front of range slightly then group them together and a-attack, rather than a-attack each grp.
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EPT
