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Hey guys this will be my first post, but I've been enjoying the forum for quite some time!
I came up with an idea a while ago when my macro was just so bad and I'm a very poor multitasker by nature it seams (deadly when driving and talking on my cell), I'm a protoss player and I found that hotkeying a "builder probe" was very helpful.. but when I was in fights I just always forgot to make more units because of the time it took me to find a pylong on the minimap, and warp in units.. So I started hotkeying my "warp in pylon" and this helped me so so much!
Then I started checking all the pro replays (like HuK <3) to see if they did this, but they don't..
This helped me so much so I figured it HAS to be a good tip for other protoss players out there with macro problems.
But why don't pro players do this? this has to be better than clicking your minimap for a place to warp in units?
I hope this could help some toss players to improve their game and if not, at least I tried =)
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In my opinion, this would be more helpful in BW rather than in SC2.
Normally, I feel we don't lack map space and units spawn are rather smart. Therefore, you don't need to organize your building as neatly as we had to in BW.
You just spread pylons all around to scout your opponents movement, and they will cover a large enough area.
Normally, I leave a probe near gateways (late game only), double click the gateway hotkeys to center view, select the probe and build more stuff.
If I am only building gates however, it doesn't really matter where I get them. I could just as well double tap a nexus hotkey and build the gates there.
The "W" key will recall all WarpGates you own, so your gates can be quite spread apart. 
Hope it helps too. Have fun ^^
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Well I think you missunderstood my point Leath, it's not at all about building placement, just about a faster and easier way to macro.
Having for example your forward pylon hotkeyd would make it easier to go to it to warp in units than using your minimap to click your way to it or scrolling to it.. it just feels easier that way and it helped me alot so I just wanted other people to try it out and see if it can help them as well ^^
Most games I've seen protoss players have at most 5 hotkeys in use anyway, only very long games and very macro heavy players use more than 5 hotkeys.
And btw I'm not like a bronze/silver player making it to gold with this, I made it from gold to high plat/low diamond with this!
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Thats clever. I normally use a phase prism (which I have hotkeyed) but I will give this a try when I use proxy pylons.
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That's good idea that I probably should use.
However, I run out of hotkeys, at least the accessible ones, so there's no room for the proxy Pylon to be keyed.
1-3 is units
4 is nexus
5 is gateways (warpgates)
6/7 is robo/stargate, depending on BO
8 might be a forge, but honestly after 7, I lose interest in hotkeying because I don't like picking my hand up to hit those higher numbers. That may be lazy; I like to lie to myself and call it efficient.
I will say that if I go warp prism, I bind that to 3 almost always, and it is convenient to have that easily accessible, so I can see your point.
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Idk why people put warpgates on a key when you van press W. IMO make 5 your pylon bind and use w for your warpgates. (You can use 5 for gates till you have warp since you don't need a pylon bound without warp anyway).
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i do this, just for one frequently used forward pylon. it helps
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On September 29 2010 22:28 DeCoup wrote:
Idk why people put warpgates on a key when you van press W. IMO make 5 your pylon bind and use w for your warpgates. (You can use 5 for gates till you have warp since you don't need a pylon bound without warp anyway).
Very true! That is something of a starter that made me think of this actually.. I'm a huge fan of Day9 and watch his videos constantly and he seem to prefer hotkeying his gateways so naturally I tried that.. it just didn't help anything, W is just so close and easy to use that hotkeying your warpgates to 5 or 4 or whatever is redundant..
I'm glad to see some positive respons to this! :D
Remember who you got it from  haha
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Alot of pros use the F5-8 keys to hotkey areas like that for fast access, they just dont use 1,2,3,4,5 ect.
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I use 1 and 2 For army, 3 for gates, 4 and 5 for Nexi, 6 robo and 7 Stargate....
So since all is used i just put F5 to a pylon at the front of my base, i dont have much use for F5-F8, and its faster since you dont have to doubletap, well a tiny tiny bit faster....and you dont have to reach all the way to 8,9 or zero....
So i prefer F5-F8 for my Pylon
Edit: Ah, got beat by a minute...
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I've never seen it actually.. but my main objective here is only to share a tip that helped me very much
and if I can help even one person here I'm happy ^^
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Can you explain in some depth how the hotkey macro works.
I hate having to move my screen, hit W then hold down S or Z to warp in units while I fight with my main army.
I understand how to apply the macro to the pylon (ctrl+#) but can you warp in on the fly.
like W, Hotkey 2, SSSSSSS for example...
Thanks in advance
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On September 29 2010 22:48 freshjive wrote:
Can you explain in some depth how the hotkey macro works.
I hate having to move my screen, hit W then hold down S or Z to warp in units while I fight with my main army.
I understand how to apply the macro to the pylon (ctrl+#) but can you warp in on the fly.
like W, Hotkey 2, SSSSSSS for example...
Thanks in advance
If you double-tap the number of a control group, the screen is centered around that group. So if you hotkey a Pylon under 5, you can do the following:
5 5 W [whatever warp-in commands you want to give]
This way you get your favorite army-deployment area (say, a proxy pylon) on the screen when you want to warp in and you don't have to click the minimap first.
Note that you can also use (CTRL+) F5-F8 to store and recall map-locations just as you would units/buildings.
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On September 29 2010 22:48 freshjive wrote:
Can you explain in some depth how the hotkey macro works.
I hate having to move my screen, hit W then hold down S or Z to warp in units while I fight with my main army.
I understand how to apply the macro to the pylon (ctrl+#) but can you warp in on the fly.
like W, Hotkey 2, SSSSSSS for example...
Thanks in advance
If you can then I'm about to hit top diamond.
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Ok, lets say you have the Pylon you want to warp in next to as Hotkey 4, that's what I use. Then you double click 4, then click W to select all warpgates and then just warp in the units you want.
it's the part of only needing to doubleclick a hotkey so you get to a pylon that makes this work faster and better than just scrolling over.
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I really like this idea, I often bring a probe with my army to build a sneaky proxy pylon for super good push reinforcement but I never thought to hotkey the pylon.
I'm gonna start doing this, thanks !
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On September 29 2010 22:28 DeCoup wrote:
Idk why people put warpgates on a key when you van press W. IMO make 5 your pylon bind and use w for your warpgates. (You can use 5 for gates till you have warp since you don't need a pylon bound without warp anyway).
Because hitting 'WW' won't center on your cluster of Gates, so hotkeying them helps for when you want to get to them and Chronoboost or something.
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awesome tip! gonna try it asap! thanks man
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I remember Day9 talked about this...
hotkey your forward pylon to 0 for example
then when you see your warpgates are ready
0,0
W, <spam units>
1,1 back to the fighting
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good idea but really there's isn't enough hotkeys for builder probe n pylons
1~0 is not enouhg..!
i donno y they didn't put the F2 F3 F4 screen saves...
it would be so much better
i'm T player so it might be diff but when i used to P
i used to
1~5 units
6~9 buildings(gates/robo/stargate)
depending on my eco stage i often used to change from warp to standard
since i'm used to bw the warp in was so new in that beta season
0 usually nexus or observer
rite now i'm Terran as i play terran in bw
1~5 maybe to 6 if i'ts needed
6~8 rax/fac/star maybe 7~9
n the order changes on what i'm macroing the most
it's diff at the start but it's around mid game
n 0 usually CCs
try having the shuttle thing n use prism if u practice it it will help quick reinforcement
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Pro players don't do it simply because it is a waste of a control group compared to other things... Most players have 3 groups for their army, 1 group for warpgates (most people, even competitive players, don't like the "w" hotkey so they put their warpgates on one control group). Then you have to have a control group for your second unit producing structure, either it is robo or stargate. Finally, you also need one for your nexuses (or 1 for each nexus, but it'd be overreacting IMO). So we are at roughly 6 control groups minimum, maybe 7 if you wish to have 3 unit producing type of structure. Where do you want to put your pylon in all this, with it being easily reachable?
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I use all 10 hotkeys, as do a lot of players, but people forget about F5-F8. I'm teaching myself to use F5 for the closest pylon, so I can quickly get back to that location.
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I always have a pylon on 4 usually one in front of my nat, but if I am pushing i change it., all of my nexuses in 5, 1-3 for units and get lazy about anything else.
You dont need to hk your gates, just have to be good and watch them a lot before wg, after that is easy.
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On September 29 2010 23:35 PatouPower wrote:
Pro players don't do it simply because it is a waste of a control group compared to other things... Most players have 3 groups for their army, 1 group for warpgates (most people, even competitive players, don't like the "w" hotkey so they put their warpgates on one control group). Then you have to have a control group for your second unit producing structure, either it is robo or stargate. Finally, you also need one for your nexuses (or 1 for each nexus, but it'd be overreacting IMO). So we are at roughly 6 control groups minimum, maybe 7 if you wish to have 3 unit producing type of structure. Where do you want to put your pylon in all this, with it being easily reachable?
What. 1-3 Units, 4-0 buildings that aren't the same. Tell me how it's a waste of a control group?
1-3 Army, 4 SG/Robo, 5 Pylon, 6-0 ???? I just fill them all with my Nexus, but they are all the same.
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Seriously, when will Blizzard give me F1-F4 for hotkeying locations. I hate using 5-8
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On September 29 2010 21:57 Leath wrote:In my opinion, this would be more helpful in BW rather than in SC2. Normally, I feel we don't lack map space and units spawn are rather smart. Therefore, you don't need to organize your building as neatly as we had to in BW. You just spread pylons all around to scout your opponents movement, and they will cover a large enough area. Normally, I leave a probe near gateways (late game only), double click the gateway hotkeys to center view, select the probe and build more stuff. If I am only building gates however, it doesn't really matter where I get them. I could just as well double tap a nexus hotkey and build the gates there. The "W" key will recall all WarpGates you own, so your gates can be quite spread apart. Hope it helps too. Have fun ^^
I just want to point out the organizing your buildings is still very important in this game. Think of dropping chronos on your gateways really fast. Would you rather be able to c spam click all in one area OR would you like to c spam click then move to a different area on the screen c spam click?
It also helps as a reminder to turn your gates into warp gates, because its a visual queue when you see a normal gate sitting next to a warp gate. That and you can also click on it easier than searching for it if you don't already have it hotkeyed.
Same goes for your upgrades for protoss. Now with Terran, it doesn't really matter. I think this also matters with zerg for queen larva injects.
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I also hotkey my forward pylon when i play protoss. You really dont have time to find a plyon and wrap in units when your in the middle of a fight outside of the base.
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I'm starting to play Protoss and was not sure about what to hotkey where, so I've been (trying to use):
1-4: Units
5: Nexus
6: Gateways until Warp; then Robo/Stargate
7: Most aggressive pylon
8: Emergency/Defensive pylon (based on the game, perhaps at my mineral line, perhaps inside a choke, etc)
(if I have both Robo and Stargate I'll just bump everything up by 1)
I'm contemplating whether this is the best way to go about it.
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I don't think hotkeying the pylon is such a help because it's not like you're doing anything with your mouse while you are about to make units, so why not simultaneously click minimap location near a pylon where you want units while you're setting up the warp-in:
Press W.
Simultaneously click appropriate location on minimap where you want units.
Press S for stalker for instance.
Hold shift and by now your mouse should be back on the main map where you want to spawn the units.
Spam left-click in a line to put down a bunch of stalkers.
TL;DR: mouse hand can simultaneously be clicking on minimap while you press keys for units.
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Saw Day9 talking about it one of his dailies, and I found it really useful
0 - most forward pylon
:-)
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EPT
