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SoCal8933 Posts
EDIT: thinking about it and this might be important for reference. this setup was inspired by DRG's use of the macro keys as seen at MLG. i referenced this in my original post (linked below) but i think its better said right at the top of the page.
Check out the video of DRG here!
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Hey guys, I just wanted to fill you all in on the new hotkey setup which has DRASTICALLY improved my macro as a zerg. First I'm going to give ya a quick description of where I am at in starcraft and then i'll explain my old setup and why i didnt like it and THEN I'll get to the good stuff - what's working for me. Everything except super important info will be in spoilers for your viewing pleasure ^^
About Me - Why I Struggled With Hotkeys For The First Year of SC2:
+ Show Spoiler +Firstly, I need to introduce myself as I'm a bit new. Really briefly, I am a 22 year old platinum zerg player and this is my first real RTS and I played Brood War extremely casually. I watch any and all starcraft for my strategies and I consider myself relatively knowledgeable about the game and in particular zerg..but my mechanics are always holding me back since this is my first RTS. I was either playing sunken D (still waiting for this custom  ) or playing whatever race I felt like that day and building whatever unit I felt like making that day (goliaths were my usual choice!). So, during the beta I pretty much did the same stuff until my friend sat me down and actually taught me how to play for real. I started out in bronze as one would imagine but worked my way up as protoss and when I decided I wanted to play zerg, back down to the bottom and all of the way up to the top. My mechanics were alright with protoss and I could get by using 2 control groups and not binding my robo or stargate. Not so with zerg. I needed to have a solid hotkey setup which brings me to the old setup!
My Old Hotkey Setup & Why I Don't Like It.
My old hotkey setup was pretty basic - 1 main army, 2, "special" units, 3 harass units. I've gotten better about adjusting my setup for when it gets late game and I want to be slow pushing with my broods and being overall very flexible. But thats not what was holding me down because my army control has gotten SO much better. It was my macro hotkeys, 4 hatcheries, 5 queens.
+ Show Spoiler +I know that there are several different ways to control your macro, but as a little nub, this was the easiest..my keyboard mechanics still weren't that great overall despite the army control improvements and I was generally slow. So, having my queens on one hotkey was great for me..if I had banshees in my base, they were all on one hotkey and I could control them all together. The problem was because I had one hotkey for all my hatcheries and one for all my queens, bouncing between hatcheries for injects was slowing me down. I had to minimap inject or mouse move my camera (EW!) to get to the hatcheries with queens next to them.
Sometimes you have to baby sit your units a bit because they're so fragile. Sometimes you want to be harassing and don't want to give the other player more than a couple seconds to breathe before entering with your mutas somewhere else. You need to be fast with your injects so your opponent doesn't get the chance to catch up on his own macro, get the chance to finish turrets, and/or move units into better position for you next attack, etc. This is why I felt I needed to change my setup.
In Which My Black Widow Keyboard Single-Handedly Raises My Skill-Ceiling
First lets talk about the setup and why I think its awesome.
1-3 Army - Set these up how you want. That's obviously personal preference.
4 - Hatches
5 - Queens in case of banshee, void ray, etc
6, 7 - Overseers, Units I plan to scout with. Depends on whats happening in the game.
Here's where it gets good.
8, 9, 0 - Individual queens.
Now my little noob fingers are not nearly as agile as someone like Losira's who simply flow over the keyboard like he's still playing the piano. But how am I reaching these keys faster than I was before with only my queens on one hotkey? Simple: my macro keys on my black widow!
I posted a thread a little while back asking if it was okay to bind my macro keys to single keystrokes and when I found out it was okay i decided it was time to give it a shot.
So instead of actually pressing the 8, 9, and 0 keys, i bound them as follows:
m2 = 8
m3 = 9
m4 = 0
And then I took off my m1 and m5 keys to prevent any misclicking.
So here's how I'm accessing these keys. It took a lot of practice because its simply not natural (i'd say more or less 99% of keyboards don't have these keys in this location), but I was determined to make it work.
First, its important that the queens are located on the RIGHT SIDE of the hatchery so you dont have to move your mouse at all to cast inject. If they aren't in the correct location, you'll slow yourself down. Secondly here is how I'm pressing the keys: Pinky hits the macro keys and double taps to select a queen, thumb on 'v' to inject, click the hatch. Go straight down the macro keys with your pinky and viola! You're done! It sped up my injects by trimming about 5 seconds off the whole process and once you practice it more and get good with it, you can fly down the macro keys and be done in under a second or two. Now, you're almost pro! 
I hope you guys found this pretty useful and especially those of you with black widow keyboards. I encourage you to give it a try even with your other races. Instead of queens it could be your rax, fact, starport. or robo, stargate. so try it out with other races since I am not experienced with them using this setup!
Feel free to ask questions and thanks for reading! glhf with this new hotkey layout should you choose to test it out! ^^
-nrBluemoon/immortlone
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where did you buy this keyboard and how much did you get it for? i'm looking to buy one.
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SoCal8933 Posts
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Well written and good for you, keep up the playing. Though you should know that in a tournament setting they dont allow macros. Which when you visit you'll have to find another way to hit those keys.
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The honest and true answer is just get better hand speed and control, and play normally without majorly overhauled hotkeys. Just put queens on 5 6 7 8, thats what I do when I play zerg and injects are stupid easy.
Don't try to find ezmode ways to fix things, just try to get better at what your given to use.
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I don't know if a guide for a specific race for a specific keyboard is necessary...
Also, isn't easier to use FKeys?
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SoCal8933 Posts
On September 22 2011 00:15 HikariPrime wrote:
Well written and good for you, keep up the playing. Though you should know that in a tournament setting they dont allow macros. Which when you visit you'll have to find another way to hit those keys.
On September 22 2011 00:19 N3rV[Green] wrote:
The honest and true answer is just get better hand speed and control, and play normally without majorly overhauled hotkeys. Just put queens on 5 6 7 8, thats what I do when I play zerg and injects are stupid easy.
Don't try to find ezmode ways to fix things, just try to get better at what your given to use.
well what peeked my interest was watching DRG hit his m4 (i believe that was the key) during MLG - the video is in the post i linked to in the OP w/ my original question.
apparently its multiple keystrokes they dont like as opposed to single key-binds.
EDIT: heres a quicker link to the video for reference!
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SoCal8933 Posts
On September 22 2011 00:23 mizU wrote:
I don't know if a guide for a specific race for a specific keyboard is necessary...
Also, isn't easier to use FKeys?
if at least one person finds it useful i consider it a success ^^
as for the camera method using the f keys..personally, i felt this method was faster and my hand reset to the "default" position hovering over my 1-5 hotkeys was more consistent.
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Oh, I see. Well, then thats great. Good luck then ^^
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You can also bind all of your queens to a single hotkey then hold shift + V and click the hatcheries on the minimap, the nearest queen will automatically vomit on the hatch.
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SoCal8933 Posts
On September 22 2011 00:37 anarchist wrote:
You can also bind all of your queens to a single hotkey then hold shift + V and click the hatcheries on the minimap, the nearest queen will automatically vomit on the hatch.
again, i just found the outlined method quicker and easier for me 
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Let's just get this out of the way now:
You are allowed to have actions mapped to mouse buttons or non-standard keys if you want. What you can't have is one key performing more than one action. So OP is fine.
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I find Sheth's method to be amazingly fast (backspace with backspace bound to tab) - put all queens on w.e.. (I have 0 ctrl group to the left of 1) and then you click that button, press tab,v click, tab v, click. Rinse and repeat - incredibly fast and even though I can't do it properly as I switched from what you used to do just recently I can definitely see the potential in it when I get it going. =]
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why not put backspace on caps lock instead as we dont use that at all in the game?
though it might give moments of ALL CAPS talk :p
personally i have a thumb button on my mouse as backspace/center camera on base, so i hit mousebutton v over and over to just quickly inject
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Have fun playing when your beer falls on your keyboard!!!
I switch between my laptop and my desktop, two different feeling keyboards, and guess what, I still can play!!
I agree with everyone else that is saying just get better with handspeed.
With that said, I still do not understand why peopld use 1,2,3 for armys as zerg..
I have larger hands, but I still can not reach keys 7890 very well without moving my hand.
My hotkeys are set as so:
1 1st queen
2 2nd queen
3 3rd queen
4 hatches
5 main army (I rehotkey this a lot depending on what I am doing.. pretty much 5 is my main foucs group.. if I am harrasing, I make sure to put my harrasing units in 5)
6 Special army units / static army (units sitting outside my base until I am ready to use them)
7 sometimes will be used if I am doing a two pronged attack.
8-9 overseers around the map.
Now, the reasons for my setup are as follows. KEEP THE SHIT YOU ARE GOING TO USE CLOSEST TO YOUR HAND.
Thats pretty much it.
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SoCal8933 Posts
On September 22 2011 03:52 NmE_ wrote:
Have fun playing when your beer falls on your keyboard!!!
I switch between my laptop and my desktop, two different feeling keyboards, and guess what, I still can play!!
I agree with everyone else that is saying just get better with handspeed.
With that said, I still do not understand why peopld use 1,2,3 for armys as zerg..
I have larger hands, but I still can not reach keys 7890 very well without moving my hand.
My hotkeys are set as so:
1 1st queen
2 2nd queen
3 3rd queen
4 hatches
5 main army (I rehotkey this a lot depending on what I am doing.. pretty much 5 is my main foucs group.. if I am harrasing, I make sure to put my harrasing units in 5)
6 Special army units / static army (units sitting outside my base until I am ready to use them)
7 sometimes will be used if I am doing a two pronged attack.
8-9 overseers around the map.
Now, the reasons for my setup are as follows. KEEP THE SHIT YOU ARE GOING TO USE CLOSEST TO YOUR HAND.
Thats pretty much it.
not sure what you mean by your first statement..but okay!
as for keeping the shit im going to use closest to my hand, you'll noticed that everything is completely close to my hand in a grid that goes out to the 5 key down to the b key..im not using the second half of the keyboard when i play and thus i dont have to worry about my hand resetting.
here's a picture of the keyboard..maybe you dont know what one looks like?
![[image loading]](http://dri1.img.digitalrivercontent.net/Storefront/Company/msstore/images/hardware/pdp/en-US_Razer_BlackWidow_Gaming_Kybd_DHF-00098.jpg)
m1 - m5 are on the far left side of the keyboard.
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OP- I mean that if your keyboard breaks, you will have to wait another 3-4 days and be out $90 before you can play at your normal pace.
with a standard qwerty keyboard, the 123456 keys are the ones closest to your hand, there for I use them. One of the other things that I have seen that might be a good idea too is to move your keybindings over to the right 3 keys. That way your hand is more in the middle of the keyboard and has access to more keys, however, this just feels odd to me.
EDIT: Also, I know what the keyboard looks like
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SoCal8933 Posts
On September 22 2011 04:23 NmE_ wrote:OP- I mean that if your keyboard breaks, you will have to wait another 3-4 days and be out $90 before you can play at your normal pace. with a standard qwerty keyboard, the 123456 keys are the ones closest to your hand, there for I use them. One of the other things that I have seen that might be a good idea too is to move your keybindings over to the right 3 keys. That way your hand is more in the middle of the keyboard and has access to more keys, however, this just feels odd to me. EDIT: Also, I know what the keyboard looks like
ah i see what youre saying. but the thing is i LOVE this keyboard (i wouldnt change brands or models) and honestly, if any keyboard broke i wouldnt pick up any other keyboard i wasnt used to playing with just to play. its kinda like having your own golf clubs..you'd have to make an effort to learn the feel of a new set of clubs if you decided to change brands or models. you wouldnt want to do that unless you absolutely have to. you probably wouldnt play unless you had an extra or else your game would be noticeably different.
(man, that golf club analogy is pretty spot on )
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ight, going with the golf theme...
Would you rather be a good player with ANY set of clubs? Or a good player with only your set?
I guess what I am saying is that I find it gimmicky to buy $90 keyboards when my HP keyboard that I have boxes of from work works just fine. I have 160apm (I dont spam anything, or else it would be higher) so it is not like a $90 keyboard would make me play better. Nor would a $500 driver. I would still shank that fucker as much as a old wooden one.
Also, I played golf for years and worked at a country club for a few years.
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SoCal8933 Posts
On September 22 2011 04:34 NmE_ wrote:
ight, going with the golf theme...
Would you rather be a good player with ANY set of clubs? Or a good player with only your set?
I guess what I am saying is that I find it gimmicky to buy $90 keyboards when my HP keyboard that I have boxes of from work works just fine. I have 160apm (I dont spam anything, or else it would be higher) so it is not like a $90 keyboard would make me play better. Nor would a $500 driver. I would still shank that fucker as much as a old wooden one.
Also, I played golf for years and worked at a country club for a few years.
I see where youre coming from. But, i've tried many a keyboard and finally got my hands on a mechanical keyboard..i immediately fell in love with mine over any keyboard i've ever owned from the first time i pressed a key. and you can develop that same kind of relationship with any piece of sports equipment or pieces of computer hardware (see: apple people, ati vs nvidia) or even personal hygiene products (i will never buy another scent of deoderant other than Old Spice's swagger because thats what i prefer) or down to your favorite ketchup (huntz vs heinz)!
going back to golf, look at someone like tiger woods. IIRC he had been using the same putter for years and suddenly decided to change it. not sure if it was putter or driver, but i remember the criticism of doing so. i bring that up because of the point that he was using the same brand for years and got used to it so why would you change when you've gotten good using the same equipment for years upon years. why did he keep using the club? who knows. maybe he liked the grip. maybe he liked the weight. maybe he had just been using it since he started playing on the PGA tour and never had a reason to change.
point being you tend to stay with that brand because its what youre used to and/or what you prefer. if i had to change keyboards for whatever reason, yeah i would be forced to play without "trying to find loopholes" (which isn't what im trying to do..im just using what i have to my advantage and how i want to play). but as long as they make this keyboard, i will buy it! and as long as you have your keyboards that you're comfortable with using, you too will use them!
TL;DR - its all about preference. we're creatures of habit.
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EPT
