EPTI'm sad to see even pro players using 4 hotkeys in late game, just because they can't comfortably reach more, when you can rebind it to literaly any other position.
[D] Zerg Hotkeys, Mechanics, Control Groups, etc - Page 2
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Dariusz
Poland657 Posts
I'm sad to see even pro players using 4 hotkeys in late game, just because they can't comfortably reach more, when you can rebind it to literaly any other position. | ||
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Hairy
United Kingdom1169 Posts
On February 01 2012 19:25 gplayer wrote: Am I the only one who uses 0 for all the hatches? :D I have all hatches on '0' too! ...but '0' has been given an alternate hotkey on 'w'.  I know it's not optimal but.... I'm not willing to practice that instead of real games. What is a "real" game? Do you exclusively play in tournaments? The whole point of playing for me is to practice to get better. There is no point trying to win, because I will win ~50% regardless. Instead, I focus on trying to get better at the game, which will lead to an improvement in skill, which will lead to more wins. You accept that what you are doing could be improved, and change may lead to you being a better player, yet you do not change because you would lose games? If I lose a game, but I get better at the game, does it really matter that the game is lost? | ||
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Iksf
United Kingdom444 Posts
On February 01 2012 09:12 Mr Showtime wrote: As a suggestion, never bind hatches individually. I made mention in my previous post about doing what is comfortable, but it can't be inefficient. This is. All the hatches should be bound together and queens bound individually. I strongly suggest at least making this change. It's not too much different from what you have done, and it is far more efficient. The general consensus is that you do this, or the "backspace method" (such a weird name for it since most people re-bind the key to something other than backspace). Works fine for me, it really helps my larva injects actually as I often double press the hatch hotkey which means i spend a lot of time looking at the hatchery get a pretty consistant 85%+ inject uptime. It also lets me ensure I have under 3 larva at all bases where possible. | ||
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Stimpk
France165 Posts
On February 01 2012 20:41 Iksf wrote: Works fine for me, it really helps my larva injects actually as I often double press the hatch hotkey which means i spend a lot of time looking at the hatchery get a pretty consistant 85%+ inject uptime. It also lets me ensure I have under 3 larva at all bases where possible. Works fine for me as well. I generally don't mind changing my habits, but I've decided this method is good for me too. One hatch per hotkey from 4 to 8 (I don't hotkey the sixth and following hatches), cycling through them and choosing where to morph eggs from. The shortcuts are set default, I haven't changed any of them. | ||
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enykie
Germany64 Posts
1 - nothing 2 - broods / mutas 3 - secondary army (ring finger) 4 - main army (middle finger) 5 - hatches 6 - queens T (attackbutton) - (index finger) with this setup, everything is easy accesable,both armys + attackbutton is near hatcheries and queens and it istn to hard to relearn every hotkey, especially if you used grid before (btw can't understand why grid istn even standard ^^) Cheers Michael | ||
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sapht
Sweden141 Posts
So I just run with the standards. 1, 2, 3 i continuously swap to what I need at the moment, generally army/scout/harass, 4 is all hatcheries, 5-6-7... hatch+queen. If I think it's hard, it's because I suck, not because I need to change it. (plat/diamond level, fyi) | ||
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Tobberoth
Sweden6375 Posts
On February 01 2012 20:56 Stimpk wrote: Works fine for me as well. I generally don't mind changing my habits, but I've decided this method is good for me too. One hatch per hotkey from 4 to 8 (I don't hotkey the sixth and following hatches), cycling through them and choosing where to morph eggs from. The shortcuts are set default, I haven't changed any of them. Problem with this is that you limit your hotkeys massively. If you waste 4-8 on hatcheries, where do you put your queens, your bulk army, your infestors, your banelings, your mutas, your broodlords, your group of drop-defense etc. The problem is mainly that people aren't using enough hotkeys, so they waste them on individually selecting queens/hatches... while if you move to a good setup where every hotkey is within immediate reach, you can easily control group every unit individually and get massively better control. | ||
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Hairy
United Kingdom1169 Posts
On February 01 2012 20:41 Iksf wrote: Works fine for me, it really helps my larva injects actually as I often double press the hatch hotkey which means i spend a lot of time looking at the hatchery get a pretty consistant 85%+ inject uptime. It also lets me ensure I have under 3 larva at all bases where possible. Working "fine" is quite different from being optimal. Let's say you have one larvae at each of your three hatcheries, and you want to make three units. Seems a common enough scenario... Keybinding hatches: Select Hatchery 1, select larvae, make unit Select Hatchery 2, select larvae, make unit Select Hatchery 3, select larvae, make unit = 9 actions total Keybinding queens: Select Hatcheries (x3), select larvae, make unit, make unit, make unit = 5 actions total And if you are on 4 hatcheries (quite common), this becomes 12 actions vs 6 actions. It's very much less efficient. | ||
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Belial88
United States5217 Posts
Besides from those, the rest of the hotkey changes you suggest aren't bad in the first place. Burrow is what, B or R as is, creep poop is g or c or v or something easy like that. Changelings are pretty useless for their intended purpose (scouting inside opponent's base, following opponents army), but recently I've been finding them absolutely epic since the recent need for Zerg to incorporate mass overseers in late game armies (vs mothership play, vs mass ghost). What I do is poop down 20 changelings, and grab every tower (if I havent already, often times if they grabbed it, they wont kill that changeling thats next to their unit and then they lose vision there since an enemy unit is in proximity and it becomes 'challenged'), and most important, place down changelings all over the map to track army movements. This is really useful when playing with BL which are super slow and susceptible to counter-attacks/base trades, as well as muta play to know where the opponent is trying to move his stalkers. I mean it's literally so awesome. I always get overlord speed, and in all my games, I put overlords all over the map, that I literally have vision of the entire map. But you can't put overlords in the middle of the map. So for example on, say, Metalopolis, I'll make 20 changelings, and send like 3 to in front of each of his bases, and then like a bunch all along the routes on both sides of the map. Even better on wide open maps like Entombed Valley, I'll poop just a ton of changelings and just scatter them all about 20 yards in front of his base so I know wherever his army is at all times. You dont put the changelings at his bases or in his army, you just put them all around the place, so you can know where his army movements are. Changelings are so fucking awesome. I reallyhope they don't remove the overseer. It's just so amazing to put changelings all around in front of the main, natural, third, and fourth, to know where the opponent has the bulk of their army, or if they ever move anywhere outside their base. | ||
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virpi
Germany3598 Posts
^ scouting stuff 1 melee 2 ranged 3 infestor / mutas (depends...) 4 hatches 5 creep queen my other hotkeys are pretty close to the broodwar setup, the main differences are: space switch through bases tab hold position i patrol x larva inject a ultralisk r research burrow / burrow f build infestor I'm pretty comfortable with my setup. (dia zerg) | ||
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Iksf
United Kingdom444 Posts
On February 01 2012 21:12 Tobberoth wrote: Problem with this is that you limit your hotkeys massively. If you waste 4-8 on hatcheries, where do you put your queens, your bulk army, your infestors, your banelings, your mutas, your broodlords, your group of drop-defense etc. The problem is mainly that people aren't using enough hotkeys, so they waste them on individually selecting queens/hatches... while if you move to a good setup where every hotkey is within immediate reach, you can easily control group every unit individually and get massively better control. You can control everything fine with 3 hotkeys. Id be fine with 2 tbh. The backspace method is the only way to free up any keys but has the drawback of being so spammy and buggy. I don't need to hotkey queens. Base cameras are inferior to individual bindings for two reasons. Firstly a large part of my macro is monitoring the larva status bar on the hatchery unit card, by tapping through my hatcheries while still mostly focusing on micro. With camera bindings you cannot see larva progress without leaving the battle. Secondly is larva management. People who use mass hatchery bindings often have 0 larva at one hatchery but over 3 at another. This stops the passive larva production from the hatchery leaving you with less larva. By using individual bindings I can always try to keep my larva below 3 at all hatcheries, giving me more production. | ||
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romelako
United States373 Posts
2) Banelings/Infestors 3) Mutas/Corrupters 4) Broodlords 5) Hatcheries 6) Queen #1 7) Queen #2 8) Queen #3 9) Nydus Pros:
Cons:
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TigerKarl
1757 Posts
4 All Hatcheries 5 All Queens I use Backspace Inject with Space Button for switching Hatcheries. My Hotkeys are strongly influenced by the grid system with some changes like attack= a and some other. I don't think it's necessary to use keys that are far away and can not be reached without moving your arm. 5 Control groups are pretty ok for controlling everything relatively well. Saying this as a random master player who occasionally beats grand master players. | ||
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blackkiwi
Germany6 Posts
I do use the camera inject mode from Darkgrid. The good think about it that u can have all queens on one hotkey while also having control over them. So they dont walk from one hatch to annother hatch that was what I did hate so much about the backspace method. I must also admit that learning darkgrid is not very easy. But I think having more controls about the queens + having them all in one hotkey for fast inject is an absolute good method for Z. Btw im sorry for my english I try to improve it  | ||
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Kaitlin
United States2958 Posts
On February 01 2012 09:36 dabosaur wrote: I have seen sheth bind all his hatcherys inividually and then when he injects he doubleclick and boxes the queen, inject. Anyone know the reason why he doesnt bind the queen instead or queen+hatch? Well, I can't say it's his reason, but if you bind both the Queen and the Hatchery, then he would have to tab to make units from that Hatchery, as the Queen (unit) takes priority over the Hatchery (Building). I'm thinking the logic behind leaving Queens unbound has to do with the fact that you have to click the hatch for the injection anyways, so adding a 'box' or 'click' before the click isn't too much of a hassle for these high APM players. Also, binding the queen instead of the Hatchery eliminations the ability to 1) make units specifically from that Hatchery, and 2) activate the control group remotely to check the spawn larva timer. | ||
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iGn1t3
Hong Kong73 Posts
 Thanks TL! | ||
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Polemos
United States160 Posts
Remapped patrol to Q and build queen to X | ||
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Tobberoth
Sweden6375 Posts
On February 02 2012 01:47 Iksf wrote: You can control everything fine with 3 hotkeys. Id be fine with 2 tbh. The backspace method is the only way to free up any keys but has the drawback of being so spammy and buggy. I don't need to hotkey queens. Base cameras are inferior to individual bindings for two reasons. Firstly a large part of my macro is monitoring the larva status bar on the hatchery unit card, by tapping through my hatcheries while still mostly focusing on micro. With camera bindings you cannot see larva progress without leaving the battle. Secondly is larva management. People who use mass hatchery bindings often have 0 larva at one hatchery but over 3 at another. This stops the passive larva production from the hatchery leaving you with less larva. By using individual bindings I can always try to keep my larva below 3 at all hatcheries, giving me more production. You might feel you do fine with 2 or 3 hotkeys, but trust me, there's a ton to be gained from using more. It's pretty sweet to have lings on one key, banes on another and mutas on a third when engaging a terran army... and if he drops you at the same time, no problem, you have a small group of lings on their own hotkey ready to send there. While doing so, you can easily jump to a queen you have on its own hotkey to drop a tumor or two. The more hotkeys you use, the faster you get mechanically. Backspace inject is indeed spammy and buggy. Darkgrid base cams aren't, while being more or less just as fast. While you have to leave battle to check your larva progress, it's not like this is an issue. You perfect injections by getting a feel for when they are about to pop, you shouldn't have to check on them constantly, and with basecams, you'll definitely check your bases more than enough to keep your timing. As for having 3 larva at some hatcheries, sure, it does happen. I would say that as your macro gets better, this becomes way less of an issue since you generally shouldn't even have 3 larva lying around unless you're saving up for something. While it can happen, I would much rather use base cams to build from idividual hatcheries in that case than to always have to jump between hatches individually when I need to build tons of stuff. | ||
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Belial88
United States5217 Posts
You can control everything fine with 3 hotkeys. Id be fine with 2 tbh. The backspace method is the only way to free up any keys but has the drawback of being so spammy and buggy. I don't need to hotkey queens. Base cameras are inferior to individual bindings for two reasons. I can't imagine anyone at the higher level of play, can play with using only 3 hotkeys. I don't think any of the masters+ players play with using any less than 2 hotkeys for their army, if not 3. I am astounded that you don't put queens on hotkeys, not to mention upgrade facilties and evo chambers. How do you check progress on an upgrade, for when to best attack? ZvZ is 100% about knowing when your +1 missile finishes, or when speed finishes, or when +2 finishes, or when muta carapace finishes. What about infestors, how do you know when to spawn them without checking to see if infestation pit is at 31/80 or not? Or do you always waste time looking back at the base? Do you just make infestors 'whenever' and just wing it by starting the infestors at maybe 50/80 because you couldn't hotkey your infestation pit so you could start the infestors at a crisp 31/80. How in the world do you play? Do you play so liberally that such timings don't matter? Do you just make an infestation pit super early in the game, despite not using it at all? I mean when I play, and I think most people, they get the infestation pit because they plan to field infestors 131 seconds, or just 2 minutes 11 seconds, from when they start it. Do you just make like, the infestation pit 3 minutes before you need infestors, because you don't check the times on things? I don't get it. And then like, your injects. How can you possibly inject without queens on a hotkey? Don't tell me that by 3 hotkeys in total, you keep your whole army on one hotkey. Because that's insane. So when fighting toss or zerg, you just a-move roach/hydra and let your hydras get hit by the enemy? Do you not move command and 'hug' the opponents army with your roaches and just get completely owned by stalkers every time? Do you let banelings detonate on siege tanks and thors and marauders? How do you control your mutas? Are you one of those zergs who a-move with mass roach/infestor and let their infestors wander right into the opponent's army? >< Backspace inject is indeed spammy and buggy. Darkgrid base cams aren't, while being more or less just as fast. The whole 'problem' with the backspace inject method is solved 100% if you just hit "Hold/Stop" after injecting with all the queens so they don't run to hatches with no queen at it. Personally, I always make a queen at every hatch, and can't imagine playing any other way, so I never have buggy issues, but if I don't have a queen, I just hit 4-stop to prevent 'buggy'. It's a shitton easier to backspace inject then hit 4-Stop, then it is to do any other inject method which is much, much slower. | ||
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bagina
Canada43 Posts
some on page 1 suggested i rebind all my tech to the same hotgroup as my queens.... why on earth would anyone do that? i have 7 accessible hotgroups on the keyboard, and 3 more on my mouse. its not like i need to free up an additional hotgroup, and if i did "4" is barely used and would serve the purpose just fine. also adding my tech to my queen grouping would require an extra "tab" every time i wanted to access my tech. seems a bit silly to me! one glaring hole in my game is that i dont utilize infestors enough, so another thing id be interested in hearing from players, is how they key their army, and more specifically, where the infestors fall into the mix. do you hotkey your infestors seperately? and if so, do you also key them to your main group? do you split your infestors into several groups typically? nothing is more annoying than having your festors mixed in with your main army and watching them roll into battle tanking for your roaches! doesnt happen often but when it does... yuck. | ||
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