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On May 02 2012 07:32 JaKaTaK wrote:Show nested quote +On May 02 2012 07:05 Mikkerthebhu wrote:
Edit: Just to help you, be careful of calling this hotkey setup the most efficient as it does not specify to what it is the most efficient to. Could it be saving babies, peeling bananas or learning to dance (me kidding with you). If you want to sell something for what it is, then use the right words like: Currently the fastest hotkey setup. Best balance of natural hand movement and logical hotkey structure etc. I hope you get my point. Being specific will gain you a lot more respect in this modern nerd culture than the sensationalism title (in lack of a better word).
Yea, I agree that the title was a mistake, (I've gotten a moderate amount of crap for it). I was hoping it would challenge people to critique the setup, (which is what I want) but now, I agree, that giving the post that title was the incorrect way of doing so. Do you think using the word "fastest" is more specific that "efficient"? I thought the opposite originally. I will change the title, thank you for the constructive criticism.
When I think of fastest I think naturally in accordance to APM. Which is not better whatsoever than your statement: When I think of efficiency I naturally think of the best hotkey setup which fulfills a set of specific requirements. Personally I am not sure what these requirements is. And I would probably advice you, based on my current knowledge, to give it a more moderate name like (Brainstorming):
1: Highly competitive hotkey setup.
2: Professional hotkey setup.
3: High level hotkey setup.
4: Logical structured hotkey setup made specifically for fast play and high apm.
5: Hotkey setup designed for high APM and natural hand movement.
I guess you are better at this than I am! :D
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On May 02 2012 07:43 HyDr0iD wrote:
A trick for those of you learning new hotkeys though, enable "Display Hotkey text" for the tile grid and anytime you get stuck you can just look down for a moment and see the right key. It is still faster than clicking on the portraits and will help you learn by playing rather than trying to commit all the keys to memory and getting really stuck in the middle of a game when you forget one.
I will second this because it is a fantastic advice. By lack of better tools, here is an imaginary reddit upvote. 
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On May 02 2012 07:52 Mikkerthebhu wrote:Show nested quote +On May 02 2012 07:32 JaKaTaK wrote:On May 02 2012 07:05 Mikkerthebhu wrote:
Edit: Just to help you, be careful of calling this hotkey setup the most efficient as it does not specify to what it is the most efficient to. Could it be saving babies, peeling bananas or learning to dance (me kidding with you). If you want to sell something for what it is, then use the right words like: Currently the fastest hotkey setup. Best balance of natural hand movement and logical hotkey structure etc. I hope you get my point. Being specific will gain you a lot more respect in this modern nerd culture than the sensationalism title (in lack of a better word).
Yea, I agree that the title was a mistake, (I've gotten a moderate amount of crap for it). I was hoping it would challenge people to critique the setup, (which is what I want) but now, I agree, that giving the post that title was the incorrect way of doing so. Do you think using the word "fastest" is more specific that "efficient"? I thought the opposite originally. I will change the title, thank you for the constructive criticism. When I think of fastest I think naturally in accordance to APM. Which is not better whatsoever than your statement: When I think of efficiency I naturally think of the best hotkey setup which fulfills a set of specific requirements. Personally I am not sure what these requirements is. And I would probably advice you, based on my current knowledge, to give it a more moderate name like (Brainstorming): 1: Highly competitive hotkey setup. 2: Professional hotkey setup. 3: High level hotkey setup. 4: Logical structured hotkey setup made specifically for fast play and high apm. 5: Hotkey setup designed for high APM and natural hand movement. I guess you are better at this than I am! :D
I feel like people put too much weight on APM, although people would probably get pumped about a way to increase their APM. I think "A Very Efficient Custom Hotkey Layout" will do nicely. Do you agree? I really like the word competitive though, I think that captures it pretty well...
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On May 02 2012 07:54 Mikkerthebhu wrote:Show nested quote +On May 02 2012 07:43 HyDr0iD wrote:
A trick for those of you learning new hotkeys though, enable "Display Hotkey text" for the tile grid and anytime you get stuck you can just look down for a moment and see the right key. It is still faster than clicking on the portraits and will help you learn by playing rather than trying to commit all the keys to memory and getting really stuck in the middle of a game when you forget one. I will second this because it is a fantastic advice. By lack of better tools, here is an imaginary reddit upvote.
And I 3rd it and give my own imaginary reddit upvote to you! I always have this setting on. I was almost as pumped when I found this as when i found the BUILDING GRID! o_0
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I have one issue with the hotkey setup as it relates to protoss. You put stargate, robo, and gates all in the same hotkey. I dislike this.
First off, collosus (and carriers but lol) take forever to make. If you have a robo in the same group as something else, you can't
1. tap your hotkey to see progress of the collosus/other unit under construction
2. double tap your hotkey to jump directly to the robo/star to chrono boost it. This is the thing about protoss production, you have to look at your buildings on screen very often to chrono boost them.
A work around to point 2 would be to build all these buildings next to eachother, but that gets incredibly hairy with gateways also in the mix, and it's also just bad play for hiding tech and for minimizing harassment damage.
For similar reasons I don't like hotkeying forges with other buildings, because you have to chrono boost them too.
The other work around would be to just use the camera keys to accomplish these tasks, which would work for everything except you still couldn't tap to see the construction status of your collosus.
Just some feedback, I really like reading posts like this, and if anything I said is wrong or if I'm missing something, I'll be glad to read it. I'm really interested in optimizing hotkeys.
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some terran feedback, as I cant play the other races well enough to comment 
First let me say that I use a setup known as Darkgrid (Modified to suit me better.), which is similar to yours.
Having all 3 production facilities in the same hotkey is something I've never understood. What if you just want to make a single banshee?
In theory, when producing from all 3 its good, but its way too inflexible for situations when you dont.
I use mouse4 and mouse5 for rax and CC+upgrades. (R for fact and T for port)
Also, I hotkey the techlab with the specific building so I can get unit upgrades from the same hotkey.
I feel that 7 groups for unit control is more than enough.
How do you build things?
I use F for normal build and D for advance buildings. This allows me to use two fingers instead of just one.
F-W is much faster than S-W (I take it that S & A are normal and advanced buildings).
I have hotkeyed marines as both f and s, as spamming both is faster and more precise than spamming just either/holding either down.
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On May 02 2012 11:30 Nairi wrote:Having all 3 production facilities in the same hotkey is something I've never understood. What if you just want to make a single banshee?
I agree with this.
Also, how do you unlearn your old setup... it's SO PAINFUL for me. I've tried a few times to use new hotkeys and just can't go through with it. I'm trying this setup today but a midmasters player not being able to contribute in a gold 4v4 is just so rediculous.
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On May 02 2012 11:05 Carbonthief wrote:
I have one issue with the hotkey setup as it relates to protoss. You put stargate, robo, and gates all in the same hotkey. I dislike this.
First off, collosus (and carriers but lol) take forever to make. If you have a robo in the same group as something else, you can't
1. tap your hotkey to see progress of the collosus/other unit under construction
2. double tap your hotkey to jump directly to the robo/star to chrono boost it. This is the thing about protoss production, you have to look at your buildings on screen very often to chrono boost them.
A work around to point 2 would be to build all these buildings next to eachother, but that gets incredibly hairy with gateways also in the mix, and it's also just bad play for hiding tech and for minimizing harassment damage.
For similar reasons I don't like hotkeying forges with other buildings, because you have to chrono boost them too.
The other work around would be to just use the camera keys to accomplish these tasks, which would work for everything except you still couldn't tap to see the construction status of your collosus.
Just some feedback, I really like reading posts like this, and if anything I said is wrong or if I'm missing something, I'll be glad to read it. I'm really interested in optimizing hotkeys.
Protoss is a pain when it comes to that. I've spent some time wresting with this problem before. I really don't want to sacrifice multi-pronged harass and army control potential by using 5 macro hotkeys like I used to. I have 1 screen hotkey (bound to 1) dedicated to chronoboost, I also have screen hotkeys for each base, so as long as my tech structure is near one of my bases I'm set. This is shitty for hiding tech (scans), so hidden tech chrono can only use the chronoboost screen hotkey.
As far as production, I really wish blizzard would use the animation for cooldown on warpgates on ALL UNIT PRODUCING STRUCTURES! That way you could see the status of everything at a glance. The issue is, that even with 5 macro hotkeys, once you have 2 of the same kind, you have to click the wireframe in the bottom of the screen to see individual progress. What do you do when you have double robo? Aside from blizzard making an aesthetic change, I can't figure out a solution to this problem. For now, I click on the wireframe to check status and use the screen hotkeys to the best of my ability. Hopefully someone at blizzard sees this and changes it for heart of the swarm...
Really good criticism. Thanks a lot man, I appreciate it :D Also, thanks for being such a nice guy about it :D
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On May 02 2012 11:37 Fogetaboudit wrote:Show nested quote +On May 02 2012 11:30 Nairi wrote:Having all 3 production facilities in the same hotkey is something I've never understood. What if you just want to make a single banshee? I agree with this. Also, how do you unlearn your old setup... it's SO PAINFUL for me. I've tried a few times to use new hotkeys and just can't go through with it. I'm trying this setup today but a midmasters player not being able to contribute in a gold 4v4 is just so rediculous.
Yea man, It'll take a little bit of time. You gotta put your pride on the shelf and grind it out for a week or so. It is an investment, once you learn the setup, it will pay you back with interest. Stay strong!
The way it works is, you shuffle over to the subgroup you want (for instance, starport) and then press the button you have for banshee once. That'll give you one banshee :D I actually really like it a lot :D
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On May 02 2012 11:30 Nairi wrote:some terran feedback, as I cant play the other races well enough to comment First let me say that I use a setup known as Darkgrid (Modified to suit me better.), which is similar to yours. Having all 3 production facilities in the same hotkey is something I've never understood. What if you just want to make a single banshee? In theory, when producing from all 3 its good, but its way too inflexible for situations when you dont. I use mouse4 and mouse5 for rax and CC+upgrades. (R for fact and T for port) Also, I hotkey the techlab with the specific building so I can get unit upgrades from the same hotkey. I feel that 7 groups for unit control is more than enough. How do you build things? I use F for normal build and D for advance buildings. This allows me to use two fingers instead of just one. F-W is much faster than S-W (I take it that S & A are normal and advanced buildings). I have hotkeyed marines as both f and s, as spamming both is faster and more precise than spamming just either/holding either down.
I have a lot of respect for FoxyMayhem and Darkgrid. In the comment above I explained how you can build exactly what you want with 100% flexibility even if all of your unit producing structures are on the same hotkey. I use V for basic build and C for advanced, that way i'm always using 2 fingers (buildings are QWASZXCV2) I make it so there is no overlap (CV is dark shrine, VC is cannon, there is no VV or CC).
If you want to keep using mouse buttons than Darkgrid is the way to go. I really dislike using mouse buttons and developed this to not utilize mouse buttons. I would definitely fool around with this one for a bit, trying to know how it'll be by looking at that nasty list of commands at the end is much harder than just putting the file in the proper place and loading up a game. I'd be really interested in what you think of it once you've played around a bit.
P.S. Did I answer the "how to make a single banshee" question properly? Do you understand how that works now? It was hard for me to figure out where you were coming from, please specify an example if I haven't already addressed your question completely.
Thanks :D
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I want to note that when I switched to Darkgrid it took me about a month / 35 games to get back to my old APM / larva spawning ratio (according to Sc2gears). Although I did write a trainer program to help me memorize the hotkeys.
Also I was low diamond at the time.
EDIT: Also I love the mouse keys (work great on the Deathadder) so I'll be sticking with Darkgrid, but maybe if there is a lot of demand I could adapt my program to also work with this layout.
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On May 02 2012 11:43 JaKaTaK wrote:Show nested quote +On May 02 2012 11:05 Carbonthief wrote:
I have one issue with the hotkey setup as it relates to protoss. You put stargate, robo, and gates all in the same hotkey. I dislike this.
First off, collosus (and carriers but lol) take forever to make. If you have a robo in the same group as something else, you can't
1. tap your hotkey to see progress of the collosus/other unit under construction
2. double tap your hotkey to jump directly to the robo/star to chrono boost it. This is the thing about protoss production, you have to look at your buildings on screen very often to chrono boost them.
A work around to point 2 would be to build all these buildings next to eachother, but that gets incredibly hairy with gateways also in the mix, and it's also just bad play for hiding tech and for minimizing harassment damage.
For similar reasons I don't like hotkeying forges with other buildings, because you have to chrono boost them too.
The other work around would be to just use the camera keys to accomplish these tasks, which would work for everything except you still couldn't tap to see the construction status of your collosus.
Just some feedback, I really like reading posts like this, and if anything I said is wrong or if I'm missing something, I'll be glad to read it. I'm really interested in optimizing hotkeys. Protoss is a pain when it comes to that. I've spent some time wresting with this problem before. I really don't want to sacrifice multi-pronged harass and army control potential by using 5 macro hotkeys like I used to. I have 1 screen hotkey (bound to 1) dedicated to chronoboost, I also have screen hotkeys for each base, so as long as my tech structure is near one of my bases I'm set. This is shitty for hiding tech (scans), so hidden tech chrono can only use the chronoboost screen hotkey. As far as production, I really wish blizzard would use the animation for cooldown on warpgates on ALL UNIT PRODUCING STRUCTURES! That way you could see the status of everything at a glance. The issue is, that even with 5 macro hotkeys, once you have 2 of the same kind, you have to click the wireframe in the bottom of the screen to see individual progress. What do you do when you have double robo? Aside from blizzard making an aesthetic change, I can't figure out a solution to this problem. For now, I click on the wireframe to check status and use the screen hotkeys to the best of my ability. Hopefully someone at blizzard sees this and changes it for heart of the swarm... Really good criticism. Thanks a lot man, I appreciate it :D Also, thanks for being such a nice guy about it :D
Yeah double robo does suck in that way. As do double stargate openings vs zerg. As for upgrades though, I currently simply do not hotkey forges at all, and just check them manually by double tapping something near my forges. Don't have to click on them after jumping the screen there, and I can just chrono boost. That's what I have to do for double robo and double star to check production status too, have to just move the screen over them. There's no other way, unless you want to click your wireframes.
Sacrificing hotkeying forges, which I feel is a reasonable sacrifice because upgrades take so long and you have to constantly give the forge a new command and you have to screen over the forge to chrono boost anyways, allows me to fit all buildings into 3 groups though, nexus robo and star. Then I just use the wargate button for gates. I use my robo button for gateways, and then when warpgate finishes I convert it to a robo button. This leaves me with 7 unit control groups.
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Thanks for your response about my questions concerning this vs Darkgrid. I'm actually using the mouseless version of Darkgrid because I'm left-handed (right hand on mouse, so mouse button presses take me 3x as long as key presses).
For those asking about the learning process of this hotkey set, I'd imagine it's comparable to Darkgrid. I used the Darkgrid Trainer software and a smurf account to work my way up from Bronze back to Platinum, since mechanically-speaking with the new hotkey set I was a Bronze-level player again. Once I hit Platinum with Darkgrid it didn't take but about another 15 games before I was Diamond and knocking off Master-level players because of how much my mechanics had improved.
One of the main reasons I use Darkgrid is I am a classical pianist during the day, so I'm sort of hard-wired to carry out micromovement-related tasks in the most efficient and ergonomic way possible. If you can convince me in your write-up that this layout is more efficient and will lead to me being even faster than when I use Darkgrid, I'll switch in a heartbeat.
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On May 02 2012 12:14 Carbonthief wrote:Show nested quote +On May 02 2012 11:43 JaKaTaK wrote:On May 02 2012 11:05 Carbonthief wrote:
I have one issue with the hotkey setup as it relates to protoss. You put stargate, robo, and gates all in the same hotkey. I dislike this.
First off, collosus (and carriers but lol) take forever to make. If you have a robo in the same group as something else, you can't
1. tap your hotkey to see progress of the collosus/other unit under construction
2. double tap your hotkey to jump directly to the robo/star to chrono boost it. This is the thing about protoss production, you have to look at your buildings on screen very often to chrono boost them.
A work around to point 2 would be to build all these buildings next to eachother, but that gets incredibly hairy with gateways also in the mix, and it's also just bad play for hiding tech and for minimizing harassment damage.
For similar reasons I don't like hotkeying forges with other buildings, because you have to chrono boost them too.
The other work around would be to just use the camera keys to accomplish these tasks, which would work for everything except you still couldn't tap to see the construction status of your collosus.
Just some feedback, I really like reading posts like this, and if anything I said is wrong or if I'm missing something, I'll be glad to read it. I'm really interested in optimizing hotkeys. Protoss is a pain when it comes to that. I've spent some time wresting with this problem before. I really don't want to sacrifice multi-pronged harass and army control potential by using 5 macro hotkeys like I used to. I have 1 screen hotkey (bound to 1) dedicated to chronoboost, I also have screen hotkeys for each base, so as long as my tech structure is near one of my bases I'm set. This is shitty for hiding tech (scans), so hidden tech chrono can only use the chronoboost screen hotkey. As far as production, I really wish blizzard would use the animation for cooldown on warpgates on ALL UNIT PRODUCING STRUCTURES! That way you could see the status of everything at a glance. The issue is, that even with 5 macro hotkeys, once you have 2 of the same kind, you have to click the wireframe in the bottom of the screen to see individual progress. What do you do when you have double robo? Aside from blizzard making an aesthetic change, I can't figure out a solution to this problem. For now, I click on the wireframe to check status and use the screen hotkeys to the best of my ability. Hopefully someone at blizzard sees this and changes it for heart of the swarm... Really good criticism. Thanks a lot man, I appreciate it :D Also, thanks for being such a nice guy about it :D Yeah double robo does suck in that way. As do double stargate openings vs zerg. As for upgrades though, I currently simply do not hotkey forges at all, and just check them manually by double tapping something near my forges. Don't have to click on them after jumping the screen there, and I can just chrono boost. That's what I have to do for double robo and double star to check production status too, have to just move the screen over them. There's no other way, unless you want to click your wireframes. Sacrificing hotkeying forges, which I feel is a reasonable sacrifice because upgrades take so long and you have to constantly give the forge a new command and you have to screen over the forge to chrono boost anyways, allows me to fit all buildings into 3 groups though, nexus robo and star. Then I just use the wargate button for gates. I use my robo button for gateways, and then when warpgate finishes I convert it to a robo button. This leaves me with 7 unit control groups.
WOAH! I was just doing some testing and when you have multiple types of buildings in the same hotkey group it prioritizes certain buildings. I'll get a full list out later, but so far FORGES TAKE TOP PRIORITY. chronoboosing upgrade problem solved I feel its much better to hotkey the forges to the nexus control group than not hotkey them at all, that way you can be reminded of them and quickly get the next level upgrade.
Concerning the issue with using the warpgate button, is that it is still a button that has to fit somewhere on the keyboard, and there is a limited amount of room. by combining the warpgate button, stargate control group, and robo room is saved to make the pressing of the rest of the buttons faster. Also, this is waaaaay better for people who play random or people who like to change races for fun.
And I have the personal opinion that maximal control groups will be the future of how starcraft is played, so i want as many as possible :D
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On May 02 2012 11:58 SirPsychoMantis wrote:
I want to note that when I switched to Darkgrid it took me about a month / 35 games to get back to my old APM / larva spawning ratio (according to Sc2gears). Although I did write a trainer program to help me memorize the hotkeys.
Also I was low diamond at the time.
EDIT: Also I love the mouse keys (work great on the Deathadder) so I'll be sticking with Darkgrid, but maybe if there is a lot of demand I could adapt my program to also work with this layout.
A trainer program??? What was that like? What did you do do? What i mean to say is... Can you elaborate?
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I didn't read over the entire thing, but i did look at the binds. For me this keybind set up is not great. I find it very difficult to hit alt comfortably.
I recently changed my keybinds about a week ago and my apm has increased by 60 so far. I use 1-6 for control groups q-r for control groups and ctrl shift a-f, z-v for camera location saves. I use ctrl a-f, z-v to jump to those camera locations. I use tab for patrol, and z for move to. Capslock is used to jump to bases. Then of course i went through and rebound all my units which was not bad at all. Took me about 2 days to get use to and i noticed huge improvements right off the start.
I'm not saying this is the best keybind set up, and I think everyone should just find out what works best for them.
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On May 02 2012 12:25 NeutraLiTe wrote:
Thanks for your response about my questions concerning this vs Darkgrid. I'm actually using the mouseless version of Darkgrid because I'm left-handed (right hand on mouse, so mouse button presses take me 3x as long as key presses).
For those asking about the learning process of this hotkey set, I'd imagine it's comparable to Darkgrid. I used the Darkgrid Trainer software and a smurf account to work my way up from Bronze back to Platinum, since mechanically-speaking with the new hotkey set I was a Bronze-level player again. Once I hit Platinum with Darkgrid it didn't take but about another 15 games before I was Diamond and knocking off Master-level players because of how much my mechanics had improved.
One of the main reasons I use Darkgrid is I am a classical pianist during the day, so I'm sort of hard-wired to carry out micromovement-related tasks in the most efficient and ergonomic way possible. If you can convince me in your write-up that this layout is more efficient and will lead to me being even faster than when I use Darkgrid, I'll switch in a heartbeat.
Hey hey, I'm coming from the same place, I'm a guitarist and studied classical vocal technique in College. I'll be sure to have the write up as soon as possible for ya! Tomorrow is day #2 of TheJaKaTaK and day 1 went pretty bumpy from a technical standpoint so I'm gonna be working really hard to learn how to use xsplit tomorrow. But the write up should come soon :D I appreciate your consideration and input on the learning curve
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Wow, great work!
It definitely looks very good. However, I'm not sure if I prefer to have my terran buildings on different hotkeys or grouped all in one. The pro of being grouped on one means you can tap 1 and see all of the production, but it's 1 more click if you need to produce out of everything (like in a late game situation when you need to remax quickly or something, vs trying to keep constant production). Another con of this is if you're producing units out of rax, fact, and starport. If you're doing some early game pressure like rax/fact and starport+tech lab for marine hellion banshee, having to press Space each time to get to the building I want will slow down the time I can put into micro. And of course another big pro is that you have more hotkeys for drops/flanks and such. So I'm definitely going to consider this.
(Though anyways if I do such a strategy or just generally in the early game, I can use those 2 "flank/harass" hotkeys along with the building hotkey to fit my rax, fact, and starport individually, then later on I can group them all together if I find i need to use more hotkeys to harass/flank).
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Hey high/mid masters T here. I'm giving this a shot over the next couple weeks. But im having trouble finding how to select all idle workers? Maybe im just herp derping but how do i do that?
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On May 02 2012 12:39 ChimeraGaming wrote:
I didn't read over the entire thing, but i did look at the binds. For me this keybind set up is not great. I find it very difficult to hit alt comfortably.
I recently changed my keybinds about a week ago and my apm has increased by 60 so far. I use 1-6 for control groups q-r for control groups and ctrl shift a-f, z-v for camera location saves. I use ctrl a-f, z-v to jump to those camera locations. I use tab for patrol, and z for move to. Capslock is used to jump to bases. Then of course i went through and rebound all my units which was not bad at all. Took me about 2 days to get use to and i noticed huge improvements right off the start.
I'm not saying this is the best keybind set up, and I think everyone should just find out what works best for them.
I am definitely a fan of the left right split (Chameleon) vs. the up and down split (your setup) because it guarantees that there are no repetitive finger uses. Where do you put your unit and building abilities with this setup? You have the whole block from 1 to V used up, i think... Am I missing something?
EDITED for name change
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EPT
