Hey all, I finally made a video displaying my hotkey setup for Protoss in SC2. Mine is by no means the best setup available, but I think its a valuable video in at least starting some discussion on the topic.

I'd legitimately like to hear people's ideas on different hotkey setups.

Enjoy!~~

Fragile51

Netherlands15767 Posts

July 30 2012 09:16 GMT

Thanks for the video Artosis! Some interesting thoughts indeed. Personally i don't really like removing my windows key because it's basically one of the most useful keys outside of starcraft but hey, whatever floats ones boat :p

aka_star

United Kingdom1546 Posts

July 30 2012 09:18 GMT

I've been following the The Core, it makes a lot of sense and think it deserves some merit.

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=341878

bgalang92

United States155 Posts

July 30 2012 09:37 GMT

I also recommend the Core! I'm a 750ish pt Masters Toss and its helped me so much, especially with using all eight camera location hotkeys, and I usually use 7-8 control groups per game compared to the 3 before. I am a much more mechanically strong macro player with this layout.

Indrium

United States2236 Posts

July 30 2012 09:44 GMT

Haha I love the key stuff at the beginning and end. Very clever.

I personally put 9 and 0 on my mouse buttons, and I usually have those as an observer/WP. I find that very helpful, it's very convenient access and it saves me from having to press 9 and 0.

The tab/q thing sounds cool, Artosis. What do you use for, well, tab? I'd imagine there's certain points you'd want to tab through an army or building set.

I'm definitely switching guardian shield. I have done that. Feels bad.

And I also swapped the camera on f2-f5. I should probably do f1-f4 but I'm too used to the idle worker hotkey.

ThePastor

New Zealand380 Posts

July 30 2012 09:45 GMT

I just watched this, really cool Artosis, inspired me to share the little change that I have made (well it has made a huge difference to me) to my jump to location hotkeys for injects.

I have changed Create Location 1 - 8 to F2 - F9 instead of the ctrl+F# key (explanation in a sec).
I have changed Zoom to Location 1-8 to Shift + Q,W,E,R,T,Y,U,I
I have shifted Infested Terran to X
I have changed Hotkey 0 to ` which is used for queens.

The main reason for this change is that I dislike the lack of control behind the backspace/spacebar inject methods and most others because of slow speed or lack of control. So my method (which I obv. didn't invent) is to select queens (`) press Shift + V then can just hold my shift key and cycle through all my hatches, Q W E R T Y U I. None of those keys require shift to be used with them so it doesn't overlap anything (because infested Terran is shifted). I find shift + Q-I much easier then reaching up for the F1-9 keys, it means a lot less finger stretching! Oh, and obviously I set the camera locations as I expand.

Hope this helps someone!

JaxxUK

20 Posts

July 30 2012 09:47 GMT

Its interesting to see the thought behind some peoples hotkeys, but I still believe that hotkey layout doesn't matter that much. If you can touch type then thats all you need. IF anything grid is the best set up as the hotkeys are the same on all races.

dani`

Netherlands2402 Posts

July 30 2012 10:04 GMT

Interesting. I don't agree though with moving Guardian Shield. If you think about it, the problem is actually the Hold hotkey being on the right side of the keyboard, not the Guardian Shield hotkey (you will never miss G when you go for it, as you can do it without moving your hand and is meant to be pressed by your left hand as opposed to H which you are "supposed" to press with your right hand when typing). Therefore, it makes a lot more sense to move the Hold hotkey. Sadly there do not seem to be many alternatives as all units share the Hold command so there will be a lot of conflicts. However, the Z key is one that can be used for this.

Other than that I use primarily default hotkeys, I just move over all the hotkeys on the right side of the keyboard to the left side -- at least the hotkeys I use frequently, probably forgot some. Luckily there are not many hotkeys on the right side


Patrol   :: P -> Q
Hold     :: H -> Z
Immortal :: I -> R

For Terran I have also moved the Lift hotkey from L (seriously, it's so freakin' far away) to F, and Bunker from U to A.

Teoita

Italy12247 Posts

July 30 2012 10:20 GMT

A nice change i had was using ` and y for my 9th and 10th control groups to use for harassy units which you might only need to use once in a while.

Kaleidos

Italy172 Posts

July 30 2012 10:30 GMT

#10

Working a lot on my hotkey setup i came up with some similar choices, like having my rally point on tab (being zerg) and base locations on f1 to f4.
Not going deep into details there is a couple of changes that you may worth considering.

1) What about moving -Add to ctrl group- to alt+group key and -create group- to alt+-key close to group key- ?
ex. group 2, add to it with alt 2, create group with alt+w

I really enjoy the hand positioning using this.

2) As a general rule trying to have spells keys close to the group key with the proper unit.

I think you are already improving your setup in this direction tho

..my next step was to put the main spell of each unit on Spacebar (being inject, fungal, storm or drop for prism/ovi/medivac)

You may consider using base locations to build/check your tech so that you free your spacebar for something else!

StaraCroft

Austria292 Posts

July 30 2012 10:37 GMT

#11

I've recently started putting my backspace on space so I can use chrono like zergs use larva inject, which is really helpful especially if you do greedy fast 3rd builds where you have to do a ton of powering and scouting while constantly chronoing probes, so that helps a lot. Otherwise my hotkey setup is pretty shit, but I feel inspired to rethink a couple of things now, so thanks for that ♥

Bango

United States106 Posts

July 30 2012 15:05 GMT

#12

i think switching patrol to "q" is pretty good as well (for zerg)

Qgelfich

Germany90 Posts

July 30 2012 15:12 GMT

#13

Can you make a more general video someday? This one is really centered about your protoss setup, but i'd love to hear your oppinion on hotkeys for the other races. For example i play mostly zerg and i only rebound backspace to X (so i can cycle through my hatches fast) and controllgroups 6 and 7 to mouse 3 and 4.

Also i agree that you should probably rebind your patroll key, it just seems needlessly far away.

Zeweig

Sweden189 Posts

July 30 2012 15:17 GMT

#14

F1 to the "bar" key, the one left of 1, it's the best key-switch I've ever done. Other than that, shift+q, shift+w, shift+e and shift+r for "jump to screen location 1,2,3,4" and space to "jump between bases".

Trasko

Sweden983 Posts

July 30 2012 15:21 GMT

#15

I've never actually tried custom hotkeys. I suppose it's pretty beneficial?

snexwang

Australia224 Posts

July 30 2012 15:44 GMT

#16

Rebound cycle base camera to tilde.
Removed 6 and rebound to TAB (I use this for T3 units).
Rebound first four camera positions to 7,8,9,0 (next four on F5-F8).
Rebound 7,8,9,0 to F1-F4 (inject queens).
Rebound patrol to W.
Rebound select idle worker to space.
Removed left Windows, capslock, hyphen and equals keys.

Zanno

United States1484 Posts

July 30 2012 15:53 GMT

#17

Thank you for finally posting this, I've been waiting to hear your ideas for months now.

The only thing I have to contribute to this discussion is that I noticed you can double bind hotkeys. So for units that are reactored, i bound two keys - for example, i have marines bound to both a and f. So i can go fafafafa really quickly and crank out a specific number of units with better accuracy than holding down a and waiting for keyboard repeat to kick in. This is probably not useful to protoss, but you could probably apply it to zerg too.

velvex

Germany226 Posts

July 30 2012 20:02 GMT

#18

Something that helped me a lot (and was somehow incredibly easy to get used to) is flipping Control and Shift functions of control groups so that Control+Number adds units to a group and Shift+Number resets it. This makes two things much more comfortable: first, if you want to add eggs or units at a rally point to a control group, you can just hold down Control, click on the eggs in the command card or the units on the main screen and add them to a control group almost simultaneously by pressing the number key.

Second, if you have units in a control group and want to remove them from it, you can deselect the respective units in the command card and rebind the control group by holding Shift all through the process. Those of you who play Zerg like I do, will do that often when sending Zerglings to towers, to your opponent's expansions to block them, or to attack banelings with small numbers of lings.

I am not sure how much this applies to the other races. If anyone of you presses Control with the outer part of your palm like I do (if any), it might be helpful even if you play one of the other races. At least I feel more comfortable pressing Control that way than Shift with my pinky, and when playing you usually add units to a control group more often than rebind one. It depends on hand position, too, though.

Nice video, btw!

RiSkysc2

696 Posts

July 30 2012 20:28 GMT

#19

I was a former FPS player and MMO player, with no RTS experience, so my fingers whenever they even touched a keyboard would always gravitate towards wasd, therefore i tried to take advantage of this and moved the building stuff for probes to s and d as well as using W for warpgates... I really liked the tab camera hotkey and the space hotkey for upgrades, so i'm now using those and i think i'm getting used to them, i specifically like the spacebar

. Already used camera hotkeys 1-7 before so i used camera hotkey 8 for the warp in one as well as the rally point

Nimbl3

Australia49 Posts

July 31 2012 00:29 GMT

#20

Thanks for your vid Artosis was very informative for me.

As every1 says: "good hot key set up is a good start to becoming a better player". In the end every1 has their own set up and some peoples hands are "quicker" and "different sized". Its good to see other peoples set ups, makes me wanna play around with mine a lot more now.