Technique in Starcraft (A guide on mechanics) - Page 5

On August 31 2013 20:35 virpi wrote:

100% mouse sensitivity is very inaccurate, because it's most likely skipping pixels on your screen.

6 - Gateways
This is better than the warp gate key for 2 reasons:
1: It allows you to see untransformed gateways and add them as soon as they have started to be built. Then you can transform them by Ctrl clicking.
2: It allows you to tap and see the specific cooldown durations.

On August 31 2013 23:19 MilExo wrote:


First of all, thanks for an excellent guide! Nice consolidation of everything you need mechanically and also a couple of things that I haven't seen anywhere else. Definitely a go-to guide for improving at SC2.

One question though - wouldn't it make more sense to have the additional control group available as protoss and just using the warpgate key? The reason why I'm asking is because the 2nd reason you listed isn't valid anymore as far as I know - you can see the cool down on warpgates by using the warpgate key (was patched quite a while back if I recall correctly). Seeing untransformed gateways is still a good argument, but wouldn't a camera hotkey over your gateways also suffice (which can double as a easy way to chrono all your gates)?

Also, what is your opinion on putting your forges in a control group to see how far those upgrades are and quickly getting the next upgrade?

On August 31 2013 18:15 BlackPanther wrote:


I always thought the same thing so I rebound one of my control groups to tilde but for some reason I never use it. I want to use it but I never press it.

On August 31 2013 18:15 BlackPanther wrote:


I always thought the same thing so I rebound one of my control groups to tilde but for some reason I never use it. I want to use it but I never press it.

On September 11 2013 09:22 Entropy137 wrote:
Just like you OP, I too have rebound tab and space to camera hotkeys. I use tab over my production facilities/forges, or over my 5th if the game gets to that point. My space bar camera hotkey is set over my closet proxy pylon. This makes it very easy to warp in units and reinforce during a fight as I simply tap the spacebar and immediately am centered over where I need to be to warp.

In addition to having rebound tab and space, I have rebound Q,W,E and R to camera hotkeys as well. Q for my main, W for my natural, E, for my third, and R for my fourth. I've noticed in my time playing starcraft, that almost everyone I've seen has there camera hotkeys bound to the F keys (starting at f2 if you played broodwar). I felt that this wasn't actually the most efficient setup, and more of a relic from the past. After watching enough Korean pro gamer POV's, it became apparent how important camera hotkeys are. Coming from an FPS background, most of my keystrokes were centered around q,w,e and r so I felt if I could familiarize myself with this setup, I could be faster in the long run. It was somewhat of a challenge rebinding the default protoss actions that were on q,w,e,r to other keys, but it worked out quite well. I am very happy with my current hotkey setup.

It took me a month or so to get used to my new setup, but since then I would say my play has improved VASTLY. My overall production, macro, and drop defence has gotten much better due to using camera hotkeys regularly. Rarely do you want to be scrolling around your bases. If I see a drop flying in on the minimap to say my third, my brain now thinks, "third in trouble?" tap e, or, "wanna throw down a robo at my natural", tap w, etc.


I agree with this as well, which is why I have bound my tilde key to unit patrol. Makes it very easy to patrol observers/units on the fly.

I'm curious to know what other people think of my setup, and if you notice any problems with it, or ways to improve it, or if you have any questions about my other keybinds.