Learning SC2

Starcraft 2 is Played With Two Hands

The function and control of the mouse in Starcraft 2 is natural and easy to pickup for new players. In fact the entire game can be played with just the mouse hand. However, to do so limits your options and efficiency in the game severely. How so? The keyboard allows you to look at one thing and do another. Let me illustrate this with an example; your troops are currently engaging the enemy, whilst watching the battle using only your keyboard hand you can: build SCV’s/Probes/Drones, build reinforcements for your army, research upgrades. Lets suppose that this battle ended with both teams losing equal amount of troops, who would be ahead? Well, the person using their keyboard to do all of those things of course!

Learning to use the keyboard effectively is essential to becoming an efficient player.

You will also find that the keyboard has other useful functions such as finding idle workers, queuing commands and using abilities. Ok so I have sold you on why you should be using the keyboard. But getting comfortable with using it can be very difficult for newer players, I myself have had a lot of difficulty with this in the past. But with some thought and good practice techniques you will be comfortable with using the keyboard in no time.

Learning Build Command Hotkeys

This is the starting point for learning to use the keyboard as it is the most simple and easy to learn. Build command hotkeys are letter keys which represent one of the options in the bottom right corner of the screen for the building of units and structures. If you mouse over one of these buttons take note of the keyboard letter that represents that button. It is good practice to learn all of these hotkeys even if it is for something you only use once a game.

Never click build commands, always use their hotkeys.

Why is it Important to Do This?

Once you learn a hotkey something interesting happens, you no longer have to think about it. This is because of the way muscle memory works, your fingers remember what to press and your mind is free to think of more important things, like what your next move is.

What is the Best Way to Learn This?

Day[9] describes a method in his Daily #132 which I have used with great success. It is a really simple and a very effective way to train your fingers and develop that muscle memory. Basically, every time you do not know a hotkey for something, mouse over it but do not click it. Instead, read which hotkey it is, move you mouse back to the centre of the screen and press the hotkey. Using this very simple method you will find your fingers will quickly learn which button to press and you will start doing it without thinking. Be sure to do this every time you do not know a hotkey.

Learning Unit Hotkeys

Unit hotkeys are very similar to build command hotkeys in that they each represent a button in the bottom right corner of the screen. These hotkeys include unit abilities and unit commands such as stop, hold and attack. Being able to execute these commands quickly is vital to effectively controlling your units.

Unit commands (Top) and Abilities (Bottom)

Why is it Important To Do This?

Battles in Starcraft 2 happen very quickly, in the one or two seconds it takes you to move your mouse, select an ability and move your mouse back to the screen, much of your forces could already be dead. Learning hotkeys allows you to keep looking at the action and use abilities or issue commands much more quickly.

What is the Best Way to Learn This?

For ability hotkeys the same technique as above works quite well, although I suggest doing this in practice matches. However, there is no trick to learning the unit command hotkeys like attack, hold and stop. Only by practicing these can you commit them to muscle memory. Thankfully, there is not many to learn, and once you are familiar with them you will start to learn what you can do with them. But we will save that for another article.

Note: For both Build Command Hotkeys and Unit Hotkeys it is worth mentioning that you should trial using both the ‘Standard’ layout and the ‘Grid’ layout. It is mainly a matter of comfort but ‘Grid’ layout is generally considered to be the more efficient layout. Essentially ‘Grid’ layout moves all hotkeys over to the left side of the keyboard, where every key represents a physical space within the unit/building control panel. If neither layout feels comfortable SC2 supports custom hotkeys (as of patch 1.2). – Thankyou to FaDeMeatex for pointing this out!

Getting Familiar With Control Groups

Control groups are units or structures that are bound to your numerical keys (1 through to 0), once bound pressing the corresponding number key will select those units or structures. You first create a control group by selecting a unit, structure or group, holding the Control key and then pressing the number key you wish to bind them to. Once a control group is created you can add any unit or structure to that group by selecting it, holding the Shift key and pressing that same number.

Control groups are easy to learn but difficult to master.

Why are Control Groups Important?

Control groups allow you to select a unit or structure without first moving your screen to it. They also allow you (by tapping the control group twice) to quickly jump the screen to any bound unit or structure. Say your main force is bound to control group 1, and reinforcements are bound to control group 2. Your main force engages the enemy and you wish to bring your reinforcements to support them. You can do so without moving the screen, simply press “2” and tell them to move to your main army. Control groups also allow you to build units from structures without moving the screen by simply pressing its control group number and pressing the units hotkey. You can then even rally your troops to wherever you want!

What is the Best Way to Learn to use Control Groups?

I will not discuss particular control group setups because it is important that you play around with different setups and see which one suits you best. I am constantly changing and refining my control group setup and I have a different setup for each race.

A good start is to define before a game what control groups you will use, and make sure you at least plan to use all ten numerical keys, even if you don’t end up using them. You may say something like “I will try to use keys 1 to 3 for my army units, 4,5 and 6 as my Nexus/Command Centres/Hatcheries, 7,8 and 9 as tech structures and 0 as my scout.” Now this particular setup may be good or bad, but as long as you use all of the control groups you can refine your setup later.

A forgotten unit is wasted resources.

The next step is to try to add each new unit to you’re existing hotkeys as you make it. This will do two things: get you more and more familiar with your setup and ensure that you do not forget or miss any unit. A forgotten unit is wasted resources. You will constantly change and refine your setup, and you may wish to try what other people use but just remember there is no right or wrong setup, only what works for you.

Queuing Commands

I chose to make this separate as I feel that it is something that is underused by newer players. This could be because it is a little bit more complex or it could be simply that many do not know of it’s use. Simply you can queue up commands  for units by holding the shift key. Very simple premise but it allows you to do many things such as:

Queuing up commands lets you set a scouting route.

• Tell a unit to take a specific route, such as setting up a scouting route so that you do not have to constantly tell the scout to change its destination. Simply right click first destination, hold shift then right click all subsequent destinations. You can even do it via the minimap!
• Move to a location then attack. Useful for getting ranged units into range so that they all attack. Do this by right-clicking then holding shift, pressing “A” (attack) and left-click where you want them to attack.
• Directing your units to kill things in a particular order. Useful for telling your units to focus on workers rather than structures or hostile units. Right-click unit to be attacked then hold shift and right-click each subsequent unit.
• Telling units to move to a location then use an ability. Terran players might like to note that you can simply tell a tank to move to a location then hold shift and press “E” (siege), then it will siege up once it gets there. Also works well for Blink stalkers (making them all able to blink across a gap, see this video).

So start using your keyboard hand! Once you get comfortable with it you will wonder how you ever did without. I also think that it makes the game more fun to play and less strenuous on your mouse hand. Does anyone know of any useful keyboard features or tricks that I haven’t mentioned? If so please let everyone know in the comments section below!