Learning SC2

Starcraft II is a very challenging and invigorating game that can take years to master. This article will be the start of a companion guide to a video series that was started this week. Today, we will be venturing on a journey to master the art of control groups and location hotkey. Utilizing these tools in SCII will greatly increase your ability to multitask as well as become more efficient at managing your base.

Before we get started, I suggest you open up your settings within Starcraft II and follow along this simple guide of setting up location hotkeys. Once logged in, go to:

• Settings -> Hotkeys ->Global -> Camera.

Once here you should see a screen similar to the picture below.

If you scroll down a bit, you will notice that Locations can be created using the key combination Ctrl+Shift+F1. Personally, I find this combination of key a little difficult to utilize. I have found that changing this bind to simply Shift+F1 makes these hotkeys a lot easier to utilize. Since I only use 4 location keys, I change locations 1 – 4 to this binding. Once that is complete, if you scroll down a bit more you will find the “Jump to Location #” hotkeys. I would recommend changing these to the simpler F1 – F4. This allows you to instantly jump to a location that has been set up by pressing the F1 – F4 (depending on which location you would like) key. Once these are set up, you are ready to give them a try. Start a custom game and gives these new bindings a try before utilizing them on the ladder.

The next topic I would like to discuss is Control groups. Control groups allow you to assign a group of units or buildings to a number key for easy access. For Example, at the beginning of every game (before the auto glhf), I tend to click the nexus build a probe and immediately hit Shift+4. This binds the nexus to the number “4” key and allows me to easily continue to build probes throughout the game.

Once a unit or building is bound to a number, centering your screen on that unit is rather easy. By double tapping a control group, the camera view will instantly center itself around the unit or group of units. This technique allows for players to switch between multiple units of interest extremely quickly. Pro players utilize this technique to have clear vision of everything within their units’ vision.

Below is the video series episode that discusses control groups and location hotkeys. This video will help you get started with setting up the location hotkeys as well as walk through a brief demonstration.

As a requirement to this Back to the Basics series, I would like you (yes, you the person reading this) to open up Starcraft 2 and create a custom game and give these mechanics a try. Once you have given it a try, come back to this article and let me know how it went. Also, feel free to leave any questions if you have any.

For more Starcraft 2 content and updates on tutorials and live streams feel free to follow me on Twitch and YouTube:

• Youtube.com/SC2Cha0s
• Twitch.tv/ChaoSC2

Have fun on the ladder!

Andre “Cha0s” Hitchcock

The Sentry’s Force Field ability is probably one of the most important tools Protoss has. It can be used to defend when an early attack could not otherwise be defended or to assault your opponent while forcing their army into a bad position.

Games can hinge on good Force Fields, it’s not uncommon that an incorrectly placed Force Field will cost a Protoss player the game. It is crucial for your progression as a Protoss player to at least have a decent grasp on Force Field use.

In preparation for this article I looked at a lot of games from three professional players well known for their near-perfect Force Field use: White-Ra, iNcontrol and oGsMC. I have also been doing a lot of work on my own Force Field use, with great results.

How To Cast Force Field

Assuming ‘F’ is the hotkey for Force Field (F is the Default) the to best ways to cast it are:

• ‘F’ > Click each Force Field individually, or,
• Hold ‘F’ down and click for each Force Field you want to cast.

This is purely personal preference, I use the first option because I feel it makes me place each Force Field a little better than if I use the second option. Try both and decide which is more comfortable for you. Do not ‘Shift+F’ Force Fields as it causes the Sentries to cast after they kill the current unit that they are attacking.

How Many Sentries are Needed?

The following is based on my experience and my observations on professional Protoss players. I give a range of recommended Sentry counts so that you can adjust depending on how good your Force Field placement is. If you are not confident that you can be very efficient with your Force Fields use the higher Sentry count suggested.

• When defending one base with a ramp 3-4 Sentries is enough to block the ramp for as long as you want.
• When moving out to take an expansion a minimum of eight Sentries is recommended against Zerg. Eight will allow you to have enough Force Fields to easily defend any Zergling attacks and small Roach pushes for a good amount of time.
• When moving out to attack or secure further expansions 8-10 Sentries is recommended to effectively apply the techniques discussed in this article. This is true in any matchup, especially when you are using Colossus in your army. Effective Force Fields will greatly amplify the effectiveness of Colossus.

Force Field Techniques

The Force Field ability is very versatile and its uses are only limited by your creativity. The following are common techniques that you can use to great effect.

Ramp Block

This is the most simple of the techniques and only requires a bit of timing to do well. Force Fields are used to block enemy forces from coming up (or going down) a ramp. You can place the Force Field to completely block enemy troops or you can attempt cut the army in half as it comes up the ramp netting you a few easy kills.

In the same game WhiteRa uses a Force Field to trap a few Zerglings on a ramp. Easy kills.

Open Field Block

Used to prevent enemy forces from engaging with your army or to prevent flanks. This technique should be used when you want to completely avoid an engagement or if your troops outrange those of the enemies, a common thing for Protoss. You can improve the effectiveness of this technique by utilising chokes, walls or buildings to help block the enemy’s movement.

Zerglings can easily be blocked by using Force Fields in the choke created by the gateway

oGsMC blocks off the Roaches allowing his Stalkers and Colossus to attack freely.

Cut and Trap

Using Force Fields you can cut an enemy’s army in half and trap some of the units to be easily killed by your Zealots. Using this method you can safely chip away at the enemy’s forces whilst taking minimal damage yourself. You can also trap any units caught off guard by creating a concave of Force Fields behind the enemy’s units. I group these two techniques together because cutting an enemy’s army is the same as trapping a portion of it. Using these methods you will never have to engage the enemy at his full strength.

oGsMC uses Force Fields to trap a few roaches that are separated from the Zerg's main army.

In this game I manage to cut a few units off from my enemy's army giving me easy kills.

Bottleneck

A bottle neck is essentially a small choke, it restricts movement to your enemy’s army and causes them to bunch up into a gap. This technique works with splash damage from Colossus or Psi Storms and it also tempts all but the most experienced of players into engaging when they should be pulling back.

The bottleneck created here forces the Terran opponent to either pull back or fight a bad engagement.

Here multiple bottlenecks have disrupt the enemy's arc and maximise the effectiveness of the Colossus.

A Few Tips

Following this advice can help you use your Sentry’s energy more efficiently and help you to have better engagements.

• Troop Movement is extremely important: engaging at chokes or near walls will make your Force Fields much more effective.
• As the enemy approaches throw down one or two Force Fields pre-emptively, then if he continues past those complete the cut. This makes cutting his army easier as it makes a temporary choke-point.
• Try to not overlap your Force Fields, doing so wastes valuable energy that could be used on more Force Fields or Guardian Shield.
• If you have High Templar in a control group casting Force Field becomes difficult, set your Sentries to a different control group to make using Force Field quicker and easier.
• Calm Force Fields are well placed ones. Easier said then done. Try breathing out before you spam them everywhere.

When Force Fields DONT Work (Or, How To Deny the Protoss Force Field Use)

In the following situations Force Fields will hinder you or flat-out not work, avoid over producing Sentries if you encounter one of these.

Against Massive Units

Colossus, Thors, Ultralisks and Archons (as of patch 1.3.3) are all ‘Massive’ class units and will break Force Fields upon contact with them. If your opponent is leading their attack with these units do not Force Field, instead use your energy on Guardian Shield and Hallucinations.

Against Siege Tanks

Siege Tanks are generally stationary and have a long range, using Force Fields when facing a large number of tanks will help your opponent more than you. However, if you can, use Force Fields to prevent Terran’s units from pulling back into range of their tanks using the Cut or Trap techniques.

Against Air

Yep. Doesn’t work against air units.

When Your Opponent is Highly Mobile

This one is a little different. If your enemy is playing a highly mobile game (using fast units and drops or other harrasment) Force Fields become limited in their usefulness overall. You can still use a few Sentries to prevent some attacks but most mobile players will simply attack elsewhere. In this situation limit your Sentry production and instead focus on your own mobile units to counter or build up for an attack.

Has Force Field use been something you have struggled with or are you the oGsMC of your division? I am still having trouble with making sure that I don’t overlap them too much. Let me know about your Force Field skills in the comments below!

A special thank you to Ramzdale for helping me get a few of these awesome pics!

In another article (“Getting Used to the Keyboard in Starcraft 2”) I talked a little about the Shift key and if you have been playing SC2 for a while you probably have a bit of an idea of how versatile it can be. Players are still coming up with creative new ways to use the functionality of the Shift key, it’s just such a great tool. If you are keen to improve your play, then you should try and take advantage of what the Shift key can do for you.

What the Shift Key Does

Before we move onto all of the nifty things that you can do with Shift lets take a brief moment to understand the mechanics of what it actually does.

Shift basically ‘Adds’ something to a list

In nearly all situations holding ‘Shift’ tells the game to ‘add’ something to a list. This list could be a list of commands or it could be a list of units/structures. There are a few situations where it acts a little differently but this is its main function. For example, ‘Shift-clicking’ a Marine whilst already having a Marine selected adds it to your current selection group. However, ‘Shift-clicking’ an already selected Marine will Deselect it. So in that situation it acts in reverse to its normal function.

Shift can be combined with other Keys

Using the Shift key with other keyboard keys can produce some interesting results. For example, “Shift-[Control group ‘1-0’]”. While ‘Control-[1-0]’ creates a control group, using Shift with a control group number will ADD the current selection to that control group. Use this frequently to ensure that all of your units are bound to a control group.

Now that we have that covered we can move on to the ways that you can use the Shift key to ‘pwn n00bs’ in SC2.

Using the Shift Key: The Basics

The following uses for Shift are more than just ‘cool’ or ‘tricky’, these are the crucial things that you should use every game if you want to play well.

Hands Free Scouting

You can queue up multiple move commands with any unit by holding the Shift key and right clicking for each point you want the unit to move to. Using this your unit can scout for your enemy’s base, proxy buildings and expansions without your direct control, freeing you up for more important things. You can even do this via the mini-map!

Attack-Move Scouting

This is merely a variation on the previous Shift technique. Instead of queueing up multiple Move-commands you can queue up multiple Attack-move commands. Simply press ‘A’ (or your equivalent attack hotkey) and left click each point you want your unit to attack move whilst holding Shift. You can use this technique to find and attack any stray workers or Overlords around the map. Having a few units Attack move scouting around the map can really help you maintain map control and deny your opponent’s scouting attempts.

Queuing Buildings

This works best for Protoss and can be useful for Terran but if you’re Zerg you’re not going to get too much use out of this one. To do this simply hold shift every time you place an additional building and your worker will add them to their ‘to-do’ list. I’ll run with the Protoss example because it works so nicely for them. You can tell one worker to build a heap of Pylons at once or you can easily place different buildings such as a Pylon, a Nexus and 2 Assimilators (Instant Expansion, just add water!™). It works the same way for Terran, but much more slowly due to the worker having to physically build each building. Unfortunately for Zerg each Drone can only morph into one building.

Automatic Return to Mining

This is most useful for Terran, quite useful for Protoss but, again sadly, of no use to Zerg. Once you give the order for a worker to construct a building hold Shift and Right-click a mineral patch. Once your worker is finished building he will return to mining with no downtime. You should be doing this 100% of the time, so start getting into the habit!

Using the Shift Key: The Fancy Stuff

Leapfrogging Siege Tanks is much faster using Shift.

The following uses of the Shift key can be extremely useful but usually only in a very specific circumstance. Take the time to learn the ones that are relevant to you Race and play-style.

Easy Siege Tank Movement

Using Shift you can tell a tank to un-siege, move, and re-siege on arrival. Moving your Tanks in this way allows you to leap-frog your tanks towards your opponent much more easily.

To perform this technique you select a Siege Tank and whilst holding shift  press ‘D’ (Un-siege), issue a move-command and then press ‘E’ (siege-mode).  A tank army pushing forwards using this technique can be quite hard to engage.

Smart Blink

This technique allows an entire group of Stalkers to Blink across a gap one at a time without leaving any behind. It is quite a complex technique to explain and its best done in this video by StarcraftScientist. This is an awesome technique to watch and even better to execute.

Overlord Creep Highway

Spine Crawler, Hydra, Queen pushes are only possible with a fast creep highway.

You have probably watched Fruitdealer or another top Zerg player use Overlords to make a creep highway to their opponents base, but if you have attempted it before you probably realised how fiddly it is to tell each Overlord to go to each point along the highway.

However, there is a much faster and easier way to do this. Select a large group of Overlords and tell them to generate creep. Now send the entire group to the first point on your highway. Now, holding Shift, de-select one Overlord and then tell the rest of the group to move to the next point. Continue for each point along the intended highway.

It only takes a few seconds to set this up and the result is that the entire group travels along the highway leaving one Overlord behind at each point.

Move To and then Patrol

Using the patrol command will cause a unit to patrol between its current location and the selected one. Using Shift you can tell a unit to move to a location and then patrol from that location. Simply tell the unit to move where you want it to start patrolling from then hold Shift and press “P” (Patrol) and left-click where you want the unit to patrol. You can use this technique to easily tell a unit to patrol between two of your opponents potential expansion locations.

Kill That Constructing SCV

Ever notice that your melee unit stops attacking the constructing SCV when it moves? Simply hold shift and tell your unit to attack it multiple times. Your unit will now follow it whenever it moves. Deny the Terran’s wall-off with 50% more ease!

Rally to Your Units

You may already employ the tactic of attaching a rally point to a unit so that your forces stay together even when you move your army. But what happens when that unit dies? You lose your rally point. This can be especially painful when you lose a battle because half of your units are back in your base.

To avoid this you can select a building, hold Shift and Right-click on multiple units. Now if one of those units dies, your newly built units will still move to your army. Unless of course your entire army dies.

Easy Drops

Want your untis to drop as soon as your Medivac/Overlord/Warp Prism arrives? Simply tell your loaded transport to fly to where you want to drop, hold Shift, Press “D” (Drop) and left click at the drop point. With the Warp Prism you can also hold Shift and press “E” to tell it to enter Phasing mode after it unloads.

Similarly, you can tell a Viking to fly to a location and then transform upon arrival using the same technique of Move > Shift + “D” (Assault Mode).

As you can see there are a lot of useful and creative uses for the Shift key. I am sure that there are even more creative uses that are yet to be discovered. Do you know of any other uses for the Shift key? If so let me know about them in the comments below!

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!