StarCraft 2: Control Groups, Production & Hotkeys Tutorial!
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 8 พ.ค. 2019
- Let's talk about hotkeys, control groups and how to produce stuff.
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In this video I explain the difference between ctrl, shift and alt key modifiers in StarCraft 2. I also go over how to use this to rally Zerg cocoons with your main army. After that I go over selection and deselection units and spread them around the map. I also cover camera hotkeys, Queen injects and how to put Drones in gas quickly.
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StarCraft 2 is a military science fiction real-time strategy video game developed and released by Blizzard Entertainment.
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I play SC2 for years without knowing the existence of Alt+num. now defending terran drop is easier. Thanks lowko
me too
Me too
You young bucks don't know how good you have it. Back in my day, we had to walk uphill both ways to create control groups, and we were only allowed 12 units per group!
Also, in all seriousness this goes a long way to explain how you're able to bounce around so quickly when you're playing. Thanks for the very useful protips.
I only started SC2 recently (as in weeks ago), and figured out the control and shift - the alt key was news for me!
Thanks Lowko!
What a great video ^_^ Would surely recommend to any players struggling with control groups, especially zergs.
You didn't mention ALT+SHIFT modifier though. ALT+SHIFT removes selected units from their control groups and adds them to a different group. E.g. you have lings and roaches in group 1 and hydras in group 2. If you select the roaches and press ALT+SHIFT+2, you'd have lings in group 1 and roach+hydra in group 2. This is very useful for rejoining your armies when you have had to split them up earlier, e.g. reacting to drops or doing multi-pronged attacks, or if you just made a mistake and your control groups are currently a mess.
Also, to remove units from control groups I have a designated "trash" control group, which is group 10. I have Alt+~ (the key to the left of 1) instead of Alt+0 bound for the group 10, so I can select a unit or a bunch at any time and move them away from their control groups. In the watchtower example you mentioned earlier, you: 1) right-click all the lings on the watch tower, 2) shift-click one of them, 3) make the rest of the lings stop or go the other way and 4) press Ctrl + the correct control group to exclude the ling from the group. What I do is just 1) select one ling, 2) send it wherever it needs to be and 3) press Alt+~.
For camera hotkeys, I followed the same setup at first but later found that 1) for longer games 4 base cameras are insufficient (and break my macro) and 2) F-keys are just a bit too far away to reach comfortably. So instead I have 8 cameras on QWERASDF keys, with Ctrl+key to save the camera and Alt+key to restore it. Never heard of anyone using a similar setup, but it has improved my macro a lot, taking away much minimap-clicking pressure to inject and reallocate workers. This doesn't conflict with anything at all, to the best of my knowledge.
Oh and btw I have my CapsLock act as a Ctrl key: it's much easier to reach :p
Nice, didn't know about new Alt combination. Suggestion: you could have your keypresses on screen for beginners to really see what you are typing at what moment
I bought SC2 just to finish the campaign and haven't played ever since. Now I missed to play this and I want to be a little competitive in Co-op games and even against hard AIs. I just want to say thank you for your great tutorial videos. It really helps noobs like me.
Wow been playing SC2 wrong all this time! Thanks Lowko!
As always, quality content.
I have some questions:
Can you make a video where you manage casters?
What army units should be lumped together?
How many army hotkeys do you make and based on what? I usually keep my hatcheries in 4, my queens in 5 and 1-3 army (when I don't forget to create the groups).
I'm a garbage platinum zerg, however I usually use 4 hotkeys for army (1-4). I do this because 1 and 2 are for main units/harass units, if I create corruptors in late game I want them on 3 and eventually I don't want vipers in the corruptors' group, so I create a special group for them (4th). If I use both ground army (1), broodlords (2), corruptors infestors and vipers I usually put infestors on 3 and corruptors/vipers togheter in 4, but then I need to micro them well in order to not kill vipers.
@@yellowintherealm9596Close to my hotkey setup as well - I am SUPER BAD but for Zerg I typically have melee (or frontline, if I'm running roach/hydra) on 1, ranged ground on 2, mutas/lurkers/infestors/vipers/swarm hosts (stuff you have to babysit, basically) on 3, Broods/Corruptors on 4, hatches on 5, queens on Mouse 4. I should probably rebind Mouse 5 to something specifically for casters.
@@yellowintherealm9596 pretty close to what I do as well. Ground army in 1, broodlords in 2 and casters or corruptors in 3. But I feel like it's note very effective. Specially when I need to split my army. It just messes up the keys.
@@salvation122 what's that about the mouse buttons? How does it work? This is new information for me.
QuALiTY ConTEnT
I legit did not know you could make Starcraft units dance O_O
guess you're not a nerd :D
@@matespider
How dare you! I am most definitely a nerd! Got a card and everything.
/dance in chat ;)
I think you need a degree in nerd to be one these days
you have to unlock dances for different units by getting xp though
Lowko explaining alt+number hotkeys at 4:08
"this is very useful especially when you play Zerg once again or if for example use the whole army hotkey and you're playing Terran or Protoss"
Ok there Lowko
True tho Kappa
Just decided to properly learn Zerg today. Thanks for the help!
Great video. I love starcraft 2 and warcraft 3 I just dont have a strong enough computer to play and stream. But I love watching your videos.
starcraft 2 and especially warcraft 3 doesn't use much computer power. nowadays even potato can run it
A 700$ PC can handle it fine.
@@JL-ef7bh I CAN HANDLE IT WITH A 2015 PC ^^
I play Star Craft 2 with a 2011 PC.
@@dramalexi So you are one of those entitled idiots who join a coop game with a bad pc/connection and makes his partner wait for 5 minutes on a loading screen. Jokes on you, i instantly exit a game if encounter someone with a potato, so they wasted someone else's time for nothing. I hope you guys will realize what comes around, goes around.
I... I didn't even know about ctrl+ nor alt+ control groups, yet I somehow knew about shift+.. thank you Lowko is all I know to say 😅
Lowko, I like how you mentioned using control groups for unit-producing structures. When I learned that I could put my structures in control groups and essentially produce units without so much as glancing at my base or even clicking, my efficiency went up MASSIVELY. I can now micro (read as target-fire because I'm shit at actual micro lol) my army across the map while reinforcing it back home. It's amazing!
"How would your opponent not know to leave the game if you don't have units dancing inside of his main base?"
A question for the ages.
Haven't played since launch and first time watching sc2 youtube videos. Gotta say my jaw was on the floor the whole time. I had no idea.
Dude the first thing you went over was already a game changer haha. I knew the basics I guess haha
Great video. Please do another one showing how to load up medivacs in a hurry!
I started playing starcraft 2 because of u 1 year ago and this video will help me improve a lot
1:40 sir you already blew my mind. I played starcraft like... i dunno 2 years after it‘s release the first time and touched it every now and then... but the shift 1 thing... maaaen
Do you read my mind??!! This is exactly what I needed since I came back to sc2 the other day. Thankss
Maaaann I always wanted to know which hotkey you use for base camera ,I finally found it out this will be super useful thanks lowko!
This is the best explanation I've found so far, thank you
Lowko you're a legend. A Fantastic hotkey/binding tutorial.. a must in order to efficiently and effectively utilize sc2 mechanics.
Happy to help Ariel!
just started playing SC2 (never played either b4) and gotta say this helped immensely, im just doing campaign right now but this made a big difference
Getting back in SC2 after not having really played since WoL and I was going nuts trying to remember how to jump to next base so my injects didn't suck. Also didn't know about splitting stuff out with Alt. This was extremely helpful. About to go see how much my performance improves on ladder.
YES! The video we all wanted to see! Much love
Yeah, tutorial again!
How I started watching your videos was the raoch push back in the days.
Great to see more tutorial.
Hey, thanks for the video. I just started playing and you probably saved me years of fumbling in the dark :)
This was soooo very useful.. I really needed this... New to SC2 and didnt know how this was done.. Much thanks..
very useful . it's very wierd that there is no guide for this inside the game
Informative video, would be interested in seeing updated tutorials such as this regarding SC2
Great tips bro, I unbind F2 as it was something I've been relying on for the past week as a new player.. learning micro and macro.. it's tough but thanx for the great tips.. :)
More of this for Tos please!
Mind bliwn. Thank you. So much to learn in SC2
Thank you so much for this video ! Exactly what I needed to learn. Now to practice !
You sir deserve this thumbs up!! Please make more of these!! 😍😍😍
I knew there was a reason I followed you, other than your great commenting and awesome videos. Thanks Lowko!
Your videos are phenomenal, Lowko!
I really liked this video, thank you very much Lowko, this definitely will improve my QoL
It's so easy to play this game for years without practicing fundamentals, theirs a reason there's so many options in setting for gameplay. It's has a lot of mechanics! It's not till I unbound f2 and started practicing control group selections and micro work that my game improved, even after years of watching pros play.
you didn't mention *Shift + Alt* , it's damn useful to move units from group A to B without resetting B (I use this to move morphing broods from corruptors group to broodlords group, same for lurkers and sometimes with baneling in early game)
Indeed most underrated hotkey combination, I love it and use it all the time. :)
I think this is what I came here looking for. Im new to the game and my issue is I accidentally add units to my hatchery control group. I want to be able to remove them from that control group and add them into the correct control group without resetting it and havent figured out how to do this.
I find this useful and I don't even play SC :)
thank you very much LowkoTV
Thank you for the Tuorial Lowko
still great info years l8er. as always ty for your hard work and dedication
nice vid, this helps thx Lowko!
Really useful! Thank you Lowko!
Thank you! This is exactly what I'm looking for :)
That is so helpful, thank you lowko!
I've been playing StarCraft with just control. Shift and alt? Amazing! More to practice....
try also "Shit+Alt", damn useful for morphing units you want to move from A to B without resetting B (broods, lurkers, banelings in early game)
great video, thanks man
Gladly I learned this on your earlier video, I believe it was 2 years ago? It was from there that I got no issues when it comes to macro production.
*Tips for other races:* you can use the same layout groups for other races but it changes with 5+ number groups, I mean, 1 for main army, 2 for secondary army or spellcasters, 3 for special units(medivac, warp prism), in case you have more than 1 spellcaster like ghosts and ravens, let 1 type in main army and the other on 2 or 3 group, you can use TAB to switch ability units on the same group but the earlier is more effective.
*Macro:* keep the main buildings on 4 and production buildings on 5(gateway, stargate, robo) and use TAB to switch between them, while the upgrade buildings goes on 6.
In case if you want to use units around the map but they aren't harassing units like observer or those zerg clones, use rest of the groups you haven't used yet, the more flexible you get with your keyboard, the less time is wasted on a single screen and useless clicks.
ty, learned a lot from this video
never play this game but still watch this , no homo
Thanks for the last tip it makes me win
Wow, I didn't know about control-clicking on a unit to select only that type of unit or about alt-clicking, and I'm platinum... then again, I main Protoss, so I have actually unbound all keys except F2 and A anyway.
double click a unit type will also select all the selected unit type
shift+ctrl click will deselect all the selected unit type
doesn't matter if you're protoss or not, but this is especially important in starcraft in general
Thank you for the info, I was losing my mind trying to figure this out. There's no way a game like Starcraft 2 doesn't have unit grouping options, lol.
MIND BLOWN!
The alt hotkey blew my mind. God damn....
Mind blown! Thanks had no idea about most of this content. Would double thumbs up if I could!!
Holy shit! alt + (ctrl group n°) is so useful o.o I always end up using the "all army" key at some point, which works fine in zerg usually, but when I play protoss I always get my observers going back to my base because of that. Being able to regroup my unit and then ditch the observer seems like a super useful thing to do
And yeah I should try to unbind the "all army" key at some point x)
love this remakes videos are the best
Didn't even know all army hotkey existed until recently, been playing on and off since WoL lol
Glad to see the latest comment here! This game is still so damn alive in Korea.
The one thing I didn't know was the camera location trick, been wondering that for awhile.
finally a clear explanation.
don't take advice from someone who's not GM, my guy
Thanks for this :)
It's also useful to do the deselect unit move for managing workers. Select 6, sending to one gas, deselect 3 and send them to the other.
I’m new and terrible so thank you this video is helpful
I love this guys voice
that was your well earned sub
Mind reader - I was literally looking for ways to improve my micro today and BAM notifications for the win.
Love this kind of teaching video. can you do a similar one for Protoss?
ty i realized there is unit management segment in global i learned a lot today
Are you going to make hotkey guides for the other races?
He normally plays zerg. But he might know about the other races.
@@valis2311 for terran, you need to do a control group of barracks/factories/starports. you can either put them all in 1 control group and cycle through them by pressing TAB or each have its own control groups. unlike zerg where you have cocoon, terran units produced 1 by 1 in a queue. there are 2 common way terran set their rally points.
1.so what terran player usually does is to set rally point to a location lets say in front of your base and then set a camera hotkey to that location. that way, when your units spawn it will immediately gather to the rally point. so you simply can use the camera hotkey, grab the units and put it into a group.
pro tip: this is INnoVation's(i'm sure you know him) style. he builds a supply depot in front of his base, usually inside the wall but could be outside as well. he then sets rally point to the lone supply depot, make sure the supply depot is lowered so that units can clump easier. that way, when the unit spawns it will go towards the supply depot achieving the same thing. the big difference is that, if the supply depot got destroyed with your opponent units still there, your units instead of marching to its death will just spawn at its production facilily.
2. set the rally points to the existing units. click on shift set rally to multiple units are common practice. that way when the unit die, the spawn units will automatically rally to the next rally unit in the queue. should all the units in queue died. your units will just spawn at the production facility. use this method when you're being aggressive
these 2 methods are best to use interchangeably in a match. though if you're still new you can just stick to method 1 first
@@ryomasjibeng8343 Amazing tips. This will also work for protoss for sure with the exception of the units clumping together on the lowered supply depot.
How do you assign the new units to your control groups, though? just box them and shift add when they come to your army? I wish there was something more reliable.
@@buttonasas for toss, stargate and robo i usually just rally to a pylon. For warp ins gateway units, while they're warping, i either use double click, ctrl + click or just simply boxing it. Boxing is the one i use if i warp multiple unit types. If its just one unit type, double click or ctrl + click is what i use
How du i activate that stuff in the right down corner?
There is a good reason for the All Army hotkey. Sometimes you misclick and newly produced units aren't properly added to your desired control group. You can use All Army after they are created to easily add them by control clicking off the other units. I use it for this frequently.
hey a dumb question... how can i see the hotkeys available on the bottom right of his scree? its when you see (attack, patrol, move, ext...) its literally black for me...
so helpful
Thank you very much
Great video, i may not ladder player, but coop mutation do need these skills to get better result toi.
I have my bases on space bar too, makes it a lot better
I know you are a zerg player but I know you know a lot of SC2 xD so would you probably do a hoykeys and CG terrans video, please I very like your channel and how you explain SC2!! Regards from Costa Rica!!
Important to dance in your opponent's main base. Meaning he'd be mad if you didn't😂
you know lowko… I've never seen you play sc1 in a long time
Can you do one for Protoss as well Lowko?
This was a really helpful video thanks, how do you remove a unit from a control group, if you have no idea where the unit is on the map?
I have for a very long time used the main hatchery on group 1, all hatcheries on group 2 and armies on 3 - 5. Now I´m trying to unlearn the "main hatchery on group 1" routine.
Use what hotkeys you feel comfortable doing, changing them doesn't really make you better at the game.
THANK YOU... Please do one for Terran
Hey lowko great contet as always, just quick question, how to u add the 4th hachery? u had 3 in the hotkey and u added the 4th...
I'm trying your hotkey setup and it is super hard from playing with the "standard" layout since I started sc2 two years ago. But I feel like it will make me a better player if I master it.
Hmmm i didnt know this, the rallying trick isnt useful for anything but zerg but the rest is pretty damn useful since i didnt know about this, now i can become better than serral after w months, thanks lowko
Can you or someone please explain how to add units that are still producing into an existing control group? Like basically setting its rally point as a control group?
I feel like you did it at 6:17 but every time I try to shift + 1 it adds the buildings to the control groups instead of the units... hope the question makes sense.
Is there a way to select one unit in a group and remove it from that group? without having to remake the whole group?
Thanks, Just started playing.
jajaja... I did'nt know about the Dance, I will use in all me matches :-)
Ok so I'm newer to starcraft 2 and I had a question about the maps. On some of the maps there are glowing dismantled pillars, and when your troops move close to them they build together. What do the pillars do. Do they have buff abilities or are they just aesthetics?
04:45 Mind Blown
Do terran hotkeys pleaseeee, coached by a pro main terran if u want
jabenX Yes I would like have there more videos about hotkeys of other races.
1-3 are your army hotkeys. 4 is all your combat production buildings. 5 is your economy production buildings (CC, nexus) 6 is your tech buildings (engineer bay, armory, cybernetic core, forge.
You hit tab when under a control group to select the different buildings or units. Now you can control your whole base while moving your army with camera over army.
So, how do I do this Shift + 1 that you do with the cocoons with terran or toss units? can I select rines inside a barracks or zealots inside a warp gate?
I play terran and i like to shift click 3 tanks to be the rally point of the barracks so the new units go there.
Also use the all army hotkey to then isolate all the tanks and make a separate group.
Hi guys, Lowkos tip on unbinding the All Army hotkey is the best thing you can do once you learned how to macro! Give it a try :-)
Do you ever use the minimap for queen injects? Or is that not as good?
Let’s say I accidentally add 12 zerglings to my hatchery hotkey. Is there a fast way to remove them? Whenever I do this I have to go back and restart my control group