Starcraft 2

Written by Evan “FCsTrYKe” Kim , A 700 point Diamond league player

When you don’t have a solid Starcraft 2 hotkey setup, the game can feel clunky and frustrating to play. You’ll end up losing battles you could have won, falling behind in unit production, and worst of all you’ll never reach your true gaming potential.

If you’re not using hotkeys to their fullest, you can start using them today to improve your game. In this guide, we’re going to talk about the two types of hotkeys, decent hotkey setups, and good habits which are guaranteed to improve your game.

The Basics of Hotkeys

If you don’t know anything about the Starcraft 2 hotkey system, I’ll give you a really quick crash course (if you’re already familiar with the hotkey basics, you can probably skip this part).

There are two types of hotkeys:

1. Number hotkeys
2. Letter hotkeys

The number keys, in Starcraft 2, are called control groups, and they remember your selections. Let’s say you have 8 marines selected – hit CTRL+4 and any time you hit 4, you’ll reselect that same group. Want to add some marauders to the group? Hit SHIFT+4 and the marauders will be added to the marines.

The letter keys let you access individual skills on your units and buildings. Every spell and command in the game has its own hotkey – for instance, you can build a pylon by hitting B (build) followed by E (build pylon). Using stim on some marines and marauders is activated by hitting T.

Let’s talk about each type in more detail so that you can figure out a system that works for you.

Setting Up the Numbers  in SC2

There are two important things to remember when using the Starcraft 2 number hotkeys.

1. The best system is the one which is the most comfortable for you
2. Plan out which numbers are going to hold what and stick with it

While you might be looking for the best hotkey setup, the fact is that there isn’t one. Different pros use different setups because they use whatever they find comfortable – this changes between different people due to hand size, comfort with using the higher numbers, and race.

If you need a solid setup to get you started, here are the ones which work for me at the mid Diamond level of play. I’ve included a sample setup for every race.

Terran Hot Keys:

• 1: Main Army (General Use)
• 2: Main Army (Tanks can go in here)
• 3: Specialty Units (Ravens, Medivacs, Ghosts)
• 4: Command Centers
• 5: All Barracks, Factories, and Starports

Protoss Hotkeys:

• 1: Main Army (Melee Units)
• 2: Main Army (Ranged Units)
• 3: Specialty Units (Sentries, Templar)
• 4: Nexuses
• 5: All Gateways, Robotics Facilities, and Stargates
• Note: Once you get warpgate tech, you can remove the gateways from your 5 hotkey. Starcraft 2 gives the warpgates their own special hotkey – “W”

Zerg Hotkeys:

• 1: Main Army (Melee Units)
• 2: Main Army (Ranged Units)
• 3: Specialty Units (Infestors)
• 4: All Hatcheries
• 5-0: Queens
• Note: When you want to inject larvae, double tap the number of the queen, hit V, click on the hatchery, and then double tap the number of the next queen.

Whatever number system you decide to use, you need to force yourself to use the system every time you need to move your army or produce out of a building. While at first, you’ll be tempted to click on your units and buildings to issue commands, resist that temptation.

Eventually you’ll get to the point where you don’t even think about the hotkeys anymore – at that point, the keyboard becomes an extension of your mind, which is something that will smooth out your play.

Working with the Letters

While the number keys let you select your units and buildings, the letter keys let you use their abilities quickly and effectively.

As a rule of thumb, you should never click on something you can hit using the letter hotkeys.

If you want to build a barracks, select your SCV, hit B (for build) followed by B (for barracks).

If you want to cast forcefield, select your sentry, hit F (for forcefield) and click where you want to place it.

Do NOT click on a spell, upgrade, or ability just because you don’t know what the hotkey is. Instead, hover your mouse over the spell and check what hotkey it’s mapped to. Then hit the hotkey for the spell. Over time you’ll naturally remember what the hotkeys are for everything, and you’ll be able to use your abilities on the fly as they’re needed.

Standard Hotkeys vs. Grid HotKeys

If you go into your options, you’ll notice that in the Starcraft 2 hotkeys section you have the option of changing your hotkey setup. The two setups we’re concerned with are the Standard and Grid hotkeys setup.

The standard keys are the ones which you’ve been using since the beginning. While some of the hotkeys don’t make too much sense (pylon is mapped to E), all of the hotkeys prioritize your middle and pointer fingers, making them very easy to hit.

If you haven’t heard of grid Hotkeys, they basically take the box in the lower right hand corner and map every icon to a grid on your keyboard. Explaining this system is a bit difficult, but becomes really obvious with a photo. In Starcraft 2 Grid Hotkeys are also referred to as GridKeys.

Some people prefer gridkeys over the standard keys because they’re very easy to learn – all you have to do is see where the hotkey you want to press is and then press the corresponding key on the keyboard. I don’t personally like them because you end up using your pinkie and ring fingers to hit a lot of the hotkeys, and since my pointer and middle fingers are more dexterous, I prefer the standard keys.

That said you should probably try out both systems and see which one works better for you – you’ll never know until you try it!

Combining the Number and Letter Hotkeys

If you’ve followed the guide this far, you have:

1. A number hotkey system that’s comfortable for you, and
2. You know that you should be using the letter keys to access every skill

All that’s left is to combine the numbers and letters together so you can perform actions quickly, easily, and without even thinking about them.

The process is actually very simple.

Step 1: Hit the number hotkey holding the unit/building you want to use

Step 2: Tab to the group of units/buildings you want to use

Step 3: Hit the letter key of the ability you want to use

Let’s go through some examples so you can get a good idea of how high level players handle their Starcraft 2 hotkeys.

Example 1: Using Chronoboost on your Gateway

If you play Protoss, you’ll need to chronoboost things all the time.

You’ll naturally be tempted to click on your Nexus and then chronoboost the building you want to chronoboost. Even if you’re chronoboosting the Nexus itself, avoid that temptation.

Instead hit your Nexus hotkey (if you’re following my sample setup, it’s on 4), hit the chronoboost hotkey (on standard keys, it’s C), and then click on the building you want to chronoboost.

Anytime you want to chronoboost anything, your fingers should automatically hit 4-C-click.

Example 2: Producing Units out of Barracks, Factories, and Starports

If you’re Terran, you need an efficient way to make units from all of your buildings. If you’re following my sample setup, all of your barracks, factories, and starports should be bound to 5.

When you need to make units:

1. Hit 5 to select your buildings
2. Build units from your barracks (A = Marine, D = Marauder, R = Reaper, G = Ghost)
3. Hit TAB to select your factories
4. Build units from your factories (E = Hellion, S = Siege Tank, T = Thor)
5. Hit TAB to select your starports
6. Build units from your starports (V = Viking, D = Medivac, E = Banshee, R = Raven, B = Battlecruiser)

If you only need to make units from your starports:

1. Hit 5 to select your buildings
2. Hit TAB twice to select your starports
3. Build units from your starports

Example 3: Casting Force Field and Psionic Storm in Battle

If you have sentries and high templar on the same hotkey, the templar will always come first and the sentries will come second. The same thing applies to every unit for every race – units will always group in the same order no matter when they were added to the group.

When you need to cast force fields AND storm:

1. Hit 3 to select your spellcasters (if you’re using my sample setup)
2. Hold “T” and click wherever you want the storms to be cast (you can keep clicking as long as your high templar have energy)
3. Hit TAB to select your sentries
4. Hold “F” and click wherever you want the forcefields to be cast (you can keep clicking as long as your sentries have energy)

When you ONLY need to cast force fields but you have both high templar and sentries:

1. Hit 3 to select your spellcasters
2. Hit TAB to select your sentries
3. Cast the forcefields

If you can master both the number and letter keys, you’ll see definite improvements in your play – go out there, try these new hotkeys, and let me know how it goes in the comments!

About the Author:

Evan “FCsTrYKe” Kim is a 700 point Diamond Random player and writes about Starcraft 2 Strategy at his blog. Follow him on Twitter for free Starcraft 2 updates!