update: it turns out you cannot be a good starcraft player with 14 apm. Im 6-13 in bronze league. O well still fun game.

um... how exactly does one go about using the keyboard effectively in sc2? I sure don't know. I know of the hotkeys and the control group making but I don't know how to integrate the keyboard usage effectively while clicking on stuff with my mouse at all.

you need to hotkey your units but you also need to learn the designated hotkeys for each unit/action. what race are you?

As you continue to play you will refine your efficiency with your playstyle and what works for you.

You definitely need to get used to the hotkeys and use control groups. The control groups will allow you to use your production buildings without clicking on them. They will also be helpful in moving your units around.

Instead of click-dragging your units and then right-clicking to move, you should have them on a control group (usually 1-3) and then you just do "1 > right-click" or "1 > A+left click".

One quick tip that I never realized until recently. When you're moving units out to a location, say a watch tower, move there by A+Left Click. That way when your units get there while you're not watching they will auto-attack any units they meet up with.

hai bryce!

well hot keys are just shortcuts to make everthing faster and easier like pressing b, g for the probe to make a gateway instead of clicking on everything manually. and most importantly "a" for attack moving (im assuming you know this but just in case ) z to build a zealot s for stalker etc. that sort of stuff is just memorization but it makes life alot easier once you have it all down.

shift clicking is for multiple commands
like u tell a scv to make something and then after if u hold down shift and right click on a mineral patch the scv will go mine after its done. you can put shift commands for just about anything, like move a tank to a spot and hold shift and press "e" the tank will engage siege mode right after it arrives where u clicked.

"alt" is pretty important for microing cus it brings up the health/energy bars for all your units so you can micro during battles n such

hitting spacebar takes you to the last alert, some people use it alot but i kinda dont like it because sometimes you wanna go to where you just got attacked and it takes you to someplace stupid like a rax where a marine just came out

you alrdy know control groups so thats pretty much all i know how to use

why use alt when you can just have health bars always on?

its ugly :C

wow neato thanks for the tips. I especially like this post. I didn't know about the A= click thingy I was just clicking og there and dragging them with the mouse

a + moving is also the way to defeat a scv rush. Something I didn't know about in my first ever proper 1v1 game.

Im terran.
lol I recently played a game where Im not sure if the guy threw the game or not.Im like o say 60% confident he actually lost and 40% he threw it trying to move up to silver?

ok so this is that game. I tried hard to play quickly and ran a bunch of units into a wall and then I lose but instead of that I win. wtf. (i'm kansas drifter)

ok so for terran you should have control groups for your units and control groups for your buildings too. when i play terran i usually do all my CC/OC/PF's on 4, all my rax on 5 factories on 6 starports on 7. 123 are for units. its really important to hotkey your unit producing structures and learn the hotkeys for each unit so you can keep making units without needing to look back at your base.

Hi everyone,

I've got a question, but i don't think it's thread worthy so I ask it here :

My brother's got Starcraft 2, I tried it on my computer and really liked it so I decided to buy it. Though, I'd like to buy it in $ with moneybookers (but I live in Europe).

Is there any legit website that sell cd keys ? I've seen a lot of them but heard that most of them were scam.

Thank you.

follow up on blah's post about hotkeying buildings.
I do it a little different, I keep all military production to '1' and all CCs OCs and PFs to '2'. Upgrade structures go to '3'. Finally, army on 5-7.
Reason I like this is I didn't like having to hit 5 then 6 then 7 to see all my production
With all production on 1 key, you tab between your structures
So if I have 2 reactored rax, 2 tech lab rax, 1 tech lab fac, 1 reactored port I doing the following:
hit '1' to pull all of them up.
hit 'aaaadd' < 4 marines & two mauraders
tab < switch to factory
hit 's' <siege tank
tab <switch to starport
hit 'dd' < 2 medivacs
This works a little better for me, as I like to be able to very that all my structures are producing, which i can see by just hitting hotkey '1'

personally i've now used some of my mouse keys to rebind some of the far right keys like 0/backspace to my 4th/5th mouse buttons (i use logitech setpoint + uberoptions.net with an mx518). temporary solution until blizzard introduces custom mapped keys to the next patch which hopefully will allow me to map my mouse keys

and then i assign 0 to my command centers, backspace to center the buildings and stuff which frees up 1-3 for armies (I used to put CCs on 3 and kinda stuck with it out of habit), all production structures on 4 and the other keys for random stuff like a floating factory scout or ebay

backspace is soooo useful that i have no idea why blizz decide they should put the cycle buildings key all the way on the right side of the keyboard (tilde obv makes more sense)

Just buy directly from blizzard via digital download link? http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/

beat: i suck at starcraft 2

spaceman -

These are my thoughts as I'm watching. I play Protoss, so take my advice for what it's worth.

1. As soon as the game starts, send workers to minerals, start an SCV, and since your Command Center will be selected, right click your mineral line to rally your SCVs to the minerals automatically. (Good job on the initial CC hotkey, very nice). As you get used to it and it becomes automatic, you can start rallying the first and second SCVs to the mineral patches that are empty, then rally back to the middle.

2. Normal opening for Terran is the first depot on 10 supply. Since the only other thing you'll be doing up to that is making SCVs, you can just spam your "S" key so that your SCV will start as soon as you have 50 minerals.

2a. Since your first depot is at 10 supply, get your SCVs queued up as soon as you have those 50 minerals. Send your SCV early to the point you want to make your depot so that right at 10 supply and 100 minerals you can get it started.

3. You put down your depot at 9. Put it down at 10.

4. Keeping up with your SCVs is important, along with keeping your minerals down.

4a. You put down your first barracks early. Standard is at 12 supply. Not a huge deal at this point. As soon as you put down your barracks, put it in a control group and set your rally point to wherever you want your units to go.

5. Need to keep making SCVs. You should never stop. This will enhance your economy a lot.

5a. I believe the standard for a refinery is at 13 supply. You're getting these buildings out without making SCVs, which is hurting your economy. As soon as your refinery is done, immediately put 2 more SCVs on it. What I like to do is "click-drag over my mineral line to select a few workers, if I have more than I need I will 'shift-click' the picture on the bottom center to deselect them, then I will right click my gas, then click "C" so that if I picked any that have minerals, they will return the minerals first before going to the gas." NOTE: You always want 3 workers on each gas so try to get them on there asap.

6. As soon as your barracks is down, get a marine. This should happen at 15 supply if you're doing it efficiently. Also, at the same time, (15 supply) get your orbital command. After your first marine comes out you can usually get a tech lab at this time.

6a. Then your second supply depot at 16.

7. As soon as your orbital command is up, throw down a MULE onto your minerals.

8. If you put all of your barracks on a control group, you can constantly be producing units. Also, if you double click one, that will select them all, then you can right click to rally them all to the same point. You can also right-click a unit and your new units will rally to where ever that old unit is at.

9. Around 11:15, try to not let your units get separated like that. That is a recipe for disaster if he had been moving out too. Also, when you get to his base, try to regroup before going near the ramp. Not having all of your units there puts the advantage into his favor.

10. If you had your units on a control group (let's say 1), you could just "1 > A-left click behind his bunker and all of your units would attack. If you see that some units are stuck in the back and aren't firing, right-click your units up closer, then attack-click again, or you can right-click focus fire.

11. The next attack you were bottle necked on his ramp while he had a nice concave so that all of his units were attacking you. Best to retreat at that point. Another thing, on Jungle Basin, you could go around and break down his rocks and attack his expansion or surprise him from behind.

Your last push into his base, you had him supply blocked and since you were 1-1 with upgrades, you had the slight advantage over him. You would have beaten him even if he retreated the little bit of army that he had left, along with like 2-3 units that he forgot were sitting near your back rocks. His opening build wasn't as good as yours was. You were better than him whether you believe that or not.

I always like going into a custom game and playing against the AI to work on my builds and efficiency with my hotkeys/control groups. You can use that to practice.

I would suggest watching this: http://www.justin.tv/trumpsc/b/276046132 That is Trump (from 2p2) coaching a Platinum level player. You may pick up on some good information here. Hurry up and watch it before it disappears!

I could but :

- Can't buy it in $
- 30% more expensive on battle.net than on any regular store here in Belgium.

Thanks for the comments a bunch fx, really helpful

sc2 isnt like other blizzard games before, once you use a cdkey its burned forever and cant be tied to any other account. so you have to buy a new copy of the game somewhere, people selling just the key are prob scammers imo..

Well, I've heard that some websites were legit but i'm just not sure which ones

man I can't wait to try the 13 gateway build. that was ****ing hilarious.

oops, and the SCVs getting to attack when carrying a vespene barrel like Donkey Kong was priceless!!

Just a fun (but srs) question based on trying to apply real-life into SC2

Thoughts on T buildings that can lift off costing gas to move?