Do you feel slow when you’re playing StarCraft 2? do you like you’re wasting too much time scrolling from side to side, from your main to your natural and then to your third? We might just have the solution.

One of the main problems you may find in your gameplay is how to control your camera, how fast you switch from your main to a drop, or how you handle multi-prompt aggression attacking your opponent in his main, natural and third at the same time. Not being effective in those things may cost you the game, and not only in attacking positions. Putting yourself in the opposite situation also requires a good control of your camera, since you also can be under fire in 2 or more different locations or either having to evacuate an entire base while mobilizing your army and performing an aggressive maneuver like a drop.

All these things can be improved with one simple adjustment: Using camera hotkeys. Ok, lets start from the beginning:

1) What are cameras Hotkeys?

Just like in StarCraft 1, StarCraft 2 has camera Hotkeys, which allow you to quickly return to a given position in the minimap, independent from unit or building.

2) How do I setup the Camera Hotkeys?

The standard hotkeys are F5, F6, F7 and F8, you assign the locations using Ctrl+F5/6/7/8 and go to that position pressing F5/6/7/8. You can also have 4 more camera Hotkeys using the Shift+Ctrl+F5/6/7/8 to assign the position and use Shift+F5/6/7/8 to access those 4 extra camera positions.

3) Can I change those keys?

Yes, just like any other Hotkey in StarCraft 2 you can change them from F5, F6, F7 and F8 for a better position in your keyboard, such as F1, F2, F3 and F4.

4) Why should I bother using those hotkeys?

Well, if I didn’t convince you in the introduction give me one more chance.

If you don’t use camera hotkeys it is likely that you make use of one of these ways to navigate in the map:

Edge scrolling, double tapping buildings/armies hotkey or clicking on the minimap.

Lets take a look at how limited these navigation ways are:

Edge-Scrolling:

Your bases are under attack and you want to save your workers. You box selection to select all your workers and then you edge scroll to other base. While you were scrolling through the map to change form location you lost time, and time my friend is something you can’t waste in such fast paced game like StarCraft.

Double Tapping Hotkeys:

When you hotkey a build, an unit or even an army you can double tap the respective hotkey and instantly get to where it is. However what if you don’t have a specific location binded to a key? Like that edge in your base where your enemy is dropping, like that position in the map where players use to proxy warpgates/stargates/barracks/factory. You’ll also need a lot of hotkeys to keep the majority of your bases and army covered, which isn’t easy to handle for average/below average players.

Clicking on the Minimap:

The direct click in the minimap may seem to be the best way to navigate to a location in StarCraft, but it also have its cons. Even at your fastest you lose time while moving the cursor to the minimap to click in a specific location. Besides you can’t micro your army while issuing an order through the minimap. When you consider that the minimap area is less than 5% of your screen, the amount of repetitive movements that you will have to do during the entire game will be high, and it will increase with the amount of action required in the match.

All the problems we have just pointed out can be solved by using Camera Hotkeys. The harvester transference is easily done if you have setted to your main, natural and third. And the double tapping and clicking on the minimap can be solved with one characteristic of the camera hotkeys: just like the control groups, you can reassign the map position to one hotkey. Changing from the edge of your base where you are to an aggressive position where you plan to put a pylon, or open a nydus worm.

On the other hand if it is the first time you are rebinding your F1 and F2 keys you may be one of the players who use the idle work and then select all army buttons. Those two features are useful indeed, but they aren’t essential. As a player looking to improve your gameplay you should not use the F2 key at all, selecting your whole army might give you bad habits and also stop your current maneuvers.

Imagine yourself playing as a terran player, two medivacs going to drop into the enemy’s third and main at the same time his army reaches your base. Quickly you select your whole army by using F2 and send them to attack… ops, those two medivacs you sent to drop were also selected! See? In the middle of the fight you’re out-supplied by at least 20 (2 medivacs and 16 marines), your army dives into the fight and your dual drop, that should do the real damage taking economy down or forcing him to retreat, is flying back to your base.

And that not only happens with terrans, Zergs may have overseers spread around the enemy’s base, may have unburrowed lings in his enemy possible 4th or 5th that shouldn’t get out of their positions due to poorly issued commands. For Protoss it is pretty much the same, that warp prism with 4 zealots that is supposed to harass the opponent's main base starts to fly back, or the observers that you carefully placed around your base to spot incoming drops are now heading towards your main army and not doing what they are supposed to do. That is why you should avoid the “Select army units” key at all cost.

What about the Idle worker hotkey? That is one you may keep. But where? Just like you did with the F 1-through-4 keys, you can rebind it. There are alternatives like binding it to the grave button or to the esc button.

In a nutshell: Camera Hotkeys aren’t your savior, they won’t make you jump from gold to masters or anything like that. But they help, a lot. Naturally at the beginning it will be hard to get used to it, you will lose games due to the use of camera hotkeys - just like any other hotkey change you will struggle until you get used to it. But in the end it will make you faster and more responsive the incoming threats.