Use of Shift-Actions

[verlorener.acc]

Hello fulks, till some days ago I thought shift was only use able to clone ur peons or to scout. Then I run over an article where I could get an idea what elso you can do with clone and cueue actions.

I went into the campain editor and made several scientific test.
The result was: cloning and cueuing actions makes it possible to perfectly manage attacks. Cloning allows you to simultaniusly spreed dark swarm in a short time all over the enemys base ( I worked this out and killed a mass goon toss with no effort, it was amazing !! cuz before i wasn*t able to manage mass swarming and attacking together. But with shift u can Time so good, you are able to manage 3 flank attacks at same time, or to swarm, blood bath, ensnare and crack ling almost the same time.........

So, i wanted to open a thread were further uses of shift actions and attacks can be talked over. My impression yet is, that if u can*t use shift actions, and your opponent does, in every offense he will be much ahead of you, cuz cueuing makes starcraft similar to chess, you can prevent the actions of the future ( togehter with cloning you can say : 12 bc yamato on each carrier (on yamato on one carrier), after emp, -->after yamato-->attack carrier-->after carrier killed-->retreat to xxx--->attack vital building xxx---> and so on ), way before the fight starts. So you can determine how the fight goes for the first 30 sec till mininute, giving you such an andvance.... it*s incredible. Hell , you are able to give the defilers the input for swarming the toss base, and after they move for doing so you have time for moving lings in, so that all actions happen together (swarming defence, aonother defiler moves through swar-->cant be attacked from ranged weapons, casting another swarm..... continues till all is swarmed, exactly at the time the first swarm is layed, cracks move in.... *wow*)

I was so impressed by the possibilities. I dont know why the use of those microes were never explained in that detail they are worth.
So, change it... Shift-attack should be a secret for Pros.

[Dezzick]

err, this is a double thread...

[Sambo83]

Is this the lite version of the other thread?

[Cpt.Chronic]

Hold shift when you focus fire, for instance in muta vs muta battles, then you can go make more units while your troops focus fire on their own.

[verlorener.acc]

Explaination of SHift actions:

cloning: cloning means to select a group of units -->give them an aim-->hold shift -->deselect one of the units-->give the rest another aim--->deselect one--> so on. An example for that is : you see that an opponent attacks a expo of yours with 8 carriers, you have 8 cruisers and 2 sci vessels, all have energy to cast yamato or emp, but they need time for travelling. So, with shift actions your able to easily predict the actions when they move in : short cut all cruisersers and vessels. Select all cruisers. Clone cruisers and advise them to yamato each carrier->and cue that after yamato they attack the carrier (one cruiser yamato on each cruiser), then u clone vessels for emp. If u time it well, you*ll see exploding all carriers just 15 seconds your force moved in. No losses, just few things to repair.

(attack plott for doing so :first-->tell vessles to follow cruisers(so they are near them all time)select all cruiser -->hold shift(all the time)-->select yamato attack--->aim one carrier-->push attack button-->aim same carrier--->push one of the units in the interface at bottom, it will be deselected, left with the instructions giving before-->yamato another one-->attack same--->deselct one cruiser with pushing its hud picture---> continue....... after done instructions for bc do this with vessels, but do not emp every carrier but use them to emp the whole area where the carries are

soo the attack will go like this when the fleet moves in: carrier (300 hp, 150 shields)--->emp(300hp,0 shields)--->yamato(300hp-260 yamato dmg)-->40 left-->2 shots from bc-->dead, happening to each carrier at almost the same time......... , this is NOT theoretical, it is really useable, i*ve done it some times before and train it since then (not only for bc but, this kind of giving battle plots)

---------------you need time for the instructions so that wont work if they are already in battle, and you need speed, but if u are trained/automized, all this should be possible to process in 10 seconds, the effect is one very efficient attack on the fleet in such a speed , the enemy wont be able to flee, and will be crushed in a way that he ll quit the game)



And the best is, if you really know how to use it, it is way easy to manage, you even dont have to be very fast, cuz u use the time for moving in for the prediction, so that when it comes to fight your force works as you have a micro speed of 500 apm ^^.

List of uses i got till know: mass use of speels in a predicted way-->yamato, epm, swarm, blood bath, ensnare, psy, lock down (with is only suitable with shift actions), Microing in long range battles, such as goon vs goon ---> when a smaller group of dragoons fight each other cue attacks, say-->first all attack goon 1-->after goon 1 killed--->all attack goon 2---->after goon2 killed..... Through that, you*r fire is focused trough the whole battle, and after the fight plot is given , you can macro in your base, the micro will do the comp. It is possible to survive a 6 vs 6 goons with 5 goons left through that, combined with the all know dancing goon (wich also gets improved by shift, through before i used it, i had to manage every singe unit to -->go away--> return to attack after enemy engage attacking the other units. THrough shift u can pick out the units way faster that are under gun fire and micro them together, giving you the time you need to do other things and that is needed to prevent the loss of goons, you weren*t able to micro cuz you were engaging another ones....
Cueue attack is best used for Air units, cuz land base units will have to move a lot of time, cuz they dont attack the nearest any more, but run to the advised aim for attack, giving them one second of no attack. SInce air can be stacked the problem of units standing in the way, preventing to go straight forward the frontier is no problem any longer...
From the doubled Thread

Another use is to distract. In a fight wich is uneven, you can lure some of the enemy units ot the battle zone and tell your unit to move circles (several waypoints given by shift cueue , giving you free hand in the real fight, without splitting your focus on the battle and having an eye on ur luring unit, which would be killed if it reaches the moving point and stands there till it is killed...)

Yeah, that are some uses. Hell, it improves the game to be so much more strategic, it is pure fun!

[Cpt.Chronic]

What a bunch of bullshit you just posted. Since you say this is not theory and that you have done it multiple times, I'd like to see your cloned yamato/emp vs carriers. I assume you have a replay? If not, we could play a game and I'll go carriers and you can show me how it's done. It's much more effective and easier to use two yamatos per carier so it completely destroys it. If you aren't lightning fast with your clone/yamato you could waste a lot of yamato shots.

[Sambo83]

heh.. actually I kinda like his "clone" of yammato and emp. It could work if he scanned the carriers from far away and cloned while he was in no danger of wasting shots. But I agree that it's probably complete theory that he's never actually done, and BC vs Carrier happens so rarely in PvT, that I don't even think I have a replay of a terran opponent who got a BC against me. (Other than this 2v2 islands game I played the other day, but I didn't save the replay and it was a huge island map...)

[Hawthorne]

Hm... VC vs C isn't a rare illusion.
One time me and 2 other guys(about a week ago) made a free for all game.
I was a zerg,the other 2 were Terran & Protoss.
After 40 minutes of evolving & whatnot I was ready to kill them with 36 mutalisk on max upgrades.
When I went upwards what do I see the terran with 10 battlecruisers against 12 carriers.
Well I just waited for one of them to win and I atacked with the mutalisks.
Well needless to say I eventually won thanks to hte hydras I had made just for emergencies & mutalisks.'

Too bad I didn't save the replay it would have been fun to watch :)

[Schwitzer]

Too bad I didn't save the replay it would have been fun to watch :)
Er... sounds like quite a boring game, to me...

[verlorener.acc]

To the point of the theory.

Sambos point is true. In fact, you need to see the carriers, and of course you need the time. That s why I said that they have to attack you (or scan while the micro , or an ally makes a parasite, what ever....)and that the cruisers neeed some time to travel, at least 20-30 seconds for a greater force.

I tried this out at a self made shift train map. It works. But you need a lot of predictions to use it efficient. More efficent using shift would be cloning ghosts with lock down, I agree. A better way for a emp and bc shift combo is to take out pylons from an protoss opponent, cuz once scouted you can aim then in fog of war. So the use is that you can take down his unit production before battle for example, to stop him training reinforcements, and that can be done in almost any tvp when you go cruiser vessel.......

In games I tried till now most mass swarm, as it is an area spell, you dont need to see the units to give the command.... And that works really good! I am sure that the cruiser vessel micro can be done in a normal game if the circumstances are right. But, hey, when you do you have a cruiser vs carrier ? I only wanted to show the possibilities!

Since now, Swarm, Blood Bath,EMP, Stasis, Ensnare, Psy Storm are the best spells for using shift, as long as they are area spells and dont need a permanent sight of the enemy force.And hell, that are a lot of suitable magics you can use in every attack.

[verlorener.acc]

Here a demo of dark swarm. It s a 1v1 zvt replay on starcraft , fle5. It is worth dln it, despite the fact that it*s a fast map, I am a micro gamer, so certain amusing actions will happen you are not used to see at those maps....... (no massing, but a lot of tactics, such as Muta-Queen infest, burrow slaughter of the terran and so on ^^)

PS: skip first 6 minutes, they are boring, cuz the t doesnt attack and me goes muta.

[Sambo83]

lol..

[Tushka_Nahola]

sound like the shift theroy would work better for recalling then anuthing else, send 4 arb's up have them recall one at a time without haveing to track down and select them

[Absolute.Zero]

Also, using a shift-click can be useful for sticky massing in EVOLVES. Just Shift-Click the beacon until it says way-point list full.

[Cpt.Chronic]

sound like the shift theroy would work better for recalling then anuthing else, send 4 arb's up have them recall one at a time without haveing to track down and select them What? That makes no sense. Just hotkey your arbs.

[Sambo83]

Nothing in this thread makes any sense.. I've been trying to ignore it.

[IceFlare]

K that stuff thats posted about the emp bc yamato crap against carriers is all bullshit. It would be easier to just select or hotkey 2 of ur bcs and target one carrier to completely annihalate it leaving u with 2:1 ratio of bcs to carriers and then u just focus fire to kill the rest. and if the battle is a long one where you micro, dun c how you could though, and you wait 50 seconds you could get all bcs to yamato one more time and its done, no need to bring along a sci ves just to emp, that 100 energy is better spent on dmatrix for one of your bcs taking heavy damage

[Schwitzer]

Hmm. Absolute.Zero's custom title is "Protoss Expert"...

[IceFlare]

he left out a keyword..... protoss UMS expert

[Sambo83]

Definately not. EMP is far more effective against carriers than DMatrix.

If you already have a science facility for upgrades then it's probably worth while to make like 2 vessels and get emp against carrier.

You're definately not going to go BC, that's just retarded

[ZeroCross]

Odd, I was under the impression that you could not put spells on a "shift+key" list. I tried issuing move commands to a ghost one time. I gave her about 3 waypoints to move to, then i entered a command while still holding the shift key to lock down a goliath, and she instantly forgot the move commands, and headed the opposite way of them directly towards the goliath to lock it down. Perhaps my computer was screwing up, please confirm.

[IceFlare]

Im pretty sure you can, the only noticible exceptions r seiging and burrowing which instantly cancel out any command you have already set