Dawn of War Codex

Hey people, I have a serious need to improve my micro skills.
Which are rather lamentable.
I mean I retreat wrong squad much too often and shit like this, which makes me angry and sad at the same moment.
So I want to ask all of you L3g1T pR0z to share some of your micro skillz
Do you use grid keys or not? How do you choose your squads? etc. Use mouse or keyboard? Any tips will be much appreciated.

i use personally use grid keys, although i know some players customize their keys, and using numbers to select squads is a must imo, gotta get dat double tap going on to see what's hitting the squad or whatever else could be happening.

Grid keys are always a good start. They make the game so damn easy.

With grid keys everything you need to press is on the left hand side of the keyboard. More or less. Globals you can all do with your left hand since they're the f1/2/3 etc keys, squad selection is also fast due to it being the numbers. same with all abilities since they become q/w/e etc.

Repair is kind of out of place on grid keys being the "h" key IIRC. I have a mouse wheel that can be clicked to the left and right so I just made it so that clicking my mouse scroll wheel to the left is for repair, that way while in a tight situation I can quickly start repairing my sentinel by sliding my right middle finger to the left.

I also have some customisable keys on the side of my mouse which I set to q and w and that my thumb can easily press. All in all it means that my left middle finger/index finger never have to move away from the number keys, so I can always cycle between squads. I swap between using my left thumb/little finger for hitting the ctrl/shift/tab and my left ring finger does whatever it likes (usually end up using it to hit esc though).

Once you've got your own efficient key layout the best way to maximise the speed at which you use this efficient layout is to practice using it. Again and again and again for thousands of hours.

P.S if you want a really cheap but great quality gaming mouse I recommend the Sharkoon Drakonia. Can't go wrong for the price.

Thanks for the tips! That was very useful.
And I agree - practice is the most important thing after all.

Or if you can find a mouse like this you can customize the keys on the mouse, and use grid hot keys. Makes the game alot easier and combos become faster imo.

http://assets.razerzone.com/eeimages/pr ... ght-03.png

since that is what i do. the 1236 and binded to qwer in that order. 4 is binded to h (repair). 5 is force melee. 9 in binded to T. 12 (which is going to get changed) is ALT X.

7 is squad 7. 8 and 10 is squad 8. 11 in squad 9. 12 is going to be changes to squad 10 (if I am able to get that many in some games).

But you can always group 2 squad together, like 2 shootas if needed.

i use default. other than repair being "P" which is damn far away from the left side of the keyboard, default is fine. I find selecting squads with numbers is really the only game in town. Remember that practice make perfect. =D Try to learn to micro individual squads instead of grouping them.

There's nothing wrong with the default keys if you're used to them, but I think grid keys would be easier to learn for a new player...

Depends if you have previous experience with keybinds in other games, I also use the default keys since they mostly make sense such a "g" for all the grenades in the game or "j" for all jumps/teleports etc.

It makes it easier for a new player to combine them in your mind.

Yeah, the way I learned gridkeys was to just press Q anytime I wanted to use an ability, if the wrong ability came out then I remembered to use W next time.

Ace of Swords wrote:Depends if you have previous experience with keybinds in other games, I also use the default keys since they mostly make sense such a "g" for all the grenades in the game or "j" for all jumps/teleports etc.

It makes it easier for a new player to combine them in your mind.

Noo it doesn't make sense because it takes much longer time to hit "j" or "g" than it takes hitting qwerty.

i used standard in CR, switched to grid with ret. took me less than a week to get used to it. it's very familiar if you play FPSs.

Toilailee wrote:

Ace of Swords wrote:Depends if you have previous experience with keybinds in other games, I also use the default keys since they mostly make sense such a "g" for all the grenades in the game or "j" for all jumps/teleports etc.

It makes it easier for a new player to combine them in your mind.

Noo it doesn't make sense because it takes much longer time to hit "j" or "g" than it takes hitting qwerty.

Well my hands are quite big I just need to sightly extend my index finger to hit J, I also used to play other games with binds going from ctrl,alt,shift + any combination of 1,2,3,4,5,6,s,v,r,g,j,f,t,\,z,x,c so it's not a problem for me to move all over the keyboard.

Ive been playing without grid hotkeys for 500hours now. When I did finally try out grid hotkeys, I kept derping and pressing T for Doomblast etc rather then E was it? And A for gens etc... You get the point

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I started the change to grid layout when I started picking up other races. When I switched, I had trouble with Eldar (my main). I kept hitting "f" for fleet, which is "change stance" in grid. My dire avengers and banshees had a tough time. lol

But adjusting to grid layout did not take long at all. Like people pointed out, the only key that is hard to hit is "h" for repair, and that's really not bad, you can remap if you want, or assign to a different key. My complaint is upgrade that keys - "u" and "j" - are kind of far away, but no big deal because you don't have to press them often at all.

Yeah any time I mess with my hotkeys there is always a rough transition period where I do silly things like toggle my refractor field on and off while yelling WHY DOES MY TECH MARINE REFUSE TO REPAIR. It's worth it in the long run though.

I go for gridkeys, slightly modified so the abilities go QWERTGB and repair is V. I have a split ergonomic keyboard, so using for example LG medpacks would require quite a reach over to the Y or U key with the default gridkeys.

I also used advanced sub selection so I can put two squads on one hotkey and tab between them. Putting each on their own hotkey would be ideal but again because of my dumb ergonomic keyboard it's a bit of a reach to get to 7+, even with my giant hands.

I just click on unit and wargear upgrades. If I'm only going to hit the button once, twice tops per game, than it probably doesn't need it's own hotkey.

You absolutely completely totally need to be able to hit "x" on demand whenever you need it, with minimal mistakes RE not retreating the wrong unit.

Because I'm so Indie, that's the only hotkey I use on demand. Obviously others on demand if needed, but I just rely on the mouse. When you've played god knows how many hours just with the mouse and trusty "x", yeah you start to make it work.

Ace of Swords wrote:

Toilailee wrote:

Ace of Swords wrote:Depends if you have previous experience with keybinds in other games, I also use the default keys since they mostly make sense such a "g" for all the grenades in the game or "j" for all jumps/teleports etc.

It makes it easier for a new player to combine them in your mind.

Noo it doesn't make sense because it takes much longer time to hit "j" or "g" than it takes hitting qwerty.

Well my hands are quite big I just need to sightly extend my index finger to hit J, I also used to play other games with binds going from ctrl,alt,shift + any combination of 1,2,3,4,5,6,s,v,r,g,j,f,t,\,z,x,c so it's not a problem for me to move all over the keyboard.

And still that doesnt help you to keep your army alive.





Anyway , stop listen to those bullshits about micro / apm / hotkeys /. What you realy need is practice and strategy. You have to be open minded in this game, what is the point to be the fastes guy in the game , when you never gonna keep your retreating path clean or you will always pick wrong decision in fights.

So if you know what you need is 2 things :

- practice on 1v1 , and than probably more practice
- good strategy ( fighting is about decision on the field )

Nothing else will help you , if you are not open minded ( read as smart guy ) you will probably sux this game like raffa.

Well, micro is a big part of this game nonetheless. Especially in 1v1. It dictates whether you are able to pull off 5 unit t1s with maximum efficiency and not bleeding excess models while simultaneously hitting all those retreat nades/similar skillshots.

However, at a low level micro is more important than macro, which is the grand strategy of things (build order, positioning, composition, map prioritisation and knowledge), but at a high level you will undoubtedly have a fundamental level of micro and any boost on top of that, although it does grant an advantage, will only grant a negligible one compared to the advantage that better macro will grant.

Micro, Hotkeys and all that jazz IMO are extremely vital as you always need to be quick on issuing orders to a unit before jumping on to the next one.

A good example I can think is the
Kinetic Shot + Plasma Nade combo. Devastating if you do it quick enough.

I'm sure that there are many more examples where time is a crucial factor in using a heavy-hitting combo hence why I believe that Micro is good.

Furthermore, it was from practice that I learned to use Micro.

To me, Good Micro = Good Skill

This is relevant to this topic as Strategy to me is also called skill as it is a subject that is extremely based on a combination of Unit Combination, Kiting, Picking Fights, Picking the right gear, Unit Coordination and Unit placement.

Strategy is planning and a skilled player with a good know how can really plan well.

So yeah, to me the line between Strategy and Skill is really thin

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Skill = Micro + Macro

Good micro is merely indicative of good skill, it isn't sufficient for good skill in and of itself, the same applies to good macro. That's how I define it.

It's debatable as to whether or not knowledge of the game should be distinct from macro.

Thats the thing... Skill, Micro&Macro, Strategy in RTS games especially like DoW2 is IMHO extremely debatable. It's just too hard to look at one end of the stick without looking at the other.

Imma stop here now since this is starting to get off topic and the post has already been answered.

Edit: I also agree on your defination of skill Torpid

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IMO create a system that fits for you. I think the default keys suck balls, I don't want to ever use my left hand to hit j for asm jump ever. But that's me. All grenades are bound to the same key for me, which is e. Remember you can use technically occupied keys like r since reinforce doesn't apply in most scenarios.

Watching the linked footage I can tell that you understand how to play the game. It's just that you're raw and need some practice before it all really starts to gel together. Whenever I try to explain this sort of thing, I usually compare it to hearing music in your head when you start playing. All the different notes start to form a song that you can follow along with.

It doesn't take thousands of hours to get there though. I'm no master, but you can get pretty decent with a couple hundred hours and you won't even notice the time you spent.

Grid. Mouse. Set units on comfortable to me keys (like assaults always ctrl-3, tacts ctrl-2 etc) so i can easly and fast retreat specific unit if i see it's HP on low (or do another action). Trying to do all the things with hotkeys, including unit's building to save the time.

How do you guys control more than 7 units?

I can control up to seven units with no problems using numeral hot keys, but anything past that I'll either need to drag click or bind two units into a single hot key (hardly optimal)

Should I just suck it up and just learn how to press 8 and 9?

7+ gets a bit taxing to micro. Put units that you don't need to micro as much like manticore/set up teams on higher command groups and/or put 2 basic units of the same kind in 1 key. Like 2 shootas/termas/gm that generally stick together and attack the same target.

It doesn't bother me to micro 7+ because I use a laptop so my fingers on my left hand can click between 1 all the way to 0 without moving fairly easily. Laptops op.

Caeltos needs to nerf Torpid's faptop!

holyoke wrote:Hey people, I have a serious need to improve my micro skills.
Which are rather lamentable.
I mean I retreat wrong squad much too often and shit like this, which makes me angry and sad at the same moment.
So I want to ask all of you L3g1T pR0z to share some of your micro skillz
Do you use grid keys or not? How do you choose your squads? etc. Use mouse or keyboard? Any tips will be much appreciated.

Besides others' advice, I can tell you that quite often I am anticipating certain moves. For example, when a guardian melees a scout, they could get upgraded and then nade-spike your scouts. In T3 vs IG, you don't group your units so Rocket run cannot destroy your entire army. As another example, knockbacks can spell doom for your units. You can get knocked on your ass by plasma cannon, then ganged up by melee units while u are down. Even if you retreat, you can take a couple of swipes before getting out, it can result in unit death and snowball mode.