[Delraich]

I have yet another question relating to combat... pressing the hold button/ H key. I happened to notice on a couple of recent replays (not sure why i didnt notice before), that the hold button might be used quite alot more than just for the zealot guarding the gap by the cybernetics core!

In particular, when that first bunch of sentries go to the bottom of the ramp and the zerglings are zooming around them. I usually die to those zerglings because my dudes keeping getting split up and then my force fields end up separating one or 2 as well because they are running around/ chasing the lings. I now suspect that the H key was used to keep the sentries in a nice tight ball...

Another example I think i saw the hold button being used is in PvP when your zealots are at the top of the ramp. Usually in the stand off, my zealots keep following the bloody stalkers down the ramp and get shot or weakened. Worse is when a force field drops and traps them on the wrong side. what i did before was hold them a mile back from the ramp to avoid this, but now i think i should have used the damn hold button!

I am now suspecting that there are probably tons of other times i should use it...

Does anyone have some pointers for me to work on regarding using hold?

[HuT]

If you want your units to stay in any position, ever, use hold.

Nothing worse than having, for example, 30 marines run into a siege tank line because the AI is ******* retarded.

[PiG]

If your opponent has melee units trying to get to your ranged units, hold position workers infront of your units and their units will spasm out trying to get to you, and they will need to individually focus your workers down. Very useful for saving queens from ling/zealot by surrounding her with drones

[Makra]

Originally Posted by PiG

If your opponent has melee units trying to get to your ranged units, hold position workers infront of your units and their units will spasm out trying to get to you, and they will need to individually focus your workers down. Very useful for saving queens from ling/zealot by surrounding her with drones

Love this trick. Don't notice it being used as often as it should though.

[HDPhoenix]

Originally Posted by PiG

If your opponent has melee units trying to get to your ranged units, hold position workers infront of your units and their units will spasm out trying to get to you, and they will need to individually focus your workers down. Very useful for saving queens from ling/zealot by surrounding her with drones

Actually, that's what I use "hold" for. Click on the queen surrounded by drones, then as they surround the drones, hit "hold" and watch the lings chew thou the drones that aren't fighting back =D

[Aean(:]

Originally Posted by nGenHuT

If you want your units to stay in any position, ever, use hold.

Nothing worse than having, for example, 30 marines run into a siege tank line because the AI is ******* retarded.

I swear i put my marines on hold but they still run towards the tanks for no reason, its so annoying

[Highlander]

I've seen it in replays where people run lings into a mineral line and hit hold so the AI doesn't have them all running off to fight a single cannon or something.

Every time I try it though, it works so poorly I should've just left them to their own devices.

[crAzerk]

I've seen it in replays where people run lings into a mineral line and hit hold so the AI doesn't have them all running off to fight a single cannon or something.

Every time I try it though, it works so poorly I should've just left them to their own devices.

The more lings you have and greater the worker saturation, the better this technique becomes.

The reasoning is simple - when you have many lings and they try to FF down 'closest-target-units' (as the AI does), they will obstruct each other and prevent them from doing maximum damage. (some lings not doing damage at some times)
If you just put them on hold position they'll just hit anything that runs past them, which means optimal damage (constant damage from all lings) assuming there's decent saturation.

[PantlessPete]

Originally Posted by crAzerk

The more lings you have and greater the worker saturation, the better this technique becomes.

Running 20lings into an unprotected, freshly saturated protoss expansion and pushing H was the most fun thing I found to do when I used to play zerg (SCVs too, but it just feels more satisfying to do it probes....maybe the lack of planatery fortress has something to do with it!)

[robsg]

At the risk of stating the obvious, hold position roaches on ramp choke to prevent enemy units from getting in.

[FvRelimzkE]

Using Hold on a DT when it's at the mineral line is pretty advantageous, especially if the enemy has no detection yet and you don't want the DT to attack the army (eg zerglings)