General advices | Advices SC II: Legacy of the Void Guide
Last update: 11 May 2016
Read the hints appearing on the loading screens. You can learn many useful things from them, for example, how to quickly switch between units in the marked group. Advices will be usually related to the currently loaded mission, making them even more worth checking.
Listen to the advisors. During the campaign, they will remind you about incoming enemy groups, too weak defenses of the base or additional mission objectives. If you'll listen to them, you will easily complete all missions.
Always complete additional objectives. Most of them will allow you to obtain the solarite which can be used to buy more expensive upgrades of the Spear of Adun. Thanks to other ones you will receive additional units or help of the allies. In other words, the more additional objectives you complete, the easier it will be to complete the campaign. It is especially important during later missions, when every help from allies and any additional solarite will become extremely useful.
Learn the keyboard shortcuts. Not all of them, as there are many, but at least the ones related to skills and constructing most commons buildings, like pylons. Giving stalkers an order to teleport in the middle of enemy group is much more comfortable when you are doing it with the help of the keyboard and not rely only on mouse. TAB key is especially important. It allows you to switch between marked units and buildings. This key will be very useful in missions with heroes or after marking all production buildings using the W key.
Group your units. Gather all production buildings under a single button, so that you will be able to quickly replenish the queue of unit creating. Set buildings with upgrades under another key and make sure they are always busy. Keep your main assault force under one key, the main builder under another one, and specialist unit under other one. Divide your army and buildings in such way that you will have a quick and easy access to all most important units and constructions. In such fast game as Starcraft, every second spent on moving the map, searching for specific units or buildings can decide whether you win or lose.
Explore the maps. Not all additional objectives are marked on the map. There are tasks during which you can obtain additional help or make the game easier, but none of the advisors will inform you about it. Due to that, it is wise to explore the whole map and check what can be found on it. Thanks to that, you can find few interesting and useful things. Sometimes you can also locate an easter egg.
Learn the strengths and weaknesses of races. Terrans are great in defense and they can reduce all damage. Protoss have energy shields and strong but expensive units. Zergs focus on large groups of rather cheap units and on speed of their actions. Additionally, each race and many units have a set of unique attributes and skills which can be very often combined into very effective and hard to counter tactics. Don't be afraid of experimenting, as it can allow you to discover new ways to effectively use unit or skill you are already familiar of.
Don't consider the campaign as a prologue to the online game. You will not have access to units' versions in a regular online game. You will not be able to use some race skills or create some units. The speed of the game will also be much faster, especially if you were playing on the normal difficulty. The level of your opponents will vary as well. It is wise to learn the basic gameplay mechanics, how to play various races and what are the keyboard shortcuts in the campaign, but it is not an effective way to train before playing with human opponents.