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A better question is why dont more players use overlord creep dropping when they have lair to spread creep faster? I've never seen a pro level zerg do this. If you have overlord speed or map contorl theres no reason not to do this unless your apm can't support it.
Takes time for overlord to get forward, and by that time you have 3+ active tumors in one direction so by the time overlord got there/tumor is active again, you can spread it without the need of overlord to make it go really far.
And I see plenty of zerg pros spread creep using overlords. Tumors and overlords are different methods of spreading creep to be used for different reasons. Tumors is to push toward the opponent, give more map vision and counterattacking routes, overlord spread is to deny bases, connect bases, lay creep at new expos morphing so you can plant spines before hatch finishes, to spread creep or put down spines at aggressive forward positions temporarily, or to defensively get a lot of creep in a choke (or later in game, in the open) fast to lay down 20 spines at once, or give small bits of creep in places you want spines at (like high ground at fourth on TDA).
I agree with Tang on this one. I always have a queen dedicated to creep in ZvT (i dont find creep spread that important in ZvZ or ZvP, I use overlords to spread creep in those match-ups, to make spine walls), and the more tumors I have, the more outward they spread. When T kills creep, I use an overlord to spew creep down (if it has receded by then) for forward or divergent tumors to recover that killed creep.
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Fun fact, after you get lair 1 slow overlord can let you spread a tumor MAX distance every single cooldown. Just spread creep, then move overlord over to where the max distance would be. If you timed it well, the overlord just barely drops a tiny bit of creep so you spread the tumor then move on. There will actually be zero creep around the tumor while its building then you can repeat again and again making your creep spread somewhere between 2x and 4x faster.
Useful for zvp as there is often no early threat to slow overlords and creep spread with minimal tumors is very common 
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I learned long ago that you need to clarify some of these more nuanced things multiple times on TL. Thanks to the few people who have posted correctly clarifying what I was going for.
I am not saying that this type of creep spreading should replace the creep spreading as we know it. There is no doubt that spreading your creep outwards quickly is hugely important - more important than the advantages that this approach provides.
However, there are circumstances where you can do both, or when this is more advantageous. For instance:
1) What if you already have enough tumors pushing down each lane? You can use your current creep-spreading queen to plant a few fall-back tumors down.
2) What if you have already pushed your creep most or all of the way?
3) What if you have 8 queens because you just defended 2-port banshee?
4) What if you have a couple extra queens because you used them to defend hellions?
When you watch the pros spread creep, for example Idra all day today on his stream, they just grab any active creep tumors wherever they may be and move them towards the edge of the creep. They do this even when it provides no actual benefit, clumping their active creep tumors together on the edges. They do this even though leaving the creep tumor alone would create the effect I am describing, while also reducing their APM. This, to me, means that they simply haven't put a lot of in depth thought into it. I'm not blaming them, there are 1000 other things they need to learn, which are in all likelihood more important than this. But that doesn't mean that what they are doing is the best way to go about doing it.
Don't think of this as a replacement method for spreading creep. Think of it as another tool in the tool-box.
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I always see pros spread the tumors, they don't make the 5 active tumors plant 5 more right next to eachtoher. They are always spread a bit.
If you have 8 queens, then you should plant a million tumors down going in all sorts of different directions.
Imagine your creep lane is much, much wider, and it just continues to spread outward. That's why you should have multiple tumors always advancing. If I see T is advancing, I push all the tumors in divergent left/right so hopefully I still keep some active after he scans. I don't think not spreading certain tumors, is good, because it becomes a more narrow lane than otherwise, and T is just going to scan all the way to your base and kill them all.
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your method means a much slower creep spread and requires an up front cost of queen energy instead of replacing dead tumours after they die your replacing them before they die but taking the risk that theyll die anyway
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OP sounds intelligent, but it's a dumb idea in practice.
1. Slows down your creep spread considerably if you use it early, using it late is meaningless since terran pushes has already done damage, or you would have been able to do it regardless with spare queens.
2. When a terran scans, it reveals both active and inactive tumors, so any tumor in the area will be killed.
3. Because of the above, active tumors from a distance will have to make up for the loss of creep, which means it's SLOWER than using spare queens.
A bit unsure about the next one:
4. Don't several tumors at the same place spread creep faster? Not that 5 tumors in one spot spreads creep 5 times as fast as one, but I'm pretty sure it feels considerably faster using 2 creep tumors than one.
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It's actually a really good idea if you ask me. People may not realize, but 2 creep tumours spreads creep fast enough so that you can respread it 2-3 seconds after the cooldown is done. 3 makes it instantly. Any amount of creep tumours above 3 is exhorbant for spreading creep. With good overlord placement, spreading creep is done very fast anyways. The extra energy can be used to keep the creep there, its a clever idea if you can put it into practice. Do a replay of it ^_^
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I always keep 2-3 unused tumors for this exactly, but after the 2-3 are down, I immediately resume getting out as much as I can as fast as I can.
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Two scans later and all that work is gone, but the problem is it took you a lot longer to accomplish all that creep.
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On March 29 2012 18:40 drbrown wrote:
Two scans later and all that work is gone, but the problem is it took you a lot longer to accomplish all that creep.
Yea but remember, for a little extra work you're potentially forcing more scans, and annoying the terran more if you manage to respread it almost instantly. This idea's smart, it just needs to be shown in action.
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The OP makes a good point.
Something I've done on occasion is branch off some creep tumours to emphasize lateral spread. Spreading creep forward delays tank pushes by forcing your opponent to kill it off; spreading it out to the side provides excellent vision to help out against drop play. What I've found when I do this is that when they inevitably kill the main creep tumours, the ones that are off to the side are extremely useful in reestablishing vision over the centre.
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That's interesting!
My only concern would be that I am not often in the position of having so many extra creep tumors: in normal early game, have like 3 in Z v P, 2 in Z v T, and it hugely varies in Z v Z. Even if I was doing more, I feel like on most maps, the open field (I mean, the part between your nat and his nat) is open enough for creep tumors to go in different directions, in which case I don't see the comparative interest of keeping them at home. But maybe I am the only one who does not often buy an extra queen for creep though...
then of course, when you are in the situation of having 5 creeps tumors in one narrow lane, then true this could be useful...
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United Kingdom36161 Posts
We have typical TeamLiquid syndrome in this thread. No, in plenty of situations it won't necessarily be the best idea (many lanes to spread).
But in the situation where you have more tumours than you need on a lane or area (seems to be a thing that anymore than 2-3 tumours on one lane won't speed anything up), then leave one behind.
Why think of all the times it's not so useful, instead of just having it in the back of your mind for those situations where it could potentially be useful :/
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Interesting thread, OP.
Some people are taking what OP said in a wrong way. At the same time, OP should have made the statement a bit more modest to avoid it, I feel.
Saying "alternative" philosophy instead of "superior" would have saved OP from some backlash.
I don't think this method is necessarily better, and niether seems OP. This method is something players should have in their arsenal if not already, and should be used only if it is appropriate. I am pretty sure many players have never even thought of the possibility of alternative creep spread philosophy and have blindly spread creep outward in every game. If you are one of them, like me, getting to know a new idea cannot hurt. You just need to consider when to use.
This idea is like an unbrella. Currently, many players are just assuming that it will be a fine day everyday, but from time to time, it rains. When it is rainy, why not use an unbrella if you have it. Before reading this thread, I didn't have an unbrella, but from today on, I will use it. The chance of rainy days might be only 10% or as often as 90%. But it depends on your perspective, and it is for you to decide.
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On March 29 2012 22:03 marvellosity wrote:
We have typical TeamLiquid syndrome in this thread. No, in plenty of situations it won't necessarily be the best idea (many lanes to spread).
But in the situation where you have more tumours than you need on a lane or area (seems to be a thing that anymore than 2-3 tumours on one lane won't speed anything up), then leave one behind.
Why think of all the times it's not so useful, instead of just having it in the back of your mind for those situations where it could potentially be useful :/
However is there ever a situation where this method is the best? Personally I cannot come up with such scenario.
Let us assume for a moment that we are in a situation where either we prioritize reestablishment of creep over aggressive creep spread, or happens to have extra energy lying around on queens we don't know what to do with as the creep boundary is already saturated with active tumors.
I claim that whenever we are in such a situation and you would be inclined to put down a creep tumor behind your front line as detailed in this thread, then it is better to just save the energy on the queen. As long as our front tumors are intact this lagging tumor will not serve a useful purpose (it can add inactive tumors on already established creep, but this doesn't really matter). Once the opponent starts taking out creep one of 3 outcomes can happen:
1) The lagging tumor is also taken out. Then it is wasted.
2) The lagging tumor is not taken out, but is still not near where tumors were taken out and it therefore remains a lagging tumor till we spread to that point.
3) The lagging tumor is not taken out and it is in perfect position to start reclaiming creep where you lost tumors.
In situation 1 energy on a queen would clearly have served you better.
In situation 2 if you instead saved 25 energy on a queen you would take that queen and let it plant down a new active creep tumor near where tumors were taken out. This is much more useful than an out-of-position tumor.
In situation 3 as in situation 2 if you instead saved energy you just put down a tumor where you need it.
If you are always in situation 3 then the OP's method is marginally better as:
1) You can start creep spreading immediately without pulling a queen.
2) You need not take a queen to your front lines and potentially exposing it to being sniped.
3) You don't risk the queen getting sniped and your saved up energy getting lost.
However in a real game you are not always in situation 3. If x% of your creep is taken out we would expect almost x% of the lagging tumors to also be taken out, and most of the rest being in situation 2. Thus the 10-15sec potential gain is not nearly worth it.
In addition energy saved up on queens can be used much more effectively to actually go further onto the creep with no tumors and reclaiming it immediately by putting down 2-3 tumors. And you never know what you may need in the game. It is very likely that you may be in a situation where you would rather have a transfuse than the lagging tumor, and by deferring the choice of what to use you increase the usefulness of the 25 energy.
Also people talk about not having a use for more tumors. Unless you play on smallest map possible (or crossfire maybe) you should definitely be able to make use of 20-30 active tumors after a little creep spread.
Once you actually start to reach such limits and have the extra energy for lagging tumors you are likely producing ultras or broodlords (assuming non-zvz) or at the very least has a decent muta/infestor flock. In such situations transfuses are also a great way to spend excess queen energy so the arguments for lagging tumors because of excess energy doesn't really hold in this situation.
I definitely agree that creep spread is still far from optimal even by most pros and that techniques for creep spread are far from perfect. In fact I rarely even see pros use overlord creep drop to accelerate creep spread (only TLO seems to do this consistently). However I am not sure the technique explained in the OP has any real merit. I would love to be proved wrong though. If someone can come up with a not extremely artificial example where the OP's method would work better than just saving energy, please post it.
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I've considered this, but to be honest, I start to find the other creep tumors are more useful because you can spread them in other directions. Also, a single scan might not kill all of them if you've pushed a ton forward, and it buys even more time early game if they're focused on containing the creep in all directions.
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I've actually had the same idea. Though i've never actually used in a game, i just thought about this as a possibility.
Personally i think defensive creep is much more valuable than offensive creep. By that i mean to say, having your creep giving you 100 percent vision of your half the map, and continuously connecting your bases, Is more important than spreading your creep towards your opponents side to give you a heads up of an incoming attack.
Now this is just my personal opinion, though if find Xelnaga towers and burrowed Zerglings out side my opponents base. To better means of that.
So yeah for those who value the benefits of defensive creep, i think this is the better means of spreading creep. holding back a creep tumor or two so that you can replace your creep better once its destroyed. You obviously won't be able to spread your creep as far or as fast. Though many times i see, even pro zergs, fail to replace their creep one its destroyed.
If this tactic of creep, allows me to have good defensive creep for the entirety of the game. I think its a good idea.
Btw, Burrowed Banes are useless if burrowed on creep, due to Terran scanning. If your not concerned with covering over half the map in creep you can utilize burrowed banes better.
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though this may be helpful, for many players it is simply better for your rhythm to do all the creep tumors rather than sitting and making another decision which tumor to leave.
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this seems like it would only work well if there is a lot of creep out there already. a scan detects a big area so unless you leave like 3 jumps in between active tumors, they're just gonna get picked off anyway.
i can see this work against a protoss or a terran with ravens well tho. they start pushing back the outside tumors and you kinda show them your army (which should be big enough to deal significant dmg to his army, but not necessarily kill it) and not chase him past where your creep ends. then you can immediately respread.
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On March 29 2012 09:55 hersenen wrote:
A better question is why dont more players use overlord creep dropping when they have lair to spread creep faster? I've never seen a pro level zerg do this. If you have overlord speed or map contorl theres no reason not to do this unless your apm can't support it.
That is actually a much better question. You should watch TLO's stream to see it done. It's pretty awesome and spreads creep insanely fast when done properly.
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EPT
