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I've been wondering for months why people in all levels of play spread their creep the way they do even though there are circumstances where an alternative creep-spreading method is superior. Nestea? Inferior creep spreader. Idra? Inferior creep spreader. (watching his stream just now is what urged me to finally write about it)
There isn't too much to say about it, so I'll keep it simple:
As it stands right now, people like to put their queens out there, lay new tumors at the front of the creep, and consistently spread their creep.This is what a conventional creep spread looks like.
![[image loading]](http://s13.postimage.org/dapvlql53/Conventional_Creep_Spread.jpg)
I want to emphasize how ALL of the creep tumors have spawned new creep tumors.
Now, what happens when an enemy terran player scans and kills that creep at the front and you are left with only creep tumors that cannot spawn additional tumors? Well, you grab your spare queens and you send em back out onto the field to replace the creep. What if your creep-tumor spreading queen dies? Can you afford to wait for a new one to build?
Wouldn't it be a time saver (and creep saver) if you already had creep tumors that had not yet spawned additional creep tumors scattered throughout, so that if a Terran scans and kills some creep you could immediately replace it from tumors you had already laid?
![[image loading]](http://s13.postimage.org/lc9ipweiv/proposed_creep_spread.jpg)
It is such a simple thing, yet nobody does it. I think that almost every zerg player has the creep spreading philosophy: "more creep tumors pushing outwards = faster creep spread". There are obvious benefits to that, but the creep spreading philosophy can be developed further. So here is what you should do:
1. Keep pushing creep tumors out like you always have, but evaluate whether you really need all 5 tumors pushing in the same direction. If not, tuck a fresh creep tumor here or there so that you can rapidly replace creep tumors that get killed off.
2. When you have decent creep spread already, consider having a queen running around placing fresh tumors in the middle of your creep spread instead of just at the edges.
3. When you are mid/late game and you have queens sitting at your hatcheries with lots of energy (from inefficient injects, which seem to always happen later on), consider using those queens to do what the queen in suggestion #2 would do. (note that you may want the energy for transfuses, so don't just do it indiscriminately)
4. Crush puny terrans.
+ Show Spoiler +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 when leaving the creep tumor alone would create the superior 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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On March 29 2012 05:48 Gnial wrote:
"more creep tumors pushing outwards = faster creep spread".
You answered your own question there, why would you sacrifice creep spread now to compensate for being lazy (not bringing a queen down to replace that creep) later?
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But I believe that slows down the creep spread speed.
Gonna have to study it deeper to check if it is worth it.
Maybe you need the creep to spread faster so you have it closer to your opponent when the first push comes.. of course there is a point where the number of creep tumors increases the speed of the creep so much that you are at max distance before the CD is over, but I think that is achieved with over 5 tumors, not sure.
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The new tumours will just get killed alongside the used tumours when the opponent scans or uses observer, before they have accomplished as much as the used ones. It's important to replace your creep tumours once you've lost them, but keeping unused tumours around that will just get killed anyway is kind of a waste.
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On March 29 2012 05:59 NeonFox wrote:Show nested quote +On March 29 2012 05:48 Gnial wrote:
"more creep tumors pushing outwards = faster creep spread". You answered your own question there, why would you sacrifice creep spread now to compensate for being lazy (not bringing a queen down to replace that creep) later?
1. Creep-spreading queens have a habit of being the first to die. So you may not always have that spare queen.
2. This method replaces the creep faster.
3. You shouldn't ALWAYS sacrifice creep spreading speed for this. If you only have 2 tumors, you are probably best off spreading both of them. This is more for once you've built up a ton of creep tumors or queen energy for whatever reason (hellion harass, it being mid/late game, etc.) I just saw Idra spawning creep tumors just to follow his front-line creep tumors. They weren't doing anything but getting close to the front so that they would die in the same scan as all of his other active creep tumors. If he had thought critically about why he was doing it, I don't think he would have followed it that way. It is just something to think about now, so that you don't just blindly push outwards like so many pro zergs seem to do. That is why I titled it "philosophy" instead of build, or strategy, or whatever else. This is something that people do not even consider to be an option at all.
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Gnial? Inferior troll bashing the most proficient Zerg players using faulty reasoning. This is pretty hilarious for a number of reasons. One, let's assume you make an extra queen to spread creep. With your method, instead of expediting creep spread you'd lay extra tumors in the middle of creep that won't benefit from another tumor generating creep. You know what this creates? Inferior creep spread. When the Terran pushes out your creep won't be anywhere near as far as it could be with the "inferior" professional method. Two, the term you've failed to use is creep conservation. Wasting extra tumors that could be spreading creep only to theoretically replace destroyed tumors 5-10 minutes in the future isn't doing anything. So what are you going to do, waste 150 minerals on a *fourth* queen to waste tumors? Four queens can be a part of a good strategy but you aren't accomplishing anything this way. Three, the biggest point: waiting for the Terran player to run back so you have breathing room to plant a tumor from a queen versus a tumor that's already there would be a difference of what, five seconds? Plus when he scans he's going to be killing your active tumors as well, which means you'd need to be wasting a hell of a lot more fresh creep tumors to achieve what the professional "inferior creep" spreaders already do.
Please think a little bit more about your arguments before you bash the highest-level Zerg players. They do what they do for a reason, and if that doesn't make sense to you, think about it. Tl;dr: your method is actually inferior because you won't be spreading creep much at all!
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On March 29 2012 06:07 Areon wrote:
Gnial? Inferior troll bashing the most proficient Zerg players using faulty reasoning. This is pretty hilarious for a number of reasons. One, let's assume you make an extra queen to spread creep. With your method, instead of expediting creep spread you'd lay extra tumors in the middle of creep that won't benefit from another tumor generating creep. You know what this creates? Inferior creep spread. When the Terran pushes out your creep won't be anywhere near as far as it could be with the "inferior" professional method. Two, the term you've failed to use is creep conservation. Wasting extra tumors that could be spreading creep only to theoretically replace destroyed tumors 5-10 minutes in the future isn't doing anything. So what are you going to do, waste 150 minerals on a *fourth* queen to waste tumors? Four queens can be a part of a good strategy but you aren't accomplishing anything this way. Three, the biggest point: waiting for the Terran player to run back so you have breathing room to plant a tumor from a queen versus a tumor that's already there would be a difference of what, five seconds? Plus when he scans he's going to be killing your active tumors as well, which means you'd need to be wasting a hell of a lot more fresh creep tumors to achieve what the professional "inferior creep" spreaders already do.
Please think a little bit more about your arguments before you bash the highest-level Zerg players. They do what they do for a reason, and if that doesn't make sense to you, think about it. Tl;dr: your method is actually inferior because you won't be spreading creep much at all!
Once again, as I posted just a couple posts earlier, you shouldn't always spread like this. Take a moment to read it because I think you were typing this before I made that post.
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Master zerg here. This is actually really intelligent. Especially since these days people are getting more than just 2 queens vs terran or protoss. If i'm not mistaken someone awhile back did a test on creep spread and 2 in similar vicinities made it spread the fastest. So leaving an extra tumor here and there when you already have all this extra queen energy will save a lot of time. It's not hard to do, and if most of you zergs look at your replays, you probably have the energy to spare. -- Honestly everyone else is just hating on it to hate on it because that's what people do. Great little tip i think.
As far as high level zerg players doing it for a reason... Pros aren't Gods at starcraft yet, they don't know the reasons other than its the best they've thought of so far. However, that doesn't mean it's the best. With the rate creep spreads with the 2 tumors, the extra tumors you're having right there aren't doing anything anyways.
To kind of add to this, regardless of how fast you think you're spreading your creep, the point is that good players will easily kill the tumors. In ANY situation you're facing a good player, they will not just let you creep your way to every edge of the map. this method is allowing you to get still amazing creep spread without the necessary tumors right by the already capped speed of the spread.
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On March 29 2012 06:07 Areon wrote:
Gnial? Inferior troll bashing the most proficient Zerg players using faulty reasoning. This is pretty hilarious for a number of reasons. One, let's assume you make an extra queen to spread creep. With your method, instead of expediting creep spread you'd lay extra tumors in the middle of creep that won't benefit from another tumor generating creep. You know what this creates? Inferior creep spread. When the Terran pushes out your creep won't be anywhere near as far as it could be with the "inferior" professional method. Two, the term you've failed to use is creep conservation. Wasting extra tumors that could be spreading creep only to theoretically replace destroyed tumors 5-10 minutes in the future isn't doing anything. So what are you going to do, waste 150 minerals on a *fourth* queen to waste tumors? Four queens can be a part of a good strategy but you aren't accomplishing anything this way. Three, the biggest point: waiting for the Terran player to run back so you have breathing room to plant a tumor from a queen versus a tumor that's already there would be a difference of what, five seconds? Plus when he scans he's going to be killing your active tumors as well, which means you'd need to be wasting a hell of a lot more fresh creep tumors to achieve what the professional "inferior creep" spreaders already do.
Please think a little bit more about your arguments before you bash the highest-level Zerg players. They do what they do for a reason, and if that doesn't make sense to you, think about it. Tl;dr: your method is actually inferior because you won't be spreading creep much at all!
He's an "inferior troll" for questioning something that Zerg players all do without even thinking about it? When you see Idra placing 5 tumors in the exact same spot for NO reason other than using excess queen energy, then it makes perfect sense to not spawn all at once. Creep tumors have a cooldown on how often they can spawn, so it's not like having 5 in the same place is going to make your creep spread any faster. Having more than 2-3 near each other is just wasteful, and this method would make re-spreading creep much more efficient than it is now. And if you actually read his post and think about what it means, then you would realize he isn't suggesting getting an extra fourth queen, because most Zergs get an extra queen ANYWAY for creep spread. Seriously, think about what you're going to say before you just start insulting people.
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I don't see the benefit. If you have the extra energy to just sporadically put down tumors all over, then you must have at least one extra queen. When Terran pushes onto creep and eliminates your tumors they do one of three things:
1) Move back before they are overrun.
2) Establish position on creep till it is gone (or at least for a while).
3) Move on to your base.
In case of 1 the important thing is to stabilize the creep without supporting tumors. This can only be done quickly enough by getting a queen or two out there and putting down fresh tumors in the area where terran removed tumors.
In case of 2 there is nothing you can do about the creep they occupy, but if you have a spare queen you can just put down fresh tumors as close as possible to their entrenched position. This is where you want the fresh tumors to be, so rather than hope you have a spare or two in the vicinity, why not save 100 energy on a queen or two and put down 4-8 tumors right where you want them.
In case of 3 creep spread is usually not your first priority, but active tumors would not help you unless they only scan half the tumors they pass (in which case I guess burrowed queens would also be effective :D).
I just don't see the benefit. Saving the energy on a queen or spreading creep more aggressively seems much more useful.
Not to mention that at high levels creep is not just something you do when you get time, but a tool you use in specific ways. You may for instance need to connect bases before the opponent can come and snipe your new base, or you may need a very thick curtain of creep to slow the terran when doing a BL transition, or you may create a narrow creep highway for fast push (potentially with hydras). In all such cases aggressive creep spread is much better than easy reestablishment of creep.
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On March 29 2012 06:39 rasnj wrote:
I don't see the benefit..
You don't see the benefit of not only having capped speed on creep spread, but also having instantly replaced creep? Interesting. If a game is always over when a terran or toss approaches your creep then it's time to figure something out.
Terrans especially will scan just to remove creep before their push. In the instance they move back before they're overrun, is it better to have active creep tumors or all dead tumors? Having active tumors that wouldn't of done anything, if needlessly spread, but die anyways will help with replacing that without you having to either build another queen because it died, or walk it out there again to re spread creep .
Of course this isn't something where if you're being pushed heavily you think about respreading your creep, you focus on defending the push.
The thing most people aren't understanding, is if you have a dedicated tumor queen then you already are aggressively spreading creep all over the map. This in no way is going to hinder your creep spread if you're good at spreading creep.
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I think it's worth it having a few unused live tumours here and there in your creep to help you rescue creep as quickly as possible. You should be trying to get a queen out there as well to establish MORE live tumours on the creep, but having consistent creep spread is more scary than having fast creep spread.
It's all too common where a guy spreads creep like a madman, then it gets pushed back once and he never returns to his former creep glory.
If you're pushing 5 creep tumours in one direction, it doesn't hurt to have one of them lag behind as a backup tumour. You can even spread it every cycle, but not as far, or not always forward. By increasing the creep tumour density, you make it harder for him to clear creep with one scan and four marines.
For a while I tried out a cool 2 base 5 queen fast lair opening against protoss, and the creep spread was brutal. With three creep slaves (eventually going to new hatcheries as I made them) my creep was insane, and because I couldn't actually keep up with my own creep spread I always had tumours lagging behind and it was great being able to easily replace the lead tumours if it they got denied.
It is true that this may be "wasting" tumours.
But we are all wasting tumours anyway by not respawning them exactly on cooldown every time, and very few people do this perfectly.
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I definitely hate you for posting this  . I am a high masters terran and notice that creep spread usually isn't too terrible provided you don't let it get out of control in the first place because once you kill off the edge many zergs are slow about adding new tumors. With this method your initial creep spread might by a little slower but it will be there throughout the game rather than all die off after a couple pushes. I think a better way to illustrate what the OP is saying is this. Lets say you have 5 tumors in a row that you have not yet spread. Why not use 2, or 3 of those tumors instead of all of them to move the creep forward and have unused creep tumors farther back so that it is significantly easier to restart the creep spread.
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Being less lazy later in the game with queens is better, especially given that you will many times not really be injecting as much in the late game and you get more hatcheries and can't spend larva sometimes due to maxing out. A good terran will still kill these tumors as well and you need to replace it with a queen anyway.
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On March 29 2012 06:52 tx.zyclon wrote:You don't see the benefit of not only having capped speed on creep spread, but also having instantly replaced creep? Interesting. If a game is always over when a terran or toss approaches your creep then it's time to figure something out.
On most maps you should not put 15 tumors spreading at the same point, but spread over the boundary of your creep. If you have spread a little bit already you will not nearly be speed capped. More tumors may not increase the radius of my creep faster, but it will increase the total area faster.
I'm not saying the idea in this topic is worse than not restarting creep spread. Obviously you should restart creep spread. But I claim that a much more effective way to restart creep spread is to save up energy on queens (either intentionally or unintentionally by forgetting injects) and then putting down new tumors right after the old ones were cleaned up. I cannot see any circumstance where a waiting active tumor would be more useful than 25extra energy on a queen that can put down an active tumor right where you need it.
Terrans especially will scan just to remove creep before their push. In the instance they move back before they're overrun, is it better to have active creep tumors or all dead tumors? Having active tumors that wouldn't of done anything, if needlessly spread, but die anyways will help with replacing that without you having to either build another queen because it died, or walk it out there again to re spread creep .
If the terran uses one or two scans it will take you active tumors 6-7 cooldowns to cover the removed tumors. A much better use of the energy would be to just let it build up on the queen and then when terran does this preliminary sweep you take a queen with >75 energy and plant 3 tumors evenly distributed in the area terran just ran over (you will certainly have this energy if you refrained from putting down some tumors). This is a much more effective way to combat this tactic you mention by terrans. I concede not many zergs actually do it even at the top level, but it is just as easy a thing to do as remembering to plop down tumors throughout the game.
The thing most people aren't understanding, is if you have a dedicated tumor queen then you already are aggressively spreading creep all over the map. This in no way is going to hinder your creep spread if you're good at spreading creep.
But you need not do it extremely aggressively. Many people use their "tumor queen" by selecting it once in a while and just putting down tumors worth all the energy in one spot. This is obviously not ideal. Either spread them over the boundary of you creep or just save up some energy on your tumor queen. Then when terran comes you pull it back (it is on creep so you will usually save it*) and when terran moves back use the saved up energy to reclaim your creep.
* If you are afraid of losing 150 precious energy on your tumor queen just switch the tumor queen for an inject queen once 50 energy has built up you wish to save. Then your saved up energy is saved over multiple queens at different hatcheries and it is therefore easy not to get all you potential creep tumors picked of by 8 stimmed marines.
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What I usually sort of do, is just start by making 5 creep tumors with my poop queen as soon as hellions are gone, then I just sort of let them fan out. Then I just let the queen acumilate energy. When the creep tumors are destroyed I just lay new creep tumors where it is needed with my full energy queen.
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I think you guys took OP too seriously.
This is a good idea. It's not like you're giving up a massive amount of creep spread we're talking 1-2 tumors in the midgame I figure.
Also consider overlords spit creep momentarily for tumor, converging creep spread starts from both inside and outside of the base?
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The OP makes an interesting point, and sometimes it may actually be correct to leave a few tumors behind. However I would argue that the majority of time, it's better to spread outwardly as much as possible. The further your creep is spread across the map, the more scans it would take for a terran player to kill the tumors. I would argue when you have "excess" tumors, the correct play is to spread in all directions rather than planting 5 tumors going in one direction.
Think about it: If you spread your creep in all directions, and your opponent scans the most forward creep tumor(s), you will still have other tumors speading forward in different directions, which eventually can merge towards the area which has been scanned. Also, if you have an extra queen devoted to creep, replacing the forward tumors becomes easier.
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I agree with Tang.
What I think the OP is trying to describe is a sort of "leap frogging" of tumors. There'd be no point in having an active tumor sitting in your main base for "back up" purposes. When you have an excessive amount of tumors though, it makes sense to have active ones lagging behind your forward ones though. Sort of "protecting" your spread in the same way seige tanks protect each other while repositioning.
One reason to have like 5 tumors heading in one direction though is to branch off in secondary directions in the future while still maintaining the same rate of spread in your primary direction. IE: Branching off from spread to opponent's base towards future expansions.
Really though it comes down to sort of keeping up the number of active tumors in all directions while maintaining the ability to easily replace lost creep. By lagging your active tumors behind, etc, you take part of the burden off your creep queen. One reason you'd want to do this and keep her available energy up (that I haven't seen mentioned yet) is transfusion. Especially late game when you have a flock of broodlords floating over a spine crawler forest.
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this is interesting but the correct way is the fastest way which is continuously using all creep tumors and getting there quickly
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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.
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... but then with less creep tumors, creep spreading will slow down, and so you will have to replace the destroyed creep tumors anyways if you want to spread your creep faster... gg
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Primary problem to this method as far as I can see is that there is no reliable way to predict just how far the opponent will smash your tumors, and thus have a backup tumor ready. A guessing game more or less tbh.
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If you're so worried about one scan killing all of your freshest creep tumors, why not just spread them more out in a fan/ branching out pattern, rather than keeping all of them clumped?
Each area of the creep will expand a bit slower with one tumor than with multiple ones, but you can probably cover just as much ground in the long run and a single scan won't hit all of the new tumors. Unless you plan on attacking very quickly and you need fast creep highways in one focused direction only (where you might be using overlords too), I don't see why spreading the tumors out wider would be bad.
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The problem I see with this is that there is nothing stopping your opponent from killing the "backup" creep tumors. It's not like a terran will scan and go, "Oh, this one hasn't been spread yet, I think I'll go kill that one over there instead." I see this as an inferior solution to a problem that could be solved by something such as managing your creep queen(s) better or having faster creep spread in the first place.
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slows down creep spread in the early game, this would only be used later on to reinforce your current creep spread as well as expanding your existing creep spread in a more later game stale mate
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Not spreading creep tumors on cooldown is like not injecting and "saving it for later" for your macro hatcheries.
AKA, its a terrible idea. Some maps you can't even have a 3rd base safely without creep (lookin at you, korhal compound)
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On March 29 2012 10:27 Br3ezy wrote:
slows down creep spread in the early game, this would only be used later on to reinforce your current creep spread as well as expanding your existing creep spread in a more later game stale mate
How can you be so sure this is the theoretically correct way?
Most players do not hit their tumors optimally, and with a dedicated queen, laying 2 tumors in a backward position would not be a big deal to your forward creep spread; if forward movement is lacking, it's the players lack of hitting cool-downs rather than not enough tumors.
There are many extremely viable applications of this:
For instance on Antiga, when a terran is holding the high ground watch tower, scan, and run small groups of marines forward beyond tank range to pick off tumors. When this clears, they advance and push down. What if rather than that creep receding, when they pull the marines backward, two more tumors enter the area to keep creep and vision in such a critical location.
This same concept is applicable on many maps, and it' something I've been incorporating into my play for a while now, and it's quite useful.
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As with all the posts above your method is not superior and is only viable mid to late game. Even then setting up back -up tumors would be detrimental to your overall creep spread, it would deny possible transfuse energy and they are just as likely to be scanned and killed with all the other tumors.
The tumor will always be scanned and killed so it would be faster to replenish creep by spawning a new tumor. Your method actually makes creep spreading a slower process by wasting energy on tumors that will be killed before they have the chance to spawn new tumors.
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I think people are kind of misinterpreting the OP's intent with this. I don't really view it as an attack on people's current ideas of creep tumor management, or a "new strategy," etc, but more an exploration of the area. IMO creep spread is one of the areas in the game that's still needing more time to be understood/mastered. This is afterall a "new" aspect of SC2 and SC2 is still a relatively "new" game. The fact that creep spread with Overlords is rather "uncommon" just sort of underscores this point.
The goal is to be obviously to maximize creep spread and minimize the effect any attempt to clear or control it has. The best way obviously to do this would be to spread out your tumors as much as possible. If you're pushing a full front of creep in all directions then when some gets cleared out, the remaining tumors on the outskirts can begin to fill in.
It seems the ideal is to have pairs or trios of creep tumors pushing out in a fashion where the radius of their spread slightly overlaps. You have your creep queen throwing down tumors in directions that need to be pursued and there aren't any available tumors. Overlords fill where the tumor spread hasn't gotten to yet, IE: at an expansion in an area you want spine crawlers immediately. They also lay the foundation in a way, so you can join expansions before a tumor spread is established. This is rarely seen, but makes perfect sense. If you control that area and are expanding, why not use OLs to fill when you're in lair tech?
Regardless, in that sense, the creep queen will after a certain point establish a lot of energy (this is assuming very anal creep spread, it'd require a ton of APM and multitasking, without the free energy is more abundant) It makes perfect sense to start making "back up" tumors. This keeps you from putting your queen into a zone that is likely to get hit or harassed again and she doesn't have to run down there and throw the energy. All that energy can then be used to transfuse whatever, buildings, units, etc. Hatch gets harassed? Transfuse it. Rarely see that too.
This game still has a LOT of stuff to be hashed out.
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On March 29 2012 10:35 KhAmun wrote:Show nested quote +On March 29 2012 10:27 Br3ezy wrote:
slows down creep spread in the early game, this would only be used later on to reinforce your current creep spread as well as expanding your existing creep spread in a more later game stale mate How can you be so sure this is the theoretically correct way? Most players do not hit their tumors optimally, and with a dedicated queen, laying 2 tumors in a backward position would not be a big deal to your forward creep spread; if forward movement is lacking, it's the players lack of hitting cool-downs rather than not enough tumors. There are many extremely viable applications of this: For instance on Antiga, when a terran is holding the high ground watch tower, scan, and run small groups of marines forward beyond tank range to pick off tumors. When this clears, they advance and push down. What if rather than that creep receding, when they pull the marines backward, two more tumors enter the area to keep creep and vision in such a critical location. This same concept is applicable on many maps, and it' something I've been incorporating into my play for a while now, and it's quite useful.
You said it yourself, it would not be a BIG DEAL to your forward creep spread, but it does slow it down. Early game is when you want to get your creep spread out the most, its the best time and allows you to take map control. I was also saying this from a point of view of being a high masters zerg that spread my tumors optimally, unliked most players. Spreading 2 creep tumors together also increases creep spread and decreases the cooldown twice as fast as compared to having one back and only forwarding one as well
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This is a genuinely interesting idea, and worthy of some exploration.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/2lpRm.jpg)
From what I understand, should the creep under the red line be destroyed, the tumours with the green highlight could immediately reinforce them - possibly while there's still small amounts of creep, depending if the Terran has retreated.
Note that even if the rightmost green tumour is killed, the tumour above it can still reinforce the low ground.
I'd like to see the numbers for this - I'm sure that with some serious structure to the design, this would come out ahead.
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I disagree with the OP.
You want all your resources invested pushing your advantage (ie greater and faster creep spread). Leaving some tumors as back up is almost like banking some minerals just in case you need to reactively drop a building. It might have it's uses, but it's situational.
Spreading creep as fast as possible always reaps you the benefits of all the tumors, keeping some as back-up is situational.
Fanning out does appear to be an optimal solution though.
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the OP seems highly inefficient
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On March 29 2012 11:08 thesideshow wrote:
I disagree with the OP.
You want all your resources invested pushing your advantage (ie greater and faster creep spread). Leaving some tumors as back up is almost like banking some minerals just in case you need to reactively drop a building. It might have it's uses, but it's situational.
Spreading creep as fast as possible always reaps you the benefits of all the tumors, keeping some as back-up is situational.
Fanning out does appear to be an optimal solution though.
For the early game, I completely agree, as creep spread is completely necessary for specific timings, and allows you to cut a couple corners.
But in mid-late game, I guarantee your creep spread is not being hindered by a lack of tumors, unless you're cutting an early creep queen, which you shouldn't really do.
Your creep spread is hindered by your missing cooldowns, and stretches of time in which you're simply doing other things.
Putting down two tumors in a defensive position, just outside of typical scan/key attack areas, could prove to be an extremely helpful maneuver. If those two tumors is hindering your spread, you should adjust your build to include more tumors, or you have jaedong apm.
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On March 29 2012 10:35 KhAmun wrote:Show nested quote +On March 29 2012 10:27 Br3ezy wrote:
slows down creep spread in the early game, this would only be used later on to reinforce your current creep spread as well as expanding your existing creep spread in a more later game stale mate How can you be so sure this is the theoretically correct way? Most players do not hit their tumors optimally, and with a dedicated queen, laying 2 tumors in a backward position would not be a big deal to your forward creep spread; if forward movement is lacking, it's the players lack of hitting cool-downs rather than not enough tumors. There are many extremely viable applications of this: For instance on Antiga, when a terran is holding the high ground watch tower, scan, and run small groups of marines forward beyond tank range to pick off tumors. When this clears, they advance and push down. What if rather than that creep receding, when they pull the marines backward, two more tumors enter the area to keep creep and vision in such a critical location. This same concept is applicable on many maps, and it' something I've been incorporating into my play for a while now, and it's quite useful.
I agree with this completely. I find while it's useful in the early game to spread as quickly as possible, there are certain maps where later in the game, you can have very smart backup creep tumors. Shakuras is a good map for it, because you don't need a huge amount of tumors to push through the middle of the map with creep, and terran will usually push up the middle, killing the tumors in the center. If you have a few, even just a couple on the north and south flanks of the map, then after terran retreats you can very quickly regain that lost vision.
The other big application, as you mentioned KhAmun, is that when marines are stimmed forward to shoot creep, you scare them back with a few lings and immediately replace the tumor with one that was further back. I find this to be an extremely useful tactic in the late game, as it can be really important (again using Shakuras as an example) to maintain the vision in front of your three bases. In these situations, you can't always get a high energy queen out there to replace the creep in time. The terran is slowly moving forward and by the time the queen gets there the opportunity to regain vision of that space may be lost. Also, if the queen is killed you're out of luck until you can get another one down there.
TL;DR I think it has some really nice applications later in the game with replacing creep when vision is extremely important. Early game it's wisest to spread quickly, but on specific maps you actually reach a point where you don't need to be adding more tumors to your front line because the choke is thin (Shakuras).
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I think one of the big reasons that pro players don't stagger tumors like the OP suggests is because its a lot more complicated to keep track of where your active tumors are if they arn't on the front of your creep. Its much easier to click the minimap near the edge of creep and spread from there.
The best solution imo is a dedicated creep queen. If she has energy she can replace the creep. You can also use her 25 energy marker for a reminder to creep spread in the early game (its a similar cooldown).
I should point out 1 thing in favor of the OP's idea. How often have you spread 4 tumors in 1 direction then the second those tumors are off cooldown you spread them again? Probably not often after mid-game. Well if you took 5 extra seconds you might as well have spread 3 tumors and had 1 backup tumor because thats how long it takes creep to reach max distance. If you took 10 extra seconds it shoulda been 2 tumors forward and 2 backup. Its a waste if you take too long to spread the tumors again.
Overall pros should look into better 'creep queen' management rather than some special creep spreading technique as it is more flexible and doesn't use a ton of extra apm.
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There's actually a thread on creep tumor efficiency. It said that two tumors is the best increase you're going to get. After that, the speed increase has diminishing returns and becomes unimportant to add additional tumors for the purposes spreading creep faster.
I think the reason pros tend to neglect a more "efficient" way of spreading creep is because it's such a quick and easy thing to do, but there are a lot more things to be done. So having a queen slap down 5 creep tumors to replace the creep and expend her extra energy is much easier than "okay, i'm going to drop 4 creep tumors, then spread the next 3."
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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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OP has a great idea. I frequently lose my creep-spreading queen to pushes, so having a back-up tumor to continue my creep spreads would be very helpful. I also have played many many games in which my creep push has been denied, and I can't quickly replace the tumors because I drafted my creep queen into inject duty.
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I don't understand why players never use this creep strategy either. Ideally you would have a wide avenue of creep with "ready to go" tumors off to the side of the main path. That way when scans carve out the middle, you can fill back in after the fight and regrow your creep almost immediately. Obviously it depends on the game situation and the map, but creep spread is definitely the most unrefined and autopilot of normal zerg upkeep; it's disappointing.
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I like it, but it might be kinda difficult to put into practice. From what I've seen, a lot of players will lay a ton of creep tumors, and to spread they control-click or box every tumor on-screen and spam out the tumors on the edge of creep, this needs a lot more finesse to pull off since you're deliberately excluding certain tumors from your spread. Otherwise I don't see an issue with the method, it's not as though missing 1 tumor from the front will hamper your spread that much, it actually isn't that common to perfectly nail your creep tumor timing and actually NEED a ton out front to facilitate full spreading speed.
Edit: read the spoilered part, and that takes care of the mechanics of putting this directly into play in a pretty simple and easy way, no reason to really NOT do this now.
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Good idea in theory, but seems like actions that aren't really needed.
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If you have a dedicated creep spread queen, you should be able to throw a tumor down further up the creep before it's gone. I would argue that having creep farther out on the map would be better since any Terran will scan where the creep starts anyway. A screen like the one in the OP is only possible with 2 queens dedicated to that task so you should have the ability to lay down new tumors immediately anyway. Instead of waiting for the new creep to push back out to the original location, you can restart creep from a higher position on the map. The idea isn't bad but I think the only reason it would be better to do is if you don't plan on touching a queen again after your first few sets of tumors are down. It's not really a superior way to spread, it's just a variation on the method. I would also argue that although creep is important throughout the whole game, early game creep is by far more crucial. The farther you can spread it the more you increase your ability to hold early aggression. It also forces earlier scans in ZvT which affect their economy way more than a later scan. Not a terrible idea but it's a lot more management. The idea of more creep tumors at once is much more useful as you move away from your base. You will start to expand in multiple directions and that high tumor concentration allows you to move out on many fronts at once without sacrificing speed.
I will agree that if you are trying to make a straight path towards your opponents base that you should leave a tumor behind every now and then. That is a smart idea but ideally you should be covering the whole map, not just a single highway to their front door. Divergence of pathways will inevitably slow your creep progress without those extra tumors at the front line.
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On March 30 2012 07:47 NrG.ZaM wrote:
Edit: read the spoilered part, and that takes care of the mechanics of putting this directly into play in a pretty simple and easy way, no reason to really NOT do this now.
the reason not to do it is that it is retarded. You will have less creep tumors overall if you do this, especially if you are actually good at spreading creep on cooldown. Losing your creep queen, and not defending the edge of your creep, is not an excuse to have bad mechanics on purpose so you can catch up later. Maybe try having some units to defend the creep, and vision on the map beyond the creep, instead of letting 2 marines scan and clear it out.
Once the midgame and lategame hit, creep spread is easy to repair because chances are, you'll build up 25 spare energy on a queen at some point, even the best korean zergs do because once you've got 4-5 hatcheries you don't need perfect injects anymore, especially when making high cost, low larva units like infestors, brood lords, ultralisks etc. So you will HAVE extra energy on your queens to repair any damage to your creep spread, and you will have overlords to assist you catching up if you really think you need it.
Please make this thread go away; its pretty bad advice. A lot of the people supporting this are saying things like "Yeah this is great when my creep queen is AFK in the middle of the map and they kill it and then kill all my creep!", when that should never happen, just like you should never have idle active creep tumors.. because if you were playing like a perfect mechanics robot, you would just have creep covering half the map with 50+ tumors and you wouldn't feel the need to have secret backup tumors in case you lost some. And it would be a serious commitment for your opponent to remove, rather than trivial because you actually produced the correct amount of tumors instead of stifling your production.
edit: this is similar logic to protoss having more gateways than they can actually utilize, so that they don't have to use it on cooldown. Think 5gates off 1base or something like that. Makes up for your lack of multitasking, but not efficient at all.
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On March 30 2012 09:52 darkscream wrote:Show nested quote +On March 30 2012 07:47 NrG.ZaM wrote:
Edit: read the spoilered part, and that takes care of the mechanics of putting this directly into play in a pretty simple and easy way, no reason to really NOT do this now. the reason not to do it is that it is retarded. You will have less creep tumors overall if you do this, especially if you are actually good at spreading creep on cooldown. Losing your creep queen, and not defending the edge of your creep, is not an excuse to have bad mechanics on purpose so you can catch up later. Maybe try having some units to defend the creep, and vision on the map beyond the creep, instead of letting 2 marines scan and clear it out. Once the midgame and lategame hit, creep spread is easy to repair because chances are, you'll build up 25 spare energy on a queen at some point, even the best korean zergs do because once you've got 4-5 hatcheries you don't need perfect injects anymore, especially when making high cost, low larva units like infestors, brood lords, ultralisks etc. So you will HAVE extra energy on your queens to repair any damage to your creep spread, and you will have overlords to assist you catching up if you really think you need it. Please make this thread go away; its pretty bad advice. A lot of the people supporting this are saying things like "Yeah this is great when my creep queen is AFK in the middle of the map and they kill it and then kill all my creep!", when that should never happen, just like you should never have idle active creep tumors.. because if you were playing like a perfect mechanics robot, you would just have creep covering half the map with 50+ tumors and you wouldn't feel the need to have secret backup tumors in case you lost some. And it would be a serious commitment for your opponent to remove, rather than trivial because you actually produced the correct amount of tumors instead of stifling your production. edit: this is similar logic to protoss having more gateways than they can actually utilize, so that they don't have to use it on cooldown. Think 5gates off 1base or something like that. Makes up for your lack of multitasking, but not efficient at all.
First of all, you're saying that players should be better at spreading creep on cooldown, only to later say that you can lay them down with queen energy later because top koreans miss injects.
Guess what buddy, top Koreans miss creep cooldowns too, especially in the later game.
I don't think anyone is arguing that this is something that should be implemented in the early game, as obviously early creep spread is extremely important.
But later in the game, when you already have creep in critical places, and I promise you that you're missing cooldowns, having a fast way to keep creep in important areas is quite useful.
You can't use "defend the edge of your creep" as no zerg who is trying to go along with their own build is running into the middle of the map to meet a timing push. They're trying to delay engaging as long as possible, making defending the edge of your creep a terrible argument.
And it's not about "queen being afk in the middle of the map" it's about already having a creep tumor completely ready to pop up and replace creep the second that the stimmed marines run backward. Your last few points are actually commentary to exactly why you SHOULD do this.
You're going to miss cooldowns, therefor your creep spread is not limited by lack of forward tumors. Laying 3 more forward tumors is great and all, but when it's idling at as far as it can go because you haven't spread, those extra tumors become completely irrelevant. Now if you had those tumors in places near key locations, when it inevitably gets scanned, you can replace it immediately at first opportunity.
Doesn't seem "retarded" to me.
EDIT: I forgot to address your edit, I'm not sure if you're saying that the parallel is when you're using backup tumors, or not using backup tumors, because the latter would be correct.
Again, same point as before, you're not hitting your cooldowns, adding tumors would be an attempt to make up for your inefficiency, while having them in strategic locations just shows foresight.
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Poor sensationalised post:
The OP claims many pro's are inferior creep spreaders when there is 0 practical field experience proof. Convince some pros to use the method, show the results then make your claims. Calling these pros out based on some reasoning is just poor.
I wouldn't mind if the post was a [D] thread asking people to investigate the technique.
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I seriously doubt the validity of this idea.
I mean, if your scanning and killing creep tumors, you don't discriminate which ones are "active" and which ones are "spent". You murder every tumor you see.
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On March 30 2012 07:40 thatdontmakecent wrote:
I don't understand why players never use this creep strategy either. Ideally you would have a wide avenue of creep with "ready to go" tumors off to the side of the main path. That way when scans carve out the middle, you can fill back in after the fight and regrow your creep almost immediately. Obviously it depends on the game situation and the map, but creep spread is definitely the most unrefined and autopilot of normal zerg upkeep; it's disappointing.
because why won't the active creep tumor be killed as well?
and for example, why would you have the chance to recreep when the terran is trying to be offensive?
You only really get that chance when you denied the push. which means you could do that with the creep spreading queen as well.
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United States13896 Posts
This falls far short of the standards for strategy guides on TL. You jump to far too many conclusions and you do very little analysis to prove your hypothesis.
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EPT
