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TL;DR
1. Hotkey all active creep tumors to something you can monitor pretty frequently.
2. Every time you spawn new creep tumors, update your hotkey with the newly created creep tumors.
3. Monitor the progress of the creep tumor by checking on that hot key from time to time.
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Hey guys, just discovered a little trick that's really helping me play zerg a lot better. My current opening is pretty similar to what I've seen FruitDealer do:
14 hatch
14 pool
16 extractor
16 overlord
18 queen
At this point I'll usually adapt my play style depending on what the other player is doing. But I usually like to get 3 queens out really quick before going lair tech. With my third queen, I'll drop a creep tumor at my main then bring it down to the natural to help defend or block off the choke. I'll continue spreading my initial creep tumor down to my natural and by the time it's there, my third queen will have about 50 energy. I'll drop down two more creep tumors so I have 3 that's pretty close to each other.
Anyways from here on out, I hotkey the three active creep tumors as "0" then spawn 3 more in different directions moving towards the enemy base. I also update the "0" hot key every time I spawn new creep tumors. Using this method and monitoring my "0" hotkey I've really been able to spread the creep much much better than before.
Another creep tumor spreading tip: as soon as lair is done, get overlord speed and spread out overlords around the map and spew creep. This is especially helpful near cliffs or ridges to allow the creep tumors to continue going. Also if you're in base queens get more than 50 energy, drop a quick creep tumor in base and make sure to spread creep to every corner of the base. Having full vision of your surroundings really helps in preparing for drops or harassment.
Hope this helps!
PS. I'm currently a 700 rated diamond player playing random.
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Anyways, what are your guys' thoughts? How do you manage your creep tumors, and consistently remember to spread them?
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I've seen this method quite a few times. I personally like to just eyeball the minimap and quickly scan for any creep tumors that may need spreading, because you'll probably be looking at the minimap once in a while anyway.
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You can also float an overlord ahead of a creep tumour to extend its reach a little each pop once the lair is done.
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^^^^
what do u mean by this? it extends the radius in which u can place the new creep tumor?
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nah he means you can poop creep with the overlord so you dont have to wait for the creep to spread from the previous tumor
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On October 26 2010 13:20 -Xios wrote:
^^^^
what do u mean by this? it extends the radius in which u can place the new creep tumor?
I think he might be referring to the fact that the tumor's cooldown ends before the creep is fully generated by that tumor. So, you can save a bit of time by putting an overlord near the edge of the radius where your creep is supposed to spread to.
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Creep tumors can spawn a new creep tumor faster than it can generate creep to its max spawn range.
using overlord vomit, you can spawn a new creep tumor at max range much quicker than waiting for the creep generation to reach that range. I think the utility is marginal, but if you have the APM...
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You don't really need to hotkey the creep tumors, just hotkey that extra Queen and use up her energy on creep tumors periodically (since you should be going to your regular Queens periodically anyway, to spawn larva). And then spread the older tumors right after.
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By using the overlord ability you save yourself a few seconds, I would say 8ish. If I wasn't in a foreign country without my laptop I'd test it for sure. The rate at which you can spread creep in this manner is great, if you can manage the APM. It feels like a small amount of time but if you spread a lot of tumors over the course of a game, then it will add up and you now have a lot of vision and potential map control.
It's a small thing, I would concentrate on the core gameplay personally. Make my other mechanics more fluid and natural before I dive into the fancy stuff.
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Isn't it a bit tedious to continually update your hotkeys for creep tumors?
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On October 26 2010 13:55 FroTW wrote:
Isn't it a bit tedious to continually update your hotkeys for creep tumors?
It's not too bad. I usually use 0 for them; makes it easier to do 2 at once also
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On October 26 2010 13:55 FroTW wrote:
Isn't it a bit tedious to continually update your hotkeys for creep tumors?
It's not too bad, and makes it a lot faster when you are actually creating new tumors. I just do a sweep across the map after I finished creating all the tumors, shift selecting all of them, then I replace the old control group.
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I don't understand, it shows in the UI that the tumor is not done yet or something? I hate having more than 1 tumor on the same group because i can't tell which one will spread or the radius of either tumor.
Sounds like extra work rehotkeying tumors all the time
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On October 26 2010 14:10 CharlieMurphy wrote:
I don't understand, it shows in the UI that the tumor is not done yet or something? I hate having more than 1 tumor on the same group because i can't tell which one will spread or the radius of either tumor.
Sounds like extra work rehotkeying tumors all the time
After you play a good number of games you understand how far they can go. Besides, when it's red you can't place it there.
Not worth changing up how you play, though, for such a miniscule action
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I've tried this but I never have the presence of mind to actually keep up with the hotkeys, and I just end up going back to doing it manually.
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are you able to tab between your tumours? (lol, your tumours, dark stuff...)
I've not tried this out yet but i'm feeling if you have several tumours set all over the map and you have them all in one control group, whats the point? as your '00' will only go to one of them, and you'll have to find the rest anyway, or am i missing some fundamental point here?
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I'm a Diamond Zerg user and I was thinking of developing a method for spreading my creep tumors like hotkeys I don't normally use with Z like 098, u say you only use 0 for multiple tumors? I thought u would have to individually hotkey each one ^^ Oh I just saw Xios kinda said the same thing... but ya wouldn't it be better if you have 2-3 creep tumors going to just use 098 instead of 0?
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I just bind them all to 0 and click the minimap where I see my other ones at, then I can just hold down the spread and click twice per tumor (once on map, once on ground)
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On October 26 2010 16:48 Pro]ChoSen- wrote:
I'm a Diamond Zerg user and I was thinking of developing a method for spreading my creep tumors like hotkeys I don't normally use with Z like 098, u say you only use 0 for multiple tumors? I thought u would have to individually hotkey each one ^^ Oh I just saw Xios kinda said the same thing... but ya wouldn't it be better if you have 2-3 creep tumors going to just use 098 instead of 0?
I tried that, but the issue is then you have to create three new control groups every time you make new creep tumors. This way you can just shift select all of them as soon as they are made. Also it's pretty easy to go to the part of the minimap where your creep is the furthest so double-tapping the control group to acquire focus isn't really necessary.
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EPT
