I haven't seen this technique discussed or used in tournaments yet, so I thought I'd bring it up. The idea is very basic and simple: use AoE damage to kill creep tumors without having to use detection. This technique was used in Brood War a few times, such as using a Corsair to destroy cloaked wraiths with its splash damage.
So in a real game, what's a practical application for this technique? The best one I can devise is using Hellions to kill tumors. The stage in the game that Hellions come out (right around the time Zerg wants to spread creep, meaning tumors are still manageable) and cheap cost of the Hellion makes it a perfect choice.
Some pictures to demonstrate:
First, position a target unit at the location of the creep tumor. Here I'm just using another Hellion. + Show Spoiler +
Then, have a Hellion attack the target unit. As long as the fire attack hits the tumor, it will take damage. It takes 7 attacks to kill a creep tumor with the hellion's attack. + Show Spoiler +
As you can see, 7 attacks just happens to be the number of hits a Hellion can take from another Hellion as well. We killed the tumor, but sacrificed a Hellion. + Show Spoiler +
Use Hellions to attack each other so each one only takes 3/4 hits, and kill the tumor twice as fast! + Show Spoiler +
Alternatively, you could use a Marauder as the target unit, as he will not take bonus damage from the Hellion's attack. However, he cannot be repaired and is slow. But if you're moving out with a timing attack anyways, using a Marauder as the target can be very efficient.
So what are the disadvantages of using this technique?
Cons:
- Unit(s) take damage - Slower and more micro intensive than using a scan - Judging positions of tumors that are not at the creep frontier can be tricky
Overall, this should only be useful once in a while when you catch tumors at the edges of the Zerg creep spread. Against clusters of tumors, using a scan ends up being much more efficient. But against a low number of tumors, this can punish the Zerg early on.
I focused on Hellions here, but of course there are other situations where you can utilize this ability. Some examples:
- Siege tank. Curbing the creep spread so that Banelings cannot fight on creep is important during siege pushes.
- Collosus. Use with Zealot target when no observer is available.
Its hard to do because it is extremely difficult to know where a creep tumor is placed since creep is large and theres no "center" easily distinguishable. I have seen games were the helions accidently kill the creep tumor when attacking zerglings though =/
You only really need to worry about extensive creep spread in mid-late game. By that one one raven will solve all your problems. Yea targeting your siege tanks on marines to kill Lurkers worked in BW but as the above poster pointed out you dont know where the creep tumor started from the creep spreads itself out and in the new patch it spread evenly in all direction so even harder to find source.
imagine a a creeped out map from a terrans point of view, you just see a mass of gray, no distinguishable "middle" . And also if this takes place in the early game when he first startes to spread creep, to do this you would have to be literally in his base. with two helions on either end of the creep. this wont happen.
Seems like too much of a hassle to kill one creep tumor that you aren't even sure you are hitting. Takes way less time for them to just plant another tumor in the same spot.
As much as I see you have put time into this, unfortunately I think that it has been time wasted due to the fact that, as people have stated, you do not know where the creep tumors are. Other than that, I also just feel that it seems not worth all the effort anyway.
Nice concept but unfortunately just not practical IMO
Most zerg decent players are placing 3-4 creep tumours and spreading them simultaneously in the same direction. In this scenario it would be too difficult to do this.
Remember that a scan could instead be used for a Mule. So Scans really are quite expensive.
If you go Ghost tech anyways, and then happen to have enough money for an extra nuke just to kill 2-3 creep tumors, I think that would be worth it (saves 1-3 scans, or 260-780 minerals vs what it takes for 1 nuke). Plus the zerg player might think their drones are being nuked, bringing their drones outside of the base and therefore possibly losing all of them xD
For those saying it's too much APM... it really doesn't require that much time. It's 260 minerals (before repair costs) that we're talking about vs a few clicks.
alternatively, you could bring 1 hellion + 2 scvs. target one scv with the hellion while the other scv repairs it. the 2nd scv shouldnt take splash. i dont know how many hits an scv can take, may require stopping the hellion half way through to repair.
I never saw a corsair gunning a cloaked wraith in bw... who did that? im curious, how can a decently microed wraith be taken down by that technique. i know Bisu and some other toss did kill a cople lurkers with Archons/zealots, but lurkers cant move while burrowed, and wraiths are really fast...
As for your trick, you have to be carefull, ok cool you want to save a scan to get an extra mule BUT you use 3 scvs in your picture, those scvs are on creep , they actualy walk there, you lose 3 scvs mining for (X) seconds AND repairing your hellions cost money, then you have to actualy do all those actions, making it harder for you to use that time to harrass plus your giving out info on what your building.
If your a zerg going on 14 hatch and see 2 hellions coming on your creep attacking eachother to kill a tumor then run away, the only thing u can really do is L O L OL O L OL, 5q Think about it, a queen is 150 minerals, can infuse and shit tumors, if you waste that much money (scvs mining, hellions repair, hellions) AND time (move there, move there, attack this one, then this one, get scvs, repair bla bla bla bla) to kill 1 tumor and have no hp left to harrass, no way this is even close to being worth it, this is fancy like that mining trick where zerg put nydus at gold expo and micro mine it in beta. LO LO L OLL.
And i dont think a decent zerg would give you all free time on creep early on, dont forget queens are always there, doubt they would just stand there and laugh. but still. Your better off trying to fight lings zerg use to defend over the creeps tumors and hope to splash it
It seems to me like the best use of this would be with Colossi. First, they deal 30 damage per hit, and second, Protoss units have shields rather than actual health. Unfortunately, this thrilling knowledge is made slightly less so by the fact that if you have Colossi you will have had the ability to produce Observers for the past couple of minutes.
Do you really want to save mules that much? I mean, I know you're not getting those minerals faster, but by late game where you have 3+ OC's, scans come pretty frequently. You can destroy a game's worth of creep spread with all that energy piling up. Or better yet.. just get a freakin Raven. I heard those are pretty good units.
On December 05 2010 12:56 Drayne wrote: I never saw a corsair gunning a cloaked wraith in bw... who did that? im curious, how can a decently microed wraith be taken down by that technique. i know Bisu and some other toss did kill a cople lurkers with Archons/zealots, but lurkers cant move while burrowed, and wraiths are really fast...
As for your trick, you have to be carefull, ok cool you want to save a scan to get an extra mule BUT you use 3 scvs in your picture, those scvs are on creep , they actualy walk there, you lose 3 scvs mining for (X) seconds AND repairing your hellions cost money, then you have to actualy do all those actions, making it harder for you to use that time to harrass plus your giving out info on what your building.
If your a zerg going on 14 hatch and see 2 hellions coming on your creep attacking eachother to kill a tumor then run away, the only thing u can really do is L O L OL O L OL, 5q Think about it, a queen is 150 minerals, can infuse and shit tumors, if you waste that much money (scvs mining, hellions repair, hellions) AND time (move there, move there, attack this one, then this one, get scvs, repair bla bla bla bla) to kill 1 tumor and have no hp left to harrass, no way this is even close to being worth it, this is fancy like that mining trick where zerg put nydus at gold expo and micro mine it in beta. LO LO L OLL.
And i dont think a decent zerg would give you all free time on creep early on, dont forget queens are always there, doubt they would just stand there and laugh. but still. Your better off trying to fight lings zerg use to defend over the creeps tumors and hope to splash it
pretty sure Fantasy used valkyrie to kill observer once, atacking his e-bay also, Boxer killed DTs by using tank splash targetting his own SCV
i think some people have also considered using tank splash to do this same thing, cept both of them are way too time consuming/hard to judge the position of tumors to have this pay off.
I'd rather get a Raven. Don't understand why more people don't; they're awesome units anyway and if I'm doing banshee harass or something it's easy to get one after, tech labs already up.
The reason why it was a cool trick in BW was because a) the unit you're sacrificing was cheaper than the unit you're killing (using tank/reaver splash on marine/zealot for lurker is a good trade, damaging a corsair to yellow health in order to kill a bunch of wraiths is a good trade) and b) there's a pressing need to kill the unit (lurker is killing our natural and we want to mine asap, DT killing hatchery, for example).
Here, you are getting rid of a creep tumor and trading it for hellion HP (and very few minerals repairing them). It's not a good trade. Creep tumors are free. It will only cost the zerg the attention it takes to move a queen over and poop a tumor out. Attention is the only thing it costs, and as the terran you'll be spending more attention getting rid of the creep tumor than the zerg would recovering it
There's also absolutely no pressing need to get rid of the tumor right away. It's not like a lurker killing your natural, where the sooner you get rid of it, the sooner you can mine. If you absolutely had to go on creep NOW in order to exploit a certain timing window, and you really want to get rid of creep tumors, you're not gonna take your sweet ass time waiting on a hellion to shoot 7 times. The only two times I can think of where you absolutely have to get rid of the creep tumor and you can't wait on a raven or a scan is if he's 1) creeped into your natural and you can't land your CC 2) zerg used queen drops to poop inside your base. If that's happening, you're probably so behind that you might as well do the cute hellion trick and feel good about yourself
what's your solution when the creep tumor is impossible to guess where it is your example shows 1 creep tumor with no creep around it making it very easy to just go to the center in the real game, you'll just be killing your own units
why do terran players hate ravens so much? i just don't get it. they're an amazing spellcaster. and scans don't cost 270 minerals, they just delay the speed at which those 270 minerals are mined.
this idea is cute, but it's stupid. do you ever see yourself taking the time out of a game to find the exact center of a creep patch, bring 2 hellions out, have them attack each other, hope no speedlings run out to kill them, and then driving them back home and taking scvs off of mining and spending minerals to heal them JUST TO KILL ONE CREEP TUMOR?
i think this is pretty useful. sometimes I fail killing tumor because not enough scan time or something. maybe that kind of situation is right time to use this.
On December 05 2010 19:03 KevinIX wrote: How do you know where the creep tumor is? It's invisible.
You can imagine where it is depending where the creep ends, but this one need practice. Or you can float a building and move over the creep so you see where exactly it is.
Anyway someone already posted such creep tumor killing this like few months ago.
On December 05 2010 19:03 KevinIX wrote: How do you know where the creep tumor is? It's invisible.
You can imagine where it is depending where the creep ends, but this one need practice. Or you can float a building and move over the creep so you see where exactly it is.
Oh a building! Wow, now I can spend money on a building to float over tumors to see them, just so I can then hurt my own units and spend more money to repair them, all while not mining with the SCV's that are repairing, when I could have just scanned instead to do the same thing.
Not really seeing much upside to this strat to be honest.
Well this is getting a lot of hate. Imo if you go for sone early hellion play, and your opponent has a spine crawler and speedlings after the initial harass you leave the base, and now your jellions don't do anything.
Why wouldn't you go kill creep tumors, all I see people saying is oh you couldn't find them, but I can promise you, you'd get really good at pin pointing them fast. It's just too demanding on some people, and the slightest advantage is everything, so if you can so that, why wouldn't you...
I like the fact that I could maybe get an extra mule while teching to banshee, so a few more marines on ground, or help againsts the zergs increasing speed of the ground army. Just because it's hard and doesn't do much doesn't signify that it's a bad thing. Try it out a few times. What's cooler than seeing your dead on the creep tumors with your hellions and you kill them.
Well, nice to know this. Maybe one day, when Flash transit to SC2, this will be featured in a pimpest play vod.
Getting a raven is a hassle, in the sense that raven's spells takes greater priority over bio units. So if you group it with your main army, you can't click stim. Too hard for 1a2a3a lmao.
I think once builds are perfected enough and players good enough something like this early in the game, killing creep tumors without wasting MULE energy can really make the zerg be scared maybe even forcing him to make extra spine crawler. I think it's really nice and useful idea by the OP. I hope to see this kinda stuff used in the future of sc2.
It's a neat trick... but I don't know if taking the time to look for the center, pulling part of your army out, and pulling some SCV's is worth the time.
+ Creep tumors cost close to zero since they use up energy (usually from a queen that's sole purpose is to poop out tumors)
On December 05 2010 12:56 Drayne wrote: I never saw a corsair gunning a cloaked wraith in bw... who did that? im curious, how can a decently microed wraith be taken down by that technique. i know Bisu and some other toss did kill a cople lurkers with Archons/zealots, but lurkers cant move while burrowed, and wraiths are really fast...
As for your trick, you have to be carefull, ok cool you want to save a scan to get an extra mule BUT you use 3 scvs in your picture, those scvs are on creep , they actualy walk there, you lose 3 scvs mining for (X) seconds AND repairing your hellions cost money, then you have to actualy do all those actions, making it harder for you to use that time to harrass plus your giving out info on what your building.
If your a zerg going on 14 hatch and see 2 hellions coming on your creep attacking eachother to kill a tumor then run away, the only thing u can really do is L O L OL O L OL, 5q Think about it, a queen is 150 minerals, can infuse and shit tumors, if you waste that much money (scvs mining, hellions repair, hellions) AND time (move there, move there, attack this one, then this one, get scvs, repair bla bla bla bla) to kill 1 tumor and have no hp left to harrass, no way this is even close to being worth it, this is fancy like that mining trick where zerg put nydus at gold expo and micro mine it in beta. LO LO L OLL.
And i dont think a decent zerg would give you all free time on creep early on, dont forget queens are always there, doubt they would just stand there and laugh. but still. Your better off trying to fight lings zerg use to defend over the creeps tumors and hope to splash it
pretty sure Fantasy used valkyrie to kill observer once, atacking his e-bay also, Boxer killed DTs by using tank splash targetting his own SCV
This was a pimpest play from 2005, Boxer vs Pusan. Here:
This is also possible in 2 colossus attacks, and if you pull your colossus back quickly, they won't hurt whatever unit you target. This can be used with any splash unit to target any cloaked unit. IE killing dt's with banelings.
EPT![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/K46Fr.jpg)
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