Creep Momentum

Creep momentum is a concept that a lot of dota players do not realise or take into account when they are in a lane. Creep momentum can have a great effect on the amount of gold and experience a hero can have at the early to mid stages of the game. Creep momentum is the movement of the creep wave whilst it is in the lane and any actions that affect the pathing of the creeps.

A creep wave is in equilibrium when there has been no outside effects on the wave, such as pulling / creep blocking / attacking the creeps or last hitting and a variety of specialised hero skills and general hero interaction with the wave.

You might then say that this is impossible because you cannot gain gold by just standing there and letting the creeps fight it out. But a key skill here that everyone needs to learn is Last hitting and denying. Last hitting and Denying is a common practice that many players use to kill creeps effectively and by doing so they don’t let the creep momentum in the lane shift in either side's favour.

Last hitting involves is waiting for an enemy creep,neutral, hero or tower to be on low health and then you attack and get the attack that actually kills the enemy creep, neutral, hero or tower.

Denying involves waiting for an ally creep / neutral or hero to be on low health and initiating an attack on it that will kill it and deny the enemy the experience and gold.

Last hitting and denying is the key to gaining a good start in the early game. With last hitting you can gain more exp and extra bonus gold aside from the normal 1 gold a second that you always get. With denying you can do the opposite and deny gold and exp to your opposing team.

If you are good enough at last hitting and denying you can keep the creep wave in the same general spot for a few minutes and gain a lot of experience and gold quickly. Last hitting and Denying have a huge effect on the momentum of the creep wave, you should never sit back and auto attack.

To achieve the optimal creep momentum you first have to know what lane you will be lanning in and be able to creep block effectively

Creep blocking is the act of positioning your hero in front of the creep wave when it spawns and routinely blocking it by pressing the Stop key, which for me is "s", in doing this you will halt the wave for a few seconds, causing the enemy creep wave to push further up the lane, possibly into your tower if you do it right.

 

In the video i am blocking the creeps by walking in front of them and hitting Hold and Stop which is causing the creeps to pause for a few seconds. As you can see, when the two creep waves did meet my creep wave was closer to my tower than the enemies creeps even though i didnt block them fully at the end.

The most optimal creep blocking maneuver is to position yourself behind the first creep and block from there. You might be saying, "juxti that sounds stupid and defeats the purpose of this creep block" but this will cause all the enemy creeps to attack that creep first, straight away giving you the advantage in momentum and causing the enemy's creep wave to push towards your tower - something that you want, due to it being safer and easier to last hit / deny and gain xp

 

Now that I have explained creep blocking i will show you how it will be achieved in the different lanes and what you should be aware in terms of its effects on creep momentum.

It is important to note that the bottom and top lanes both have varying creep momentum attached to them, due in part to the creep momentum being situated closer to the towers than the middle lane. The top lane is more favoured to the dire side and the bottom lane is more favoured to the radiant while the middle lane is considered a neutral lane due to the creeps meeting in the middle.

The Bottom Lane

This is what the Lane looks like when it is at normal equilibrium

If you are in the bottom lane as a radiant hero, the optimal creep momentum is when you manage to block the creeps so that the first creep engages the enemy's wave outside of the tower range, meaning that your wave will be down a creep already and the tower didn't have extra time to damage the enemy wave.

If you are in the bottom lane as a dire hero, the ideal creep block would be the single creep out the front, running into the tower, this will cause your wave to lose momentum and make the radiant wave push out from the tower, enabling you to last hit and deny effectively.

If you are laning in the middle lane, the optimal creep block that you can achieve is when the creep wave meets at your ramp, because this will make last hitting and denying a lot harder for the enemy hero, due to the miss chance that is associated with ramps.

Mid lane in equilibrium

 

Mid lane Radiance block

 

Mid Lane Dire Block

*In the Dire block, the first creep at the wave will die and cause the radiance creeps to push up the ramp, giving the dire hero the advantage

The Top Lane

Top lane at equilibrium

If you are in the top lane as a dire hero, the optimal creep momentum is when you manage to block the creeps so that the first creep engages the enemy's wave outside of the tower range, meaning that your wave will be down a creep already and the tower didn't have extra time to damage the enemy wave.

If you are laning in the top lane a radiant hero, the ideal creep block would be the single creep out the front, running into the tower, this will cause your wave to lose momentum and make the radiant wave push out from the tower, enabling you to last hit and deny effectively.

Another important part of creep momentum is pulling and stacking creep camps.

Pulling refers to the action of pulling the neutral camp into the lane and making your creep wave attack it. By doing so, this will shift the momentum to the enemy and cause their creep wave to push into your tower. This move can be a double edged sword because unless you do a double pull, your next creep wave will have twice the momentum of the enemys wave and cause it to push further up the lane.

Double pulling is when you are pulling a neutral camp that has been creep stacked, this is the best way to pull the wave because it destroys your creep wave, meaning that your opponent has gained significant momentum and will push into or past the tower (if they dare). They have also lost out on a full wave of experience and gold while you can still collect gold from there creeps.

The double pull can be achieved through stacking, where you pull the neutral camp out of its spawn just as it is going to respawn.

A word of warning about pulling and double pulling, when you make the pulls you should be very careful about when you pull and what shape your tower is in. If your tower goes down because you pulled the lane, then you have lost the lane and therefore have lost all momentum in that lane because it is no longer considered a safe place to farm experience and gold.

With this in mind, please don’t keep pulling every wave. If you want more information on jungling and creep pulling / double stacking i will have a jungling guide out soon!

Hero skills

Players like you and me, have the biggest effect on the momentum of a creep wave whilst we are in the lane, be this from auto attacking or pulling. But the biggest effect that a hero can have on the lane is through their abilities. Roughly every hero has some sort of ability that can be used to push the lane or give momentum to the creeps. This ranges from aura's to buffs / AOE abilities

In this Blog i'm only going to be pointing out a few that can alter the creep momentum on purpose, since naming every ability that can affect the creep wave would take too long.

Skeleton king - Vampiric Aura

Nearby friendly melee units gain HP based on their damage dealt when attacking enemy units

Level 1 - 15%
Level 2 - 20%
Level 3 - 25%
Level 4 - 30%

If you are playing skeleton king, his lifesteal will push your lane, as your creeps will regain their HP when they attack the enemies creeps, giving your lane the momentum.

Enigma - Demonic conversion

Splits a creep into three malevolent aspects of itself, all under Enigma's control. Repeated successful attacks cause them to multiply again; when this happens, the eidolons have their health restored.

Level 1 - 3 Lesser eidolons
Level 2 - 3 eidolons
Level 3 - 3 Greater eidolons
Level 4 - 3 Dire eidolons

Enigma can alter the creep momentum both ways. By using demonic conversion on an ally creep you are denying gold and experience to your enemy and causing their creep wave to push more. If you use it on one of the enemies creeps then you gain momentum for your creep wave, with 3 new units and the possibility of 6 units in total if each eidolon manages to split.

Lich - Sacrifice

Sacrifices a friendly creep and converts its current HP into mana for Lich.

Level 1 - 15% health converted
Level 2 - 30% health converted
Level 3 - 45% health converted
Level 4 - 60% health converted

This is the reason why Lich is considered the best laner in dota. Sacrifice weakens your own wave by taking away a creep, denying gold and experience to the enemy. They will also gain all the momentum in the lane and unless they creep pull they will be unable to shift momentum. Gaining levels in Sacrifice means that lich has more mana gained from the converted unit and it reduces the cooldown to 20 seconds at max rank, meaning that every 20 seconds gold and exp is taken away from your enemy.

Earthshaker - Fissure

Slams the ground with a mighty totem, fissuring the earth while stunning and damaging enemy units in a line. Creates an impassable ridge of stone.

Level 1 - 125 damage and 1 second stun duration
Level 2 - 175 damage and 1.25 second stun duration
Level 3 - 225 damage and 1.5 second stun duration
Level 4 - 275 damage and 1.75 second stun duration

Fissure can be used to block off the creep wave, so they end up pushing another lane (in rare cases) or they take a long time to eventually reach the lane. This will give your enemy the momentum in the lane, causing their creeps to push into the tower. Don’t let the tower die though because if it dies you have lost the lane.

Axe - counter helix

When attacked, Axe performs a helix counter attack, dealing damage to all nearby enemies.

Level 1 - 100 damage
Level 2 - 130 damage
Level 3 - 160 damage
Level 4 - 190 damage

17% chance to helix at all levels

Most people who play Axe rush into the creep wave in the hope of procing counter helix and killing the enemy hero(s). Axe is a great hero for gaining momentum on a lane and winning it, if the enemy team doesn’t react to counter him or slow him down.

Chen - Holy Persuasion

Gives control of an enemy or neutral creep, and gives it bonus HP. Cast on an allied unit, it teleports them back to the base--including neutral creeps that are under Chen's control.

Level 1 - 1 unit, 75 health bonus
Level 2 - 1 unit, 150 health bonus
Level 3 - 2 unit, 225 health bonus
Level 4 - 3 unit, 300 health bonus

Chen can use this ability to gain neutral creeps from the forest or enemy creeps in the lane and give momentum to the lane that he is in. A chen can come out of the forest at 5 mins and push down towers with the other hero who was in the lane.

Enchantress - Enchant

Enchantress charms an enemy, bringing it under her control (if a creep) or slowing it (if a hero). Enchanted creeps last 80 seconds at all levels.

Enchantress can do the same thing as chen, albeit on a much smaller scale and in a time limit. She has 80 seconds to use the enchanted creep to push the lane and give her wave momentum. She can also do this to the in lane creeps as well.

Furion - Nature's Call and Wrath of Nature

Nature’s Call

Converts an area of trees into Treants. Treants have 550 HP and deal 21-23 damage.

Level 1 - 2 treants
Level 2 - 3 treants
Level 3 - 4 treants
Level 4 - 5 treants

Wrath of Nature

Damaging energy bounces around the map, striking enemies close to the cast point that are in vision. Each enemy hit beyond the first adds damage.

It can only bounce 16 times and gains 7% more damage every bounce

Level 1 - 140 damage
Level 2 - 180 damage
Level 3 - 225 damage

Furion is another hero that can have a great impact on the momentum of a creep wave. With his ability Nature’s call - he can raise treants from the woods and use them to give a lane momentum. With Wrath of Nature - Furion will damage 16 enemy units that are in vision and push out each lane indirectly.

Items

Certain items can have a great effect on the creep momentum, and they would be items that you wouldn't be aware affected the creeps. things like ring of basilisk or ring of aquilla are core items for a lot of heroes and these items provide added momentum to your creep wave through the aura, lucky you can toggle this to turn it off and make it a hero only aura.

Drums of endurance

Gives a Swiftness aura to all the ally creeps / heros that are around you, the aura gives 5% movement and attack speed to all units within a 900 radius as a passive while the on use effect grants 10% movement and attack speed for a short duration. This item alters the creep momentum in your favour and can be used to push the lane out quickly, due to the movement speed boost.

Vladmir's offering

Within a 900 radius Vladmir’s offering will grant a variety of effects.

16% lifesteal
15% bonus damage
5 armour
0.8 mana regain

This increases the momentum of your creeps because they now have more damage, they are regaining health when they attack and they are taking less damage from the enemy creeps.

Radiance

Deals 40 damage a second in a 650 radius

Dealing periodic damage to the enemies in the creep wave will give your lane the momentum and cause it to push out further than normal. Keep in mind that radiance can be toggled on and off but it is advised to keep it on because it is a good farming tool for the heros that do manage to farm up the gold for it.

Assault cuirass

900 radius
20 bonus attack speed
5 bonus armour
5 armour reduction to enemies

Much like Vladmir’s this grants a variety of effects. All bonuses will be granted to the creep wave, enabling them to push faster and gain momentum. The armour reduction also affects buildings, so if you are fighting a tower or taking barracks they will go down a lot faster.

Battle fury

Deals a percentage of attack damage (35% cleave damage) in a 225 radius around the target. Cleave damage through battlefury is not affected by armour. A hero with a battlefury can clear a creep wave in record time, especially if they have crit or high damage.

Ring of basilius / Ring of Aquilla

 
Grants bonus mana regain (0.65) and bonus armour (2) to units in a 900 radius. The bonus armour aura enables your creep wave to take less damage than the opposing creep wave and will push the lane. Like Radiance, this item can be toggled on and off - from an aura that affects creeps to an aura that affects Heros only.

Be aware of what items that you and your team mate have, because this could lead to you gaining unwanted momentum on your creep wave, and give your enemy an awesome start to a game.

One of the last things that i want to touch on is the barracks that the creeps spawn out of.

If the enemy team destroys these barracks then there creeps become stronger and your creeps become weaker, this will cause a massive shift in the momentum of the creep wave, and will eventually mean that the wave will be able to push into the base and go for the ancient.

It has happened many times in pro games, where the barracks goes down and the other team have to devote a lot of time to make sure that the wave doesn't push in and destroy their base.

Keep in mind that the creep momentum is a volatile thing and you should pay attention to the creep momentum at the different stages of the game, Are the lanes pushed ? - good time to rosh, is the mid lane pushed - good time to search for a rune or go for a gank.

Thanks for Reading. good luck and have fun in the world of dota.