Warcraft III - Basics -> Creeping

"Creeping" or "to Creep" means to attack the Creeps for experience, items, and a little bit of Gold. Creeping is an art form that can usually be improved on. The better you are at Creeping, typically the fewer units you need to attack the specific Creep Camps. Some players find Creeping a lot of fun because it's a "mini-game" like Diablo within Warcraft III.

Creeping can really help out on maps where units might run into the Creeps and die or to clear a Gold Mine.

Creeping is done more so in Solo and 2 vs. 2 games but also appears in 3 vs. 3, and 4 vs. 4 games. Whenever you are not doing anything, you should consider Creeping. But beware of Creep Jacking. Keep a unit outside the Creep Camp to make sure your opponent won't Creep Jack you, this way, you are prepared to run away.

Building near the Creeps will cause them to attack you. So try not to build near them.

Size up the Creeps
You should know just how powerful a force you'll need to take on the Creeps. A common problem is for players to attack very tough Creeps and lose a lot of units and/or fail to get the Creeps. The Creep Indicator on the mini-map will show you green (kinda easy), orange (medium), and red (difficult) Creep Camps to let you know basically how easy a Creep Camp might be. But these indicators aren't always 100% correct. You may still get beat up by a green or orange camp. Typically you learn how to Creep through experience. You can also load up the maps in single-player and practice Creeping on them.

Try not to lose ANY units to the Creeps
Some advanced Creepers rarely lose any units to the Creeps. Wow!

Send the Summoned Units in First
Summoned Units should always do the initial attack. They are going to die anyway so let the Creeps take out their anger on the Summoned units. However, if the Creeps have some sort of ability that damages Summoned units such as Gnoll Wardens, don't send them in first. Also remember to pull the Summoned units out of combat when they are severely damaged. After the Creeps change targets, send the Summoned unit back in.

Low Level Creeps are Dumb!
Use that to your advantage. When the Creeps focus fire on a unit, instruct that unit to run away. The Creeps are dumb and will start trying to chase that unit. This gives you a period of time where the Creep is not attacking. Low level Creeps will eventually ignore that unit that ran away which will allow you to bring it right back into combat. The Creeps (low level) will not focus on that severely damaged unit which will allow it to still contribute to the fight despite being severely damaged.

Watch out for High Level Creeps
High Level Creeps are much smarter. They will go after damaged units and Heroes. Take that into account when Creeping. You should run damaged units completely away from the battle against them. This is especially the case with Heroes.

Put the Toughest Creep out of Action
Whenever possible, put the toughest Creep of the Creep Camp out of action. You can do this with spells like Entangling Roots, Sleep, Storm Bolt, Shadow Strike, or with Focus Fire. Sleep a Creep that might Heal, Poison, or some other dangerous spell.

Kill the Healers First!
If you attack Creeps that are Healing or otherwise helping the other Creeps, kill them first. An example would be a Troll Shadow Priest. However, if there is another Creep that does more damage or is more annoying, you might want to hit them first.

Usually it's best to kill lower level Creeps first before the high level Creeps unless they have some awesome spell like Ogre Lord Shockwave.

Attack Queueing
You can Queue up attacks to make sure your army is attacking the Creeps in the correct order.

Use Tank units vs. the Creeps
Whenever possible, use units that can take damage over easily killable units such as ranged units. For example use a Huntress instead of an Archer vs. melee units or a Grunt instead of a Troll Headhunter. Now you can run ranged units away if they are targeted so you can still attack Creep Camps with ranged units. But ideally you should try to have some units up front taking the damage while the weak units help out.

Good Creep Spells
There are many Hero spells that are very good for taking on the Creeps such as Entangling Roots, Storm Bolt, Sleep and so on. It's pretty obvious what those spells are. Just consider the Creeps to be enemy units and use the same strategies.

Learn Which Creep Drops the Good Stuff!
Advanced players figure out what Creeps drop the items, kill them then run leaving the rest of the Creeps alone. If you come up to a Creep Camp and find one of the Creeps missing, that is what happened.

Use Air Units vs. Melee Creeps
If you find a set of Creeps that are unable to attack air units send in some air units to attack them. They won't be able to defend themselves and it should be cake.

Don't attack flying Creeps if you don't have some ranged units to hit them! This is a rookie mistake.

Mountain Giant Fun
Use Mountain Giant Taunt to Creep. The Creeps will start running around trying to switch targets and will die. It's funny.

Some Heroes are Creeping Animals
Examples: Demon Hunter (Immolation/Evasion), Blademaster (Critical Strike/Mirror Image/Wind Walk), Beastmaster (Summon Bear). This is especially the case when combined with Moon Wells, Shops, or Fountains.

Creeping Order
Good Players usually figure out an order of Camps to hit. Often players start with the nearest green camp but sometimes they will immediatelly head to the enemy's green camp to steal it or to Creep Jack them. There are certain Creep camps that have good rewards or that give access to an important Neutral building which players go after first.

Items
Make sure you take any of the items you earn from the Creeps. If you don't want the item, take it anyway and sell it. If you can't carry the items, destroy them.

Team Games
You can take on more powerful Creep Camps with your allies help. But you will have to share the experience. A few Heroes with Summoned units can take on very powerful Creep Camps very early. Test it out.

Other
-Remember that after you reach level 5 you can no longer get Experience from Creeps. But your lower level second and third Hero can still get experience from Creeps. So make sure your Level 5 Heroes aren't close when Creeping with these lower leveled Heroes.

-Creep armor types come into play so you can Creep easier once you figure out what Creeps are more easily damaged with your units. For example, use normal damage units (generally melee) against Medium armor Creeps.

-Use AOE spells like Blizzard, Flame Strike, and Rain of Fire against the Creeps. They don't run out away from it.

-If you see the corpses of some recently slain creeps around, your opponent is near! See if you can Creep Jack them! This works especially well in the center of Lost Temple. (Remember, the fresher the corpse, the closer they are).