Advanced CT Respawn Guide

A conversation with KrK the other night prompted me to do some investigation through solo games to figure out what the exact respawn times are for everything in the game and construct a guide based off that information. So, after probably about an hour of playing a rigged arcane in a solo game I came to some interesting discoveries.

This guide will go over the first 6 minutes of the game and discuss the respawn times of creep, crates and tanks. First, the chart:



CREEP (Marines, Big Marines, Ghosts, Tauren)

All creep are controlled by specific respawn points. If the computer senses you have killed 50% of that wave before or even on that time, it will trigger a respawn. Let's take the ghosts at 2:35 for example. For the previous wave of ghosts that came at 1:35, I had to kill 2 of them before or on exactly the 2:35 mark to get the next 4 to come. Same works with everything in the game. That said, here are the specific times for creep respawn:

1. Marines: Every 20 and 40 seconds starting at 0:55 (first marines). So, they will spawn with the X:35 marks as well as their other independent respawn at every X:55 mark.

2. Ghosts: Every 60 seconds starting at 1:35.

3. Big Marines: Every 120 seconds starting at 2:35

4. Tauren Marine: Every 300 seconds starting at 5:35

TANKS AND CRATES


Tanks respawn every 5:51 starting at 5:53. That means if you kill both of your tanks before 5:53, you will get another set. The next set is at 11:44 and the next after that is at 17:35. The 17:35 mark also intersects with a large creep spawn (marines, big marines, ghosts) so this is, in my opinion, the final level marker where you keep track of the respawns. After that it's mostly PvP and tier 2 (you should have your bunker down by 17:35) and so on.

Crates respawn every 35 seconds. Because you start with 2, that means you are "covered" through the 1:10 mark, so the next is at 1:45, 2:20, etc. With crates the good thing to keep in mind is that a full set (6) is almost as much as a tank in terms of gas and xp (6 crates = 12xp/90 gas, 1 tank = 15xp/100 gas). So, for the first 6 minutes of the game these can be good to keep track of.

General Strategy

In the beginning, there are a few heroes that can actually get the 1:35 marine spawn and get an extra 8 marines. I'll let you figure out who those heroes are (hint, it's not Arcane, I tried), but it basically involves skipping your box and going straight to the marines to kill 4 as soon as possible before 1:35 and then after the 4 going back to your box.

In terms of pushing, many top players look for the "4:40 mark" which actually refers to the 4:35 respawn time for the 2nd wave of big marines. The strategy is if you can overpush yet do it slowly enough to where their 1st wave of big marines (2:35) is not killed before the next time, you have denied your opponent of quite a bit of gas and xp.

The interesting thing is though, that when I did the math - you can break even if you miss those big marines by farming all of the boxes on your side and getting every small marine respawn. However, being overpushed will probably mean you can't do that, so there you go.

In general, the significance of respawn times drastically diminishes with the 3rd tank respawn (17:35) being a final marker. Generally after the first 6 minutes I just pay attention to the X:35 mark and make sure creep is cleared before then to get the most possible out of your lane. After you have pushed your bunker and farmed the 3rd tank respawn, you are at a point in your levels where keeping track of crate respawns and timings other than the X:35 mark really is just not a justified effort.

So, here you go. If you get everything by 6 minutes that means 3 regens, or if you are KrK 3 teleports for ultra BM. Apply this knowledge to own in inhouse games and see how it can improve your early game farming. Any questions, feel free to send them my way.

Not sure why but sometimes there 7 crates.
heroes who can get fast marinespawn should be FF and some melee like bh if they dont split against melee.

I think somewhere lala mentioned that's a bug with EU version. 6 is the supposed max. And yeah, BH is definitely one of them, but you can usually still pull off killing 4 before 1:35 even if they split.

Are you sure you need to kill big marines before 4:35? Coz that feels early, and i swear i killed 4:40+ and still got respawn.

its 4:41 for big marines

SadFace wrote:its 4:41 for big marines

So alex is wrong?

idk but if u kill big marines by 4:41 u get the fast respawn for them afaik

4:35 is the respawn time, in fact everything is at the X:35 mark. With large marines it's every 2 minutes starting at 2:35. I tested it several times, so not sure what you experienced. You can try it as well in a solo game. The marines do take a few seconds to make their way out, so keep that in mind.