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The other day I saw two interesting replays of Socke where he pulled off a 1 gate proxy robo immortal rush on a terran opponent.
First there is some early poking around the front door of the terran base with a stalker or two, then at the 7 minute mark he attacks with 2 immortals, 2-3 stalkers and a zealot. It was quite effective both times, the immortals in one case allowing him to bust a supply depot wall off at the top of the terran ramp on Lost Temple, and in the other case quickly destroying the terran's defensive bunker on Kulas Ravine. After this, the 2 immortals + 3 stalkers are able to one-shot marauders and clean up the handful of marines to quickly secure the win.
I've never seen this opening before and it seems to work wonders against terrans that are somewhat passive in the early game, thinking their wall off or bunker makes them immune to aggression.
Replays: http://www.mediafire.com/?40h9snsfetdrw65
Socke vs Tarry on Lost Temple
Socke vs jimpo on Kulas Ravine
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I don't even think you need to proxy it. If you go 1 gate->robo->2 more gateways, you can get 2 immortals/obs/a bunch of gateway units before the 8 min mark. The obs can spot for you to pick stuff off. It's good against terrans who go early aggression into expo but, sucks against any marine centered build from my experience doing it.
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Well, in my attempt to describe both games at once I was a little inaccurate. Indeed, you can imagine this will be less effective against marine-heavy compositions. However in the game vs jimpo on Kulas Ravine, he faced about 10 marines (no marauders) plus an early ghost who was able to EMP all the protoss forces, but Socke was still able to prevail with some micro. The battle involved some pulling back and reinforcing with more immortals from the proxy robotics and stalkers warping in from the proxy pylon.
The common wisdom that immortals are a poor choice against marines is true of course, but we shouldn't think about things so simplistically. From this replay we can see that when facing smaller numbers of marines - and one hopes that the numbers are pretty small as the strength of this attack is its early timing - they can effectively tank quite a bit of damage and survive on the strength of their 200hp and 1 base armor even after their shields have been EMP'd. Perhaps a pure stalker rush would have been better in this case, but then the bunker may have been more of a problem with proper scv repair...
Anyway, thoughts? The proxy robotics can be considered an all-in attempt: if a savvy terran scouts it before the immortals warp in, the robotics facility will be probably be lost along with the pylon, and he should be able to move out and crush the protoss player shortly thereafter. I guess the non-proxy version jettster mentioned above would be safer, but slightly slower.
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immortals take very long time to cross the map, a proxy robotics is very important to this strategy, since that's how it is different from the 3 gate robo, and given the travel distance weakness for the latter.
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i saw someone open 1 gate > robo the other day, i figured they were going fast collossi to counter my marine + ghost ball, but they rolled out with an immortal and got steamrolled lol
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yah this builds an autoloss if the T has marines + a ghost. but could be good if you scout well and make sure thats not the case
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On August 17 2010 12:50 Blackhawk13 wrote:
yah this builds an autoloss if the T has marines + a ghost. but could be good if you scout well and make sure thats not the case
If you read the thread or watch the Kulas replay, you'll find that this is totally false!
However the devil is more or less in the details here: specifically how many marines he has by 7 minutes vs. how much he's expended on other tech etc. The terran player on kulas went 2 rax -> ghosts -> factory -> starport. I don't have intimate knowledge of the various terran openings, but yes I would imagine if he went something like straight 3-rax + ghost and pumped more marines, the immortal rush would have been a total failure.
As a small case study, one of the micro-battles that took place in this replay was 2 immortals and 3 stalkers vs 12 stimmed marines. About half of the units on each side were quite softened up from earlier fighting. The marines took down the weakest stalker in one volley, then started to focus down the healthier of the two immortals (oops!). It eventually died, but during that time the marines were getting one-shotted until there were only four left and they retreated to avoid death. so 12 marines isn't enough to handle this attack, even with stim, and even with most of the protoss units lacking shields from an EMP....
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I was staying away from Immortals because of marines but the replay on kulas makes me want to experiment. Thanks for this thread.
Side note: I'm a new player desperately trying to hold on to Protoss. I can see myself switching to Terran if I continue to have this much trouble in PvT. Trying to not give in though.
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I haven't seen the replay since I don't have SC2 on my work comp but any decent bio opening by T will crush 2 immortals + gate units by the 7 minute mark...
EDIT: This is almost an all in since if T defends he can easily destroy your robo and then you're done.
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I just tried this. was a 2 barrack, to expo.
I went 1 gate, robo, 2 more gates, pump as much.
Go hit kill 2 supplies, back up, keep pumping, Destroy rocks block access to his expo.
Go back and forth nibbling a bit, then just pushed in when i had 3-4 immortals. more like the 10 min mark or so for me. probably caught him at a good timing, right after expo, but just before he really GET rolling with money.
He was diamond, but i cant say how good or bad he was. But i was happy to have tried a new build. thx
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I think the benefit it could have is to buy time. Although, I do wish immortals wouldn't be torn to shreds just because terran decided to build a single ghost. Immortals are not very expensive, they are quite sheap. Problem is that, they also take a bloody long time to build, that is including chronoboosting them. Getting some early wont hurt you, will help in pushing or defending terran. I would imagine that pushing against a terran, they would use their emp's right away. So if you keep your immortal back for a few seconds and then push in, they may stand a chance of not going down in three seconds.
I am quite weary of going 1gate -> robo. If it is scanned, the terran will simply wait on pushing till they get a ghost and then go after you. If it works, it may become normal to use the build briefly, but people will catch on pretty quick and the build will most likely die.
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It can be good, but it still isn't guaranteed that you'll do enough damage to justify losing your immortal. I play a more defensive version and I think it can defend everything.
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i don't think you'd be in good shape if the terran has stimpack and siege mode...
i still think the best strat for protoss is a standard opening into void ray, then pump zealots and sentry. the voidray is a real handful and you need to make a lot o' marines, then you don't have a chance against zealots with guardian shield.
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On August 17 2010 17:53 VERMM wrote:
I was staying away from Immortals because of marines but the replay on kulas makes me want to experiment. Thanks for this thread.
Me too, actually. I'm starting to wonder if a Sentry sprinkle would be worth it. I mean, the Sentry's extra shields can mean a BIG difference when faced with a large number of small-damage units.
Side note: I'm a new player desperately trying to hold on to Protoss. I can see myself switching to Terran if I continue to have this much trouble in PvT. Trying to not give in though.
I'm with you there brother. I tried Zerg out throughout the Beta and for the first 10 days or so after release... I just can't get the hang of them. I switched up to Random for a little while trying to find which was the easiest for me just off instinct. I will have to say that Terran was the easiest for me to just pick up and go with, but I have too much self-respect to switch to them as my primary.
Toss is definitely treating me a lot better than Zerg ever did, and I'm going to keep up my fight tooth-and-nail to get good as Toss rather than wussing out and going Terran.
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http://www.gosugamers.net/starcraft2/replays/36878
socke used the proxy robo immortal rush again here but it failed for a few reasons:
- protoss attacked before second immortal arrived
- bratok was very fast to react using a lot of scvs to repair his bunker
- all marines, no marauders for the immortals to destroy
- short distance between spawn points probably made the terran more wary of an early attack
still, it's an interesting build that can catch wall-off or marauder-heavy terrans off guard early.
sidenote: if you are a protoss player, you should check out the rest of the games in the series between these two players, excellent PvT, instructive and entertaining.
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EPT
