May I ask how this Immortal opener is even done?
I’d like to test it and compare to my current Sentinel opener.
Well, if I were to draft up an immortal opener from scratch (probably for use on miner evac), I would start pretty standard with gate-gas-gas-cyber-robo with a late forge, then chrono the robo and hammer out immortals, popping spear lvl.1 whenever I had the gas to burn and expanding whenever I found the minerals. Expo before forge in this case.
I already do something similar to this on Dead of Night, only I get the forge before the cyber to have cannon/battery for first night, get all 3 gases early to bank up for those pricy energizers and colossi, and ignore spear upgrades altogether aside from repair beam upgrade after I get both my colossus upgrades rolling.
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It’s not much different than Nexus first opening:
- Continue making Probes
- Pylon at 15/15
- When near 300min saved, roughly 20ish, send Probe to expansion.
- Use Strike x10 Or Thermal Lance for expansions with units (on Train right position).
- Make Nexus
- Gate -> Gas x 2 -> Cyber -> Gas x 2 -> Robo (save Chrono Wave)
- From this point you can support continuous Immortal until full saturation.
- Add in Robo Bay and 2nd Robo for more Immortals.
It’s not a super exact play by play but the gist is there. A few things to note, your SoA will be relatively low, so precision is needed. This build doesn’t work super well and has a slight early coverage issue. The first 1-2 Immortals must be well micro’d for a smooth transition later (as is any high tech build).
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Well, with SoA mastery anything is possible.
I wonder how it would be with Chrono Mastery, but then again I’m asking too much.
And I’m not sure about Immortals in infested maps… But I will give it a try. Thanks for the build orders.
For infested maps, just tech up higher to Robo Bay. Save the Wave for Colossus + Range. These maps can’t have early expansion in the conventional way without ally’s help. So it’s more or less a one base tech up.
You are welcome, hope it adds to a fun experience.
When you play Karax from level 1 to mastery 90. The unit you use to open the game will be Sentinel because instant cannons and pylons is not a thing at low level and Immortal is higher tech.
It becomes conventional because of that and also, you can get your first Sentinel relatively faster than Immortal. Usually if i choose Unit cost reduction mastery and the random map is p&p, I usually have to open with Sentinel. In a map that require fast combat units, Sentinel give you something to tank for in very early offensive.
I would not call them conventional - I never used them and consider waste of minerals.
If you want to use SoA - help your ally by sniping key enemy units such as Ravens, Vipers etc. Use common sense to identify high threat, for example of ally has mass ling/Marine than snipe that high Templar before the storm hits. This type of support will help ally to clear the map faster than 5 sentinels imho.
I use resources to tech up to what you want, for me it is either immortals or carriers. Line up production with Chrono and boost out 4 units from 2 production buildings. From here I use SoA to support my own push.
Well, you need to rush your first immortal as fast as possible, by going gate first and chain build tech buildlings, else you will not have the immortal to defend the first wave with only a few energy, it requires tight resource management that is more non-forgiving because if you tech late or mishandle the first engagement you can be at big trouble. You also have to delay the nexus, that line up with killing the rock using one energizer one immortal without spending SoA energy.
Pylon-gate-gas-gas-cybercore-pylon-robo+energizer-immortal-bay-observer, then kill the first wave with your immortal while energizer and a probe still attacking the rock. Once the wave is cleared send your immortal to the rocks. Then build the nexus. Use the observer and SoA for first objective, and send your units there once your rocks are done. You don’t even need to use chronowave.
On korhal you may need to kill the first wave using SoA with no units by building at the top of the ramp to block part of it, don’t risk your first energizer.
For example you can siege the observer at jinara and orbital the supporters coming at her, and hold the attack wave with the immortal all by yourself. You can also solo any first wave and kill the first sliver in SoA with a single immortal and one observer. Just bait the enemy units into a line pulling your immortal around and strike them from orbit. Kill the detector first to avoid losing the observer.
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It was a tip I got when playing Artanis. Let’s just say that my game plan with Artanis on Dead of Night since then has become get 35 Immortals and blast things.
The advantage of Immortals is that they are one of the only protoss hitscan units, rather than projectile. This makes them much more efficient against the infested horde than many units. Also, their Barrier and general hp count is impressive, and allows them to shrug off an incredible amount of infested fire. They may not be fast, but they ARE unstoppable.
Of course, colossi are still better, but I think that at least on Miner Evac it’s likely best to wait until after you get the nexus down before you tech up to robo bay. And on both maps, having some Immortals to mop up aberrations, attack waves, and special infested is very nice, especially since the colossi just stand on top of Immortals.
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Tried your build order, I’m surprised how effective it is.
Expo comes just 40s later than my Sentinel opener, and the starting army is a lot more effective.
The game I played I went against bioterran, so instead of getting more immortals and shadow cannon, after the first immortal I got colossus upgrades and a colossus.
Second Harvesting Bot wave in Mist Opportunities I had 2 Immortals and one fully upgraded colossus, plus energizer, observer, and enough minerals for a few shield batteries, also around 60 energy. (I use chrono boost mastery).
With my Sentinel Opener at that point I have 5 Sentinels and one Energizer, and that’s about it… But I also have 180 energy, because I get SoA upgrades much earlier.
So in the end the difference is mostly about Army X SoA.
Also tried something in between that prioritizes SoA, but doesn’t waste too many resources on sentinels, neither upgrades them until the end, and gets robo immediately after. Ended up being more effective in all ways than both builds I believe.
I guess this is why I love Karax, build orders matter, and there are a lot of different ways of playing.
I always underestimate that against light units, but Immortal is that kind of unit that when you reach a critical mass, armor types stop to matter. I just worry about early game against infested, but eventually it gets good.
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WW zealots clear that map in 2 days, half a map each day. If ally is someone with similar ability, say zaraga or vorazun, the whole map is clear in 1 day.
The only reason to make immortals is if you want to take longer.
Day 1 is literally the first 3:30 of the game when all you do is make probes, I will assume you didn’t count that day.
Almost no commander is capable of 2 days, even Nova+Vorazun it’s very difficult. I find it nigh impossible to believe you on Spinlots, and if you didn’t have the ally to do it on day 2 you would likely lose literally all your units Night 2.
In any case, Immortals ez clear by day 3.
Nova is not good for fast clearing this map or I don’t know how to. The only comps that I can do it with are Artanis with WW, Zagara with max lings, vorazun DTs.
They clear 50 to 75% in one go. So two of them clear the map on 2nd day with first day being first 3:30 of the game guaranteed. Also applies if 2nd ally is other comander but kows how to play.
And why make single target immortal if you have reaver who do aoe for defence and higher damage to structures for clearing?
Give WW a try and see for yourself.
And since this is Karax topic - go carriers!
Ok, the whirlwind I am down to give a shot, but this… do you have any idea how amazing Karax’s colossi are on DoN? Accounting for the first tick of fire damage being instand, his colossi cleanly 1 shot all infested infantry, leaving their fire everywhere, with a huge AoE… these things are the ultimate anti-infested weapon, probably the best in the whole game.
I mean sure, the carrier has almost 50% more single target dps than the colossus for the actual building killing, but the carriers are slow, don’t cover the energizers as well, are more expensive, don’t have added fire damage, (which likely makes 1 colossus beat 1 carrier for single target dps, though fire doesn’t stack) and the colossi have their wide area AoE.
That said, for miner evac I prefer carriers, due to the presence of far more hybrid, more attack waves helping infested, and the ever annoying infested banshee fleets, coupled with all infested infantry units getting double HP on this map (even mutator spawned ones btw).
Also, because combat is more localized (just turtle around one ship at a time rather than holding 4 fronts all night), cannons are nicer and the carriers can sit on top of them so their repair drones actually get to be useful for once. And finally, and perhaps most importantly, carriers are basically Karax’s only efficient weapon against the eradicators bonus objective.
Oh, and one last thing…
The main reason for Immortals is they don’t have a projectile attack and do almost 0 overkill. Reavers have to stare at a target without that target dying for almost 2 seconds before they can actually fire an attack. A-moved in a ball of Immortals, it’s not impossible that your reavers literally don’t fire even once, and if they do fire they often hit areas where enemies have all been killed in the long travel time of the scarab. Also, ammo problems.
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They should start with rebuilding his protrait on the loading screen, giving him back his happy-protoss girth from the LotV campaign.
But what about the current loading screen?
Never has someone looking at what is essentially a holographic iPad been so intimidating.