why is it that....

[Mostly_Harmless]

Why is it that some units already start with their special "abilities" and others have to be upgraded? did you notice protoss dosen't have to upgrade the immortals hardend shield or the coll's don't have to upgrade their cliff walk, yet the zealot has to upgrade speed legs which is cleary a benefit only to that unit as well as the stalkers "blink" ability. Terran has to research almost all of their special abilities except for the reapers cliff jump. That's the only "special" ability to be included for terrans. It kind of bothered me to ponder on this. Why not just either make the player have to upgrade every single "special" ability for each unit, such as the immortals hardend shield or the coll's cliff walk or the reapers cliff jump etc. etc. or just give all the special abilities to every unit without having to upgrade them. What do you guys think?

 

[Odale]

Abilities are actions you can make happen, i.e. Chrono Boost, I don't think they are so much abilities as they are traits. These traits are a part of that unit, they are part of the reason you make that unit. If the Immortal was dinky and died as fast as a stalker, why not make two stalkers (the immortal is exactly twice as expensive, cannot shoot air, and takes longer to build)?

Reapers, vikings and Medivacs (Medivacs are similar to the Protoss Phase Prism in that they both have two very nice abilities off the bat) all have various inherent traits and abilities, too. Reapers can jump up/down walls and run very quickly, Vikings can be either ground or air units on the fly and Medivacs can transport and heal biological units.

 

[Keero]

I think it all comes down to usefulness and trade-offs. Immortal, while fantastic at tanking damage, is more costly, slower to produce, and has less range than a Siege tank (which has almost triple the range of an Immortal when sieged, and it doubles as an energy-free High Templar storm). Colossus is a mobile ball of doom but it's also the only ground unit susceptible to anti-air (and rather mediocre range when not on cliffs). I mean, would you consider buying an Immortal if it didn't have those neat shields? Or a reaper who couldn't harass by hopping cliffs?

Also for Terran:
Medivac can heal and load troops.
Viking can transform without an upgrade.
SCVs can repair all units and buildings (shields and health regen aren't that special IMO).
Raven gets two abilities starting off plus detection.

To me, Protoss has some rather strong units, but they can only fit in a certain role. Terran are much more flexible, even without upgrades. Zealots NEED Charge, High Templar NEED both Amulet/Storm. Warp Prism is rather useless until you buy the Warpgate tech (seriously, it's not beefy AT ALL as a dropship).

As for Zerg, well, 6pool or /gg.

On a macro level, Terran I believe have an easier time. They don't need to manage Larva vomiting, creep tumors, Chrono boosting a Gateway every few seconds, or watching a Warpgate cooldown. Reactors (which can be fitted to further tech buildings) make unit production a cinch. And what's good for newbies is that you can both a) get out of supply block by calling down drops and b) not have to worry too much about SCVs due to MULEs. And don't get me started on that stupid scan. /has lost many a DTs to scans... Other races have to get upgrades and tech structures (overseer, robotics for Obs) just to see what's shrouded.

 

[Mostly_Harmless]

Hm You both made good points, but I wouldn't QQ too much about terran. A lot of their abilities aren't that fantastic. Supply drop isn't really worth it. Why would you do a supply drop that gives you 100 minerals worth of supply when you can get 300 minerals for free by using a muel? Siege tanks aren't that special. It takes 3 seconds for each one to fire and the splash damage can cause more harm than good when facing zealots. You are talking to a terran player who almost NEVER makes siege tanks because they are too expensive and they take up 3 supply. Mech is really worthless vs a toss user. I have tried it many times and it almost always fails. Mech is VERY good against zerg, but bio with ghosts and vikings are best vs toss. I will admit that terran is by far the easiest race to play. Back in BW toss was the easiest, zerg was still the hardest, and terran was inbetween. I think the main problem is that toss and zerg abilities each take 25 energy to use while terran has to wait till 50 energy, maybe if the nexus had to wait for 50 energy and get double the chrono boost or zerg queen can larva inject when at 50 energy 6 larva....that would take A LOT of stress off of those 2 races.

 

[Keero]

Yeaaah, Immortals + Stalkers chew through Hellion/Stanks/Thors. xD