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This guide is to compile all the special abilities that you might not know in Starcraft 2. I am trying to educate the community on how some of the unit abilities function. Please feel free to contribute if I missed something and I will add it to the first post.
General
-No group of units will overkill in Starcraft 2 (think Siege Tank smart kill).
e.g Out of a group of 4 hellions with pre-igniter upgrade only 2 will fire when targeting a drone
-In team games SCVs can repair Protoss Armored units
Terran
-Ghost's EMP will cancel the Phoniex's channeling spell the Graviton Beam
-Thor's 250mm cannon will STUN the target unit for the duration of the attack
-The Point Defense Drone WILL NOT STOP Marines, Reapers, Ghosts, Tanks, Hellions, Thors, Roaches, Broodlords, Sentries, Void Rays, and Carriers
Protoss
-High Templar can Feedback Point Defense Drones
Zerg
-An Overseer's Contaminate ability WILL NOT STOP a Planetary Fortress from attacking (need confirmation)
-Banelings can explode like mines while burrowed
-To increase the chances of using a Nydus Network inside your opponent's base and for a faster flow of units, build two of them and have them build two Nydus Worms simultaneously
If you would like to add anything, please post it!
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EMP stops graviton beam. EMP does not stop neural parasite.
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United States11 Posts
Contaminate does only stop unit production, and won't stop static defense structures from attacking.
You can toggle "unburrow" to autocast, so units will pop out of the ground when the enemy walks over them to engage (useful with banelings as it can make for a more devastating "mine" since the banelings will attempt to move closer to the enemies for maximum damage)
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Useful guide, though a lot of these can be gathered from simply reading the tooltips of abilities.
Unburrow can be set to auto-cast, the units will then unburrow as soon as something enters attack range. For Banelings, they will unburrow when a unit is close enough that it would be damaged by its splash should it explode where it was standing then run next to the unit and explode (maximizing effectiveness) I believe this is ~Range 1.
Repair can be set to auto cast by right clicking on it, however if an scv is mining it will not stop to repair something.
Overlord creep pooping can be set to auto cast as well.
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I'll try to add some of the more obscure tips/tricks, or uncommon uses for common things that people know about but don't utilize to full exploitative effectiveness. Some of these might seem way too fleshed out, but I wanted to give actual gameplay examples as to where these things would be useful, as opposed to just posting something and saying it's good.
Zerg
[*] In addition to the post above regarding burrow cast, Roaches and infestors can be ordered to move, burrow, unburrow, move, burrow again, move, unburrow, etc., with shift-commands (i.e. queueing) for a ninja sneak-attack if you have eyes on your opponents army or a rough idea of when to burrow to avoid being seen.
e.g., your terran opponent has no raven but does have control of the xel'naga watch towers. You can distract his units with a little feint attack while also ordering your burrowed roach/infestors to sneak around the back. This is great with fungal growth queued up at the end, followed by a reburrow on the infestor, and an unburrow of the roaches to finish off all the workers/snipe the CC.
+ Show Spoiler [How this is useful] +[*] Or say youre on Blistering Sands, and your Terran opponent is camping the Xel'naga towers.
You can queue up the following commands, which I have used to surpringly amazing success. (All queued up for max speed) Burrow, move to his rocks blocking his back entrance, unburrow, attack rocks, re-burrow, then order them to move back to your base. If he has left his back rocks unguarded, but has (for example) a supply depot there, he should see the rocks going down and start to pull back as he freaks out that you're going to take out his main.. You having reburrowed right after the rocks go down and ordered your units to pull back, will likely encounter his army in transit trying to take your roaches out. [Manually] unburrow, cast a fungal growth, pop up the roaches, and bye bye tanks! Pop some more units and move in for the kill.
[*] You cannot load a changeling into a Nydus worm.
Terran
[*] Rather than use a scan for 50 energy, why not drop a MULE on your opponents minerals to scout? You can then move the mule around the base and get a wider scout radius than a scan, if you have the unit control for it. You can also steal some of their minerals and mine them out faster, since MULEs IGNORE other workers mining (including your own) . This effect is surely negligible once or twice, but used over the course of a long game can definitely have an impact on their economy if you are doing a contain/econ starve on your opponent, especially as the maps resources grow dryer.
The missile dropping onto their minerals is sure to freak them out, too ^_^;
[*] Note that MULEs do not have to be cast on a mineral patch. You can cast them anywhere.
(NOTE: Oops, subject to STS17's post below, it seems that I overlooked, in haste, that you need vision to cast a MULE. Doh! See what happens when Beta goes down! Sorry if I got anybody's hopes up for some craziness. Still, I can think of some very good uses for this!)
+ Show Spoiler [How this is useful] +Still, you can scan/mule if you have excess energy (tsk tsk, macro macro!) and suspect your opponent has either hidden some buildings on his base edges, or want to throw down a scan on his main, scout the rest of his main, and his expo as well with your MULE.
[*] Or, say you suspect your opponent of building a Proxy Rax/Gate nearby his natural or taking a rather quick double expo.
The maps I'm thinking of are Lost Temple & Kulas Ravine, where you can throw down an expo at the natural, then go for the gold (on either map). Or, say we're on Kulas Ravine. Throw a scan into your opponents NATURAL. If you scan at the choke, you should have vision of: his natural, if he expanded, the tip of his high-ground, and the area past his wall-off at the choke. You can then call down a MULE either just past his wall-off if he doesn't have units there, and scout around his main/rocks.
Or, even better, throw the MULE onto the tip of his high-ground, and bring your MULE to the Xel'Naga watch tower at his high-ground! Then you can see what he's building, and where his forces are, if nearby, and might be able to catch him moving out. [SUBJECT TO CONFIRMATION: Do MULEs get the Xel'Naga?] If so, I can think of a lot of good uses for this, i.e. scanning your opponents base, and possibly catching his army if MULEs can control the Xel'Naga watch tower.
Rather than cast 3 scans (two looking at a spread-out main, one at his expo) for 150 mana (yea yea, energy, I like mana damnit!  ) you can throw a scan and a MULE for 100 mana.
Not as useful as I originally thought, but one of those unique little tricks a (smart? You decide...) player might think of to save 50 energy for extra MULE resources on his own mineral lines.
I have tons more, but these are some unique ones I haven't seen posted elsewhere yet.]
(End of this post duplicates my below post due to editing in!)
On June 14 2010 09:04 nEAnS wrote:
Protoss
-High Templar can Feedback Point Defense Drones
Now that's what I'm talking about. Uncommon uses for commonly known abilities! I admit that even I did not know this. I hope this thread brings many more things like this, and (hopefully people agree?) the things that I posted above/in the future. <3
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[B]On June 14 2010 09:33 InfiniteIce wrote:
Terran
Rather than use a scan for 50 energy, why not drop a MULE on your opponents minerals to scout? You can then move the mule around the base and get a wider scout radius than a scan, if you have the unit control for it. You can also steal some of thei rminerals and mine them out faster, since MULEs IGNORE other workers mining (including your own) . The missile dropping onto their minerals is sure to freak them out, too.
Note that MULEs do not have to be cast on a mineral patch. You can cast them anywhere.
You need vision of an area to cast a MULE it can't be cast blindly into the dark. So this wouldn't work unless you had vision of his base already.
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On June 14 2010 09:33 InfiniteIce wrote:
Terran
Rather than use a scan for 50 energy, why not drop a MULE on your opponents minerals to scout? You can then move the mule around the base and get a wider scout radius than a scan, if you have the unit control for it. You can also steal some of thei rminerals and mine them out faster, since MULEs IGNORE other workers mining (including your own) . The missile dropping onto their minerals is sure to freak them out, too.
Note that MULEs do not have to be cast on a mineral patch. You can cast them anywhere.
I have tons more, but these are some unique ones I haven't seen posted elsewhere yet.
You need vision to call down a MULE, so I'm not sure how this would work as a scout.
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oops.
Thanks STS17, I edited my post to reflect your info!. See what happens when Beta's down?! Still, you can scan/mule if you have excess energy (tsk tsk, macro macro!) and suspect your opponent has either hidden some buildings on his base edges, or want to throw down a scan on his main, scout the rest of his main, and his expo as well with your MULE.
Rather than cast 3 scans (two looking at a spread-out main, one at his expo) for 150 mana (yea yea, energy, I like mana damnit! ) you can throw a scan and a MULE for 100 mana.
Not as useful as I thought, but one of those unique little tricks a (smart? You decide) player might think of to save 50 energy for extra MULE resources on his own mineral lines.
But definitely, one can tell I am not the greatest Terran player ^^; Thanks STS and Alzadar.
+ Show Spoiler +Hey! You guys should edit your posts and add a fun little trick now  You definitely know stuff!! Not being fecetious! Promise. <3
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Ok fine Infinitelce I'll add one more MULE trick in:
I did this fairly often before the -10 damage to siege tanks nerf so I'm not sure how effective it still is.
If the Terran player (TvT) has a couple of siege tanks in his base within range of his SCVs you can scan and call down a mule into his SCV line (typically takes two or three MULEs but you don't need the minerals at this stage of a TvT) and watch as the tanks blow up his own SCVs since it splashes friendlys.
I've had games where this happens to my opponent and they don't even realize for quite some time since it doesn't warn you for friendly fire.
Also, I believe you can call a MULE down on a unit and it will begin repairing it (need confirmation as I have never done it myself) so this is always useful when doing an early Thor push if you need just a little bit of extra repairing action. (Probably not the most efficient tactic though)
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On June 14 2010 10:04 STS17 wrote:
Ok fine Infinitelce I'll add one more MULE trick in:
I did this fairly often before the -10 damage to siege tanks nerf so I'm not sure how effective it still is.
If the Terran player (TvT) has a couple of siege tanks in his base within range of his SCVs you can scan and call down a mule into his SCV line (typically takes two or three MULEs but you don't need the minerals at this stage of a TvT) and watch as the tanks blow up his own SCVs since it splashes friendlys.
I've had games where this happens to my opponent and they don't even realize for quite some time since it doesn't warn you for friendly fire.
<3.
I also added more MULE insanity into my post, above. Maybe you can confirm some question/suspicions I added onto it?
+ Show Spoiler [Reply to your MULE tricks] +I looooove the idea of trying to snipe his SCVs with his own tanks. With the smartcast I'm not sure how great it would do, but hell, it might just be an awesomefest. Plus, if you're able to get him to snipe his own gas SCVs, this might just turn the entire course of a game, since TvT is an extremely gas-dependent matchup. Without the friendly-fire warning, if your opponent doesn't notice, he might have zero, or one SCV in one (or both, if you're super-fly) of his geysers. I also like to do this during battle, because not only do a shitload of things that look more-or-less like Nukes coming down on top of his marines scare people, if you're good/lucky with this, you can cast a wall of MULEs behind his infantry line and, with enough luck, his tanks will just splash splash splash all your mules onto his infantry. + Show Spoiler [Verification needed:] +Additionally, you can wall in his infantry and prevent them from moving back if you have enough MULEs/unit control. So his infantry won't be able to avoid the splash. Verification needed as to whether or not MULEs actually have collision with regular army units.
On June 14 2010 10:04 STS17 wrote:
Also, I believe you can call a MULE down on a unit and it will begin repairing it (need confirmation as I have never done it myself) so this is always useful when doing an early Thor push if you need just a little bit of extra repairing action. (Probably not the most efficient tactic though)
+ Show Spoiler [Reply] +
I don't think that MULEs will start repairing a mech unit if you cast onto it, but they might. I won't assert either way. Somebody else can confirm this hopefully. Either way, you CAN call down a fuckton of MULEs, say if you've been lacking macro or saving up mana, and go for a big mech-style push. Then you can simply ctrl+click your MULEs to select 'em all, and right-click on repair (it's auto castable!) to save your mighty mighty, but very expensive Thor$ and kill off those pesky Mutas with the extra repair healing the Thors, or vikings, tanks, whatever. I have done the right click auto-repair on MULEs almost every game that I get Terran (admittedly few, but very very fun and useful for that extra OOMPH in your push.)
If MULEs do start the repair automatically on the unit you cast them on, I still postulate that the auto-repair would be better, since the MULEs would simply move on to the next unit after done repairing (or repair several units simultaneously, etc etc etc).
I also believe, subject again to confirmation, that MULEs repair faster than normal SCVs do (similar to how they mine faster)? If so, this makes the repair calldown during battle even more viable, and you don't have to pull SCVs off the line to repair your units, bunkers, etc while defending your expo from a push. Either way, you'll save mining time on the SCVs, and, more importantly, won't LOSE the SCVs that you might have pulled off the line.
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They repair at the same rate from what I've seen. Would be a nice thing to patch.
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On June 14 2010 11:55 Zombo Joe wrote:
They repair at the same rate from what I've seen. Would be a nice thing to patch.
You are correct. They repair at the same rate.
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SCVs can repair only the HP of the: sentry, stalker, observer, immortal, phoenix, warp prism, void ray, colossus, carrier and the mothership.
^ All these units have the "mechanical" unit type.
Interestingly, the photon cannon cannot be repaired.
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Mules can repair mech units, and some protoss units in 2v2, however it has to be manually activated, as in call down the mule, click repair, then click the target. This is really only useful if you have some mech stuck on high ground or something that you want back at full health.
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hmmm... what if I ask my terran ally to send 15 SCVs to repair my mothership while my voidrays go to work......
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In tvt if you're inching forward against enemy tank lines, you can get vision of their line and then click on their tanks to see what their ranges are exactly so you can place your tanks accordingly. This is also useful when doing templar/tank/whatever drops so you don't have to hope that you're not in range.
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I'm sure that everyone knows that Medivacs can heal Zerg units in team games. They can be very useful if the Terran just makes a bunch of them and gives control to the Zerg player while attacking. Really gives fragile Hydras a boost.
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On June 14 2010 09:04 nEAnS wrote:
-No group of units will overkill in Starcraft 2 (think Siege Tank smart kill).
e.g Out of a group of 4 hellions with pre-igniter upgrade only 2 will fire when targeting a drone
False. Only units with instant hit attacks do not overkill, since the engine is linear(i.e. everything happens one after the other, even though it may seem as happening at the same time) and units can't fire on already dead targets. All units with projectile attacks can overkill and do so pretty often.
On June 14 2010 09:04 nEAnS wrote:
-In team games SCVs can repair Protoss Armored units
Mechanical, not Armored.
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SCVs can repair protoss units?! I never even thought to try that! Nice find.
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EPT
