Oddities

There are many idiosyncrasies contained within StarCraft II. The following list is a non-exhaustive look at them.

General

• Damage spells such as Psi Storm or Yamato Cannon completely bypass the Immortal's Hardened Shield.
• Chrono Boost can affect both a Hatchery's normal Larva production and a Queen's Spawn Larva ability. Requires a Neural Parasited Probe to build a Nexus.
• A Ghost's EMP will drain energy from a Command Center or Nexus.
• Banelings, Queens and Ghosts are neither light nor armored units.
• Certain spells, like Fungal Growth and Psi Storm, can wipe out Larvae in a single cast.
• Banelings with a speed upgrade are as fast as the Hellion, when on creep.
• MULEs or Infested Terran Eggs can be dropped to cause Siege Tanks to do splash damage to their own army.
• Changelings can be dropped onto Siege Tanks, forcing splash from multiple tanks as the changeling shifts forms.
• Infested Terran eggs are an excellent tool for absorbing Siege Tank damage while your units close in.
• Unloading a Medivac full of Marines or Marauders on top of a squad of Banelings is a good way to force cost-ineffective Baneling detonation.
• EMP reveals cloaked units for 10 in-game seconds.
• Fungal Growth reveals cloaked and burrowed units for its duration.
• Photon Cannons have a greater range than an unupgraded Planetary Fortress.
• Flying units cannot be used to trigger a burrowed enemy Zerg unit with Unburrow set to Autocast.
• You can kill cloaked units by manually detonating Banelings, even without detection.
• Seeker Missile can be dodged with Blink.
• You can pick up Larva and Zerg eggs with Graviton Beam.
• Zealots with the first tier attack upgrade can kill a Zergling with 2 hits instead of 3.
• A Corruptor's high armor value means it takes almost no damage from the Phoenix.
• You can set a building's Rally Point to a Bunker or Nydus Worm and have it automatically load.
• A Neural Parasited Mothership will cloak all of your units while under your control.
• You can hit cloaked units with splash damage by attacking your own nearby units manually.
• A Neural Parasited Medivac will heal a Zerg army while it's controlled.
• Due to Zerg Regeneration, an Ultralisk will survive a Thor's 250mm Strike Cannons with 1 hp left.
• Due to Zerg Regeneration, a Hydralisk will survive a Psionic Storm with 1 hp left.
• If you Neural Parasite a Mothership, you can mass-recall your own army.
• You can use Chrono Boost and Spawn Larvae through the minimap.
• Burrowed Roaches can move through a lowered Supply Depot, and can even prevent it from being raised again.
• Changelings, MULEs, and Hallucinations can all control a Xel'Naga watch tower.
• Massive units, such as Ultralisks, Thors, and Colossus can destroy Force Fields by moving over them.
• Any ground unit that isn't a temporary unit can use a Nydus Worm owned by that player, even Colossus, Vikings, and Thors.
• A Siege Tank caught in a Vortex will no longer be in siege mode when it emerges.
• SCVs can repair any mechanical unit in the game, including Protoss units. They can not, however, repair Protoss buildings.
• Workers are faster than Marines and Zealots, but not Zerglings.
• If you attack-move a worker near a Terran building as it's being constructed, the worker will target the SCV if able.
• Without upgrades, it takes 7 Banelings to kill 1 Marauder.
• A Sentry can stop a Ghost from nuking by using Forcefields to push him far enough away from the target point.
• Invisible units like cloaked Ghosts and Dark Templars become visible for the time they are lifted by the Phoenix's ability Graviton Beam.
• Chrono Boost will increase the speed at which Terran buildings fly. This requires an Infestor to Neural Parasite a Probe to build a Nexus, and an SCV to build a Command Center.
• Stationary Defense Structures (Spore Crawler, Spine Crawler, Photon Cannon, Missile Turret, Planetary Fortress, Auto-Turret, Point Defense Drone, and Bunker) don't benefit from Numerical Upgrades. Exceptions are the Shield Upgrades for the Photon Cannon and the Building Armor for the Terran stuff.
• It is possible to avoid a Stalker's shot by loading the unit being shot at into a Medivac, Warp Prism or Overlord.

True for Every Race

• If you set a building's rally point as a unit, new units will follow that unit until given a different command. The rally points are deleted if the target unit dies.
• You can break a worker free from being surrounded by enemy units by ordering it to gather resources.
• Workers pass through any other units when ordered to gather resources, friendly or hostile, including Massive units.
• A patrolling worker won't attack.
• If you completely surround a Townhall with units, the workers will be unable to return gathered resources.
• Flying units on patrol will ignore collision and stack up.
• You can unload a transport while it's moving by issuing the Unload command on the transport itself.
• High Yield Mineral expansions typically only have 6 nodes, rather than the usual 8.
• If you click on your race's Vespene Gas collection building, it will show the number of workers mining from it.
• When a building that is upgrading something dies, the full cost of the upgrade is refunded, even if you didn't cancel the upgrade.
• Xel'Naga Watch Towers last known status is visible through the fog of war.
• Holding ALT and pressing the hotkey for a spell, or right-clicking the spell's icon, will set it to autocast if available.
• Ctrl+Clicking on the Idle Worker icon will select all idle workers at once.
• Shift+Clicking on the Idle Worker icon will add the workers to a group one at a time.
• Clicking and holding a unit's portrait will cause the camera to follow that unit.
• You can paste text in the in-game chat box.
• Pressing Backspace will cycle through all your Townhalls (Command Centers/Nexus/Hatcheries).
• Units take priority over Resource Nodes on the Minimap display.
• Repeatedly clicking a Critter will cause it to explode.
• You can hotkey specific camera locations to the function keys F5 through F8 by setting your camera to a position, and then pressing CTRL + the desired function key.

Single Player

• MULES can be used to trigger location-based quest objectives in single-player missions.

Cooperative Games

• You can share control of your units in Cooperative games.

Protoss

• False Immortals made with Hallucination still have Hardened Shields, taking a maximum of 20 damage per attack.
• Hallucination units can be used to grant vision for Blink and other fun abilities.
• Phoenix can Graviton Beam an SCV that is currently constructing a building to freeze the building's construction.
• Psi Storm deals exactly the same damage to flying units.
• Colossus can be carried by Warp Prisms. (Starsrift)
• Warp Gates are automatically hotkeyed to W. (Executor) If you use the Grid layout, they are hotkeyed to Y instead. (Tremor)
• Burrowed Roaches and Infesters can move under force fields. (Checkmate)
• Hallucinations can be used to effectively destroy enemy Banelings. (Checkmate)
• Hallucinatory Phoenix can chew through a Point Defense Drone's energy very quickly. (Checkmate)
• Void Rays retain their charge during a mass recall. (Checkmate)
• Feedback will render most casting units useless for a short time, even if it doesn't kill them outright. (EvilLost)
• You can combine 1 High Templar and 1 Dark Templar to make an Archon. (EvilLost)
• Morphing Archons will not inherit the damage that the two merged Dark Templar or High Templar had. However, all damage done to the Archon while morphing will be kept upon its completion. (Checkmate; Attribute)
• Archons do not take extra damage from any type of attack, and have a small AoE effect to their attacks. (Checkmate)
• Despite having a phenomenal 350 Shield Points, Archons only have 10 hit points. (Checkmate)
• A completely un-microed and fully upgraded Phoenix wins against three Mutalisks, but with perfect micro it can kill an infinite amount of Mutalisks.
• Dark Templar can hold a Xel'Naga watch tower while cloaked. (Jabberwock)
• You can recall Warp Prisms in their Phase Mode. (Taym)
• You can queue Stalkers to Blink across obstacles so they don't get split up accidentally. (Autoturrets)
• Placing a Psi Storm on a Vortex at the end of its duration is a great way to damage all the units caught inside. (Wilder)
• Destroying a power source while a Protoss unit is warping in through it kills the unit being warped. This does, however, refund the cost of the unit and reset the warp-in cool down. (Nagalol; Impact - Thanks for the confirmation.)
• Colossus provide vision as if it were a flying unit. (BrandonReyes)
• Feedback can kill most energy using units if they are at or above 75%. (EvilLost)
• You can charge Void Rays on friendly buildings or destructible rocks. (Impact)
• A Carrier can back up a bit after launching interceptors to maximize its range. (Impact)
• Guardian Shield affects air units, even if they aren't visibly within the bubble. (River)
• You can use a Warp Prism's Phase Mode to supply the power needed to begin a building's construction. (Msyk)
• Unpowered Protoss buildings still allow building dependent units, e.g. de-powering a Cybernetics Core does not prevent Stalker production.
• Once a building begins the Warp-in process, it does not require power to continue building. (Msyk)
• Large Groups of Warp Prisms can have their Phase Modes queued individually. (Benevolent)
• Warp Prisms can load or unload units while in Phase Mode. (Benevolent)
• Enemies can hear the sound of you Chrono Boosting if nearby. (Bakka)
• The light generated from a Nexus is much brighter when it is building a Mothership than when it's building a Probe. (Bakka)
• You can push an Archon while it's merging. (Impact)
• You can Chrono Boost a Warpgate to decrease its cooldown.
• Hallucinated Colossi cannot destroy force fields. (Insignia)
• Unpowered Protoss structures still regenerate shields. (Shaosam)
• A building in the warp-in process doesn't regenerate its shields. (TaLuS)
• Chronoboosting Gateways while they turn into Warpgates will speed up the transformation. Works both ways. (Rhyton)
• Carriers can autoproduce Interceptors as soon as they have less than 8 by setting the "Produce Interceptor" to autocast. (xaeiu)
• Chrono Boost also allows a building to regenerate shields quicker.
• Guardian Shield reduces damage from ranged units by 2, but does not affect roaches attacking targets in melee range (A different attack animation also accompanies this)
• Colossi can be targeted by anti-air structures, like Missile Turrets and Spore crawler.

Terran

• You can use enemy Tech Labs and Reactors for your Barracks, Factory or Starport.
• If you use the move command to order an SCV to follow a specific unit, it will follow it and repair it automatically, provided you have set Repair to Autocast. (Minda)
• Medivacs can carry landed Vikings. (GenericName)
• MULEs can be called down to do field repairs on damaged units and vehicles. (Checkmate)
• A mineral patch can be mined by 1 MULE and 1 SCV at the same time but not more.
• Auto-turrets from the Raven benefit from the Building Armor upgrade. (Checkmate)
• The Raven's Seeker Missile can target one of your cloaked units, allowing you to make kamikaze runs with cloaked Ghosts or Banshees. (Checkmate)
• You can EMP a Point Defense Drone to set its energy to 0 and remove its ability to block your shots. (Chirality / Paul)
• The Seeker Missile's splash damage hits both air and ground units, regardless of target. (Checkmate)
• Flying buildings can be used to grant your units vision of the high ground. (koko)
• Terran Add-ons each counts as a separate building for scoring purposes. (wiz)
• Siege Tanks vision distance is less than their firing range in Siege Mode. (Kolesterol)
• Vikings can destroy Battlecruisers while staying outside the Battlecruiser's range, though not the Yamato Cannon's. (Autoturrets)
• Terran Missile Turrets are amongst the best anti-air defenses in the game. Among anti-air static defense structures, their cost and building time are the lowest, their DPS is the highest, and they can be upgraded for both increased range and armor. (Nagalol; Attribute)
• SCVs loaded into a Command Center or Planetary Fortress will survive when the building is destroyed, though not if the Command Center is flying at the time. (Nagalol)
• Terrans can use their Orbital Command to supply drop on an ally's Supply Depots. (DJRegs - Confirmed; Thanks Impact)
• Using Vortex, Graviton Beam, or similar abilities that incapacitate a unit on a Ghost during a Nuclear Launch will cancel the launch, but still expend the nuke. (Chakkin)
• You can queue the rally points for a building, allowing you to rally a Barracks to multiple Bunkers to load them up automatically. (Chakkin)
• You can unload units from buildings such as the Command Center or Bunker directly into a Medivac, but you cannot unload units from a Medivac directly into these buildings. (TaLuS; Attribute)
• If you set repair to Autocast on an SCV, you can order them to attack-move to a location, and then queue a command to return to gathering resources. They will automatically repair everything within range while attack-moving, and then return to work. (Benevolent)
• Sensor Sweep gives vision in a radius roughly twice the size of the Sweep graphic. (Bakka)
• Placing a Siege Tank in Siege Mode at a Xel'Naga watch tower allows it to make maximum use of its firing range without other units to support it. (Bakka)
• An SCV can begin construction on a building on a ramp, press halt, and resume building it later, and still have it block the ramp in the interim. (Impact)
• Halted buildings can be cancelled. (Autoturrets)
• Auto-Turrets with low health burn down like regular Terran buildings. (Fuzzymonkey)
• Bunkers with the Neosteel Frame upgrade still show the model of the Bunker without that upgrade in the last moments of Salvage. (xaeiu)
• SCVs with repair set to Autocast will repair mechanical units inside transports and buildings such as Bunkers, but not inside Nydus Networks.

Zerg

• A burrowed Zerg unit can prevent a building from being placed in that location (particularly fun if you drop a Zergling or a Roach at someone's natural expansion).
• Broodlings benefit from the melee damage and armor upgrades at the Evolution Chamber.
• A burrowed Baneling can have its unburrow ability auto-cast to pop up when an enemy draws near, allowing it to function like a landmine. (MATRIX)
• A Baneling can be detonated while burrowed for full damage. (MATRIX)
• Creep Tumor's construction can be canceled, allowing you to replace it in a new spot, but not when the creep tumor was placed by a Queen. (Checkmate)
• You can build structures in an enemy player's base and you can build Creep Tumors and Zerg buildings on an enemy Zerg player's creep. (Checkmate, Arturo)
• Units cannot activate a Xel'Naga watch tower while burrowed. (seanconnery)
• Changelings ordered to follow an enemy unit will better blend in with a moving army. (Checkmate)
• Changelings can be used to block melee unit's pathing, because hostile units will not automatically target the disguised Changelings. (Checkmate)
• You can cancel a Hatchery mid-construction to quickly create a small patch of creep at a cost of 75 minerals. (Checkmate)
• Drones and Broodlings are the only Zerg units that do not move faster on creep. Except for all air units.
• The Hatchery provides less vision than its creep generation radius. A Hive, however, sees further than it can spread creep.
• You can shift-queue multiple Overlords to drop off units while moving simultaneously. (Checkmate)
• You can never have more than 19 larvae at a single zerg Hatchery. (Checkmate)
• Two or three burrowed Banelings with Unburrow set to autocast can instantly destroy a hatchery as it is being morphed in at an expansion. Enable Building Attack must be set prior to burrowing the Banelings. (Checkmate)
• Corrupters can cast Corruption on ground units and Infestors can cast Fungal Growth on air units. (Minda)
• You can Neural Parasite an enemy Infestor to Fungal Growth enemy drones and you can Neural Parasite an enemy Queen and have her make Creep Tumors to allow you vision on the enemy hatchery. (Sweetness)
• Banelings will kill larvae in one shot. (NEO)
• You can queue a group of Neural Parasites after a move command to have your Infestors all take control simultaneously. (Checkmate)
• While morphing to an Overseer, an Overlord has 2 additional armor and is not an Armored unit. (Checkmate)
• You can chain Build/Cancel a Drone at an enemy gas node to slow down their ability to take advantage of it. (mattsacre)
• Multiple Creep Tumors in close proximity spread creep significantly faster than a single Creep Tumor. (Kolesterol)
• Placing Creep Tumors near a cliff will cause the creep to spread faster due to less surface area. (Seraph)
• Using Neural Parasite on a zerg egg kills it. (Protein / TLO)
• An enemy larva can be targeted with Neural Parasite and morphed into a friendly unit. (Benevolent)
• A Neural Parasited Drone cannot morph into a building. (Nick)
• You can use an Overlord's ability to Generate Creep to allow Creep Tumors to scale cliffs. (Taym)
• You can tell if a Roach has the ability to move while burrowed by looking to see if it has small crystal shards glowing on its back. (Taym)
• A burrowed Roach's movement speed does increase due to creep, but the movement speed does not increase with the Glial Reconstitution upgrade
• A Roach with a +1 Attack upgrade can kill a Zergling in two hits, rather than 3. (Taym)
• Hydras and Queens can attack units on different elevations. (Muykul)
• You can queue Burrow commands. (Taym)
• Hatcheries, Nydus Worms and Creep Tumors generate Creep. (Wilder)
• If you cancel a Zerg Building as it's being morphed, the drone is recreated, allowing you to potentially bypass your current supply limit, albeit at a small cost in minerals. (Nagalol)
• Hatcheries and Nydus Worms do not require creep to place. (Nagalol)
• Spine Crawlers can 2-shot Larva. (Mario)
• A Nydus Network can hold up to 255 units. (Impact)
• You can Mine through a Nydus Worm by setting the rally points from the Nydus Worm and Nydus Network to the Hatchery and the Mineral patch, respectively. This does require you to hit the unload command, however. (Impact)
• Ultralisks are immune to almost every status change. (Impact)
• Using Neural Parasite doesn't increase your maximum supply beyond 200. (Madness)
• Burrowed Infestors and Roaches cast a shadow when moving, allowing them to be spotted visually. (Chakkin)
• Overlords that are using the Generate Creep ability will continue to generate creep even if you no longer have a Lair or Hive. They will lose the ability only when ordered to stop generating creep. (Benevolent; Attribute)
• If you don't set your waypoint at a hatchery, eggs will sit at 100% completion indefinitely should the hatchery be blocked by too many units. (Benevolent)
• You can Neural Parasite a Changeling. Doing so will hide, but not stop, its death timer. (Benevolent)
• Morph Baneling cannot be queued in a command string, although Morph Overseer and Morph Broodlord can. (Benevolent)
• Queens, Roaches (or any other units, of any race) ordered to Hold Position can effectively block a ramp. (Bakka)
• You can queue move orders to individual Zerg eggs. (Bakka)
• If a worker is attacking a Drone, morphing the Drone into a building, even temporarily, disrupts the attack order. (Bakka)
• A large group of clustered Overlords can Generate Creep rapidly by queuing Move and Generate Creep commands. Even though the creep will be generated rapidly, it will disappear at its normal rate. (Bakka)
• Fungal Growth is an effective way to lock down air units using hit-and-run tactics, and Fungal Growth will also lock down any ground units using hit-and-run tactics, and Fungal Growth also locks down air and ground units using any other tactics. (Bakka)
• You can hear Queens spawn regardless of where your camera is currently focused on the map. (Bakka)
• Drones recover health when morphing into a building. (Impact)
• Banelings have a kill counter and an attack speed. (Impact)
• Contaminate on Hatcheries halts Larva production. (insanity)
• A Spine Crawler wall will let units with small collision size through. (Skoundrell)
• If a Baneling explodes while being Graviton-Beam'd it will do damage to non-friendly units on the ground below it, but not in the air around it. (Pholon)
• Unburrow can be auto-casted for the following units when burrowed: Zerglings, Banelings, Roaches, Hydralisks, Ultralisks, Queens and Infested Terrans. They'll automatically unburrow when an enemy ground unit comes into attacking range. (xaeiu)
• Temporary Zerg units, namely Infested Terrans, Changelings and Broodlings, can neither enter a Nydus Network, Nydus Worm nor an Overload with Ventral Sacs. (xaeiu)
• Infested Terrans suicide by gunshot when they die after their casting time has finished. (xaeiu, sc2mythbusters)

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