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A couple abilities in Starcraft 2, such as Neural Parasite, indicate they are a "Channeled Ability". What does this mean?

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The picture in your question gives you the answer, while channeling the Infestor cannot move or do anything else while using Neural Parasite. turboSwag said it well enough as well. – Paralytic Mar 29 '12 at 13:22
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I appreciate the answers but how can you deduce that the "Channeled ability" tag is a synonym for the 2nd sentence in the description? – tenfour Mar 29 '12 at 14:05
Channeled ability and the sentence "The Infestor cannot take any other action while controlling an enemy unit." are in the same description tag so if you deduce then you will definately understand what it means. Do you by chance play any MMOs where they use the term channeling ability? – Paralytic Mar 29 '12 at 14:12
I never did. My best guess was correct about its meaning but it didn't make sense to me that there would be a redundant "channeled ability" tag when other spells don't have such tags. – tenfour Mar 29 '12 at 14:31

2 Answers

up vote 5 down vote accepted

Channeled abilities, in Starcraft and elsewhere, have two primary implications:

  • The unit can do nothing else while casting the ability.
  • If the unit is killed/stunned/interrupted then the effect ends prematurely or the final result does not occur.

This is true in Starcraft, Warcraft, DotA, and many other games. It's interesting to note that all the games I can think of that use channeled spells (and refer to them with that phrase) are made by, or originated with, Blizzard.

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up vote 6 down vote

It pretty much defines it in the description. It means that the unit can't move or do anything else until the ability is completed or interrupted by being killed or stunned. Usually the ability lasts x amount of seconds and is not a cast and forget about it type ability like psionic storm for example.

See wowwiki for more information. It works similarly in most Blizzard games. It's a bit more complex in WoW, but the idea is pretty much the same.

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