Why don't Plasma Devastators cost power?

[Oddnerd]

Hi all,

Why don't plasma devs cost power? Their close equivalent, noise marines, cost power (the upgrade itself doesn't, but the base unit does). It seems like a unit that has anti-all damage should cost some power. I understand that it isn't a hard vehicle counter, but a well-landed plasma shot can still inflict serious damage to a vehicle.

It isn't a glaring balance issue, but from a design perspective I'm not sure what the rationale is for having plasma devs as a separate unit with no power cost, when you could make them an upgrade of the dev squad (reducing their req cost and increasing their power cost).

EDIT - It's been suggested that the lack of power cost was a retail design choice to make up for the fact that SM had no AV setups (no lascannon). With ***chaos rising's addition of the lascannon upgrade, this problem doesnt exist anymore.

[egewithin]

EDIT - It's been suggested that the lack of power cost was a retail design choice to make up for the fact that SM had no AV setups (no lascannon). With Elites addition of the lascannon upgrade, this problem doesnt exist anymore.

http://dow.wikia.com/wiki/Retribution/Devastator_Marine_Squad/Upgrades

I say 50 power for P-Devs. They are very useful.

That is it for me.

[Tex]

From early on in the games design, each race was given a very important tool that was power free. In the case of SM, its power free artillery. For orks, nids, and eldar, it was power free AV.

I think a great reason to jusitify why the Pdev should remain power free is that SM as a race, while having amazing transition AV, also pay out of the nose in power for it. The counter to a person buying lots of upgrades is usually to pump out another squad that said upgrades are ineffective against. Having to counter a mass of infantry with another unit that costs 50 power seems very problematic to me.

[Nurland]

Imho SM T2 is very power intensive as it is. So I don't mind them havind a req sink there.

[Black Relic]

I honestly think they cost a bit too little for how much damage they can do. Especially when they are buffed. I think their req cost could go a up a tad. Like 25 req. Because you can ground target pretty well if you know unit movements or use shouts to shotgun blast a unit to make sure that dev shot hits. And if there is a force commander with sacred standard around...well you get the point.