I don't really understand what is so good about Protoss Motherships. They call them the "ultimate Protoss unit", but when I built one, it wasn't very good. I understand that they can teleport units, but other than that, what can they do?
Starcraft – so good about Protoss Motherships
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Best Answer
The mothership has three abilities;
Mass Recall as you listed is probably the least interesting ability. It instantly transports a chunk of units to the mothership's position. This can be used offensively to reinforce your army from your production base or defensively to pull out units from a losing battle.
Vortex is the other active ability and is much more interesting. Akin to the "Stasis Field" from the Arbiter, a Starcraft 1 unit of which the mothership was derived from, this takes any group of units in the field out of the battle for a little while. This too can be used both offensively and defensively.
On the offensive this ability really shines, you can remove half of your opponents army from the battle, allowing your army to dominate the remaining forces by outnumbering them. When the vortex ends, the remaining army of your opponent's pops out and you can finish them off. This can also be used to remove problematic units from the battlefield such as sieged tanks.
Defensively, you can protect your own units from a losing battle while reinforcements arrive.
Cloak is the passive ability of the mothership. It renders all friendly (including allied) units and buildings invisible (and untargetable) unless detected with a detector. If your opponent did not expect you to bring cloaked units, it forces them to fall back or take heavy losses from your invisible army. Only the mothership remains visible, however the range of cloak is quite significant.
Overall, the mothership is an interesting option for late game protoss. However, you should only consider building one if your opponent is lacking detection or anti-air.
You can also do a mothership rush:
Finally, the "ultimate unit" is a disputable claim on the tooltip, as the mothership is being removed in the next expansion, Heart of the Swarm.