The new Terran and Zerg mechanics are amazing, far better than anything else I had imagined or read (and I've read a lot). However, I think the Protoss mechanic is a step below.

Both the Zerg and Terran mechanics add strategic depth by requiring that you make tactical decisions for when to use those abilities, since they share an energy source with each other. The Dark Pylon does not, since players will always have one or more DPs by their probes that will only repeatedly cast proton charge and another group in strategic positions that will help their army with the other two abilities. There is no rationing of resources taking place here, just mindless clicking like the old gas mechanic.

Possible solutions:
Move the three abilities to the Nexus and remove the range requirement for all of them. Now it's easy to tweak the costs/effectiveness for balance and you still have all the cool strategic depth without any of the mindless clicking.

Alternatively, just keep the Dark Pylons but remove the range requirement of the other abilities. I just suspect this might be harder to balance.

EDIT: This thread is full of ideas, many much better than the two I proposed above, I am just leaving them there for reference. Cavez is aware of the issue and I'm sure the SC II team will make it work fantastically :)

Good thread. =)

I agree that the Protoss mechanic is the least interesting of the 3. There is not a ton of tension right now on the abilities. Argus Link is really good, but Null Shield sees little use. Compared that to MULE vs. Comsat or the Queen's abilities and the Dark Pylon lacks choices (there is only one right choice most of the time).

We will probably attack this by attacking balance and then the Dark Pylon's other abilities first and if that fails go from there with some new mechanics.