Adept

"Glory to the Daelaam."

- An adept

The adept is a protoss ground ranged unit introduced in Legacy of the Void.

Overview
An officer class of infantry, adepts are highly-trained battlefield commanders who serve as ranged specialists.

Adepts specialize in dealing with lightly-armored threats. They are lightly armored, as adepts prioritize speed over protection. Armed with glaive cannons and psionic amplifiers, adepts are also well versed in psionic transfer.

History
Adepts were originally intended by Hierarch Artanis to replace former Judicator Caste leaders with Templar. By 2505, they were a recent addition to the Daelaam's arsenal, and Dominion Intelligence had recently gained knowledge of their existence, with the Dominion Marine Corps possessing little battlefield experience against them. They were designated as primary targets in the event of any hostile encounter.

Adepts were deployed during the End War, when groups of Templar volunteered to adopt Purifer ordinance refined by Phase-smith Karax. This ordnance allowed the Templar to amplify their psionic potential and project their minds for teleportation while weakening their enemies.

Game Unit
The adept is a slow-moving core gateway unit with a ground-only ranged attack and normal movement speed. This unit utilizes its psionic transfer ability to teleport to nearby locations. It is designed for harassment.

It is intended that the adept serve as a core unit option in mid/late game, taking on roles once held by the zealot and stalker, and in some cases, doing better. Its psionic transfer ability is distinct from the stalker's blink ability, in that blink is more focused on twitch-based micro, while psionic transfer is based on the timing and positioning of the teleport. The adept can be controlled independently from the copy it generates.

Upgrades
The adept can receive an upgrade which decreases attack cooldown by 45%.

Quotations

 * See: StarCraft II Adept Quotations

Development
The adept was a protoss unit in early builds of StarCraft II. It was a ranged attacker, but was cut during development for being too similar to the marine.

During the Legacy of the Void beta, adepts had an upgrade which gave their attack bounce damage. It was removed as it wasn't generating the "micro interactions" Blizzard was hoping for.

It received a buff to its health as it was weaker in gameplay than the developers had anticipated.

Blizzard has considered allowing an option to trigger when the adept teleports per its psionic transfer ability. However, they feel that doing so will make it too similar to the stalker's blink ability.

Known Adepts

 * Praetor Talis

Trivia
A purifier adept skin is available for StarCraft II players who pre-order the collector's edition of Legacy of the Void.