I hate RTSes where the units are basically bullet sponges and unlimited pop cap. It was good for Warcraft 3 because hero units and also a very limited unit pop cap. Grey Goo felt like it had bullet sponges more than its pop cap should have.
It feels like Company of Heroes was an opposite, but especially for infantry, lethality was very high but the squads were also limited pop cap. But it has a great multiplayer, compared to non-Starcraft RTSes.
However, I don't want zero lethality. That goes back to the bullet sponge thing. Ghosts with a nuke was done right, ghosts only struck one building very lethally. There still needs to be moments like that. And maybe limit the lethality to attacks that only affect a single unit/target, Area of Effect should not be lethal unless it's balanced elsewhere.
C&C Superweapons makes sense because of unlimited pop cap and also there is a clear timer for the player to react to the superweapon plus sometimes the superweapon is revealed on the map, so if you don't react, you only really have yourself to blame.
As already stated, low pop cap with less lethality is good. But if there will be lethality, there should be a higher pop cap. In such cases, unit creation should ideally be multiple units, like a squad in order to mass.
If debs want to make the debuff route viable, don't fall in the trap Red Alert 3 did, where freezing units with cryotechnology was OP. But also make that debuffing would allow lethalities to be very possible so that a player would have to perform two actions, debuff + attack to be lethal, whereas with no debuffs, it wouldn't be lethal. I think a debuff superweapon would work, I would say.
