What sets Matoran or Toa of Fire (Ta-) apart from Matoran or Toa of Plasma (Su-)?
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Toa of Plasma have higher heat resistance than Fire Toa, and can use plasma (think the energy blades of lightsabers in Star Wars, or beam weapons throughout sci-fi). Basically, they’re Fire Toa with the power dialed up to 11. Where Tahu’s attacks would be a flamethrower, a Su-Toa’s attacks would be an anti-vehicle cannon. Because of this, the Makuta hunted many of them out of existence, as a Toa of Plasma could easily kill a Makuta, or at least destroy its armor.
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The Ta Matoran are the red ones
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On surface level comparison, yes. But outside of that…?
Edit (43 minutes later): I mean outside of appearances like color.
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That is the outside, yes 
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Okay sure, but what about their powers? Since they are both resistant to heat.
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Regarding their powers, Su-Matoran heat resistance is even greater than that of Ta-Matoran. Additionally, their eyes possess protection against bright light.
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Where was this stated? It’s known that the Makuta went after Toa of Iron and Magnetism, but I’ve never seen anything about the Makuta going after Toa of Plasma.
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Plasma is overheated gas so in a sense it’s the same idea as Kai element vs wyldfyre element from Ninjago
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Sounds like a conflation to me.
As for the difference between Plasma vs. Fire; With what Rukah brought up, Su-Matoran seem simply superior unless there’s some drawback we don’t know about - but perhaps there is? Fans only asked what perks the secondaries get, where as the story also explored the weaknesses of the primaries. For instance, Ta-Matoran are vulnerable to cold.
When it comes to the powers, Plasma can output substance of much greater heat, but can’t directly manipulate heat itself the way Fire can. Fire in general is more versatile, and can play with different levels of output, while Plasma trades that for sheer power.
Source: Official Greg Discussion | Page 232
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Also worth noting that Su-Matoran superior heat resistance is one of those things fans forced onto Greg for him to establish, and nobody liked it in the end anyway…
Their original perk was just fine in my opinion.
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That’s my bad. I think I confused them with other Matoran. Thanks for the correction!
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Though this may count as more head canon, I’ve always thought of plasma coming with more heat resistance, but less heat endurance. Kind of like how fire and plasma tend to exist in reality; fire is not as intense but can last while plasma is more intense but vanishes rapidly.
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