Casting Events Guide

[Starquizer]

SPELL CASTING EVENTS GUIDE

Well, many mappers and spell makers keep asking the same question with different variations:

[RAINBOW]

"What is the difference between Begins Channeling/Casting and Starts the effect of an ability and which one should I use ?"

[/RAINBOW]

Here is the answer:

Big Image

As you can see, this is a simple map for the sequence of MOST of the spells.

MOST ?
Yes, some spells casting time field takes place after the 'Start the effect of an ability' event.

For instance,
- Blizzard & Rain of Fire:
Casting Time = 1 and it is the time between each wave,

- Flame Strike:
Casting Time = 1.33 and it the time that you see a yellow black-hole-like effect before the flame pillar appears.

- Earthquake, Monsoon:
No, although this requires channeling but its not like the previous.

Now, for that word "Any Interruption Means"

There are many things that can interrupt your spell, I will talk about them now.

1) Move/smart/attack-move/attack/cast another spell:
Can be issued for spells that its effect not instant, like Blizzard, Earthquake, ..., etc and only after the "Start Effect" event; issuing the order before this point will queue the order and make the caster move to the destination after the spell finish.


2) Stop Order:
This immediately stops/cancels the spell casting and can be issued at any time after "Begins Channeling" and before "Finishes Casting"


3) Stun:
If the caster is stun at any time after "Begins Channeling" and before "Starts the Effect" he will re-cast the spell again provided that he isn't issued any other order during the stun period and he has enough mana for the spell but if the stun is after "Start Effect" then the spell is disrupted and the mana is wasted in case the spell needs mana.


4) Entangle/Silence:
This disrupts the casting completely, but if it is before "Start Effect" then no mana wasted.


ok, that's it. But you may be wondering about what I said early about casting time and 'Start the effect of an ability' event, there are tons of spells how to know about them.

To answer that, you must try by using the same method I used; which is a bunch of triggers to test the time and then changing the 'Casting time' and 'Cast point' fields from the object editor to different values.

The triggers are in the map attached with this guide.

I hope that answers your questions about spell casting events.

Thanks for reading.

Update List

- Showed the Follow Through Time on the photo and map is updated with new one including a unit with channel spell. (credits to Maker)

 

[Maker]

I'm glad that you made this since this seems to be a mystery to many users.

You could add that the follow through time of Channel, which is widely used as base ability for custom abilities, is the time between "Starts the effect..." and "Finishes casting".

 

[Starquizer]

@ Maker

Done, thanks for pointing that.

 

[Almia]

Oh you <3

 

[PurgeandFire]

Great job getting this information. Approved.

 

[Wareditor]

An instant interruption (in the form of a "stop" or "move" order) responding to the begins casting event or begins channeling event will stop the spell from triggering its effect event, its mana consomption and its cooldown but for an instant spell based on channel, the effect and the mana consumption will still trigger (but not the cooldown). In fact, the stop casting event will occur but the spell will keep going until its finish casting event.

A solution I have found is to delay the order by 0.1.

 

[Kyrbi0]

This is incredibly useful (and I didn't even have to necro-post!).

 

[Map Designer]

Quite a valuable Tutorial. I learned from this tutorial that (Begins Channeling an ability) takes effect before cast time, while (begins casting an ability) only takes effect after cast time has already finished. now since most abilities have 0 cast time, these 2 should coincide (or to be exact begins channeling will always occur first, then directly followed by begins casting if cast time was 0)

Thanks!