Creative passive ultimates

[The_Messenger]

They may be easier to make, but the fact of the matter is if you are making something meant to fit in with standard Warcraft, passive Ultimates are the exception to the rule; very uncommon.

Well it would depend on the type of the map or custom campaign in the first place, no? I admit that my examples were poor. Since Dota is based on PvP heroes meant to be nearly unkilable, deal massive burst or soak tons of damage. While Shar Dundred's Books have custom units that can easily overwhelm you if you aren't a fairly experienced strategy player, hence some powerful abilities. I just wanted to point out some exceptions that work, for the most part.
It would be up to the skill of the scripter whether the abilities will work or not, I've seen some cool ones on YouTube but their scripting was a nightmare.

 

[Kyrbi0]

Well it would depend on the type of the map or custom campaign in the first place, no? I admit that my examples were poor. Since Dota is based on PvP heroes meant to be nearly unkilable, deal massive burst or soak tons of damage. While Shar Dundred's Books have custom units that can easily overwhelm you if you aren't a fairly experienced strategy player, hence some powerful abilities. I just wanted to point out some exceptions that work, for the most part.

Yes...

... if you are making something meant to fit in with standard Warcraft...

The "IF" statement, like in programming, is only true if the IF is true. : )

 

[Lord_Earthfire]

In my opinion passive ultimates are a bit better than active ones, from the point of view of scripting. An active ultimate would be difficult to piece together and make it work considering bugs would be hard to squeeze out.
A well balanced passive ability and 2-3 active abilities is enough to build a powerful hero in theory. It just depends on how broken the passive would be like say Dota's Drow Ranger ultimate that gave her 30+ Agi passive, or Centaur Warchief's 30+ Str, or even Bloodclaw's 75% base damage bonus aura from Shar Dundred's custom campaign (that actually stacked with other damage increasing auras, I've had units with 100+ auto attack damage); those were some of the most broken passive ultimates I've seen on heroes that came out of WC3.

To be honest, i found designing and triggering passive abilities to be far more complex and challenging than active ones.
Design wise, its far more easier to strap some imple effects/missiles/lightnings on a spell and have directly, through the intrinsic properties of active abilities like cast range/cooldown/manacost/castpoint etc. enough parametres to make the ability fun and interactive to play with.
Triggering wise, only the most basic passives need very little triggering above most active spells. Most time, you need to react on things with passives, meaning you need damage detection systems/custom spell events/periodic checks or buff systems (I always dislike triggering auras, since making them efficient is a pain in the...) .

The problem with passives is that blizzard almost give nothing to work with in that department. They either fall into the rng based passives, like bash/evasion/critical strike/orb of slow, which have very limited design space due to their on attack-rng based approach, are static on attack skills, like hardened skin or venom, whose space is even more limited since they are hardcoded. The others, really interesting ones with more freedom are the auras, but they only implement stat boosts/reductions and thus their tactical implication is "kill the guy with the aura first".
Stat boosts are the worst offender of them, since if the abilities only existing attribute is to boosts stats, you are achieving nothing more than artificially making a hero stronger without any implications (there is a reason why centaur warruners ulti was scrapped and drows ulti now only works if no hero is within 300 of her, these were just lazy designs).

Even more problems arise that most passives are just crap to modify with. slow orb only triggers on active targeting. Critical strike, bash or others are hard coded. You can't have more than three different stacking venoms (slow posion, poison spears, orb of venom). In the long run you will need to trigger them yourself, and most of their effects need hooks that you need to create yourself (see above)

Passives, even more ultimate ones, should either react to something or contribute through an angle that changes the tactic you go against the hero. evasion can be countered with true strike (not so implemented in melle, though), bash makes it needed that you kite the attacker (this is why bash on range ones is a bad idea most of the time), critical strike is a risk/reward damage increase. Hard skin makes small damage attacks that go below the damage treshold more rewarding. Spell shield discourage nuking or encourages focus nuking. Auras shift the target from one target to the aura carrier.
And then there is stuff like custom recources/bars, on trigger passive effects (e.g. when you reach 60% hp), on every second/third attack trigger, stacking buffs on attack, passives with cooldowns, positioning depending passives, which are most time abilities with very high reward/interaction ratio.


Tl;dr: Passives are quite hard to trigger properly and infact more harder to design. And there is no cap (like in actives) on how hard they are to trigger. Our standard is just that low because wc3 gave us quite few passives (and simple ones on top of it), incomparison to actives, to begin with.

 

[Kyrbi0]

That was a great treatise on the subject... I'm curious about your comment regarding "only 3 stackable poisons", though... I was just reading the classic. Battle.net website, and it seemed to say that Poison abilities from the *same* unit (-type) don't stack (expected), while Poison abilities from *different* unit (-types) do stack.

I haven't done the testing yet to determine this, but I do know that the standard Poison abilities have fields regarding what does & doesn't stack (implying that something can, somehow).

 

[The_Messenger]

To be honest, i found designing and triggering passive abilities to be far more complex and challenging than active ones.
Design wise, its far more easier to strap some imple effects/missiles/lightnings on a spell and have directly, through the intrinsic properties of active abilities like cast range/cooldown/manacost/castpoint etc. enough parametres to make the ability fun and interactive to play with.
Triggering wise, only the most basic passives need very little triggering above most active spells. Most time, you need to react on things with passives, meaning you need damage detection systems/custom spell events/periodic checks or buff systems (I always dislike triggering auras, since making them efficient is a pain in the...) .

The problem with passives is that blizzard almost give nothing to work with in that department. They either fall into the rng based passives, like bash/evasion/critical strike/orb of slow, which have very limited design space due to their on attack-rng based approach, are static on attack skills, like hardened skin or venom, whose space is even more limited since they are hardcoded. The others, really interesting ones with more freedom are the auras, but they only implement stat boosts/reductions and thus their tactical implication is "kill the guy with the aura first".
Stat boosts are the worst offender of them, since if the abilities only existing attribute is to boosts stats, you are achieving nothing more than artificially making a hero stronger without any implications (there is a reason why centaur warruners ulti was scrapped and drows ulti now only works if no hero is within 300 of her, these were just lazy designs).

Even more problems arise that most passives are just crap to modify with. slow orb only triggers on active targeting. Critical strike, bash or others are hard coded. You can't have more than three different stacking venoms (slow posion, poison spears, orb of venom). In the long run you will need to trigger them yourself, and most of their effects need hooks that you need to create yourself (see above)

Passives, even more ultimate ones, should either react to something or contribute through an angle that changes the tactic you go against the hero. evasion can be countered with true strike (not so implemented in melle, though), bash makes it needed that you kite the attacker (this is why bash on range ones is a bad idea most of the time), critical strike is a risk/reward damage increase. Hard skin makes small damage attacks that go below the damage treshold more rewarding. Spell shield discourage nuking or encourages focus nuking. Auras shift the target from one target to the aura carrier.
And then there is stuff like custom recources/bars, on trigger passive effects (e.g. when you reach 60% hp), on every second/third attack trigger, stacking buffs on attack, passives with cooldowns, positioning depending passives, which are most time abilities with very high reward/interaction ratio.


Tl;dr: Passives are quite hard to trigger properly and infact more harder to design. And there is no cap (like in actives) on how hard they are to trigger. Our standard is just that low because wc3 gave us quite few passives (and simple ones on top of it), incomparison to actives, to begin with.

I was thinking more about simple passives or hybrids of them and that it would be easier on the guy making them since there would be lesser bugs or glitches to deal with.
I've been fooling around in the editor and made hybrid auras of Devotion's armor with Unholy's HP regen (I didn't manage to get more than 2HP regen despite tinkering around). Simple auras that have the ability to stack with one another and get something more (Drums of War+Command Aura or Endurance Aura+Unholy Aura or Devotion Aura+Unholy Aura). I haven't tried out anything like the old ultimates from Dota, a flat bonus to one or more stats, and even if I try a few tricks they just didn't work or were unskillable. So I gave up on trying to figure those out.
Like you said, procks are difficult since there's a chance that 1-3-4 attacks out of 10 might land a bash or critical, but the whole math behind it is beyond my abilities.
I'm not experienced on these things like other people are, I'm just thinking that simple things are more efficient than trying to reach for something beyond your current level of skill. I know a thing or two about stacking various sources and get something broken or plain strong, but actual custom things that... say... "get +5% attack speed once every 10% total HP is lost" that's well above my expertise.

 

[Lord_Earthfire]

@Kyrbi0: yeah, this is more or less right, but this is a bit more nounced, since its about editing them. As far as i know, they always use the standard venom buff, so you cannot modify them properly effect wise(except orb of venom, iirc). You need to restric yourself on three types, which can get very annoying (or maybe its because i'm biased since i needed to find that one out the hard way...)

@The_Messenger: I see where you are coming from. Passives can be very modular using multiple of these. I just think thst there is, theoretically, that much more possibilities in passives that isnt used. But the experiebce needed to create them cones with time and practice, i dont want to discourage you in any way ^^. To the unholy aura: have you tried shift-clicking the field? This allows you to fill in negative or very high numbers into the field. Just keep in mind that you are then out of the safe bounds, so bugs are possible (which should be fine in the case of unholy aura, but i wouldnt try stuff like negative missile speeds).For the attribute bonus, things like that are common when you try to modify the item stat bonus abilities. There is a attribute bonus hero ability in the editor which is levelable. It was used in the rexxar campaign. This one should do the trick.
For the proc abilities, i would recommend giving statistics a dive in. You only really the very basics, and not even them. Its more tied to experience which high chances are feasable for a mp game, and it depebds on the hero too (especially with bash, there is just a too high amount of maps which makes it able to permabash, looking at angel arena ir custom hero sirvival, for example).

 

[The_Messenger]

@Lord_Earthfire: The little experience I do have is because I fooled around the settings and wanted to see if I can push the limit on it. What I did have in mind to make (custom abilities or passives) is nothing super flashy, highly complex or those ridiculous angel arena things. I wanted to start a custom campaign project and looks like I'll be doing most of the heavy lifting myself. So I found that some things are simple and fun to piece together, passive abilities being the first I started toying around with while abilities kinda... explode. I do watch some videos and read on how to work the WC3 editor on the forums but for someone like me I just need someone to show me than just read text walls of things I barely understand.

 

[Himperion]

Well, using Necromancy on this thread.

Arcane Flux, is an ultimate that allows a Mage without summon, Stun or Teleport ability to survive more and keep doing damage.

Using Spell Amulet every ten second to protect from debuff + Spiked Caparace to reduce incoming mele damage in 30% + Lightning Orb + Chain to inflict damage up to 6 enemies without losing damage in the jumps, the base damage is 15 so isn't game breaking.

The other Hero abilities are

Single Target Acid Bomb, with attack speed debuff, is a mid damage, low mana ability.
Reverse Healing spray, a channel with high damage and mana cost, but makes a zone a deathtrap for the enemy.
Totem of mana and health, heals 100 of hp and 50 of mana per level.

The idea of the Mage being a glass cannon, the debuff in the acid bomb last 10 seconds, the totem can help to support the attackers and healers a little, and the passive being the only self enhancements for the mage.

 

[Banelingline]

In general, passive Ultimates should reinforce the rest of what the Hero does, or alter how the Hero plays in a straightforward fashion. An example would be a Hero with an active transformation based in Metamorphosis as a basic ability, then getting a passive to transform into the same form instead of dying. An Assassin can do this in two different ways, with the transformation being either mobility or damage. The mobility makes it a mode of potential escape and recovery, while the damage turns the Assassin into a workable Brawler by being able to keep fighting much longer than before.

Another passive to look at is unit spawning. If killing a Hero generates units reliably capable of revenge-killing high value targets, or spiraling out as a constantly growing force, then killing that Hero is something to be actively avoided when you don't have good enough area of effect damage present to handle the group spawned. Doubly so if the Hero makes the resources for the growth of the units spawned, at which point the mirror match is made frustrating.

Exhume Corpses on any sort of corpse-using Hero can lead to a rather strong acceleration, especially if there's abuse of unit qualifiers (IIRC, Corpse is a thing you can tag a unit with) to have actual units qualify as corpses for them to turn into a transport for a subset of allied units (or their own corpse-based summons...), while more general transportation abilities being useful for hit and run or support Heroes to carry forces with them.

 

[Scias]

If you're trying to make the passive ability fit in with the original heroes designs, which is in most cases one passive (ie. Auras or passives like Evasion, Critical Strike, Bash..) if a hero doesn't have a passive he's likely to have a weak mana cheap ability (ie. Farseer's Farsight, ShadowHunter's Serpent Ward, Litch's Dark Ritual..), then one "primary" ability that is picked first majority of the times, some heroes have 2 abilities you can choose between to start off with but it's almost never a good choice to train the second option on Lv2 in this case (ie. Warstomp and Shockwave, Thunderclap and Thunderbolt..)
So if you're going with that in mind, you should either go with a single passive ability that would be the ultimate, an attack-move style of ability while the other 3 abilities of the hero would be the more active ones that would force you to focus on using your hero, or you could try to pull off something like Blizzard did with Tauren Chieftain, still having 2 passives but giving him 2 really nice active abilities.

I made a hero with passive ultimate that I'm quite satisfied with, so I'll explain my thought process on how I put this hero together. I'll start with the ultimate itself - it's basically tank's Barrage ability which targets both ground and air. Of course if you put Barrage as passive for a hero, this will be really overpowered even as a ultimate ability considering Hero dmg and scaling of the dmg by items and stats, so I punished this hero by reducing it's damage and starting stats, making it really weak early into the game. So I thought how would I make this punishment not so easily exploited by a opponent starting off with standard hero pick (Archmage, Blademaster, Demon Hunter and Death Knight).. I don't think there's a way to exactly counter all 4 of these heroes while you have only 3 skills, but there's ways to counter the units that are expected in standard meta with these heroes. First ability to deal with Archmage (other summoner heroes also) I gave the hero was a chain dispel, countering Water Elemental pushes, and also sort of helping deal with Death Knight since it counters Skeleton Rod, and it is an active ability that would give you something to do with the hero other than attack-move. For the second ability I was thinking of countering Blademaster, but also it needs to help deal with other kind of issues that units can bring you, so sort of having this hero inspired by the way Tauren Chieftain works with 2 active and 2 passive abilities, I decided to go with a second passive ability, which reveals invisible units near the hero - it's not much of a counter to Blademaster considering the hero I made is weak early on and even if you see Blademaster he can still kill you just by right clicking your hero, but it's something. Anyway, this ability also helps deal with Nightelves (Shadowmeld) and burrowed Creepfiends, so it gives the hero some strength. Since the hero has 2 passive abilities and has tough time creeping early on with the decreased stats, I figured it needed an active ability that you could use on a lower cd to push the usage of Heroe's abilities, with that in mind I gave it a damage spell that doesn't come close to Death Coil, Frost Nova, Thunderbolt.. in terms of nuke damage, but has shorter cd so you could use it more often therefor making the hero more actively used. Overall the hero is still quite weak early on but I think you have a chance with the ability set it got, and there's a big powerspike when it hits Lv6, with the ultimate also scaling from the items you come across (Claws of attack and Gloves of Haste, and ability to use Invulnerability potion while doing AOE damage).

I can't really think of very creative passive ability that would be a combination of 3 different passives..

• Perhaps something like Lifesteal + Attack speed Bonus + Increased Hitpoint regeneration, on some Vampire hero concept or something would make for a good combo.
• Or if not going with already existing passives (there's a lot of possibilities here but here's one).. A passive ability that creates small units nearby your hero (up to x amount), which benefit from some aura (either Life Regen, Movement or Attack speed increase or something) while nearby the hero (the aura only effects these summoned units), and perhaps some bonus to the hero maybe he gains +1 (or 2 or some percentage) damage per summoned unit that's close to him.
• And as suggested above by few people the Spell Shield + Resistent Skin + whatever else, I'm not sure exactly how necessary it is to have any additional passives to Spell Shield as it's is quite strong by itself, sure you could play around with it's cd and balance it out so when you get hit by spells with spellshield being on cd you still have some sort of protection, but feels like just Spell Shield with lower cd alone would do just as well and wouldn't be as confusing for the opponents, Spell Shield also allows for some sort of counter-play which makes it kinda interesting, like casting Banshee's curse on the hero making it vulnerable for Death coil + Nova nuke. Btw how would Spell Shield passive work with Spell Shield item? = Spell immunity?

And here I'm just going with passives that already exist in Warcraft 3 here, so the ideas don't go too crazy:

• Flak Cannons - heh like Barrage
• Freezing Breath - Frostwyrms Freezing Breath is already considered OP I think, so on a Hero unit that can't be sniped by anti-air and has faster attack speed than Frostwyrm it's probably gonna be way stronger
• Spell Immunity - Boring but a OP passive, I prefer Spell Shield idea.
• Disease Cloud - Maybe some experimenting with this, Idk how great it would be for a ultimate but if it lasted really long and was more annoying than it currently is it could potentially work
• Burning Oil - Well if you didn't notice by now, I think AOE damage on attack makes for a pretty good offensive passive ultimate
• Phoenix Fire - Could be quite strong on a melee hero getting extra ranged attacks which casts randomly and on multiple targets leaving them burning for extra damage, put a invulnerability potion on the hero and go for some peasant harass.
• Feedback - I'm not exactly sure how this ability works but if you did 30-40 mana damage + whatever hit points damage you do with feedback that sounds pretty strong, include scaling from Claws of Attack you'd be doing Lv1 mana burns per hit. Would probably be much stronger on a ranged hero than on melee, though I think it has potential either way.

I got carried away, quite a lot of text.

 

[Kyrbi0]

This thread just keeps getting better & better.

One thing, Scias:

the original heroes designs, which is in most cases one passive (ie. Auras or passives like Evasion, Critical Strike, Bash..) if a hero doesn't have a passive he's likely to have a weak mana cheap ability (ie. Farseer's Farsight, ShadowHunter's Serpent Ward, Litch's Dark Ritual..), then one "primary" ability that is picked first majority of the times, some heroes have 2 abilities you can choose between to start off with but it's almost never a good choice to train the second option on Lv2 in this case (ie. Warstomp and Shockwave, Thunderclap and Thunderbolt..)

I generally agree with this analysis, except I sorta see it as a symptom rather than intentional design; I feel like Blizzard's goal was to make each hero have all 3 primary abilities be useful & interesting in different match-ups & situations. I don't think they ever wanted to make an option that wasn't cool to pick.
Now, due in part to mana/CD restraints, however, I feel like there's often 2 major 'builds' or 'paths' to take with any given hero's skillset, and it indeed often revolves around the Passive (if it exists; especially for a non-INT) hero. Y'know, for the Death Knight you've got the Nuker/Healer (Death Coil & Unholy Aura) & your Survivalist (Death Pact & Unholy Aura). For the Mountain King you've got AoEDamage (Thunder Clap & Bash) & your Single-TargetDamage (Storm Bolt & Bash).

For some heroes with enough mana, you have a trifecta; 3 good abilities that all have utility. Like the Warden IMO; SS/FoK is a damage dealer/nuker, FoK/Blink is a mobility/army-killer, and Blink/SS is a supreme hero-chaser/killer.

At least, that's how I've viewed heroes (& have tried to design them). Not a lot to say about Ultimates; often they appear to be some sort of, well, 'ultimate move', some super-special thing. It's sometimes, though, not very well-slotted into their Role as a hero (what is Starfall doing on the PotM? Or Vengeance on the Warden? Or Bladestorm on the Blademaster?) But no matter what, it's nearly always super exciting to cast, and often has a game-changing effect (I learned this lesson the hard way, lol_

 

[Scias]

One thing, Scias:

I generally agree with this analysis, except I sorta see it as a symptom rather than intentional design; I feel like Blizzard's goal was to make each hero have all 3 primary abilities be useful & interesting in different match-ups & situations. I don't think they ever wanted to make an option that wasn't cool to pick.
Now, due in part to mana/CD restraints, however, I feel like there's often 2 major 'builds' or 'paths' to take with any given hero's skillset, and it indeed often revolves around the Passive (if it exists; especially for a non-INT) hero. Y'know, for the Death Knight you've got the Nuker/Healer (Death Coil & Unholy Aura) & your Survivalist (Death Pact & Unholy Aura). For the Mountain King you've got AoEDamage (Thunder Clap & Bash) & your Single-TargetDamage (Storm Bolt & Bash).

Oh right while I did think about the usefulness of ability set against different match-ups in my Hero concept I explained, I failed to point it out in Blizzards original Hero concepts. But yeah in original hero ability sets intended or not there are counters for certain play styles and match-ups (ie. picking Thunder Clap first on Mountain King if playing against mass Ghouls strategy).
I also noticed what you're pointing out about the Death Knight's "Survivability", this is a thing for majority of melee heroes, either survivability or escapability. Some examples are: Demon Hunter's Evasion for survivability, Blademaster's Windwalk for escapability, Warden's blink for escapability, Paladin's Divine Shield for survivability, Dreadlords Vampiric aura for survivability (weak), and Death Knight's Death Pact (which I really rarely seen used), the other melee heroes I think are meant to be more dependent on their secondary support hero pick, like Tauren Chieftain, Crypt Lord, Mountain King.. Which is why I think with Night elf melee heroes one has survivability while the other has escapability ability as they don't have a good healer support hero (which is probably due to bear's rejuvenation and moonwells)..
Though even Tauren Chieftain, Crypt Lord and Mountain King have some sort of aid in escaping and surviving, since Tauren Chieftain can stun nearby enemy units for a duration which reduces damage he'll take, and he has increased movement speed with his aura. Crypt Lord can also stun units with Impale then run away, even better so if supported by Death Knight's unholy aura for movement speed. Mountain King's stun with stormbolt, and thunderclap slowing down enemy units.. Notice that the heroes with stun don't have escape or survivability other than what the stun provides them.

For some heroes with enough mana, you have a trifecta; 3 good abilities that all have utility. Like the Warden IMO; SS/FoK is a damage dealer/nuker, FoK/Blink is a mobility/army-killer, and Blink/SS is a supreme hero-chaser/killer.

Well, ideally I think you'd want to be able to use SS + FoK if you had the mana for it, so Blink isn't as good as those two. It's still a great ability though, and it's not a big punishment that you have to spec into Blink on early lvls. But if you're comparing Lv10 heroes I think she's probably the strongest since she has such a well rounded set of abilities, she alone can nuke as much as Death Knight + Litch together(?) and she has the best escape in the game, and even her ultimate "isn't bad" when compared to the rest of her abilities and is actually good compared to other ultimates.

At least, that's how I've viewed heroes (& have tried to design them). Not a lot to say about Ultimates; often they appear to be some sort of, well, 'ultimate move', some super-special thing. It's sometimes, though, not very well-slotted into their Role as a hero (what is Starfall doing on the PotM? Or Vengeance on the Warden? Or Bladestorm on the Blademaster?) But no matter what, it's nearly always super exciting to cast, and often has a game-changing effect (I learned this lesson the hard way, lol_

Ah you're right, I was just dishing out ideas for the passives not thinking about the "wow" factor, so Idk how super-special the Feedback idea would look, even if it was doing lv3 mana burns per hit, it would be over powered in that case but it would still lack the special visual appeal of a ultimate. However I think the Barrage/Flak Cannon and probably majority of the AoE damage passives could bring the wow factor though, like the Hero I made with the Barrage ultimate, I pick this hero just to see it hit lv6. It's kind of a equal of Star Fall which has smaller range but is constantly activated and only way to stop the Hero from "casting" it is by killing the hero, so it does have a game-changing effect even for a passive - so does Tauren Chieftain's Resurrection.

Edit:
The disease cloud passive could also work as "epic" I think? Imagine a large cloud of disease surrounding some plague doctor hero, or since I was just talking about it as the way it works as an ability it doesn't have to be disease, could be some sort of burning aura that sets nearby units on fire, circle of fire or something. It could be something to look forward to both visually and game-changingly haha

 

[Sapprine]

how about a passive, lesser Stoneform/avatar abillity?

 

[Banelingline]

how about a passive, lesser Stoneform/avatar abillity?

That's really simple +numbers, namely the Ring of Protection, the Gem of Health ability and the Claws of Attack ability, using the spellbook method mentioned in the OP. This is creative passive ultimates, like taking advantage of Metamorphosis' variables to have a nerfed-compared-to-normal transformation on death to use mobility abilities tied to the form's hit and run basis for escape to survive the "respawn" period more reliably, while also being able to give a bit of AoE damage locked to the transformation form on the way out.

Or having Exhume Corpses alongside an ability that makes units that count as Corpses while still "alive" and corpse-using abilities, thus acting as an ability use accelerator by being inbuilt resource generation and storage while also transporting units to act as hidden guards. Mixing in the Graveyard's ability with something that spawn units on death gives you the potential for fractal corpses, as my own messing with the Graveyard ability shows (I set it to make corpses of one of the spawn-on-death Nerubians, and then the Spiderlings spawned under Neutral Passive whenever Raise Dead was used on the corpse. Set the spawned unit to a proxy with a corpse doodad model and the initial one being a pile of corpses doodad model and you get highly compact corpse storage and transport that looks the part!).

 

[Sapprine]

Why not some sort of low-all stat boost?

Basically gain the benefits of 3 level ups (stat-wise) + small bonus

 

[Banelingline]

Why not some sort of low-all stat boost?

Basically gain the benefits of 3 level ups (stat-wise) + small bonus

Again, creative passive ultimates. Not just +numbers.

 

[Kyrbi0]

That's really simple +numbers, namely the Ring of Protection, the Gem of Health ability and the Claws of Attack ability, using the spellbook method mentioned in the OP. This is creative passive ultimates, like taking advantage of Metamorphosis' variables to have a nerfed-compared-to-normal transformation on death to use mobility abilities tied to the form's hit and run basis for escape to survive the "respawn" period more reliably, while also being able to give a bit of AoE damage locked to the transformation form on the way out.

It may just be 'numbers', but it's a creative application of existing abilities to approximate a standa

...as my own messing with the Graveyard ability shows (I set it to make corpses of one of the spawn-on-death Nerubians, and then the Spiderlings spawned under Neutral Passive whenever Raise Dead was used on the corpse. Set the spawned unit to a proxy with a corpse doodad model and the initial one being a pile of corpses doodad model and you get highly compact corpse storage and transport that looks the part!).

I'm very interested in this, but can't quite picture it; pics or test map?

 

[Banelingline]

I'm very interested in this, but can't quite picture it; pics or test map?

Unfortunately, I lack editor access due to an OS change and hard drive change. The CD key is in a folder on the previous hard drive, so I can't redownload to retest and make a test map. Shortly before the OS change, the editor bugged out and got locked into RoC mode, with me deleting it and not being able to figure out how to reinstall the editor alone.

 

[Sapprine]

Make an ultimate passive thats only particially passive, but still passive...

Custom Excamples:

- Vampiric Frenzy
everytime you attack, increases attackspeed by 5% (up to 50% total) and add a 1% life steal percentage to your standart attack (up to 10% total), effect will ware off over 10 seconds after not attacking

- Killing Spree
everytime your heroes attacks and delivers the final blow, increases hp regen (+1.5 p/sec) and attack/move rate (+15%) for 5 seconds. (stackible, each effect only lasts 5 seconds respectively)

 

[Kyrbi0]

Unfortunately, I lack editor access due to an OS change and hard drive change. The CD key is in a folder on the previous hard drive, so I can't redownload to retest and make a test map. Shortly before the OS change, the editor bugged out and got locked into RoC mode, with me deleting it and not being able to figure out how to reinstall the editor alone.

Eesh... Quite a perfect storm, there. I hope you can get it resolved & get back into modding someday; your seem to know your stuff.

So I guess, questions then: did the spiderlings look like corpses, or their "spawn-on-death" summons?

 

[Himperion]

Maybe Kam will be able to talk the devs into making the orbs work not only with selected attack, but the normal attack of the AI. Having the posibility of shot skills at 100% without manual orders could be a great plus for us xD.

Something i'm testing now Cleave at 100%+Demolish+Phoenix fire or Poison.

The idea is use this one into a Berserker type of melee hero, Cleave is obvious, but Demolish is used to control the critical damage, for example 4 to normal units, 3 to buildings, and 2 to heros, Phoenix fire/Poison is to generate a extra kick with the dps. Phoenix problem is being random when attacking a cluster of enemies, and poison don't have splash damage.

Phoenix fire works better for a mage type of unit.

 

[Banelingline]

Eesh... Quite a perfect storm, there. I hope you can get it resolved & get back into modding someday; your seem to know your stuff.

So I guess, questions then: did the spiderlings look like corpses, or their "spawn-on-death" summons?

The Spiderlings were the normal on-death spawn, just triggered from using Raise Dead on the corpse and under Neutral Passive. This is probably a weird bug of how the Graveyard stores corpses that are perfectly fresh indefinitely, storing them as an untargettable actual unit that "dies", triggering on-death abilities, when used in some ways. Might have triggered on Raise Dead, too, actually...

And I don’t actually know modding all that well (never really dug in and made something complete, my brother figured out full alternate races maps though! With a working AI and everything), I just have a crazy memory (it's been upwards of three years since I messed around with the Graveyard(the doodad is settable, and the orientation/placement is coded to automatic even spacing), and yet what I talked with my grandma about during lunch is unknown to me now) and am quick to look at/think about the implications of how things work.

The more advanced modding tools that dig into the actual code might let you have the spawned things be on your team by altering the team value of the corpses. Or there's a field just for that in the default editor, but I can’t check, though the modding tool is more likely to be able to make it work for altered melee by being more easily able to set it to the team of the Graveyard/similar person.

 

[Kyrbi0]

The Spiderlings were the normal on-death spawn, just triggered from using Raise Dead on the corpse and under Neutral Passive. This is probably a weird bug of how the Graveyard stores corpses that are perfectly fresh indefinitely, storing them as an untargettable actual unit that "dies", triggering on-death abilities, when used in some ways. Might have triggered on Raise Dead, too, actually...

And I don’t actually know modding all that well (never really dug in and made something complete, my brother figured out full alternate races maps though! With a working AI and everything), I just have a crazy memory (it's been upwards of three years since I messed around with the Graveyard(the doodad is settable, and the orientation/placement is coded to automatic even spacing), and yet what I talked with my grandma about during lunch is unknown to me now) and am quick to look at/think about the implications of how things work.

The more advanced modding tools that dig into the actual code might let you have the spawned things be on your team by altering the team value of the corpses. Or there's a field just for that in the default editor, but I can’t check, though the modding tool is more likely to be able to make it work for altered melee by being more easily able to set it to the team of the Graveyard/similar person.

Hm, ok. Thanks!

So I'm just trying to piece this together here in my brain, from your descriptions. What exactly was the end-goal/purpose/benefit to this method?

 

[Banelingline]

Hm, ok. Thanks!

So I'm just trying to piece this together here in my brain, from your descriptions. What exactly was the end-goal/purpose/benefit to this method?

I was just messing around with the stuff to see what would happen and randomly found that useful bug.

 

[Kyrbi0]

I was just messing around with the stuff to see what would happen and randomly found that useful bug.

Ok I get that's how you found it, but what exactly did it allow you to accomplish? if I successfully recreated this, what could I do with it?
Is it a unique quirk with no real functionality? Or a neat truck to do something already available in-game but in a new way? Or an entirely new kind of ability or function?

 

[Banelingline]

Ok I get that's how you found it, but what exactly did it allow you to accomplish? if I successfully recreated this, what could I do with it?
Is it a unique quirk with no real functionality? Or a neat truck to do something already available in-game but in a new way? Or an entirely new kind of ability or function?

If Corpse is a tag one can apply to a "living" unit (I'm pretty sure it is), then the Neutral Passive summons can be set to dummy units that act as extra corpses (probably with a doodad model for a corpse). This means that you can have multiple corpses occupying a single space. The spawned units from the corpse can also have Auras or other benefitial passives (if such things even exist...)

 

[Himperion]

The operative question is, Corpses can use skills?

If yes, you will need to create a spell book with Graveyard and the skills of a meatwagon, and adding the passives or actives into the dummy or dummies.

 

[Banelingline]

The operative question is, Corpses can use skills?

A normal, "living" unit that's been tagged as a corpse can, as it's only a corpse for ability targetting (pretty sure there's a check box for untargettable units used for Locusts from Crypt Lord's ult that can preserve more of the standard corpse function). Which should leave it a valid target for all the autocast stuff that goes for corpses, though the interaction with Death Knight's ultimate is something that has to be tested. As does whether or not the unit being used for the abilities that consume corpses counts as death (given the Graveyard glitch, this is a "probably"), because then on-death passives of other sorts can be used, as well as on-death triggers.

 

[Himperion]

I've been doing some testing, maybe i'm doing it wrong. But Create corpses with a new dummy unit can't even emit auras.

Wonder if someone have been playing with pocket factory, that could be another goldmine for ultimate spells.

 

[Banelingline]

Wonder if someone have been playing with pocket factory, that could be another goldmine for ultimate spells

One thing I need to warn you about: Collision wrecks high spawn-rate units in the position of the Clockwerks, as the spawning unit gets body blocked by the summons. You have to have them not collide (by having one of the two fly or otherwise not collide) or set to automatically hunt down enemies (I can't remember what field it is, but the field for automatic aggro range, when set high enough, causes the unit to hunt down the nearest enemy, regardless of Fog of War)

 

[Banelingline]

It's been over 48 hours, so the bump roles apply.

Flak Cannons - heh like Barrage

IIRC, this is actually an ability that just enables a separate attack that's present on the base unit's code. So you code in the attack your adding, which need not have splash but could as a Cleave-counterpart, and have the ground attack command be added by learning the ability so you can use it at any range and not just past the default range.

Freezing Breath - Frostwyrms Freezing Breath is already considered OP I think, so on a Hero unit that can't be sniped by anti-air and has faster attack speed than Frostwyrm it's probably gonna be way stronger

Isn't it just a guaranteed stun with the building disable code attached?

Spell Immunity - Boring but a OP passive, I prefer Spell Shield idea.

Not enough for a passive ultimate on its own, being too passive (it does absolutely nothing to change how you play, unlike Crypt Lord or Keeper of the Grove encouraging sticking beefy units in melee instead of flanking ranged units with them), but combined with something that makes it important, like an ability that would otherwise self-damage or fail to damage certain allies as intended, it works out well.

Disease Cloud - Maybe some experimenting with this, Idk how great it would be for a ultimate but if it lasted really long and was more annoying than it currently is it could potentially work

Better to use is the Factory ability to make it a trail of DoT, then do something on death via simple trigger to do the thing when a unit with the debuff dies.

Burning Oil - Well if you didn't notice by now, I think AOE damage on attack makes for a pretty good offensive passive ultimate

The persistent AoE makes me thing it'd work well with Barrage enabling an attack to spread the AoE far better than the default.

Phoenix Fire - Could be quite strong on a melee hero getting extra ranged attacks which casts randomly and on multiple targets leaving them burning for extra damage, put a invulnerability potion on the hero and go for some peasant harass.

No idea how this works, but combine it with a trigger to add some other effect like a Slow or damage debuff and you've got yourself a lovely pseudo-Cleave Ultimate.

Feedback - I'm not exactly sure how this ability works but if you did 30-40 mana damage + whatever hit points damage you do with feedback that sounds pretty strong, include scaling from Claws of Attack you'd be doing Lv1 mana burns per hit. Would probably be much stronger on a ranged hero than on melee, though I think it has potential either way.

Feedback is flat, though, it doesn't improve with the damage offered by items. Unless you set it as a complicated trigger to replicate the effect based on a ratio of the Hero's damage.

---

Looking at these, and commenting on them, makes me think of a passive Ultimate for what is decidedly a caster in role (blasting from a fair distance while being squishy and Intelligence based), yet does almost no actual casting:

Rocket Artillery: The {Hero} has mastered the use of rocket shells, offering more room for alchemical charges in their attacks, increasing damage of their attacks and effectiveness of thair specialist munitions. Furthermore, these shells can be reliably aimed in indirect fire across much longer distances, allowing the {Hero} to attack from extremely long distances with even larger charges. This indirect fire, however, has a significant travel time and may miss the intended target. Additionally, some abnormal ammo may have unforseen effects when used in excessive quantities.

(code-wise, you take Barrage or some other method to enable Attack 2, which is set to act much like the various long range siege units do, set a trigger to add Fire at Ground or whatever it's called to the Hero when the ability is selected, have one of the damage-increasing Auras be present to boost damage (don't forget to account for this when describing the alternate attack, as there's no way to view Attack 2 on a Hero in-game), then an Upgrade to alter their other abilities to alter them in accordance with increasing the charge. An explosive shell turns into a sidegraded Flamestrike as it fails to properly detonate, for example, causing more damage over time, but losing out on up-front damage and thus enabling targets to survive with emergency healing. Sidegrades aplenty, with the details of how it works changing, but the overall role of the ability staying the same.)

 

[Scias]

IIRC, this is actually an ability that just enables a separate attack that's present on the base unit's code. So you code in the attack your adding, which need not have splash but could as a Cleave-counterpart, and have the ground attack command be added by learning the ability so you can use it at any range and not just past the default range.

Well yeah it's just a passive that allows hero's attacks to do splash damage, both to ground and air units. Depending on how strong the splash damage is I think it could easily work as a ultimate, and it could have a cool effect to it to make it look more like a ultimate. I guess Cleave could work also, if it had larger range and a effect that creates some kind of earthquakes or something around the hero on each attack, it would have the visual appeal and ability strength of an active ultimate.

Isn't it just a guaranteed stun with the building disable code attached?

I wasn't thinking about the building disabling effect of it, I was thinking removing that and just keeping the AoE slow on each attack for the passive ultimate. It can be really strong depending on how much attack/movement speed reduction it applies to the enemy units and in what AoE size.

Not enough for a passive ultimate on its own, being too passive (it does absolutely nothing to change how you play, unlike Crypt Lord or Keeper of the Grove encouraging sticking beefy units in melee instead of flanking ranged units with them), but combined with something that makes it important, like an ability that would otherwise self-damage or fail to damage certain allies as intended, it works out well.

Depending on the rest of the hero's ability set it can be really strong, even over powered. If you made a hero with a channeling normal ability like Monsoon, Starfall or Tranquility that usually get stunned and cancelled by your opponent, hitting lv6 with this hero would secure that this cannot happen anymore and I think in this case spell immunity ultimate would be something to look forward to.

Better to use is the Factory ability to make it a trail of DoT, then do something on death via simple trigger to do the thing when a unit with the debuff dies.

Well I don't know how technically stuff work since I am totally inexperienced with modding and stuff.. But I'm thinking of a Plague doctor/Necromancer type of hero with the "Disease cloud" passive ultimate that applies a Disease debuff to nearby enemy units which does DoT, and like with Dark Arrows upon death the unit turns into a skeleton. So this would be like passive mana-free version of Dark Arrows that is automatically applied in radius around the hero.
This is just with the exact disease cloud idea in mind, but I was thinking more in terms of just a passive that applies DoT damage in a large radius around the hero. Could also be a circle of fire wall working like Fire Trap cinematic doodad, as one fire goes out the other pops up right next to it and like so in a circle - or have it as a synced animation loop so it looks like the circle of fire is rising up and down around the hero, engulfing enemy units inside of it in fire. Perhaps a better explanation would be having small Flame Strikes constantly cast in a circle around the hero, could do burst damage on a unit standing right in the spot where the fire strikes and DoT on nearby units.

The persistent AoE makes me thing it'd work well with Barrage enabling an attack to spread the AoE far better than the default.

It would be interesting to see it effect more units at once, though I am not sure if it would be too strong if the hero was doing AoE normal attacks + left a DoT AoE onto units it hit. Perhaps it could be balanced by the amount of units it hits and the damage of the dot & hero's normal attack.

Feedback is flat, though, it doesn't improve with the damage offered by items. Unless you set it as a complicated trigger to replicate the effect based on a ratio of the Hero's damage.

Yeah I didn't think this one through really, feedback has no badass visual effect that could make it work as a good ultimate, and I don't see how it could be an awesome and balanced ability at same time. Perhaps a better idea for an anti spellcaster hero would be passive version of Mana Flare, doing damage to any unit that casts a spell.

 

[Banelingline]

Well yeah it's just a passive that allows hero's attacks to do splash damage, both to ground and air units.

No, I mean it's literally a different attack in the code enabled by the ability to allow for attacking air units. Actually open up the editor and dig through the Object Editor to look at the fields. Mess around with parameters and see what happens.

Also, this is a thread for retooling and mixing the mechanics, not just reusing the same abilities but "heroized".

 

[Scias]

No, I mean it's literally a different attack in the code enabled by the ability to allow for attacking air units. Actually open up the editor and dig through the Object Editor to look at the fields. Mess around with parameters and see what happens.

Also, this is a thread for retooling and mixing the mechanics, not just reusing the same abilities but "heroized".

Yeah, I know how it works.

I know what the thread is about, you might've missed it but the the op wasn't experienced with triggers and wasn't planing to create anything unique trigger wise, he just wanted to combine 3 existing passives (item or ability bonuses) into one ultimate in a creative way. I kinda see more creative potential in passive ultimates based on a single existing ability than merging 3 passives into one, that is from the pool of the existing abilities.. As for custom trigger stuff, there's plenty of ideas to be created in that case and some of the more elaborate ideas I explained do require some custom triggers.

The op also stated that he just wants to make a good passive ultimate, so I think the subject of the topic kinda changed over time from the 3 passives combined to whatever a creative passive ultimate would be. I was simply replying to this subject with minimal to no trigger work required in mind.

 

[Banelingline]

I kinda see more creative potential in passive ultimates based on a single existing ability than merging 3 passives into one, that is from the pool of the existing abilities..

...How? When you can overlap abilities and change the numbers (and the created unit), you get a lot more usefulness from stuff. Spiked Carapace, Devotion Aura and Thorns Aura lets you make an Aura version of Spiked Carapace with improved effect on yourself, as an example.

Also, the title of the thread is Creative Passive Ultimates.

 

[Scias]

...How? When you can overlap abilities and change the numbers (and the created unit), you get a lot more usefulness from stuff. Spiked Carapace, Devotion Aura and Thorns Aura lets you make an Aura version of Spiked Carapace with improved effect on yourself, as an example.

Also, the title of the thread is Creative Passive Ultimates.

I don't think a improved Aura effect is all that great of a idea for a ultimate, your idea sounds like new Blizzard's buff on Dread Lord's Vampiric Aura just in this case it's a ultimate.. As a bland aura by itself it would lack the visual appeal of a ultimate, but I suppose you could make it so when a unit hits the hero a missile effect comes out and hits the unit back (like Phoenix Fire).. But I see no reason for the bonus armor, that just seems bland and thrown in there just to achieve the triple passive concept, it's like "Wow this ultimate makes my hero cast spells onto units that attack it.... and it also gives me a Ring of Protection +x)

I don't see why you're pointing out the title to me.

 

[Banelingline]

I don't think a improved Aura effect is all that great of a idea for a ultimate

Works perfectly fine as part of one, as it can be instrumental for some rather useful behaviors. For example, the dummied-out Factory ability, which spawns units continually, can be used to generate a trail of fire (or disease cloud or whatever you feel like). Combining that with Unholy Aura and the fire-units having negative HP regeneration means that the fire trail lasts longer if you curve around to make rings or overlapping walls, instead of just a trail. Vampiric Aura can make it so that you can have sections of the trail that have burned enemies last longer. Upgrade lets you change every ability the Hero has outright.

Multiple passives in combination let you create new behaviors that weren't there before.

As a bland aura by itself it would lack the visual appeal of a ultimate

You do know the Aura effect's visual can be changed from the blue circle, right? If you really want to, you can have an Aura that gives everyone flaming heads.

 

[Scias]

Works perfectly fine as part of one, as it can be instrumental for some rather useful behaviors. For example, the dummied-out Factory ability, which spawns units continually, can be used to generate a trail of fire (or disease cloud or whatever you feel like). Combining that with Unholy Aura and the fire-units having negative HP regeneration means that the fire trail lasts longer if you curve around to make rings or overlapping walls, instead of just a trail. Vampiric Aura can make it so that you can have sections of the trail that have burned enemies last longer. Upgrade lets you change every ability the Hero has outright.

Multiple passives in combination let you create new behaviors that weren't there before.

You do know the Aura effect's visual can be changed from the blue circle, right? If you really want to, you can have an Aura that gives everyone flaming heads.

I have very little experience with modding in World Editor, so I don't really understand what you mean by "dummied-out Factory ability", if you mean having the hero summon units like Tiny Factory does, that sound like something you can make really cool and creative abilities with, but I have no clue nor understand how Tiny Factory's unit summoning could be made into a passive.

I did know Aura's visual effect can be changed from simple circles to burn effects and stuff, but I actually didn't know changing value of Unholy Aura to negative would do damage. I think I tried changing damage of some burst spells to negative in attempt to make them heal but as far as I remember this didn't work out for me, so I never thought it would work on Unholy Aura.

 

[Banelingline]

if you mean having the hero summon units like Tiny Factory does, that sound like something you can make really cool and creative abilities with, but I have no clue nor understand how Tiny Factory's unit summoning could be made into a passive.

The passive is a separate ability that's not actually used anywhere, as the role is defined by the Pocket Factory ability itself in the release version of Goblin Tineker. It's "hidden" in the Object Editor files, letting you have a unit that constantly spawns temporary units.

but I actually didn't know changing value of Unholy Aura to negative would do damage.

I'm pretty sure you can't, actually. But you can set HP regeneration to a negative value on a unit to have it lose health over time, and Permanent Immolation from the Infernal exists as a passive AoE damage source.

 

[Himperion]

Something that i'm working using pocket factory, locust can't cast base spells, or trigger orb effects. But can use passives, and auras. Then my idea is working the locust attack to do the bounce attack like the Huntress just attack and target data, then add reaction to do double damage on summons.

Of course i'm working with an invisible dummy, and the time is creating an unit every 0.30, the unit attacking a 0.40 and dying a 0.50. Maybe there is way to make the units die when the hero starts moving, but with these times, i believe that the dummies aren't going to be too behind the hero.

 

[disruptive_]

Last Word: When this unit dies all nearby allies gain some temporary bonuses (get creative here).
Outnumbered: While outnumbered this unit gains some bonuses (...). Search radius is X. Ability name is very lame tho.
Suppressive Fire (only for ranged units): While outnumbered this unit gains multishot (use Barrage) and will slow enemies struck (a priori this will recquire a Damage Detection). Search radius is X (preferably a big number here).
Field Promotion: Whenever a nearby non-hero (maybe only a unit type) ally unit kills an enemy (or does something amazing) it gains a permanent bonus consisting of (...). Units can only gain up to X bonuses this way. The last bonus will provide a 'Powerful Ability' (ie. Lesser Promotion so that unit can extend the effect in radius).

 

[Himperion]

Last Word: When this unit dies all nearby allies gain some temporary bonuses (get creative here).
Outnumbered: While outnumbered this unit gains some bonuses (...). Search radius is X. Ability name is very lame tho.
Suppressive Fire (only for ranged units): While outnumbered this unit gains multishot (use Barrage) and will slow enemies struck (a priori this will recquire a Damage Detection). Search radius is X (preferably a big number here).
Field Promotion: Whenever a nearby non-hero (maybe only a unit type) ally unit kills an enemy (or does something amazing) it gains a permanent bonus consisting of (...). Units can only gain up to X bonuses this way. The last bonus will provide a 'Powerful Ability' (ie. Lesser Promotion so that unit can extend the effect in radius).

No to sound like an ass, but any indication of how to do these things in your post, because we are working on this using normal skills so a little "HOW TO DO" is a nice thing to have.

Ok this is my test map for Arcane Flux and Warrior's rage. I finally managed to make the dummy shot in chain effect, sadly i can't make it shot the chain but only the missile. Any input is appreciated.

About the Locust, it don't trigger slow poison or reaction anymore, someone can verify this?

 

[Banelingline]

No to sound like an ass, but any indication of how to do these things in your post, because we are working on this using normal skills so a little "HOW TO DO" is a nice thing to have.

Most of them look like they'd need some kind of JASS code to make happen, due to counting units in some way. Here's my thoughts on how to make it happen:

Last Word: When this unit dies all nearby allies gain some temporary bonuses (get creative here).

This one is a simple on-death trigger to set off an ability with the desired effects, basically "when X unit/unit with X ability dies, cast spell Y at Z location, where Z is now-dead unit's location". This is, to my knowledge, a fairly simple trigger, though my lack of knowledge of the trigger editor makes it so I can't describe exactly what's needed.

Outnumbered: While outnumbered this unit gains some bonuses (...). Search radius is X. Ability name is very lame tho.

The search radius makes me think an Aura, then JASS code to query how many allies and enemies are in the radius from the originating unit that have the buff. Once those two values are counted, however that works, you then compare with a simple greater or lesser function, which is the requirement for the bonus to activate. I have no idea if it's possible to query things in the required fashion with the normal trigger editor, but if so, it'd probably be easier to adjust by having the variables tied to GUI abilities, like Auras.

Suppressive Fire (only for ranged units): While outnumbered this unit gains multishot (use Barrage) and will slow enemies struck (a priori this will recquire a Damage Detection). Search radius is X (preferably a big number here).

For this use case of Outnumbered, finding a way to check it via triggers makes it significantly easier (if you tie it to an invisible buff/debuff value, you can tie the radius to an Aura, thus letting you apply it to any unit you like), as you then have it so that whenever enemies in the area outnumber allies, you grant the unit an invisible copy of the relevant version of Barrage via the ability adding trigger.

Field Promotion: Whenever a nearby non-hero (maybe only a unit type) ally unit kills an enemy (or does something amazing) it gains a permanent bonus consisting of (...). Units can only gain up to X bonuses this way. The last bonus will provide a 'Powerful Ability' (ie. Lesser Promotion so that unit can extend the effect in radius).

Doing this with triggers is barely within my understanding of describing. The first step is to make an Aura ability that provides a buff value. Then, have a trigger that grants passive abilities with the desired bonuses when a unit with that buff on it kills an enemy, or otherwise accomplishes a desired action (describing said action may require JASS use). Said passives could be in a spellbook with another part of the trigger incrementing a granted Engineering Upgrade to swap the spellbook to the next rank.

For range-extention, you have a buff check that adds a version of the Promotion ability to units with Lesser Promotion, either an on-application/removal pair to handle it, or use one that instead has it so that while the buff is present, the unit has the ability. Not knowing much about the trigger editor, I don't know how it works.

...I am now tempted to try to make a test map with a working prototype of Field Promotion.

 

[disruptive_]

Didn't know you are only working with normal abilities. My bad.
As Banelingline pointed out, those ideas will indeed recquire some level of triggering,
the first one is rather simple and achievable very easily with rudimentary GUI knowledge, and i was thinking of overhauling it so it affects units near the corpse of the Last Word unit (You track the death of the unit with the passive -A unit dies; Condition: Level of Ability is >= 1-, and just create a unit in the dead unit position that happens to have some auras);
the second one will recquire some complex triggering, and even some "complex" loop timer usage if you plan it to be MUI (to track if you are outnumbered in real time), so it's discarded i guess;
the Field Promotion one can be done easily by creating a custom passive based on Devotion Aura; and doing the following (tomorrow i have access to my laptop, i can then make a test map):
- Create a dummy ability with 10~ levels (this will be the ability that will track the amount of times the Promotion effect fired).
- Trigger: A unit dies event; Condition: (Boolean) Killing Unit has Devotion Aura buff (or the modified buff that the Field Promotion applies); Actions (you will track if the unit is already at maximum promotion by tracking if the level of the dummy ability is capped; you will track if the unit doesn't have the dummy ability -first time promotion- thus granting the dummy ability; and if the unit can still be promoted you will increase the level of the dummy ability by 1; then you add the bonuses accordingly by getting the level of the dummy ability).

 

[Banelingline]

the first one is rather simple and achievable very easily with rudimentary GUI knowledge, and i was thinking of overhauling it so it affects units near the corpse of the Last Word unit (You track the death of the unit with the passive -A unit dies; Condition: Level of Ability is >= 1-, and just create a unit in the dead unit position that happens to have some auras);

Actually, doing it via dummy is absolutely rudimentary. Make an untargettable dummy, give it negative HP regen and invulnerability plus the auras you want, then have HP equal time after death the aura lasts. The on-death trigger can be replaced by a conventional spawning ability. The trigger's only needed if you want it to be a timed application, aura on death site needs no triggers.

the Field Promotion one can be done easily by creating a custom passive based on Devotion Aura; and doing the following (tomorrow i have access to my laptop, i can then make a test map):
- Create a dummy ability with 10~ levels (this will be the ability that will track the amount of times the Promotion effect fired).
- Trigger: A unit dies event; Condition: (Boolean) Killing Unit has Devotion Aura buff (or the modified buff that the Field Promotion applies); Actions (you will track if the unit is already at maximum promotion by tracking if the level of the dummy ability is capped; you will track if the unit doesn't have the dummy ability -first time promotion- thus granting the dummy ability; and if the unit can still be promoted you will increase the level of the dummy ability by 1; then you add the bonuses accordingly by getting the level of the dummy ability).

I couldn't find a "killing unit" condition, which is why I haven't made a test map for it myself, but you're again overcomplicating it by overdoing trigger use. Instead of a dummy ability for the trigger to dole out buffs based on, you make a spellbook with the passives (trust me, there's a passive for practically everything, comes from item abilities being so good) and increment the level of an Engineering Upgrade to swap to higher rank spellbooks. Or level up the spellbook itself, if you don't mind the eyesore of the spellbook full of passives.

 

[disruptive_]

Actually, doing it via dummy is absolutely rudimentary. Make an untargettable dummy, give it negative HP regen and invulnerability plus the auras you want, then have HP equal time after death the aura lasts. The on-death trigger can be replaced by a conventional spawning ability. The trigger's only needed if you want it to be a timed application, aura on death site needs no triggers.

Ok, but you still need to create the dummy unit on death. There is no spawning ability that triggers on death (Are we talking about Last Word right?), and no passive ability that allows you to do such thing. You need to track the death of the unit with the passive ability via trigger editor.
Thus you need the trigger editor. I get your point, and a valid expiration method is using the negative regeneration, but you are still creating a dummy unit that carries auras.
This is because there is not a standart passive at all that allows to summon another unit on death. Don't even think of Resurrection.

I'm interested in seeing your Engineering Upgrade aproach for Field Promotion. I don't revolve too much around that ability, because it's rather buggy and can't be used by normal units at all, only heroes.
Right now i'm downloading the 1.29 PT on this computer (can't wait for tomorrow), so i will make a Field Promotion passive skill (in GUI) based on my approach in some hours. Hopefully it's usefull.

Also there is not a "Killing unit" condition, but rather a "A unit dies" EVENT.
The condition you are looking for is the Boolean Comparisson "Unit has specific buff". In this case, the unit we are referring to is the unit that kills another unit while having the aura buff, thus the condition becomes Killing unit has Devotion Aura buff.
Again this is in GUI, in JASS it's just the Level of an ability, which is in fact an integer (buffs are abilities for the game).

 

[Banelingline]

There is no spawning ability that triggers on death

...non-Spiderling Nerubians, one of the larger Spiders and Hydras all have on death spawns.

Edit: As for Invulnerability and negative HP regeneration, the former is a listed ability under Special and the latter is literally just setting the normal HP regeneration value to a negative value.

 

[disruptive_]

...non-Spiderling Nerubians, one of the larger Spiders and Hydras all have on death spawns.

Edit: As for Invulnerability and negative HP regeneration, the former is a listed ability under Special and the latter is literally just setting the normal HP regeneration value to a negative value.

LOL, you are right.

So Last Word is easily done using that ability.
I'm thinking that the unit that spawns could be have a Standart Flag or something that inspires troops or w/e. Then suddenly you have a very creative themed ability, using one ability.

 

[Banelingline]

LOL, you are right.

So Last Word is easily done using that ability.
I'm thinking that the unit that spawns could be have a Standart Flag or something that inspires troops or w/e. Then suddenly you have a very creative themed ability, using one ability.

Well, one ability on the Hero and a bundle of abilities on a semi-dummy unit.

I'm also now working on Field Promotion in a largely-dummy fashion to prove I have it working, then I'll go switch up the stuff to properly apply as an Ultimate in its own right.

Edit:
Well, I can't seem to get the trigger setup I'm using to activate for the life bonus I was looking to do, and I don't feel like going through book ranking right now.

 

[disruptive_]

Ok here is my catch at Field Promotion, just a simple trigger and another to allow marginal customization.
I used the 1.29 PTR version, but it doesn't use any of the newly introduced natives, so it should work.


Edit: Just realized that the customization trigger was just TOO DAMN AWFUL, i add true customization options.