Expire timers

[SAUS]

I am talking about the action that lets you set an expire time for a unit.

I want to use it for a temporary reincarnate ability (I can do this myself no problem). What I really like about it is that it shows the duration very cleanly. I am wondering if I can use this for other things as well (such as my custom avatar ability - not really avatar, just that it works in a similar way).

Is there any way to remove the expire timer buff without killing the unit (I heard removing it kills them immediately)?

Is there an alternate way to have such a bar appear? It just shows the duration of something and it goes where the XP bar is visible. It's just a nice little UI piece that I would like to be able to use if possible.

I thought about letting the unit die and just reviving them immediately, but that can get ugly.

 

[Tal'Rarity]

Here's the only way to use them, have fun and feel free to ask any questions that may arise.

Make sure to give credit to Ruke if you use his MUI system.

 

[DeadZero]

I personally like to use the actual health or mana of the unit as an expiration timer.

If your unit doesn't use either its health or mana for something else, you can set the regeneration rate for one of them to -1.00 using shift-click in the editor and set the maximum and starting value to its expiration time.

Another method I'm also a fan of is to gradually change the colour of the unit from normal to either extremely red or blue as it approaches expiration.

Of course you could also use the actual experience bar, adding and subtracting experience from the units. Perhaps this is what the system that Dat-C3 suggested does, I'm not sure.

After some testing, I found that interestingly, pausing the expiration timer twice causes it to be fully empty and inactive. Probably not useful, but interesting.

 

[SAUS]

This would be for display on heroes, so the XP bar, health bar, and mana bar are off limits :/

I am also trying to use the expiry timers for something other than having the unit die after some time. I want it to basically show the buff duration for special buffs (maybe just ults or something) or "time until" things.