Fire Spell Question

[EricDaRed]

I have a spell based off of doom called "draining flames". It lights the target on fire, dealing 20 damage a second for 8 seconds to a non-hero target, then detonates dealing AOE damage (damage increases with level). If the target unit dies before the 8 seconds is up, the flames fizzle and no detonation occurs. This represents the fact that the flames were unable to draw enough energy to create the explosion.

I've tested the above and it works fine. Now that I'm this far, I would like to give the flames a 15% chance to jump to another unit upon detonation. Then if the newly spawned flame lasts 8 seconds, it too will detonate and have a 15% chance of jumping again.

My idea is to create a dummy unit with the same ability. Then add an action in the trigger to order the dummy unit to cast draining flames on a random nearby unit if (<a random integer between 1 and 100> is less than or equal to 15.)

First, would my above idea work?

Second, if the above idea is sound, how do I define what area the trigger chooses the random unit from? Let's say I want it to be able to jump up to a distance of 200 from the position of the detonation.

Third, will the random unit selection include units in range who are not valid targets for the spell (ie allied units or heroes)? If so, how do I make the random unit selection only choose from enemy units in range?

Also, while we're at it, what do you think of the spell's concept? Does it seem interesting and/or original? I hope so.

 

[CMarket]

Ok so first of all, yes your idea will work. Secondly you can just add the spell of the dummy unit to have a range of 200, that way the dummy will always spawn but it will only be able to cast to units up to a range of 200(if there are no units the dummy will spawn and then be removed from the game). For the third part I am not sure, you're best bet is to test it a few times and see what comes up. And lastly, it isn't really original, I've seen these types of spells on a few AoE maps(maybe even Dota), but if you thought it up on your own it is original and you should be proud of it

 

[EricDaRed]

Cool, thanks a lot. +Rep.

One more question: What specificly should I input into the trigger for the random unit targeting? If I put playable map area, will the dummy unit still only target units within 200 because that is the range limit on the dummy's version of the spell?

 

[CMarket]

Yeah, just because he will target anything in the playable map doesn't mean his spell range will increase to 999999.