Help making an ability

[AGNO12]

Hi,

I need help making an ability, but since I have only a limited knowledge of GUI I have not even been able to start.

The idea is it will be a "skill steal" that can steal a non hero ability from an enemy unit.
I wanted to base it off something like finger of death, but reduce the damage to 0. Essentially, I want it to pick a random ability from the target, and then add that ability to the caster. After, the "skill steal" ability needs to be removed from the caster so he cant add more than one ability.

Sorry for not even attempting to code this, but like I mentioned I have no idea where to start, and would be grateful for any help.

Thanks

 

[Xonok]

Hi,

I need help making an ability, but since I have only a limited knowledge of GUI I have not even been able to start.

The idea is it will be a "skill steal" that can steal a non hero ability from an enemy unit.
I wanted to base it off something like finger of death, but reduce the damage to 0. Essentially, I want it to pick a random ability from the target, and then add that ability to the caster. After, the "skill steal" ability needs to be removed from the caster so he cant add more than one ability.

Sorry for not even attempting to code this, but like I mentioned I have no idea where to start, and would be grateful for any help.

Thanks

This is definitely not an easy one to make.
The hardpoint is finding out what skills your target has.
I can see 2 ways:
1. Store the abilities of all unit types in a hashtable. Not recommended.
2. Use if's to check for each ability separately. Also not recommended.

There is a similar ability called spell steal, but that only steals buffs. If that's not what you want, then you will have to reduce the amount of abilities that skill steal works on.

tl;dr - There is no pretty way of doing this.

 

[AGNO12]

The idea is to steal the ability, not the buff. Its meant for an alterted melee unit spellcaster, so maybe if I use hashtables I could limit it to just the other race's spellcasters abilites, which would cut it down to about 20-25.

 

[defskull]

If you want to avoid Hashtable, just use Unit Indexing system by Bribe.
It uses Custom Value of the unit and you can avoid the 2D array from hashtable if you use that.

 

[EmoBrother]

After, the "skill steal" ability needs to be removed from the caster so he cant add more than one ability.

Did you meant that "skill steal" ability can only be cast one time ?

I think you want the ability just like the skill 4 of Grand Magus (DotA's Hero) but difference is this "skill steal" is picking random ability of the target to the caster.

 

[AGNO12]

I don't really play Dota, so not sure how similar this ability is to the one you mentioned.

Essentially, it is an active ability, and you target an enemy unit. The caster then copies a random ability from the targeted unit. This "spell steal" ability is then removed from the caster. The targeted unit of course retains his original abilities. It is limited to one use for balance, and also I am not sure what would happen if he exceeded 7 abilities.

 

[defskull]

If the Spell Steal is removed, the unit won't be able to cast it ever again ?
Unlike in DotA, the Spell Steal still remain intact with the unit and once the spell is cast again, it will replace the last saved spell instead of adding a new one to the unit.