[Trigger] Most efficient buff-icon management

[Clay_More]

Here's the deal: I'm working on a somewhat big RPG project and I got a hero that can apply poison to his weapon. Now, the ability is working just fine, but I want to add a buff-icon to the hero with the poison (not the target) that says something along the lines of (This unit has Black Lotus Venom; It will cause x effect with melee attacks). I'm perfectly capable of putting a "dummy" buff icon on a unit by using abilities such as Brilliance Aura or something and just removing all effects from the aura, putting the spell itself in a spellbook and disabling it.

My biggest issue is, the map is quite complex, especially the hero abilities are rather "heavy", using quite a bit of triggers and dummy abilities, so I want to add a buff icon to a unit that last indefinitely (until deliberate removed by the unit, at least), and it's supposed to take up as few resources as possible.

I did try to give the unit brilliance aura, put it in a spellbook, disable it, and give the aura 5 levels, one with no buff and four levels with a different buff icon each, and then when a new poison was applied I would change the level of brilliance aura to the level that corresponds with the buff icon I wanted.

Level 1 - Stats - Buffs None
Level 2 - Stats - Buffs Dire Hollow Caster
Level 3 - Stats - Buffs Black Lotus Caster
etc.

With Dire Hollow Caster and Black Lotus Caster being dummy buffs with no effects beyond the icon. Problem was, brilliance aura started acting erratically when taking this approach. Even though all buffs were based on the exact same base-buff (brilliance aura), they still ended up being strange when I switched the level of the brilliance aura dummy ability.

First of all, there would be a bit of lag before the correct buff icon appeared, and there would be an overlap where both buff icons appeared (so when switching from, for example, dire hollow poison to black lotus poison, it would show both icons on the caster for a small period of time). I then put in a line in my poison triggers to remove buff icons manually, which at least prevented them from overlapping, but the icons were still erratic. For example, when switching to black lotus poison (which corresponded to level 3 of brilliance aura dummy), it would show the icon of hydra blood poison (which corresponds to level 4). I checked, I double-checked, and nothing was wrong with my triggers: My triggers set the level of the brilliance aura dummy to the correct level (level 3), and the level 3 buff for the dummy aura was indeed black lotus, but it would still show the hydra blood icon and text.

Ive gone over the dummy abilities, dummy buffs and triggers countless times and it appears that it simply is erratic to have different buffs for an aura, so my question is: What is the most resource-effective way of adding a fake icon and icon text to a hero? After all, it is a map intended for up to 9 players at a time with plenty of triggers, spellbooks, dummy abilities etc. operating, so I want to really keep the abilities as tightly made as possible, resource-wise.

 

[TheBlooddancer]

Create an aura with the buffs, that only work on the 'caster' and has 20 range, or such.

Then add it to a hidden skillbook/spellbook, (Disabled)

 

[Yixx]

it is like immolation? Can you turn it on and off any time? Or cast it and a X amount of secs the poison?
If it is like Immolation, you can add a buff in the Object Editor
I dont know if that works when it is a normal spell (cast, not activate)

 

[Clay_More]

Create an aura with the buffs, that only work on the 'caster' and has 20 range, or such.

Then add it to a hidden skillbook/spellbook, (Disabled)

Errr, well, ermmm... I said in my first post

I did try to give the unit brilliance aura, put it in a spellbook, disable it, and give the aura 5 levels..

it is like immolation? Can you turn it on and off any time? Or cast it and a X amount of secs the poison?
If it is like Immolation, you can add a buff in the Object Editor
I dont know if that works when it is a normal spell (cast, not activate)

It is basically like how poison works in World of Warcraft, with the exception being that it is permanent. So basically, when you start out with the hero it has no poison on its weapon, but once you have put a poison on a weapon it stays until another poison is put on.

The triggers for the ability work like this: You have a Hero Ability called Envenom Weapon(Hero), when you learn Envenom Weapon(Hero) it removes the hero ability, add two spellbooks to the hero, one of them containing Envenom Weapon(Hero) that is then disabled, and another spellbook that is also named Envenom Weapon(Spellbook). This means that you can continue to level up the hero ability Envenom Weapon(Hero), and each time you level it up the level of the four abilities in the Envenom Weapon(Spellbook) increases by one.

The four abilities in the visible spellbook are called Dire Hollow Venom, Black Lotus Venom, Hydra Blood Venom and Nymph Tear Venom. Each of these abilities is a dummy ability with 0 cooldown, a modified summon spell with no effect. The only effect of these four abilities is that they are connected to four passive abilities in a hidden spellbook (yes.. a third spellbook).

These four passive abilities are Poison Sting, Bash, Feedback and a simple damage increase. Each passive ability has an "inert" level, level 1, where they have no effect:

When you click, for example, Dire Hollow Venom in the spellbook, you increase the level of the corresponding passive ability (in this case the damage increase ability) and set the level of all the 3 other passive abilities to ! (poison, bash and feedback), the level where they have no effect and a target of None.

What this does in game is that it allows the hero to pick between one of these four passive abilities to use, but he can only use one at the time. They level up together with the main hero ability (Envenom Weapon).

Now, what I want is to add a buff-icon to the hero when he uses a venom ability. Doing so by adding an aura with no effect (like brilliance aura) and putting it in a disabled spellbook would mean that the hero would need another 4 passive abilities and another 4 hidden spellbooks, something I'm not really happy about doing. As mentioned, I want it to be as resource efficient as possible.