[Spell] Need a bit of help creating this Stimpack spell of sorts

[MortimerScharf]

Hello there, HiveWorkshop!

I've been browsing these forums for years now, but I had not made an account here up until now. Even then, I really suck at making spells or using Triggers. That being said, I would really appreciate if someone could point me in the right direction and give me a hand regarding this ability.

I am trying to make a self-damaging stimpack ability for my lizard warrior hero. The ability is pretty straightforward: it would be based on the lizard warrior drinking a potent stimpack that'd drain his HP each second while giving him bonus attack and attack speed. HOWEVER, the one and only base spell that does this, Unholy Frenzy, is not self-cast and only gives you extra attack-speed. How can I circumvent this? Any help is appreciated, and I am willing to learn and test stuff.

 

[Devalut]

Look into this tutorial and look into "Dummies" or "Dummy Casting".
There is a targeted Unholy Frenzy a few abilties below "Incite Unholy Frenzy here:

From there you could base the ability the player would use on berserk and get a dummy to cast a modified unholy frenzy on the caster that only adds damage over time.

 

[Achille]

Hey there @MortimerScharf !

Awesome that you finally made an account, I had lurked for many years before returning and I have found the Hive Community to be pretty fantastic and I sincerely hope that you will too! I was working on making a rather extensive breakdown of dummy triggers and such, but the tutorial that @Devalut posted is a wonderful resource that far overshadows anything I could present. But despite it being a 'basic' tutorial, it is quite alot to take in at once and can be a bit hard to parse. While others may disagree I personally advise using that tutorial as a reference point while you monkey around in the trigger editor, attempting to break apart spells that you see in other maps or design your own.

To that end, this is what the end result of what your described ability would likely look like:

Stimpack Trigger

Ultimately I am posting this here for two main reasons. First, to expedite your learning. Second, to expedite the development of your project.

Concerning the first point, you can use this trigger as a template to create countless other spells like it. After you pick it apart, reverse engineer it, take it to dinner idk, you can make more. As I had advised earlier, the wonderful tutorial posted by Devalut above will be a great point of reference in understanding how this trigger works and why. Furthermore, that tutorial can also be used to tweak this trigger in to a different one, spawning a new configuration for custom spell creation. Finally, I believe that using the tutorial that was posted AND joining the Hive Discord will grant you more than enough resources to learn not just effectively, but painlessly. (You might also make a few friends along the way )

Concerning my second point, I like Lizards, I adore Heroes, but I love map development! When you get something presentable up and running it would be great to see a thread on it in the Hive's Map Development forum.


I am attaching the map with the custom ability you described to this post. To copy it in to your map just CTRL + C the custom abilities in to your map, and then the trigger folder. Then just make sure the trigger in your map looks identical to the one I posted. Take a look at it and mess around with it.

Happy mapping, friend!

Edit: Forgot to mention to copy over the dummy unit before the trigger as well in case that was missed!

 

[Gnuoy]

Maybe i'm not understand the question but I think the above proposals are too complicated. Why not just modify bezerk ability then use a trigger to reduce the caster's health?

You will need to modify/create custom effects and buffs based of Berserk in the Object Editor:

and create a similar trigger in the Trigger Editor:

• Unit Uses Stimpack
  • Events
    • Unit - Lizard Warrior 0268 <gen> Starts the effect of an ability
  • Conditions
    • (Ability being cast) Equal to Stim Pack (unholy frenzy/bezerk)
  • Actions
    • Unit - Set life of (Casting unit) to ((Life of (Casting unit)) - 25.00)

 

[Achille]

Maybe i'm not understand the question but I think the above proposals are too complicated. Why not just modify bezerk ability then use a trigger to reduce the caster's health?

You will need to modify/create custom effects and buffs based of Berserk in the Object Editor:
View attachment 382357
View attachment 382359

and create a similar trigger in the Trigger Editor:

• Unit Uses Stimpack
  • Events
    • Unit - Lizard Warrior 0268 <gen> Starts the effect of an ability
  • Conditions
    • (Ability being cast) Equal to Stim Pack (unholy frenzy/bezerk)
  • Actions
    • Unit - Set life of (Casting unit) to ((Life of (Casting unit)) - 25.00)

The main issue is that it would not reduce the Hero’s hit points over time like what was asked, secondly berserk will increase attack speed, but not attack damage like what was asked.

The same thing can be done with berserk as the base ability but that would mean utilizing a periodic timer to damage the Hero, plus adding a dummy ability that would add bonus damage. The responses given may be complicated yet are important resources for development of a skill set. Utilizing dummy abilities will undoubtedly be helpful and is easily learnable without sacrificing the original conceptual intent for an ability.

With the trigger in his hands and the resources in Hive plus the availability of “on the fly” help from discord, he is bound to succeed.

Yet despite this sentiment I do find myself agreeing with you. These triggers and concepts are rather complicated if the trigger editor is new to the mapper. If it seems to be too daunting or too complicated, never be afraid to ask for further help @MortimerScharf

 

[Razorclaw_X]

I use Troll Berserk like the previous post, although with Stim Pack you have to make sure you aren't able to kill the unit with it, too.

And in general when making a custom ability, the FIRST thing you need to do is find something that works. Making it do exactly what you want is the last thing you should be doing because you're going to run into situations where you are not immediately able to do what you want.

 

[MortimerScharf]

Hello! Sorry for the delay, things came up and I was not only reading through the Dummy tutorial you shared with me, but also trying to dissect and understand the triggers in the picture shared. Sadly, I had to do some personal research on Triggers to understand those things in the picture because the map you attached to your post does not work with my version of W3 (I haven't updated mine in AGES and I don't own W3R because I just don't care for that game).

That being said, I do think I nailed it with your help, @Achille . Thank you very, very much. It was not too hard and it did exactly what I intended. Thanks again! Even if I couldn't really open your map, I was able to get an idea of what direction you took with the spell I was trying to build, and it helped tremendously.

I use Troll Berserk like the previous post, although with Stim Pack you have to make sure you aren't able to kill the unit with it, too.

And in general when making a custom ability, the FIRST thing you need to do is find something that works. Making it do exactly what you want is the last thing you should be doing because you're going to run into situations where you are not immediately able to do what you want.

I definitely tried that first! I know almost every single basic/retail ability and so I know what abilities I can edit/use as blank slates for my custom abilities. I am currently working on 8 heroes (2 custom heroes for each race (Cleric and Bandit Ranger for Humans, Lizard Warrior and Warlock for Orcs, Putrifier and Spectre for Undead, and Copycat and Wildebeast for Night Elves). It's taken me close to a week now, but I've been able to use retail abilities to attain my goals, with only the stimpack needing triggers. I swear it's so much fun making well-balanced heroes!