Object editor spell multiple instances mechanic

[Daffa]

Does anyone knows how spells with buff works when having different levels being applied on the same Unit? Does it prioritize highest level at all times, or sort of stack, or pick the longest duration?

I'm not really deep diving into buffs, so I am at a lost with how they exactly works, including with spell steal, removal, devours, and so on

 

[Uncle]

Besides Incinerate or Slow Poison (stacking) I believe it works like this:

1) Buffs that share the same Rawcode will overwrite one another. The most recent application takes priority. IE: I cast level 1 Howl of Terror, nearby enemies lose 30% damage and the Buff timer starts expiring for 15 seconds. Two seconds later I cast Level 2 Howl of Terror, nearby enemies regain their missing 30% damage then immediately lose 40% damage and the Buff timer restarts back to 15 seconds. It doesn't matter what the Duration is, Ability Level is what's important.

2) Auras will try to apply the most powerful version of itself which I assume is based on Ability Level.
IE: A level 2 Devotion Aura will overwrite a level 1 Devotion Aura.

3) You can see there's a stat on every ability dedicated to Spell Steal, I forget the name but it's something "priority". The higher the value, the more likely it gets stolen.

4) When a Buff is removed... it's removed? Not sure what the question is here. All of the modifications are removed.

5) Devour Hides the target unit, as if it was Loaded into a Zeppelin, Burrow, etc. I'm pretty sure loaded Units no longer apply their Auras and are Paused, meaning Buffs on them have their Timers paused. I could be very wrong about this though, I'm not 100%.

6) I assume the game always Removes a Buff before applying a new one of the same Rawcode. But it could be that in cases like Bloodlust getting replaced by an identical Bloodlust, it might just restart the Duration timer and update the source (who applied it) as an efficiency thing since there's no need to actually Remove then Add the same exact Movement Speed and Attack Rate bonuses again. I vaguely remember cases where the Buff art doesn't get destroyed/created again which implies a sort of "refreshing" as opposed to a "remove/add", but I could be misremembering or it could just be programmed to work that way.

 

[Daffa]

1) so, even if I have level 3 Howl of Terror that lasts for 5 seconds and the enemy has 8 seconds level 1 Howl of Terror, it will be overridden?
2) Got it, definitely need this
3) Is there a way to catch spell steal via trigger for the receiver? I think I see SpellStealEvent by Tasyen for Lua (and I asked if there's vJass variant there), but I'll just ask in case I missed something
4) Got it
5) I think I want to say Devour Magic there, but this helped me learned a lot of the importance of Unit Events

 

[Uncle]

1) so, even if I have level 3 Howl of Terror that lasts for 5 seconds and the enemy has 8 seconds level 1 Howl of Terror, it will be overridden?
2) Got it, definitely need this
3) Is there a way to catch spell steal via trigger for the receiver? I think I see SpellStealEvent by Tasyen for Lua (and I asked if there's vJass variant there), but I'll just ask in case I missed something
4) Got it
5) I think I want to say Devour Magic there, but this helped me learned a lot of the importance of Unit Events

1) It'd be strange for the game to compare anything other than Ability Level, since that's the only true signifier of something being "better".
3) Not without an advanced system and I'd be surprised if it could work with 100% consistency. The devs didn't provide proper Events/Functions for this.
5) Devour Magic is just a Dispel which Removes buffs. I'd assume negative ones only (Curse, Cripple, Polymorph, etc).

I'm saying all of this based on what I've experienced and what I can remember. I could be wrong.

 

[raypack]

Besides Incinerate or Slow Poison (stacking) I believe it works like this:

1) Buffs that share the same Rawcode will overwrite one another. The most recent application takes priority. IE: I cast level 1 Howl of Terror, nearby enemies lose 30% damage and the Buff timer starts expiring for 15 seconds. Two seconds later I cast Level 2 Howl of Terror, nearby enemies regain their missing 30% damage then immediately lose 40% damage and the Buff timer restarts back to 15 seconds. It doesn't matter what the Duration is, Ability Level is what's important.

What if as you say:
Level 1 Howl of Terror is cast -> 2 seconds later a level 2 Howl of Terror is cast -> BUT then another 2 seconds later a level 1 Howl of Terror is cast?

 

[Uncle]

What if as you say:
Level 1 Howl of Terror is cast -> 2 seconds later a level 2 Howl of Terror is cast -> BUT then another 2 seconds later a level 1 Howl of Terror is cast?

Level 1 will overwrite Level 2, reducing damage by 30% for 15 seconds. The most recent cast takes priority.

 

[raypack]

I have an inquiry (which I think is related to this thread):

Spoiler: Pictures

So the Tauren Chieftain has a level 3 command aura which increases dmg of friendly units by 9.
Shadow Hunter as a level 1 command aura (negative) which decreases dmg of enemy units by 3.
Result is the Grunt in the screenshots shown having +6 damage (9-3 = +6).
I used a different "buff" for the Command Aura which reduces damage, which is why I assume this works and the grunt is affected by 2 buffs.

The question I have is, as you can see, the negative Command Aura is treated as a positive buff, having green text. Is there a way to be able to make it a "negative" buff?
In this scenario it might not matter but imagine that for some reason the player has to use Faerie Fire to increase the armor of friendly units (well in this case there is Inner Fire etc but imagine those options were unavailable for some reason).
In that case, an enemy Spell Breaker would not steal the buff, right? Since the Faerie Fire buff would be negative.
Player 1 having a footman with the "negative" buff which increases armor.
Player 2 having a spell breaker and another footman, the spell breaker would not steal the buff from Player 1's footman and pass it onto Player 2's footman, right?

That's why I would like to know if it's possible to somehow make the buff negative in this scenario with the Command Aura

 

[Uncle]

The question I have is, as you can see, the negative Command Aura is treated as a positive buff, having green text. Is there a way to be able to make it a "negative" buff?

No, Command Aura will always be a positive buff, it's hardcoded that way. But you can just use color codes to make it appear negative (red). Auras cannot be dispelled or stolen so it's not that much of an issue here.

The game isn't going to check a value field or multiple value fields to make some kind of educated guess as to what the user wants. Faerie Fire is negative, Bloodlust is positive, regardless of what values you invert. Unfortunately, they didn't make a "Buff Type" field to define this behavior

 

[raypack]

No, Command Aura will always be a positive buff, it's hardcoded that way. But you can just use color codes to make it appear negative (red). Auras cannot be dispelled or stolen so it's not that much of an issue here.

The game isn't going to check a value field or multiple value fields to make some kind of educated guess as to what the user wants. Faerie Fire is negative, Bloodlust is positive, regardless of what values you invert. Unfortunately, they didn't make a "Buff Type" field to define this behavior

Perfect!
Hard coding the text to be red worked. Thank you, Uncle!

PS: also as I thought, using the same "buff" in the object editor abilities -> stats - buffs - currently selected buff
does NOT work. The negative aura didn't apply when the positive was applied.
Creating an identical buff and then giving it to the negative ability does work! Then all I have to do is change the text to red.

 

[Retera]

Then all I have to do is change the text to red.

Note that actual negative buffs will cause the unit's icon to be red when you select a group of several units, but red-color-coded-name-on-positive-buff will not.

I don't know if you care, but this is a nuisance I have seen in the past.

 

[raypack]

Note that actual negative buffs will cause the unit's icon to be red when you select a group of several units, but red-color-coded-name-on-positive-buff will not.

I don't know if you care, but this is a nuisance I have seen in the past.

It's certainly a nuisance, but it is what it is