oh hey I figured out how to manipulate damage and armor

[doom_sheep]

as you might have read I accidentally discovered a bug that gives units items that no longer exist. I confirmed that it works for any passive (except reincarnation for some reason) and realized that includes rings and claws.

this is all it takes

• Events
  • Unit - A unit Loses an item
• Conditions
• Actions
  • Item - Remove (Item being manipulated)

then you pick up items with one unit and give them to another. the game sees the giver lose them, removes them, gets confused, and gives the nonexisting item to the recipient. it's not in his inventory but he gets the ability in it.

it also works for mana and hp but there's already an exploit for that.

I don't know if the ghost items can be removed from the unit, or if using this bug horribly breaks something.

 

[GhostWolf]

Does it work if the receiving hero has a full inventory?

 

[doom_sheep]

no clue. I haven't done a lot of testing on this, just thought I'd share in case someone has more use for it than I do.

 

[Marcos_M]

Definitely an interesting bug.
Have you test with active abilities, auras or hero passive abilities(Like critical strike)?

Test for a while
Orb effects, auras, hp,mp,dmg, armor, stats and inmolation works
Actives don't get transferred, but if an item has actives and passives, the passives are transferred.

 

[doom_sheep]

auras and evasion worked. I assume crit too.

 

[LordDz]

Can you increase the level of the ability too?
Like have an ability with 3 levels, add it to the item, remove the item, the hero gets the ability and then use Hero - Increase level of ability ?

Cuz then this could be a pretty good replacement to spellbooks.

 

[Marcos_M]

The actives are transfered to the new unit, but the icon does not appear, and i can't make the unit use the ability

 

[Dehua_Darbuya]

Can you increase the level of the ability too?
Like have an ability with 3 levels, add it to the item, remove the item, the hero gets the ability and then use Hero - Increase level of ability ?

Cuz then this could be a pretty good replacement to spellbooks.

YOU CAN!!!
I added a custom Devotion Aura with 3 levels to another unit using the above method and manage to increase the levels with a simple trigger.

Spoiler: Triggers

• False Item Level Up
  • Events
    • Player - Player 2 (Blue) types a chat message containing -create pink as An exact match
    • Player - Player 2 (Blue) types a chat message containing -up as An exact match
  • Conditions
  • Actions
    • If (All Conditions are True) then do (Then Actions) else do (Else Actions)
      • If - Conditions
        • (Entered chat string) Equal to -create
      • Then - Actions
        • Set Position = (Center of (Playable map area))
        • Unit - Create 1 Paladin for Player 2 (Blue) at Position facing Default building facing degrees
        • Set Caster = (Last created unit)
        • Item - Create The Lion Horn of Stormwind at Position
        • Custom script: call RemoveLocation(udg_Position)
      • Else - Actions
    • If (All Conditions are True) then do (Then Actions) else do (Else Actions)
      • If - Conditions
        • (Entered chat string) Equal to -up
      • Then - Actions
        • Game - Display to (All players) the text: (String((Level of Dragonhide Aura (Item) for Caster)))
        • Unit - Increase level of Dragonhide Aura (Item) for Caster
        • Game - Display to (All players) the text: (String((Level of Dragonhide Aura (Item) for Caster)))
      • Else - Actions

P.S.: @doom_sheep Nice find by the way.

 

[DracoL1ch]

surely you're able to manipulate those abilities freely

Bug based on the skip "remove abilities" event. Normally it called on unit dropping item. Here you kill the item instantly, which leads to fact - game dunno which abilities been added. Therefore nothing being reverted.
This allows to add some bonuses. Thing is, illusions won't receive those "removed" bonuses, since they're only re-created units and not copypaste of original structures. (btw illusions can get items via triggers, but cannot drop due to inventory mute).

Every item register his active ability under order "useritem#" and only this order will trigger ability, no matter what you picked as base. Obviously number depends on which slot item has gone. As always, perfoming single order will trigger every ability with the same order (all active items, dropped at slot #1, for instance).

Even more obviously, this only works when inventrory has free slot, else game won't even try to put item inside unit but drop it on the ground.

Thanks to item's nature you can stack any abilities there, without showing their icons as well.

 

[doom_sheep]

actives indeed seem to be used when another item in the slot they'd be in is used, though only the ones which are not targeted as far as I can tell. it also bypasses cooldown, using any number of talismans of the wild at once and every time any item is used.

 

[DracoL1ch]

orders stacking uses only primary ability's cooldown to check
target abilities cannot be casted 'cause no target specified for them, thats simple
overall, kinda-working system to add green stats, which is good

 

[Zwiebelchen]

Neat discovery, although i struggle to find any practical use for this.
Yes it can be used to avoid disabled spellbooks for invisible abilities but you still need to create extra object data (this time an item instead of a spellbook) for every hidden ability. So its not that much of an advantage.

For adding damage and armor, using base-2 abilities is probably easier because it doesnt need inventory slots.

 

[DracoL1ch]

inventory can be added back and forth with no problems
this thing more useful for stacking elseway unstackable things, but indeed its hard to think of right now

 

[Zwiebelchen]

inventory can be added back and forth with no problems

Only if the unit doesn't have an inventory yet. That's why the spellbook trick is imho superior.

 

[DracoL1ch]

use secondary inventroy if you need it \: D/

 

[Xonok]

I see one advantage of this over the usual base-2 technique - Adding the same abilities multiple times. That effectively makes the amount of stats that can be given infinite, with the amount of abilities on object editor only being relevant for efficiency. I wonder if it breaks with morphs or not.

 

[ZiBitheWand3r3r]

UnitDropItemTarget(dummy, itm, target) works for me only if units dummy and target belong to the same player (doesnt work for example when dummy is neutral passive and target is Player(0)

also interesting thing about an event EVENT_PLAYER_UNIT_DROP_ITEM is: if you check in such a trigger action, this item is treated as it is still in hero's inventory

 

[DracoL1ch]

because you cannot drop item targeting enemy, so dummy has to be an ally
and yeah, event fires before item being unloaded

 

[DracoL1ch]

found all the same bug description back to 2007
XGM Forum - equipment system (или еще один баг варика)

Everything new is old again

 

[Kakerate]

Everything new is old again

Ain't that the damn truth. Praise Blizzard, killing anything too useful for making maps.

 

[Kyrbi0]

So this looks like something I should be very interested in; if nothing else, doom_sheep, congrats on (re)discovering & testing this.

Trying to wrap my mind around it's uses, though; especially as it pertains to a Spellbook alternative.