Silly things to do with Pheonix self-revival?

[Banelingline]

The Pheonix passive ability to turn into an egg on death is a timer value applied to egg, with the egg itself being a unit selected in the ability. Changing it to another unit results in a different unit being used for the revival timer. Now, not having access to the Editor at the moment (OS change, haven't gotten a redownload because I can't find the file with the key in it), there might be some clause that introduces issues. I think there's a field specifying the unit that is spawned when the timer ends, but I may be wrong as I haven't had editor access in... several months.

The simplest is, of course, sticking it on an item and having Heroes turn into another unit on death, which then either turns back into the Hero if not killed or a second, different, unit when the timer runs out. This could be used as a method of "recruiting" a Hero not accessible by other methods.

Of course, I'm more interested in more specific things to do with it, as a more built out function.

 

[pick-a-chew]

From my experience that ability is extremely buggy; it can cause dead-but-alive bugs under some circumstances (i think if the unit has negative hit point regeneration) and if the unit is killed under some certain conditions, the ability will not fire at all and the unit will go missing (costs food/bestows auras whilst being "hidden"). Use with caution

 

[Kyrbi0]

*is suddenly very interested in this topic*

 

[Banelingline]

I have an idea for something to do with it that's probably overcomplicated:

By having a trigger to cast a variation of the Crypt Lord's ultimate from the "egg" and using a variation of the Graveyard's corpse creation/preservation ability, you can have a dummy unit preserve the corpse of the original unit, with the dummy unit losing health over time but using the Locust ability to heal itself by sending units out. If it heals itself enough by dealing enough damage, then it survives to see the timer end. From here, if the ability specifies the unit to spawn at the end, you can spawn a "hive" that uses an Exhume Corpses base to both generate useful corpses for abilities to use and store corpses for a Cannibalize ability to use for more health.

If it's a true self-revival, then the dummy-corpse can be targetable to make the amount of health needed to successfully revive increase when enemies attack it, but also opening it up to more standard healing. In this case, it's almost an exact inverse of the Pheonix's actual use of the ability.

 

[Kyrbi0]

woah.

except when the 'phoenix' unit dies (the original with the egg morphing ability), I don't believe it leaves any corpse.

 

[Banelingline]

woah.

except when the 'phoenix' unit dies (the original with the egg morphing ability), I don't believe it leaves any corpse.

Well, Pheonixs are tagged to not leave corpses regardless of the ability (it's a flying unit and summoned unit thing), the workaround is, as I said, a semi-dummy unit that has the Graveyard ability to recreate and preserve the corpse.

 

[Kyrbi0]

I'm gonna have to make this and send it to you to see if I got it right because I'm still having a real hard time wrapping my mind around it (not just exactly how, but specifically why (like, the discovery of the Factory ability allows you to passively/infinitely spawn any given type of unit from a certain unit; this creates 'trailblazer' & 'plague trail' and 'line LoS' abilities... the discovery of Tornado Slow Aura, which is a buff-granting ability that is hidden, affords all sorts of buff-related work-arounds in triggering (because it can be set to Self Only & thus act like an on-demand generic Buff))

See, those are two special OE/TE workarounds that exist, with examples of how they're used; I'm trying to do the same for your awexome Graveyard/corpse trick. I'd make it & send it to you, but, (see above, strikethrough'd)... sigh. :<

 

[Banelingline]

I'm gonna have to make this ~~and send it to you to see if I got it right~~

Problem: I no longer have access to WC3 due to the CD key being in a text document on a previous hard drive. Was sometime last December. And before that, there was about a month where I couldn't figure out how to reinstall the editor after it bugged out and locked to the Rain of Chaos version.

like, the discovery of the Factory ability allows you to passively/infinitely spawn any given type of unit from a certain unit; this creates 'trailblazer' & 'plague trail' and 'line LoS' abilities...

Having looked at Pocket Factory, the ability Goblin Tinker has defines the spawning parameters of the Factory. Are you saying there's a half-dummy ability that does the same spawning characteristics as the summoned unit gets from Pocket Factory? Because I just set Pocket Factory to spawning a moving unit and set the spawn rate on the Clockwerk's field really high. It constantly got bodyblocked by the Disease Clouds I set it to spawn, which I didn't even know had collision. Or maybe I did a stupid and made an unnecessary custom unit with the Disease Cloud model and didn't set it to non-colliding, however that works. Either way, there's a problem with moving units having constant spawning, because they constantly get body blocked by their own spawned units.

See, those are two special OE/TE workarounds that exist, with examples of how they're used

I... have no idea what this line even means.

I'm trying to do the same for your awexome Graveyard/corpse trick.

Literally all I did was set the corpse spawned to a Nerubian... Webspinner, I think? I didn't do anything special beyond changing what unit's corpse was spawned and ran into that glitch, which triggered when Raise Dead or Animate Dead (can't quite recall which, actually) was used on the corpse. I didn't do any messing around with the result, but I can confirm that they are possessable via Banshee as normal. Obviously. how do I remember this stuff after three years?

 

[Kyrbi0]

Problem: I no longer have access to WC3 due to the CD key being in a text document on a previous hard drive. Was sometime last December. And before that, there was about a month where I couldn't figure out how to reinstall the editor after it bugged out and locked to the Rain of Chaos version.

Yeah no I'm sorry, I remembered that. That whole section you quoted was meant to be struckthrough, but I forgot I wasn't on Discord, lol. Fix'd.

Having looked at Pocket Factory, the ability Goblin Tinker has defines the spawning parameters of the Factory. Are you saying there's a half-dummy ability that does the same spawning characteristics as the summoned unit gets from Pocket Factory? Because I just set Pocket Factory to spawning a moving unit and set the spawn rate on the Clockwerk's field really high. It constantly got bodyblocked by the Disease Clouds I set it to spawn, which I didn't even know had collision. Or maybe I did a stupid and made an unnecessary custom unit with the Disease Cloud model and didn't set it to non-colliding, however that works. Either way, there's a problem with moving units having constant spawning, because they constantly get body blocked by their own spawned units.

That is indeed, exactly what I'm saying. ;D

It was a pretty fantastic discovery a good friend of mine showed me, many years ago... Basically an unused variant of the Pocket Factory ability called just "Factory", hidden deep in the Object Editor. It doesn't appear on the command card (bonus!) & it basically does what the Pocket Factory does; continually spawns X unit at Y range every Z interval. All the same fields & such.

I've never run into pathing issues, but then again I nearly always make the summons have the Locust ability (basically turns them into untargetable dummies with no pathing or anything).

I... have no idea what this line even means.

Oh I'm sorry, some jargon I've gotten used to using: "OE" is Object Editor, "TE" is "Trigger Editor" (much like "WE" is World Editor).

Literally all I did was set the corpse spawned to a Nerubian... Webspinner, I think? I didn't do anything special beyond changing what unit's corpse was spawned and ran into that glitch, which triggered when Raise Dead or Animate Dead (can't quite recall which, actually) was used on the corpse. I didn't do any messing around with the result, but I can confirm that they are possessable via Banshee as normal. Obviously. how do I remember this stuff after three years?

Ahhhh.... I'm gonna have to try this then.
So Raise/Animate Dead was used on the Graveyard-spawned Nerubian corpses, or the corpses of the thing that the Nerubian itself spawned?

 

[Banelingline]

I've never run into pathing issues, but then again I nearly always make the summons have the Locust ability (basically turns them into untargetable dummies with no pathing or anything).

The problem was basically just units spawning in the way of the "factory", nothing exotic.

So Raise/Animate Dead was used on the Graveyard-spawned Nerubian corpses, or the corpses of the thing that the Nerubian itself spawned?

On the corpses spawned by the Graveyard.

 

[ArchDuke]

I've made an ability before called something like "second chance" where it allowed the hero to transform into a voidwalker for a duration, if the voidwalker was still alive after the timer was up it would turn back into the hero

also this ability can be used for a summon; lets say you summon the egg, if the egg is not killed within a set limit you can use a trigger to turn the egg into a summon (that is unless you want the egg-pheonix cycle to continue indefinitely)

 

[Banelingline]

I've made an ability before called something like "second chance" where it allowed the hero to transform into a voidwalker for a duration, if the voidwalker was still alive after the timer was up it would turn back into the hero

also this ability can be used for a summon; lets say you summon the egg, if the egg is not killed within a set limit you can use a trigger to turn the egg into a summon (that is unless you want the egg-pheonix cycle to continue indefinitely)

So it specifies the unit to turn into? Does it work directly with a Hero? I don't have editor access, so I can't check (where the heck did that hard drive go...)

 

[Kyrbi0]

Find your hard drive, man! : )
(good luck)

Yeah it basically has two fields: "original unit" and "egg unit", IIRC (gotta open up my WE later to check)

 

[Banelingline]

Hard drive located and game, and more importantly editor(though the shortcut didn't get on the desktop automatically), successfully reinstalled. Better than it was before the OS change because the minimap and file tree parts of the editor UI weren't functional previously, as it was the Windows version being run on Linux through a semi-emulator... thing. Having quickly checked, corpses and trees both seem to be hardcoded variables that aren't valid for units "properly" (could just be a facet of the automatic cast), so fractal corpses are off the table, but generating Neutral Passive units when a corpse is used has to be good for something (meatsacks for HP stealing, maybe?). Similarly, the ability must be on both units and have the desired fields applied to the right units. If you don't set it properly, it "loops", having the unit turn into another of itself.

However, said rapid initial testing shows the following behaviors on the ability this thread is about:

Build abilities are retained: Having the alternate unit set to an Acolyte (I freaked out and refused to finish the test when set to Peasants because all of them morphed into Paladins) and original unit set to Paladin had the Paladin keep the build ability from the Acolyte. Unsummon, Sacrifice and Gather were not. When I added a built structure (Scout Tower), it would not build properly for the former Acolyte trying to built a Scout Tower, not even initializing construction. It also didn't work properly for the one who wasn't, but that was due to lacking the repair ability. Upon adding a ziggurat to the list, it initialized under Human construction rules (repair to build) for the non-former-acolyte and under Undead summoning rules for the former Acolyte. This is the general pattern, using the construction method of the previous form, with a former acolyte Wisp not being able to build anything but the Ziggurat added to the list. This means that you can, as an example, have the Orc build method attached to what would normally be the Night Elf build method, getting a reusable worker in a non-reusable race.

"Egg" Units Time to become "Original" units: As mentioned above, the five Peasants I started with (because rapid test map) turned into Paladins when the timer ran out. That's... That's all I need to say (no, seriously I freaked out)

Heroes do not function properly: They become a different iteration of the same Hero, with ability score effects stacking, but the scores themselves not stacking. This is a severe problem because the abilities learned aren't carried over, if they were, you could use it to replicate the Tarrasque from Starcraft (comes back from death, stronger each time) on a Hero. I mean, you can still use it that way, but not for a conventional Hero with actual Hero abilities. Maybe if you intend to have a tradeoff for survival versus revival, or used triggers to store learned abilities and use triggers to re-learn the appropriate abilities, but at that point you might as well replicate the ability with triggers outright. Alters don't work, meaning triggers have to be used to revive (maybe triggers can restore alter function by properly removing them on unit death?). However, usefully, the effects of the ability scores carry over to non-Hero "egg" units and items are only dropped if the unit lacks the appropriate inventory space.

 

[Kyrbi0]

I'm very interested in that last bit, because my testing revealed no such problems. (However, it was some time ago, and hardly exhaustive)

 

[Wark]

It's a fun ability to use with invulnerable alternate unit forms, or alternate boss stages. I haven't tried it with structures yet... hmmm...

 

[King Tidus]

Now disclaimer Im by no means a good moder, ive had help doing this

I've made a hero ability that allows the hero to temporary transform into a shadow after being defeated

if this shadow is also defeated before a timer runs out the hero is done, otherwise its back to its original self

here is the mechanic behind this: an ultimate which is based on engineering upgrade is made, this ultimate upgrades an empty spellbook which is located at the 0,-11 position (this is important because this makes the spellbook invisble) into a spellbook containing the phoenix - egg (phenoix morhping) ability

so once the ultimate is learned your hero transforms into a shadow once it is defeated and then if it survives til its timer expires it turns back into a hero

 

[Banelingline]

Now disclaimer Im by no means a good moder, ive had help doing this

I've made a hero ability that allows the hero to temporary transform into a shadow after being defeated

if this shadow is also defeated before a timer runs out the hero is done, otherwise its back to its original self

here is the mechanic behind this: an ultimate which is based on engineering upgrade is made, this ultimate upgrades an empty spellbook which is located at the 0,-11 position (this is important because this makes the spellbook invisble) into a spellbook containing the phoenix - egg (phenoix morhping) ability

so once the ultimate is learned your hero transforms into a shadow once it is defeated and then if it survives til its timer expires it turns back into a hero

Overcomplicated, you can just use the ability as the ultimate directly by marking it as a Hero ability and setting the required level to 6. Nothing wrong with having the ability be visible.

 

[Kyrbi0]

Overcomplicated, you can just use the ability as the ultimate directly by marking it as a Hero ability and setting the required level to 6. Nothing wrong with having the ability be visible.

That is, of course, assuming it is visible; some abilities are hard-coded to be invisible (which is usually preferred, as it's quite useful); stuff like Tornado Slow Aura or that personal Vampiric Aura ability.

In this case, I am about 98% certain that the Egg-Morphing ability is not visible, so you would have to use some kind of 'dummy' ability for the icon, at least.

The trick with Engineering Upgrade is pretty snazzy, though, as it's rather elegant & it means you can also buff Movement Speed & such if you wish... @King Tidus , doesn't EU also automatically upgrade all the other abilities, though? How do you get around that?

//EDIT// Also how does that deal with Tome of Retraining? Does it successfully revert?

 

[Rogue Kessler]

Subscribing. This thread is gold.

 

[Banelingline]

doesn't EU also automatically upgrade all the other abilities, though? How do you get around that?

The way the upgrade works is it specifies the original ability and the new ability, so by specifying only one ability the Hero actually has, it only upgrades one ability. Quickly checking the editor, it's hardcoded to always specify four abilities to change at each level. You don't actually have to have it be versions of the same ability, by the way, you can easily have it turn Animate Dead into Robo-Goblin or whatever.

A quick check shows that it does not work with Tome of Retraining properly, having quickly tested with a level 3 Goblin Tinker that learned Pocket Factory, then Upgrade while the cooldown was active, then used the Tome with the cooldown still active. It refunded the ability points properly, but Pocket Factory was not actually unlearned, so there was a level 3 Goblin Tinker with 4 total ability points.

 

[King Tidus]

Overcomplicated, you can just use the ability as the ultimate directly by marking it as a Hero ability and setting the required level to 6. Nothing wrong with having the ability be visible.

If you use it 'normally' it wont show up in the box gui on the bottom right

that is why u gotta do this engineering upgrade thing

 

[Rogue Kessler]

You don't actually have to have it be versions of the same ability, by the way, you can easily have it turn Animate Dead into Robo-Goblin or whatever.

Be aware this can do some wacky unintended things if the upgrade ability and the original ability aren't based on the same thing. Specifically, values used by the un-upgraded ability aren't always disabled when you upgrade it, so you can get weird mashups of the two effects.

Example: You upgrade Shadow Strike into Storm Bolt. The tick period value isn't used by Storm Bolt so it doesn't get reset to anything; neither is the tick damage value. The game ends up executing the ticking damage once every frame for the duration of the Storm Bolt stun, causing total damage in the millions.

(Check out the link in my signature for more about Engineering Upgrade)

 

[Lord Aiden]

@King Tidus : So this ability is essentially like storm, earth, and fire, but triggered by the hero's hp being depleted right? Do you know if it can spawn multiple units? Can it spawn a hero instead of a shadow (regular unit)

 

[Banelingline]

Be aware this can do some wacky unintended things if the upgrade ability and the original ability aren't based on the same thing. Specifically, values used by the un-upgraded ability aren't always disabled when you upgrade it, so you can get weird mashups of the two effects.

Example: You upgrade Shadow Strike into Storm Bolt. The tick period value isn't used by Storm Bolt so it doesn't get reset to anything; neither is the tick damage value. The game ends up executing the ticking damage once every frame for the duration of the Storm Bolt stun, causing total damage in the millions.

And now I'm wondering what can be done usefully with that glitch, but that's not on topic for this thread.

@King Tidus : So this ability is essentially like storm, earth, and fire, but triggered by the hero's hp being depleted right? Do you know if it can spawn multiple units? Can it spawn a hero instead of a shadow (regular unit)

If you're talking about Pheonix Morphing, you have to set up triggers keyed to the ability activating to get multiple units, as the unit does not die, nor does it have a field for multiple units being spawned. It's also buggy as fuck when used on Heroes as mentioned here. By me.

Heroes do not function properly: They become a different iteration of the same Hero, with ability score effects stacking, but the scores themselves not stacking. This is a severe problem because the abilities learned aren't carried over, if they were, you could use it to replicate the Tarrasque from Starcraft (comes back from death, stronger each time) on a Hero. I mean, you can still use it that way, but not for a conventional Hero with actual Hero abilities. Maybe if you intend to have a tradeoff for survival versus revival, or used triggers to store learned abilities and use triggers to re-learn the appropriate abilities, but at that point you might as well replicate the ability with triggers outright. Alters don't work, meaning triggers have to be used to revive (maybe triggers can restore alter function by properly removing them on unit death?). However, usefully, the effects of the ability scores carry over to non-Hero "egg" units and items are only dropped if the unit lacks the appropriate inventory space.

 

[terrio]

i messed with that, and i made phoenix change to blood mage instead of egg, the results were a bloodmage icon with phoenix unit getting stats from hero , on second morph the stats were double, on third, game crashed

making it bloodmage egg and mountain king normal unit, i made infinte loop which made phenix stronger every egg duration goes to zero

goddamnit, giving egg ability to mountain king and bloodmage which make them switch vice versa, works flawlessely, making them switch their "forms" every few secs saving the abillities and learnt abillities, this is surely interesting

note: the map is for 1.29 ptr

 

[Banelingline]

I think what fixed the growth bug to make it alternate was having a pair of abilities that made it so that each Hero was both forms at once. The ability works properly when both have the same version of the ability as shown in the minimally-adjusted version I've attached.

 

[Kyrbi0]

A quick check shows that it does not work with Tome of Retraining properly, having quickly tested with a level 3 Goblin Tinker that learned Pocket Factory, then Upgrade while the cooldown was active, then used the Tome with the cooldown still active. It refunded the ability points properly, but Pocket Factory was not actually unlearned, so there was a level 3 Goblin Tinker with 4 total ability points.

Wait, so hold on; are you saying the standard Goblin Tinker hero has issues with using the standard Tome of Retraining?? Like, that sounds like a bug, an actual, real bug. That we should report. :O

 

[terrio]

I think what fixed the growth bug to make it alternate was having a pair of abilities that made it so that each Hero was both forms at once. The ability works properly when both have the same version of the ability as shown in the minimally-adjusted version I've attached.

well, the heros changing their forms was intentional, but the fix seems fine for someone who wants to hero change their forms on death.

 

[Banelingline]

So, a thought comes to mind for a new usage of the ability, reminded of a detail of the functionality by messing around with Metamorphosis (the techtree contest has me thinking of all the unit changing and producing mechanics. Sadly, the Acolyte to Shade conversion appears hardcoded). Namely, the alternate form will always be on the timer. This means that you can produce the alternate form, and then it is on a time limit before becoming the "normal" form, which becomes the produced unit on "death".

This can be used for some odd production methods, such as a "start and go" production method for a self-reviving unit. A rather literal example would be a super-Pheonix that can lay pheonix eggs that then hatch to form standard Pheonix, taking only a brief moment to lay the egg, then the timer ticks on to make the actual Pheonix at a delay. This is a helpful production method for "nomad" techtrees, as you only stop for a moment to start production.

 

[SgtWinter]

With Phoenix revival, I'd make a zerg-like egg hatch-thing system thingymajig! Use the Phoenix Morphing to add a timer to a unit, which is an egg, then add a trigger that checks if that unit issues the phoenix morph order to replace it with something like a Zergling.

Though, I just use it as a neat-looking timer since it can be detected via triggers with the check order condition and doesn't kill the unit like the standard expiration timer.

 

[Banelingline]

With Phoenix revival, I'd make a zerg-like egg hatch-thing system thingymajig!

Pretty sure the "canonical" way to do that is actually a large mass of Destroyer Form type abilities, actually. Or UI abuse to have the egg be a "structure" that "upgrades" into the units, changing categorization to switch the units from structures after being specified as upgraded forms if needed.