Steal Life

[metic]

Looking around several places, looking to have a hero Melee or Ranged steal HP, beginning at level 1, so i guess steal a % of HP and it goes from there? or what is the best case to do this? % or # ?

Thank you!

 

[Nichilus]

Won't life drain via vampiric aura not work for you?

 

[metic]

Was looking to make it an ability if possible? Like it steals X amount or X %. Maybe even make it have 4 levels? Each level take more and more Health from enemy?

 

[Nichilus]

If you mean active ability then there's 'Vampiric Potion' item ability. It temporarily gives the caster buff that allows them to drain life equal to % of damage done.
Rest is just setting that ability up in object editor to have 4 levels, different drain rates, etc.

 

[metic]

Ah okay. I'm brand new to editor. Is there another post on how to set that up? I'm a new noob lol.

 

[Nichilus]

I don't think there is any tutorial for that as it is a very basic editor thing. If you are completely new, I recommend checking Warcraft 3 General Mapping Tutorials - there's a lot of various tutorials, some more advanced, some more basic. They are all pretty old, but the editor did not really evolve that much over the years, so a lot of things are still applicable today.

Anyway, here is a short version of it:

1. Open object editor
2. Open the "Abilities" tab
3. Click the "New custom ability" button, a window will pop up
4. In the window change the drop down for "Base Ability" from Unit to Item, since Vampiric Potion is an item spell
5. There will be lots of spell, you can write in the name of the spell to search it
6. Give it your own name. That will be the name shown in editor, not in game. Then press OK button to create the ability

This should create a custom ability based off the Vampiric Potion ability and show you its object editor data:

1. You can find the ability in the "Custom abilities" section in left panel's tree view
2. Change the flags "Hero Ability" to True if it is supposed to be a hero ability (i.e. an ability that you spend skill points on) and "Item Ability" to false.
3. You can configure how many levels the ability has. There are other fields not shown in the screenshot which set how much % of damage done is stolen as life for attacker. If you change value in "Stats - Levels" to more than 1, then you will be able to set the life steal amount for each level separately.
4. Setting "Item Ability" to False will display the "Text - Tooltip - Normal" and "... Normal - Extended" fields. Tooltip Normal is the name of the ability, "Tooltip Normal Extended" is the detailed information on what the ability does.
5. Setting "Hero Ability" to True will display the "Text - Tooltip - Learn" and "... Learn - Extended" fields. "Tooltip Learn" is the text shown when you want to learn first level of ability or level an ability up (e.g. the text "Learn <ability name> - Level X"). The "Tooltip Extended" field is detailed information shown when learning the ability. Usually this contains the overall information on what the skill does + what each level does.

For points #4 and #5, you can check some default WC3 hero ability like "Standard Abilities -> Human -> Heroes -> Blizzard" to see what is written in those fields.

Finally, to give your ability to a unit:

1. In object editor open the "Units" tab
2. Find the unit you want to add the ability to (note that only heroes can have heroic abilities)
3. "Abilities - Hero" allow you to modify list of hero abilities (supports up to 5 hero abilities)
4. "Abilities - Normal" allow you to modify list of non-hero abilities.

In the example above, I removed Archmage's default abilities and just gave him the custom Vampiric Potion ability I called "My ability name". I did not touch that unit's non-hero abilities, hence it has the standard "Inventory (Hero)" unit ability.

 

[metic]

Wow!! Thank you so much!! I really appreciate you taking the time and breaking it down step by step!

 

[metic]

How would I make this be just a default ability? Like not a hero ability just an ability like example critical strike. A passive ability, so when the hero attacks it steals X amount of HP?

 

[Nichilus]

If it should not be a hero ability, then set its 'Stats - Hero ability' field to False.
If you want it to be passive ability, then use Vampiric Aura ability (e.g. what Dreadlord hero uses) and modify its "Stats - Targets allowed" flags to only contain 'Self'.

 

[metic]

Ahh okay cool thank you!

 

[Mechezarin]

How would I make this be just a default ability? Like not a hero ability just an ability like example critical strike. A passive ability, so when the hero attacks it steals X amount of HP?

Just in regular ability field whats same for hero as for regular units, and you can use ability from Vampiric Potion (or whatever it's named as)

Pardon, it should be item- life steal (or steal of life) ability, from Mask of Death.

 

[metic]

Messing with the vampiric potion. Is there a way to make it when the hero hits the enemy it shows that debuff on that enemy that shows that icon of vampiric potion? Shows that it's being hit by vampiric potion

 

[Chaosy]

There is the winter orb or whatever it's called that leaves a slow debuff on attack. Just set the slow to 0%

 

[metic]

For Vampiric Potion,
there a way to make it a % ?

or is that what this is?
Like the mask, is there a way to set it to where like you steal 50% of your dmg you deal?

 

[Nichilus]

It is the percentage expressed as numeric multiplier. So 0.75 = 75%, 1.00 = 100%, etc.

 

[metic]

Ahh perfect! Thank you!