The quirks of the World editor basic abilities.

[Himperion]

Well, everyone has done experiments on basic abilities to see how far they can reach without using GUI/Jass. So my idea is having this thread to compile these findings. This may save time searching for dozens of pages whose only answer is "Make a custom spell."

You're welcome to post your findings, and the most important, how to replicate it.

Howl of Terror:

When using negative values, this ability can be used to remove life and mana from the enemies of the caster, based on the duration of the effect.

For example with -10 of life/mana and the base duration of 15, you will remove 150 of life and mana, of course this skill doesn't stop the natural regeneration of the unit, and the target is still regenerating, but the complete damage is done.

As 1.29, this skill has synergy with Acid Bomb, the Armor reduction value of both skills stacks.

Need to test the minimal time value, but you can have a AOE mana burn without having to use any trigger.

Acid Bomb:

It can be used to do single target damage without Stun. Only put the AOE damage values on 0.
If the interval of damage is larger than the duration of the effects, you can do full damage to the targeted area without the Damage per second effect.

For example:
Single Damage: 100
AOE: Damage: 100
Interval of Damage: 60
Duration: 10

This means that in a cluster of units, everyone will get 100 of damage, and the armor reduced during 10 seconds, but with the interval being 60 seconds, the damage counter will only work once.

The Attack and Movement reduction works by adding negative numbers "-0.xx"

 

[Pyrogasm]

Abilities that use negative numbers for damage (where it would normally regen instead) do not grant kill credit to the caster (you gain no gold from killing creeps with -hp regen Howl of Terror). That's the big downside to doing things like this.

@Kyrbi0 may have a better source, but:
The Warcraft III Ability Guide - Wc3C.net
The Warcraft III "Weird" Ability Guide - Wc3C.net

 

[Trill]

They also do not aggro the way damage does, do not trigger "damage taken" event, and I think can ignore invulnerability and armor.

 

[cleavinghammer]

^^ So who does get the credit? That could be an interesting mechanic to use.

"Sure, you could hire a superpowered mercenary mage with an unblockable AoE attack... but he keeps all the gold and experience for himself. Choose wisely."

 

[Pyrogasm]

Nobody does. The unit just dies of its own accord; Killing Unit returns null. No gold is awarded, though I believe nearby heroes owned by players hostile to the dying unit will still gain experience. If killing your own units doesn't give xp to enemies then this won't either, afaik.

 

[cleavinghammer]

Still could be worth looking into, a choice between killing creeps faster or getting paid for them. Or a race to kill the unit before the debuff kills it so you still get credit.

Would there be a way make it reduce HP to 1 instead of killing (as with Starcraft's Plague)?

 

[Pyrogasm]

Would there be a way make it reduce HP to 1 instead of killing (as with Starcraft's Plague)

Since it doesn't run damage events, no. If you trigger the entire health drain effect yourself, sure.

 

[Kyrbi0]

Pyrogasm has the right of it; no need to reinvent the wheel, Himperion. We've already dug into stuff like this in depth years before (though any additions would certainly be appreciated).

On that note, @ScrewTheTrees may have a Google Document you might be interested in checking out... : )

 

[ScrewTheTrees]

Ah yeah, the only real thing i have contributed to this community:

Compiled mostly from me, but also a lot of helpful people have also contributed to it with indepth information .

The Warcraft 3 Ability Insight document.

 

[Pyrogasm]

Ayy gotta put my flare findings in there. Thanks for the link!