The Warcraft 3 Ability Insight document.

[ScrewTheTrees]

So what is the Warcraft 3 Ability Insight Document?

Back in June 10th 2017 i started working on this document. The purpose back then was to map out all the abilities i found had interesting properties, Generally by applying Negative values to the stat fields or just changing stuff around in ways most people dont even think about doing.

Then i decided to add "Tags" these tags can be used to find abilities with specific properties such as Damage Over Time or Morph.

I am now (June 15th2017) done with my additions on Human/Orc and is working on Undead.
Update (June 16th2017) Done adding Undead Abilities.
Update (June 22nd2017) Done adding Night Elf abilities, Also remade many of the tag names to be more consistent and logical.
Update (July 7th 2017) Done adding Neutral Hostile abilities
Update (March 4th 2018) Done adding Neutral Passive and Special effectively filling out 99% of the document. Some item abilities are missing since they are identical to normal abilities.
Update (October 16th 2018) A few updates and a lots of cool information from other peeps, thanks for your inputs.
As of now i have disabled "Suggestion Mode" and things can be edited directly, hopefully this will contribute to a better user experience when adding information, if abused it will be reverted back.
Update (January 30 2020) I have deprecated the project and removed it from general public as i generally feel after recent events that the war3 community doesnt deserve it.
Update (February 20th 2020) The document has been made public again, but i am reverting back to suggestion mode due to too many people leaving accidental spaces or letters around.
Google docs just doesnt have good enough version control for me to ensure quality in free type mode.

The entire document is on google Drive, this means anyone can contribute more information into it. It also means that all the additions/changes i do get updated in Real Time.
Here is the link to the document: Warcraft 3 WE Ability Insight


So what does it actually contain?

It contains insight into the abilities of Warcraft 3 in ways a person would normally not use them. Or in ways the people didnt know they could use them.

Spoiler: Examples:

 

[General Frank]

I can see this become a very useful document for all map maker and people who like using in-game loop-holes.

 

[Kyrbi0]

This is seriously the best guys. This is our generation's Ability Guide, in the style of many of the ancient greats.

Difference being, this is more exhaustive (or will be) & a bit more rigorous, if more focused; just basically the negative values of things. Still, LOADS of awexome testing & useful information by TheRealAttackA, so kudos!

 

[Abovegame]

We should create a "documentation" thread when this is done.Like a tutorial of some sorts.

 

[ScrewTheTrees]

Difference being, this is more exhaustive (or will be) & a bit more rigorous, if more focused; just basically the negative values of things. Still, LOADS of awexome testing & useful information by TheRealAttackA, so kudos!

Hai Khyrberos, thanks for your support <3
Also thank you for helping me add and test stuff for this

We should create a "documentation" thread when this is done.Like a tutorial of some sorts.

I mean, if blizzard intends to keep updating warcraft 3 there will be changes, and the information in here is gonna have be updated
That's why Google Docs is so great for this thing, in the future information can easily be changed so that everyone can see the updated info. And also contribute it.

The only "tutorial" needed here is that Shift + Click is neccessary to input negative values into the boxes.

 

[IcemanBo]

I find it very cool you made this work. Good one, approved.

 

[ScrewTheTrees]

I find it very cool you made this work. Good one, approved.

Thanks bro.
Hopefully a lot more people will contribute interesting information too

 

[BritneySpears2016]

Too bad that Gdocs are freakingly slow when text gets huge

 

[ScrewTheTrees]

Too bad that Gdocs are freakingly slow when text gets huge

Yeah it is indeed if your computer/internet is not up to par.
Luckily they have a download options to various forms such as PDF or pure TXT in the upper left under "File"

 

[Daffa]

Could use update with 1.30 balance patch

 

[SadisticLeprechaun]

5 stars!

 

[ScrewTheTrees]

Could use update with 1.30 balance patch

Most of this data is still true as of 1.30, but adding the new critical strike field and similar is on my TODO list

 

[Nudl9]

Cargo (Devour): Only friendly units inside the cargo is affected by triggers that change life or deal damage.

 

[GoldSkull]

ScrewTheTrees, the Warcraft III community is enormous. I believe it's safe to say, that you have only ever seen max. 5% of it manifesting itself in any way. I think, from a logical perspective, it's incorrect to base your decision regarding this document, on that five percent.

 

[ScrewTheTrees]

ScrewTheTrees, the Warcraft III community is enormous. I believe it's safe to say, that you have only ever seen max. 5% of it manifesting itself in any way. I think, from a logical perspective, it's incorrect to base your decision regarding this document, on that five percent.

Agreed, its in some regard very immature of me, the document is public once again since new modders or old ones might need / want to look at it.

 

[GoldSkull]

Thank you. And don't worry much about it. We often make negative generalizations based on disappointments.

 

[Devalut]

This is criminally underrated.

 

[DaneTheBeast]

Thank you for this!

 

[Macadamia]

I realize I also forgot to thank you about his.

Awesome work, really !

 

[raypack]

Hi I will be editing this message in the future, to give fuller descriptions of what certain spells do that are not explained in the document.
-> The spells won't be in any particular order, just any spells that I find that are incomplete or untrue in the document.

PS: I'm testing this on world editor patch 1.29.2

Open the "spoiler" below. It exists so I do not clutter the page with thousands of lines of text.

Spoiler: Spoiler

- Mana Shield: the Data - Mana per Hit Point field is not explained in the document. People obviously know that if you put huge numbers like 99999 then basically no mana is used by the caster. But it is not mentioned that if negative values are used, then the caster gains mana. The mana is gained no matter what, even if the unit takes no damage because of the mana shield.
I did not experiment it like crazy but basically setting it to -1 made the caster gain a mana point per 1 point of damage inflicted to it.
You can make some cool variation of mana shield where the unit takes 50% damage and regains 10 mana per 100 damage inflicted to it (set the value to -0.1). The unit will only have taken 50 damage but will have regained 10 mana in this case. PS: not 100% guaranteed on the recovered mana but I think it's accurate to what I mentioned. I set the value of the data field to -1 and the unit regained a few hundred mana points after a few seconds of getting mauled down by ghouls.

- Cluster Rockets: almost nothing is mentioned in the document which is weird to me. I don't know exactly how much damage you can make it do (since it doesn't do exact damage that you give it) but I will check it soon on my computer where I made the spell deal exactly 35 damage to each unit hit.
But for its AI behaviour ---> from dozens and dozens of experiments, the AI seems to love targeting heroes with it, even if you remove heroes from the Allowed Targets field. The hero won't be affected but the caster will still use it on top of the enemy hero. If no heroes are present, generally the caster likes targeting the ranged units in the backline, not always but most of the time. If no ranged units are present, the caster will just use it on the melee units.
Generally, the AI will use the ability even if a hero seems to be alone, but most definitely if surrounded by units. And also make sure to give the spell somewhat high cast range if you plan to give it to ranged spellcasters controlled by the AI. Like mana burn, the caster will run like crazy towards where it wants to cast the spell, completely running into all the enemy front line and dying.
Sometimes the AI seemed to use the spell on a single non hero unit but I cannot remember for certain.
Setting the stun duration to 0 will not stun!

UPDATE ON CLUSTER ROCKETS: caster cast it on a flying unit which was alone, even though there were a dozen ground units closer to the caster than it.
Weird behavior since it could not even affect air units.

- Banish: the only thing I would add is that it also has a preference for higher level units such as doom guards and abominations over necromancers, ghouls, banshees etc... (if all are present on the battlefield at the same time).
What I interestingly noticed while playing my map (War Crafts) with AI Kael'thas and AI Lady Vashj is that Kael used Banish on a doom guard and then vashj used forked lightning on it, dealing like 150 extra damage which was cool . Obviously the doom guard was surrounded by enemy units so AI Vashj used forked lightning, but the target was the doom guard! So this might mean that the AI kind of uses some spells in a combination, in a smart way?

- Metamorphosis and Avatar: well the only thing not mentioned is that the AI will cast the ability when the caster's HP becomes less than 50%.

- Ray of Disruption: it is not mentioned but if you make it remove mana from units, it will remove mana from all units affected by the ability.

- Pocket Factory: [RESERVED] (comments: ability with so much potential, I will investigate it and then comment on it).

 

[Althavis]

Found a gem

Thank you for this! It will be of great help for my maps.

 

[OVOgenez]

I accidentally found an interesting feature - if you give a walkable unit the 'Amin' ability, then it will not be able to walk through shallow water, but will go around it (I don’t know what the point is in this, only a Goblin Mine has this ability, but it cannot move). When you try move unit into water by code, it will be teleported to the nearest land point. This feature related with invisibility, because when such a unit uses Windwalk or similar, this feature is disabled - this can be fixed by removing and adding 'Amin' again.
1.26a ver

 

[raypack]

I accidentally found an interesting feature - if you give a walkable unit the 'Amin' ability, then it will not be able to walk through shallow water, but will go around it (I don’t know what the point is in this, only a Goblin Mine has this ability, but it cannot move). When you try move unit into water by code, it will be teleported to the nearest land point. This feature related with invisibility, because when such a unit uses Windwalk or similar, this feature is disabled - this can be fixed by removing and adding 'Amin' again.
1.26a ver

I actually have an idea for this. Imagine you want a realistic map and you use the firelord and his lava spawns and other perhaps custom units (with custom models) that are made of fire.
You give them this ability so they cannot touch water... since they are literally burning and water would kill them
You can even go the extra mile with this and make them take extra damage from all water related sources such as water elementals and crushing wave etc...

 

[OVOgenez]

I actually have an idea for this. Imagine you want a realistic map and you use the firelord and his lava spawns and other perhaps custom units (with custom models) that are made of fire.
You give them this ability so they cannot touch water... since they are literally burning and water would kill them
You can even go the extra mile with this and make them take extra damage from all water related sources such as water elementals and crushing wave etc...

The idea immediately came to my mind to do something like “fear of water”, and solve the problem with other invisibilities by making it impossible for a unit to become invisible using 'AItb' (But I didn’t check this).