The primordial ability

First of all, let me say that I'm new to scripting abilities and hero systems, though StarEdit (along with its poor index) has given me a decent enough experience in using triggers. My problem is that, after searching through the object editor, I couldn't find a "blank" ability that does absolutely nothing, or a trigger that checks whether an ability button is touched. I suspect that I could just clear a buff's properties to get the former... What about the latter? How can I actually "read" whether an ability is used or not, without giving that ability some effect like incrementing a variable? As far as I can tell, that's not possible at all, and every other idea I can think of (which would involve creating objects/adjusting properties that an event/condition can detect) is too bulky to bother with...

I'm going to design spells and AI chunks that use triggers exclusively, so I seriously need that primordial ability. I've read somewhere that giving units commands via triggers clogs up the game's memory - if that's true, I need a way to avoid or counter this. Since I have no idea how any kind of memory works, I'll need someone's help.

Two of the things you're going to see once the campaign is done are the Bartender's Blessing and the Bone Talismans - I'm posting them as concrete examples of what I want achieved. The first increases the effectiveness of potions on the user, while the second, when targeted on a corpse, removes it and adds an item with a number of charges to the inventory. I have no idea whether the number of charges can be affected by the corpse's maximum hit points, but if it works for the Death Knight's reanimation, it should work for this as well.

To tell when an Ability's button is clicked, check out that Ability's "Order String" properties. Then use "Event - A Unit is issued an Order" to run your triggers. You can modify those fields, I think, so you should be able to create endless custom abilities all based on the same main one, just giving them different order strings.

For your item-from-corpse ability, remember that dead units (corpses) still count as units as far as triggers are concerned. You can do arithmatic and more complex math involving unit HP. I just made an ability like that. If you want I can give you it for reference, unless you want to figure it out yourself.

Ligature> Despite having searched for some time before posting, I hadn't noticed there was a way to check what ability was being cast in the ability comparison condition - I imagine passive abilities would just need a script to tell at what level they are. It seems as if your suggestion would work equally well for active abilities. Either way, thank you...

########> It seems as though I *need* to figure it out by myself - I just created my first spell, a simple teleport ability, that I knew precisely how to script, but couldn't fashion into a trigger because of how horridly unintuitive some of the events/conditions/actions are. The more I wander the labyrinth looking for the proper syntax to express something, the more I'll learn about the overall vocabulary, so taking a shortcut would only hinder me in the end.

Ok. But if you need any help, just ask.
Its nice to see someone new to this subject trying to figure things out for himself instead of posting
':D :D :D HI! I nOw all OF U R l33t! BUT I AM N00B!! :D :D :D ! HOW I DO [Insert complex trigger here, but make it sound really stupid]??!!:D :D :D '

By the way, there is no way in GUI to determine the level of a hero ability directly. The best you can do is set up an interger variable and have it increase by one whenever the hero learns the ability. If you want to delve into JASS then there are several direct option, or you could get WE Unlimited by Pitzermike, it include that in GUI.

I know what you mean (ex 'HI HOW DO I INTErPET MOUSE MOVMENT AND MAKE IT SO I CLICK IT SHOOTZ PLZ TEL ME HOW KK AND MAEK IT QUIK I DONT HAV AL DAY TO READ'). I wish more people would ask questions like this guy.