non-unholy aura based life drain aura spell

the long title sorta says it all...
ok im making an item with a life drain aura, but i dont want it to be based on unholy, cause then it could get overridden and stuff. so i based it on the life regeneration (neutral) spell that is for the well of life <--(mistake). the problem is, it doesnt activate unless the unit is already damaged (doh!). so what im asking is is there a way i can edit the ability to work on non-injured units, or another ability that would work (that can stack with similar abilities). or, if its a skill based on unholy, but its set to be item skill, will it stack with other unholy based skills?
thanks for any help i can get,
AnArKi

zachary shadow came up with a brilliant idea to solve this problem. it is quite easy actually. just create a trigger that deals 1 damage to any unit that comes within range of the unit with the life drain spell if their health is 100%. therefore that will set thier life to -1 whatever they had and the spell will begin to work. good idea zach :D

Or just use the Healing Ward aura with negative Data values.

i am pretty sure that healing ward aura has the same effect as the fountains in that it won't do damage unless you have atleast taken 1 damage. i say just do the triggers.

the best aura for that one is Aura of Blight, but it doesn't work...

Maybe I'm wrong, but how about you use your original aura and also have immolation or just immolation on it's own. Are you trying for a percentage damage? and is it a hero ability? if it's a hero ability, check for the hero learning the hero ability and then add the ability 'immolation' based off the item version so there's no icon (with 1 damage a second) and give it the same radius as the aura. That way the units will never be at full health. Does that work for you?

That is the two best ways of doing it. Imolation will be there forever, and save you a trigger. The reason you need to do the other, is when making a health draining ward. As they can't have imolation.

Reason WHY they need to have lost health, is because the aura is hard coded to react when a unit is below 100% health. When they get down under 100% it starts to "heal", but with a negativ value, thus reducing and keeps on doing it untill death :)

Immolation would be the easiest, yeah; it has no problem acting on undamaged units. As for wards, you might have one trigger set the last created ward to a variable:

Event: Unit starts the effect of an ability
Condition: Ability = DeathWard
Action: Set DeathWardVar = Last created unit

And then...

Event: Unit comes within (range) of DeathwardVar
Condition: % life Entering Unit = 100
Action: Set life of Entering Unit = Life of Entering Unit - 1

An even easier way, would be to just create an invisible unit when a ward is placed. The unit should have the -1 hp imolation with same range as the ward. This would work out fine, and just give the invisible unit ((Hidden tru trigger Unit - Hide)) a life timer for as long as the ward is there. The -1 hp pr second isn't somethign that is notisable, as you regen faster than that...

actually zachary, the easiest wayto make a unit invisible is to give it no model, or .mdl in the custom path field, it cant be clicked, no hp bar on alt, but it still can die. i use it for my naval destruction map

Just one problem, it can still be targeted. It's VERY easy just to say: Unit - Hide Last Created Unit....and it's gone, but all its abilites still work. You can do it like that too, and it will work. As you know, a coin has 2 sides :) hehe

thx for all the ideas guys, its a bummer the only-activate-when-under-100%-hp thing is hardcoded :(
anyways, for now i think i'll be useing the immolation idea. it also depends on whether it will be more balanced at a % life loss every interval, or a flat value.
thx again,
AnArKi