Basing unit of the spell locust?

i wanna make an item when used, be like the spell locust. remember in enfos, the dark ranger has those balls of light aruond her that float around and attack anyone in sight? and theres only like 4-5? i want to do that, except only after an item is used. how would i do that?

make a locust swarm custom spell. in units, theres a unit called locust. change the model of that for whatever u want the locust to look like. for the item......... make a custom item that uses the swarm custom spell. or do u want a percent to cast the spell?

but the custom spell doesnt show up in the items abilities, i think its because it only looks for unit abilities, how do i get around this?

looks for ur custom locust spell. somewhere it should say something like this: Item ability:false
Hero ability: true

so make hero ability false. then u should find it!

Is hero ability - False
Is Item ability - True

Did you change these two fields?

ok, now i did all the stuff youve said, but now when i click on the item, the unit that emerges explodes. right after i click on the item. whys it do this?

The Unit you chose isn't classified as a summoned unit so it glitches up... that might be what's wrong.. if changing that unit will f-up your map then copy that unit and make an editor suffix that is (for locust/item custom) and then change the unit classification to summoned unit... that should solve you're problem... or you could just copy the unit called... locust... and change the modile file... that would prolly be easier... but that's just me :D sry i've had this problem aswell when i made maps... but i fixed it through trial and error...
Hope i was a help buddy! :D

Explodes? Thats an interesting problem, it seems like your item fizzles.
Did you state the duration of the spell and the summon time for your 'locust'? you do all you can, while i try it out when i get home. I'll reply again when i go it all right.

"...the unit explodes."

That was worth a good chuckle. I think the problem is your duration isnt set properly, so your unit is playing its death animation as soon as you summon it in.

Certain abilities won't work correctly for persishable items.

vexorian's comment was the most accurate. i eventually had to make it non perishable and make a trigger to add the ability, and then wait for the duration then remove the ability, in which case the ability was over. i also manually removed the item after the duration was up. thanks anyway guys!