Another spell idea by me,.. no clue how to make it work :P

Ok so far I've done pretty good. ALmost every idea I've come up with I've been able to impliment thanks to suggestions from the great people here! Soo, let me move on to my next idea.

I'm doing an alternate "Death Knight" type hero, and I had a really neat spell idea for him. I read a thread some time ago that lets you take debuff type spells (cripple etc) and use them in a chain lightning based spell, using a very miniscule amount of damage to detect which units to cast the spell on. It worked great for me using cripple, unholy frenzy, couple others. Then I had a really neat idea. What if there was a way to make a "Chain Lifedrain"? I realize Lifedrain is channeled, but it would be super cool if you could bounce lifedrain off, say, 5-6 targets in your range, and drain them all at the same time for a crazy amount of healage!

Is this possible? It would work great for my hero. In this case the invisible caster trick wouldnt work I dont think because 1) the spell is channeled and 2) it takes the hp drained and returns it to the caster. If anyone has a clue how to pull this off lemme know. I realize it might be just totally impossible, but if its not I hope one of you creative people can throw out some ideas ;)

-Huh

Try doing what you did for the other ones, except take the detected units and create whatever special effect you want on them. Then subtract a certain amount of life from them and add that amount of life to an integer. Then add that integer to the caster's current life. It's not channeling, but it is life drain.

Hmm that might work. Also, if a unit dies to a trigger driven damage spell (as in the damage subtracted from a unit via a trigger kills it), how can you make it where the caster still gets gold and exp normally? I cant seem to get that to work either.

Also, any idea how I could create the illusion of channeling the chain lifedrain? It would look stupid if I just bounced it instantly and got a chunk of life back. It would work I guess but I'd much rather have it appear to be channeled.

-Huh

I'm not sure on the channeling part, however, for experience, I would suggest an equation based on point value. Hold on a sec. and I'll look and find the one I used...

[edit] Try: If\Then\Else
If: ((Hero Level of <Casting Unit>) Greater then or equal to 5) and ((Owner of <Killed unit>) equal to Neutral Hostile)
Then: Do nothing
Else: Hero - Add ((Point Value of (Killed Unit)) - ((Hero Level of <Caster>) x 2) experience to <Casting Unit>, Show level up graphics.

If you want to be really specific, you can run another check to see if the unit is summoned and, if it is, then use the same XP gage, but divided by 2. This XP gage is accurate to around 100-200 XP points. That's the closest thing I could think of, as I'm not sure what Blizzard uses...

P.S. How do get that code text where it says Code: and then the code is in between lines?

[code ]
[/code ]



That would indeed be tough (impossible?), since the units will be able to move = the chain should be able to move as well. I really cant see a way to do this, since if you use hidden units at each point in the chain to initiate the next life-drain, they would break the drain if they are ordered to move to the same location as the units they are shadowing.

Follow me?

i have an ideea of how you can make this spell work but without channeling however.You can make a variable that would be equal to the damage done to each unit targeted by the ability.Then the death knight would gain an amount of life equal to that variable.To create a channeling effect you should try slowig down the missle for th base ability that would be chain lightning.

You could use the chain lightning spell, maybe use some channeling I don't know. Use the triggers to take the life from the unit and give it to the hero but only to the target got 1 hp left. I think it can be done but im not sure else way you can resurret the unit (with triggers), set it on 1 hp and kill it with the chain lightning to gain xp. This would proberly get messy if it can target hero's.

*sigh*
Here's an overview of how you could make it work. I've left some things how, like how you store the unit group, but this should get ya started.

Create a custom unit with no model and no shadow, give this unit 10,000(whatever) maximum life and the abilities: Lifedrain and Locust. Also make the unit's movement type flying.

When you cast the spell create the required number of those custom units for the player casting the spell, set their life to 0%, and order them to lifedrain whatever target you want, then add them to a unit group. Finally, make the casting unit channel a spell of any sort (so they can't walk around with lifedrain...and for duration).

Once you've done all of that, add an event to a trigger: specific unit (1st/2nd/3rd etc unit from the group) life becomes not equal to 1.00. Add life of triggering unit - 1 to the unit which is casting the mass lifedrain spell and set life of the triggering unit to 1.00.

Also add an even to another trigger: "unit stops channeling a spell" (I think that's there...if not try casting?) If the spell that's just been stopped is equal to the mass lifedrain then kill every unit in the unit group which was created earlier.

Sounds like a fun ability to make.

I think it would be nessecary to disable movement for all the targetted units, and there could be some difficult things to account for, like when one of the units in the chain dies (does it break the chain or just get removed from the chain?)

Tho I think I thought of an even cooler ability.

Ya, I'm just too much of a noob at triggering to do something like that. Hell I'm just now learning more about how global/local variables work, unit group arrays, stuff like that. If any of you manage to make a spell like this and want to post it that would be awesome! Otherwise I'm going to focus on some easier spells I have on my list of spells to make..

-Huh