Triggered Abilities and Other Cool Effects

To Start Things Off...
What exactly is a "trigger enhanced ability"?
A trigger enhanced ability is an ability with no limits, a totally original ability (usually) that can do anything. There are many, many ways to do triggered abilities, and most usually start with a dummy ability.

Ok Cool, so What Exactly is a Dummy Ability?
A dummy ability is an ability the basically does nothing. For example, if I wanted a good old area of effect Polymorph I would make an ability based on Inferno, because it has an area of effect target art thing. Then, I would clear off all the fields so the ability doesn't do anything except waste mana and cooldown. The next part, creating the trigger, is where all the magic happens.
Some good bases for dummy abilities are: Inferno - AoE ability, Thunder Clap/War Stomp - Instant ability, Shadow Strike - Single Target ability (this one is really sweet because it can create a buff, so you can detect when the missile hits its mark, explained later.

Get to the Good Part Already!
Alright, here's a Basic Ability
So you're reading this tutorial with your WE open and an Inferno ability renamed AoE Polymorph, and all the data fields are cleared. Right? Now you want to create a dummy caster. Good idea to base it on a Wisp (no shadow) and give it the amazing Locust ability. What this ability does is it makes the wielder invulnerable and unselectable. Then we just give our star the model file Destructibles - Elevator Wall and voila! It seems like the unit isn't even there. Can't select it, can't hurt it, can't see it.

Next, we're gonna need a Unit Polymorph ability. Without it this will be quite the lame ability. Just create a custom Polymorph with !@#$%^&* cast range and no mana cost/cooldown. Then we wanna add that to our dummy caster's arsenal. Also, don't forget to set the duration to whatever you want.

Now the Trigger :o
Ok, this is where everyone gets scared. We're actually going to open the Trigger Editor... and use it! First step is to make a trigger. Call it Mass Polymorph or Polymorph, unless you're less organized, in which case just smash your head on the keyboard.

Now for the Event. Use the Event 'A Unit Starts the Effect of an Ability'. We don't use 'A Unit Begins Casting an Ability' because that fires right when the caster is ordered to do something. The one we use fires when the caster actually start the ability.

Condition time! Use an Ability Comparison that checks if the ability being cast is our dummy ability.

Finally, the Actions. This where I lose most of my audience :( Your first action should look something like this:


Now your actions are gonna seem kinda confusing/messy, but the next part is:


Basically, all of that just creates a Dummy Caster at the position of each unit caught in the AoE and orders the Dummy Unit to Polymorph a unit. Since it is a Pick Every Unit in Group Action, Picked Unit refers to each unit like they together are one. Therefore, when we tell it to create a Dummy Caster at the position of the Picked Unit, it makes one at every unit in the AoE, then Polymorphs each unit.

Well, there's your first triggered ability! You can make a lot of variations on it too, like an AoE Shadow Strike or Sleep or something. Also, if the Dummy Unit's ability has a missile (like Firebolt), try making it create the Dummy Unit at the position of the Caster instead of the picked unit, so it looks like the caster is sending a swarm of fire balls to roast his enemies. Also, I've attached the finished ability if you want to see everything up close (I recommend it). Well, I'm gonna take a break and go play some Skibi. I'll be back later with more on different types of abilities and using integers. Yeah. So go make a really cool ability now. Make people go "Wow!"

-1)ragonspawn

Everytime I try to cast poly it crashes. I have your string exactly as it says

Your triggers leak like shit... btw use [trigger] tags...

Seriously, I'd READ the date on the thread. This is from: "04-05-2004, 08:57 PM"

Lol. I would never use an AOE polymorph, because I just don't like spells with AOE disable. But otherwise, it seems alright...

Have 2 Questions.

What about if I going to use some spell that is not in the list of " Unit - Issue Order targeting ... "

For Example an ILLusion create spell ( Item Illusion )

The next is How can I trigger an dummy to destroy its. If I order him to create an Illusion before that. Because " the last created unit " after the dummy create an Illusion is " The Illusion that was just created " not a dummy himself.

Try going in the object editor and looking for the orderid, then in the trigger editor use a custom string and enter it in for the spell. The orderid usually looks like 2 words, lower case, for example carrionswarm for the Carrion Swarm spell. The orderid will be whatever you based the original spell on, i'm not sure if this works since it is an item but it's worth trying.


Right after you create it, do Unit - Add Expiration timer, set it to 5 seconds or something. (Do this before you cast the spell)

good tutorial but your example area plymorph has leak in it...

When I post into an old tutorial, then I don't do thread reviving or?
Well, anyhow here is a warning for this old tut!
Guided by this lesson I set all fields of Inferno to zero:
What happened next was that the game froze.
Through setting up these fields (raw data names) to zero, you set the damage interval to 0.00, and that's quite a bit too fast:
"DataC1", "DataD1", "DataF1" and "HeroDur1".