Autocast attack based ability for melee heroes?

I tried adapting cold arrows to use with a melee hero, but it is a no-go. Is there any other ability that could do what I need: autocast attack-based buff? And no, I cant make the hero have a missle attack with no art so it seems like a melee attack, because then it doesn't work with thorns.

What I need it for is that I am detecting "units being hit" with a rapid periodic check (every 0.04 seconds) for the buff that the autocast ability leaves on the attacked unit. This may seem like much, but it really isn't, because I don't check all units in the map, but only those that are stored under indvidual hero's TempCustomSpellUnit variable, which is set to the "attacked unit" whenever a hero with this ability attacks someone.

So, if there is no autocast melee-attack based buff spell, (as I fear there is not) then perhaps there is another way of efficiently detecting when my melee hero hits another unit?

The system must be fully multi-instancable, any number of players may have the same hero and a single player may have multiple heroes.

A "touch"-spell?

I'm sorry, I don't understand your question... I was wondering if there was a spell similar to cold arrows in every respect except that it works if you give it to a melee unit (that doesn't have the attack-type set to "missle", but "normal").

I used black arrow for a melee hero and it worked perfectly - he hits things, they die, zombies spawn, try using that one.

Indeed, blac arrow seems to work with melee, but it apparently has it hard-coded that it cannot target heroes. Because I want this ability to work on heroes (it's for a hero arena map, so it would be lame if it didn't work on heroes), black arrow is out of the question...

That about covers it, there are only 3 arrow abilities in warcraft (searing arrows, freezing arrows and blac arrow) and 4 in WE (there is also the cold arrow). Searing arrows don't leave any buff, Black Arrow can't leave a buff on heroes, cold arrows don't work with melee, and freezing arrows got disqualified a long time ago because you can't change their buff (maybe that will change in 1.15, but then, the question still remains, can they be used on a melee unit).

So, I guess I'm stuck... will have to think of some other ability for my hero...

I've just had a thought - you could modify orb of slow to add any buff you wished - inner fire, faerie fire, whatever, if you wished to be able to turn it on and off then you would have to have a dummy spell to give the hero the modified orb ability and a spell to remove it, but that would certainly work - I've modified an orb of sloe to grant polymorph before, it's only thing I can think of, it's not quite what you specified, but it's the closest I can imagine.

I can but wish you the best of luck.

Yes, I could just give and take away a passive buffing-attack ability (there's plenty of those) whenever the hero was given a command to turn on/turn off autocasting. That is a legitimate solution... I just don't feel like adding another additional non-hero ability to my hero (he already has one :\ ). There doesn't appear to be any orb-abilities that wouldn't have an icon, though...

Thx for all your help anyway...

cant you just make the heroes attack type to missile but no missile art?

sry if i dont see the real problem >.<

Id use searing arrows since Im pretty sure you can just detect when the spell is "cast"; which might also reduce some lag since you wouldnt need the .04 periodic check.

If that doesnt work, you can try the hidden poison arrow ability that will be put in the object editor list in 1.15. You can use it now but it requires more work with the .slk's I believe, but hey if it works.
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Arohk, I could, but then the hero wouldn't take damage from thorns aura (one of my heroes has a thorns based ability, so it would suck that even amongst those few heroes in my arena that are melee, one wouldn't take damage from thorns...)

JJ912, I'm pretty sure you can't detect attack based spells being cast. I remember once testing a map where a hero had the orb of slow that casts a quite regular spell, slow, and I couldn't detect it being cast.

Thx for the info on poison arrow, IF it's buff can be changed, and IF it works with melee units, then there's still hope for this ability. ^_^