Need help from the masters (ability editing)

Ok, I've been making this new map, and I have a specific ability in mind I want to have on a hero. The problem is I can't think of the way to do it. Now I'm pretty much a novice when it comes to ability editing. I mean I've taken the standard abilities to level 10 and beyond and had them work properly, but creating custom abilities have always turned into a disaster. Anyways, here is the ability I have in mind for a hero.

This ability, when used, will changed their normal melee attack into a ranged attack with an increased ranged per level of the ability. The ability lasts as long as per level of the ability. The ranged attack uses a specific projectile art that I have in mind already, and the attack will be at a speed of 1 attack every .1 seconds. Of course once the ability has expired, their attack turns back into their normal 'slow' (in comparison) melee attack.

So what would be the best way to create such an ability? Thanks guys!

Use a morph spell would be my guess. Of course, since metamorphosis is bugged when it comes to multi-level spells, you would have to use the goblin tinker's transform, which supposedly doesn't have that problem, but from what I've heard (haven't had the chance to tinker with the tinker myself :) ), the tinker's transformation isnt timed like metamorphosis or avatar...

Of course, you could base the thing on storm,earth&fire spell, and have only one unit spawn, but that would be a unit, not a hero, and the damage taken in the meantime would not affect the hero's HP; but it doesn't have bugs and it is a timed spell.

One last chance, without morph spells, would be just to have two attacks on your unit and only one active; all units have two attacks, but few ever use their second attack: a good example of this would be the Mountain Giant. His War club ability causes his attack1 (the standard melee attack) to be disabled and his attack2 (the siege attack) to enable for a set amount of attacks, but it requires a tree to be consumed in order to work. There may be other ways to swap the active attack type for a unit, but I don't know how.

That of course was my first thought was to have two attacks. Is it possible to enable or disable attacks on a unit via triggers?

I just had a thought. The demon hunter transformation ability. It makes him into a unit with a ranged attack with increased stats. Anyway that ability can be changed to fit my need?

umm... cant you set SEF to spawn a hero under the line: Spawned Unit Type=

if so, just mimic your hero into a new custom unit and change attack things.... and use an abil of Gloves of Haste with edited data on it, but on the hero, and increase attack speed each level.. or just make like 10 custom units and change the Spawned Unit Type= into each better one each level...

edit:
the demon hunter's ultimate IS metamorphasis lol

Yeah, I realized that it was metamorphosis. That made me look really intelligent I swear.

Anyways, back to the discussion. "set SEF to spawn a hero under the line: Spawned Unit Type=" I have absolutely no idea what you were saying just then. Maybe it's because I don't know the World editor inside and out. If you would mind elaborating to help me out just in the slightest. Pretty much I'm asking: What is SEF? Maybe once I know what that is, everything else will make sense..

SEF is Storm, Earth, and Fire. That ability. And I don't think, for the record, that using it would really be a good idea, because the unit/hero it spawns is so far removed from the hero casting the spell- increased levels, damage taken, abilities used, buffs/debuffs collected- would not affect the original unit, and that would probably be bad.

The enabling/disabling attack system might be best- look into the stone giant's war club ability and turn it into a hero ability to try and switch between attack 1 & 2. As the level gets higher, you up the duration. I don't know if you even CAN up the range with each level (probably not), but you could probably figure something out.

Ok, I looked into the warclub ability. It looks like the mountain giant has the 2nd attack and all of its stats listed underneathe itself, and clicking warclub switches it from attack 1 to attack 2. Well that's nice. I can adjust the range and speed of attack on the 2nd attack to make it function properly. As for incremental range.. Well sometimes everything doesn't go according to plan. I changed the target of the ability from tree to self (maybe that will work?)

Going to test this out.

Ok, tested it. Pretty much the game ignored everything I changed to the stat except for the target, mana, tooltip, and icon.

Targeting himself instead of a tree did allow the spell to go off, but when it happened, the attacks did not switch out. The tooltip data was not reflecting the raw #s I had it linked to (using the default amount of strikes instead of the 50 I replaced it with, after leveling it it all became zeroes.) so something sure isn't right with the ability. Thoughts?

What I changed from the default data:
Art-Animation Names (null)
Art-Caster Altar of the Depths
Art-Icon-Normal Dark Ritual
Stats-Hero Ability True
Stats-Level Skip Requirement 2
Stats-Levels 10
Stats-Race Human
Techtree - Check Dependencies False
Text-Name test
level1-data-attach delay 0.00

level2-data-enabled attack index 1
level3-data-enabled attack index 1
level4-data-enabled attack index 1
level5-data-enabled attack index 1
level6-data-enabled attack index 1
level7-data-enabled attack index 1
level8-data-enabled attack index 1
level9-data-enabled attack index 1
level10-data-enabled attack index 1

level1-data-Maximum attacks 50
level2-data-Maximum attacks 60
level3-data-Maximum attacks 65
level4-data-Maximum attacks 70
level5-data-Maximum attacks 75
level6-data-Maximum attacks 80
level7-data-Maximum attacks 85
level8-data-Maximum attacks 90
level9-data-Maximum attacks 95
level10-data-Maximum attacks 100

level1-data-remove delay 0.00

level2-stats-buffs warclub
level3-stats-buffs warclub
level4-stats-buffs warclub
level5-stats-buffs warclub
level6-stats-buffs warclub
level7-stats-buffs warclub
level8-stats-buffs warclub
level9-stats-buffs warclub
level10-stats-buffs warclub

level1-stats-cast range 0.00

level1-stats-cooldown 120.00
level2-stats-cooldown 110.00
level3-stats-cooldown 100.00
level4-stats-cooldown 90.00
level5-stats-cooldown 80.00
level6-stats-cooldown 70.00
level7-stats-cooldown 60.00
level8-stats-cooldown 50.00
level9-stats-cooldown 40.00
level10-stats-cooldown 30.00

level1-stats-duration-hero 10
level2-stats-duration-hero 11
level3-stats-duration-hero 12
level4-stats-duration-hero 13
level5-stats-duration-hero 14
level6-stats-duration-hero 15
level7-stats-duration-hero 16
level8-stats-duration-hero 17
level9-stats-duration-hero 18
level10-stats-duration-hero 19

level1-stats-manacost 100
level2-stats-manacost 120
level3-stats-manacost 140
level4-stats-manacost 160
level5-stats-manacost 180
level6-stats-manacost 200
level7-stats-manacost 220
level8-stats-manacost 240
level9-stats-manacost 260
level10-stats-manacost 280

level1-stats-targets allowed self
level2-stats-targets allowed self
level3-stats-targets allowed self
level4-stats-targets allowed self
level5-stats-targets allowed self
level6-stats-targets allowed self
level7-stats-targets allowed self
level8-stats-targets allowed self
level9-stats-targets allowed self
level10-stats-targets allowed self


Other than that everything is at default. But the ability acknowledges cooldown, and mana cost, and works when targeting self, but other than that it does nothing.

I recommend you use some light triggers to give a modified Orb ability to the hero when the ability is used, then have it taken when the time is up. Orb enable another attack, but it doesn't have the problems accosiated with War Club (such as needing to target something).

It seems that if you enable a second attack via an ability, it only works for units that it couldn't attack with the first one (eg if the first attack target ground and not air and the second targeted air and ground, the unit will use the first for ground and the second for air). I can't think of a way to get around this.

Get this. I just add a normal warclub ability to him. Target a tree, and he starts going nuts with his ranged attack for 15 strikes and then stops. Now while he was doing this, it did not display any type of attack for the hero (I guess it might have something to do with the fact that he is a hero and has stats in the way) another thing is, with the ability learned, i clicked war club targeting himself and he casted the spell which did nothing.

Ok, there is no way to get that ability to function without targeting a tree. besides that minor detail, it does everything beautifully. If only there was some way around it. Anyone have any other suggestions?

Interesting. Previously the War Club ability didn't work right at all when you modified it and gave it to a different unit, and it froze the game when you modified one on the Mountain Giant itself.

I agree that modifying an Orb ability and giving it to the unit with a trigger would be a good solution for this. You would also have the trigger start a timer, and when that timer expires, another trigger would remove the orb ability.

Alternatively, you might be able to make a virtually identical hero (with the attacks changed) and give the hero a Chaos ability to swap it into the other one, and then Chaos back to the first hero again when a timer expires. I'm not entirely sure, but this might keep the original hero's levelling and skill information.

At any rate, it's very likely you'll be needing triggers with these methods. Shall I move this thread to the Trigger Haven for you?

I believe that the Robo-Goblin ability can, in fact, be given a duration timer. It just doesn't have one by default. Alternatively, I personally have not had a problem with a multi-level Metamorphosis ability, so I think you could use that, too. Either of these abilities should probably be the first avenue that you explore.

Well you were right. The metamorphisis worked fine. I got it working properly. Thanks for the help. Now how can you get a unit with an aura (lets say from an item) that decreases the damage his opponents would have while in range of this aura? I tried taking a command aura and putting the damage increase to a negative number but that didn't work. Thoughts?

Did you change the Command Auras targets to something along the lines of "Ground,Air,Enemy"?