Giving critical strike without the icon

OK, so I'm making a map based on the members of my forum. Right now I'm working on blademaster-style hero that has an ability that's boggling me. I've heard (or rather, saw) that this is the best site for these kind of questions:

The ability is basically a critical strike that needs activation and has a mana cost, duration, etc. The damage multiplier and the duration of the spell increases with the levels.

I managed to make this spell using a dummy spell and triggers. Basically the triggers added a ability I made with a 100% chance to critical for a duration (wait --> remove), and then, to stop the blademaster from using the critical animation, adds an ability that gives a 0% chance to critical.

All 4 of these critical related abilities (the 3 levels plus the 0% one) are based on the item that gives critical strike.

The question: How can I add these abilties without having a green square added to the hero's command list (since I don't want them to show up, I deleted the tooltips and the icons)?

Question remembered at the last second: Is it possible to reduce a unit's armor by percentage without using variables?

thanks for reading.

For your second question first, I believe you could fake the effect by using an armor-reducing buff, perhaps "Howl of Terror"? I think there's an ability that reduces armor by a %. Other than that, I don't know of a way other than calculating it yourself.

As for your first question, many abilities just can't be made to not show icons, and Critical Strike, even the item version, is one of these. Judging from what you've said, you want him to cast a self-buff that makes him always crit as long as it lasts. I'd recommend you make a Roar-based spell that just gives him a buff, modified to look like what you want. Then, trigger the critical strike effect. Whenever he attacks, check a random number and if it's in the appropriate range, calculate damage based on his base damage and damage per point of primary attribute. Then apply extra damage and make floaty text as appropriate.

Sounds like a head-pain, but it's the only way I can think to absolutely accomplish your aim.

I looked at howl of terror, normally it's a damage% reduction spell. It does have a defense increase option (normally at 0) but it uses fixed values.

I'm going to ask the "owner" of the hero if he minds having an extra icon telling how much damage he's doing. I'm going to hope he doesn't becuase I'll never get myself to do all what you said :\

Thanks for the speedy response

One way to do this is simply not to give the hero critical strike. Instead, each time the hero attacks, use triggers to run a random chance check and if it is a critical strike, play the correct animation and spawn a dummy unit to cast a very short duration bloodlust on the hero that icnreases damage by 100% (or however much).