Lightning Attack and Orbs

Hi all, I recently discovered a very bad thing: my damage detection system (which, of course, uses orb effects to detect physical/magic attacks) completely ruins my heroes/units which have a lightning attack (chimaeras for example) because the lightning is removed. Any hints? Is there any attack buffer (for example orb of frost, used on my system) which can also show a lightning effect? Thanks.

Well, apparently you've coded a damage detect system, right? (Personally I'd not use orbs but, whatever) So, now just detect when the unit deals damage and create a lightning effect if it's appropriate, I think it should only be only be a few extra lines of code for creating the effect and sound and then cleaning them up.

If you don't use orbs, how would you detect various types of damage (physical, magic)? Moreover, orbs simplify skills such as custom Evasion and Critical Strikes, how do you trigger them?
It should be a nice idea to trigger a lightning attack, but there are few problems:
1) I must "fade out" the lightning using a gradient alpha channel / I must use a dummy Chain Lightning.
2) The lightning is shown when the attack actually starts, not when the damage is taken, neither when the target "is under attack" (there is no event for "a unit has REALLY started its attack")
Anyway thank you very much, I would be glad to know how does your damage system work.

I don't use the detection to tell whether or not the attack type is physical or magical because, in my personal use of it, the issue is settled already, if they're immune to magic they probably aren't being targetted anyway.

Critical Strike and Evasion, I haven't had any need to trigger a custom version, I find the versions Blizzard provides suitable.

About not using orb buffs in general, well, consider this, what do you use the buff from the orb for? To see if the unit has the buff, right? Basically, if you don't use a buff, you just check some other condition which essentially tells you if the unit has been damaged. I'm guessing you can probably see where this is leading? I just store a boolean associated with the unit saying that it's attacking and create a trigger that fires when it's target takes damage, with a condition that the attacker is the one that does the damage. After that it's just an issue of what's supposed to happen after the damage is detected.

Don't use an orb ability, use the slow poison ability. To the best of my knowledge (without too much testing), I believe it doesn't count as an orb ability and will therefore not override others.

Yes, I use too Slow Poison but it doesn't count as an orb with melee units only, not ranged units. Thanks.
Naakaloh: buffs are necessary to know if a unit "actually" has damaged another unit and to know if it was an attack (useful for critical strikes custom and evade spells). Thanks.
My next question so is: is there any orb ability which can show a lightning?

If all else fails, you could just use an orb with a 100% chance to cast, say, Chain Lightning (modified to hit only 1 target and doing 0 dmg etc).

That's why there's another trigger that gets rid of the detection trigger if the unit tries to do something other than attack. The only thing it really has difficulty with is something like immolation, or a damage effect over time in which case I can choose code it's effects if I need it not to interfere.

The slow poison stuff is actually useful to know, I might have to keep it in mind.

Interestingly enough, it seems blu_da_noob's latest suggestion is actually the simplest and most practical answer. Ironically, because orb abilities are so useful I try to avoid using them for damage detection, but likewise have actually not used them because I'm worried I may want them later. :/

Ok guys, I found a solution!!! The only way to do this is to use the "Frost Breath" ability (the undead Wyrm's one) which is the only stacking orb with lightning attack. Another thing to keep in mind is that it will work ONLY if the ability is putted in the Object Editor (it won't work adding it by triggers, I made tons of tests). Thanks you all for your help, I hope these information will be useful for someone (other than me :) ).

Hi guys, sorry for bumping, but I have news!!! The ability "Lightning Attack (Alit)" and children ARE COMPLETELY STACKABLE!!! I mean, if you add this ability (not the orb) through triggers it will stack with ANY OTHER PREVIOUS ABILITY!!!