Variable Damage Bonus Ability

I'm trying to make an ability that when you cast it, it sets your mana to 0 and adds the amount of mana drained to your damage, the best idea i've come up with for it is an ability with 100 levels (maximum number of levels) based on claws of attack. At level 1 it adds 1 damage, at 2 it adds 2 etc and adds 100 at lvl100. I then say when the spell is cast add this ability to the unit and set level to integer(mana of trig. unit)

the problem is:
1. when i cast the ability the game freezes for 2 seconds, probably loading the 100 levels of the ability or something
2. it cannot add more than 100 damage, so if i have more than 100mana it doesn't work

is there a better way of adding a variable amount of damage to a unit for a limited time?
also i want the damage to come up as + XX in green so tomes of damage wont do, although i suppose if thats the only way i can use it

edit: it seems it only lags the first time i use the ability, so i can just make a unit use the ability in map initialization the lag wont be a problem, is there a way to remove the lvl100 ability level restriciton?

Shift-Click will remove the 100level limit

ty :)

will having a level 500 ability cause any lag or anything else anoying in the game? It now takes about 15 seconds to load the ability first time its used

Try setting lvl 1 to 0 then just set it's lvl in your trigger to mana+1 and let the unit have the ability always. Also make sure all unnecessary fields aren't set to anything like buff, tooltips etc

You can use a system of binary abilities to do this with about 10 abilities of 1 level each. Set ability 1 to add 1 dmg, ability 2 to add 2 dmg, ability 3 to add 4 dmg, and so on (ability n adds 2^(n-1) dmg). Then you can add those in varying configurations to give up to hundreds (or thousands) of damage. (Using the theory behind the binary number system)

If you do not insist on this value being visible you can use a variable to store the mana and action - cause unitA to damage unitB whenever unitB takes damage.

Use BonusMod form Blade.dk and some other guys. (Based on the binary idea blu_da_noob mentioned)

Original BonusMod was by Weadder I believe.

that sounds like a good idea, i'll see if i can do that, the only problem i can see is finding 8 abilities that add damage, or can i just use 8 abilities based of claws of attack?

Of course you can. And btw there's only one i believe : Item Damage Bonus (with many different versions like +15,+30...)

Yes, multiple different item abilities with the same base usually stack (there are some exceptions, such as BoS).

Could not remember who was the initial creator. So thx and sorry to Weadder.

Been said, but for all those reading.

NEVER use abilities with 100+ levels to them.

Abilities with levels 40 and above increase loading time at a hideous increase rate. Its just sick, 1 ability with 100 levels takes longer to load than 100 seperate abilities with 1 level each.