Showing Buff on Unit - Expert advice needed

Sometimes we want to show a buff on a unit without any kind of side-effects - just a buff, nothing more.

Normally I would do this by giving the unit a Tornado Aura that affects only self, as this can add any number of buffs to a unit without any issues.

But, as I am working on a map that needs to show buffs like this for ALL buffs, I am wondering whether or not there might performance issues here. If 100 units is walking around with 5 such tornado auras to give themselves buff icons, would this affect performance?

So there are two questions that maybe some veteran modders can help out with:

Does adding buffs like this affect performance in large scale?

Is there a better way of adding a buff icon with no other side-effects?

I find it unlikely that large numbers of custom buffs would adversely affect performance in any significant way. A 4v4 melee game for instance will often have upwards of the magnitude you describe, and on a decent modern rig that won't be a problem.

I'm no programmer but it seems to be me, both intuitively and empirically, that simply adding mechanical-effect-less buffs should be the most efficient way to achieve what you want.

Or you could simply test it yourself.

There are a few abilities that work quite well for applying buffs: Tornado aura, Unholy Frenzy, Bloodrage, and permanent immolation. If change the appropriate fields and you make dummy units to cast the buff on the unit that needs the buff, it should work fine with any of the above abilities.

However, if these are buffs on reviveable units, then permanent immolation/tornado aura would be the way to go.

I personally have never had any problems with large amounts of buffs, and I am sure that most custom maps have above and beyond the amount you're suggesting.

Why would you need so many buffs ....

100 units with 5 each is not unreasonable. Think of the effects of, for instance, auras and auto cast Spells in team games.

The reason I am questioning whether 500 tornado auras hamper perfomance is because there has to be some code internal to War3 that actually calculates which units are affected by it. It's really hard to know whether or not it affects performance or not.

I'll look at these other mentioned alternatives, they may certainly be more useful, at least if they can add any number of buffs without override.

By logic... i think it will affect more or less =| if i were you i'll try to avoid as much as possible

is there really no other altenative ? like give some trigger command instead *-buff* or *-checkbuff* etc...