aura refresh rate

What's the exact refresh rate (i.e. time interval before refreshing) of an aura?

It's hardcoded into the engine, I'm sure you could look it up in some mpq, but I'm not sure which one, sry.

Im pretty sure it's the duration of the aura.

We can't be sure of that. If it is that, some auras will never get updated (due to 0.00 second interval).

Nope, it is hardcoded into the WC3 game engine.

sth like an approximative value?

This reminds me of a time I saw something passive aura like this with refresh rate... anyways, don't mind me, I'm insane (KIDDING, inside joke). So, I believe it's about 2-4 second refresh rate. For some reason, in some B.Net games, I find that custom maps that have Trueshot aura that the buffs blink in and out and flicker ALOT and really fast. I don't really know, but that's my thoughts!

actually, there is no refresh...

the unit is instantly affected by the aura once its in range, then after the aura duration the buff goes away.

PS: buff icons blink when they are close to disapearing.

@Will: There is a refresh rate, if you are within range of an aura, and you lose the buff for some reason (like mirror image), it takes a little while before it shows up again. I believe the refresh rate is about 2 seconds (at least it seems like it, I entered range of an aura, then used mirror image, it took about 2 seconds for the buff to reapply).

The refresh rate seems to vary, sometimes it's almost instant, other times it's well over 4 seconds. I tried a unit with a trigger that removed the aura buff every 10 seconds and then timed how long it took to come back and the time fluctuated wildly.

After doing several tests, it seems to me that aura refreshing is done periodically by the game engine. Notice the precision of the given results. EDIT: Values may vary of +/-20ms (?) depending on unknown game conditions. In best conditions values are to be considered with a +/-1ms precision.

The period for aura buff placement is of 500ms game time.
The period for aura buff removal is of 4000ms game time but it sometimes takes 2000ms game time (It doesn't fluctuate between 2000ms and 4000ms).
Both periods seem to be independent of aura duration/aura itself. (Tried but not in the test map)

This explains why getting within the range of an aura regularly places the buff faster than it takes to be removed when the unit gets out of range.

I have attached a very practical test map so you can try this out. It doesn't include an option to try with different auras though. (You are welcome to further investigate into this.)

Wow, nice discovery masda.

I think some knew about this already, just backing up with some practical results. Thank you though :p.

Stuff related to unit reveal (sight/invisibility) seem to run in a similar way, but with a high frequency (it seems obvious why), you might be able to mention a few other things that run this way.

Right, now try doing other stuff as well, input that test into a melee map, get several other people, multiple auras and effects (making sure to have a trigger that checks the refresh rate for each aura). Unless Blizzard did some changes to the system in the last patch or two, the refresh rate should start fluctuating wildly the more things that are happening on the map, particulary triggers and other auras.

I just tried increasing game stress by playing a 3v3v3v3 melee game with comps (for this I optimized the test map a bit). After probably 30 mins or so the game eventually started being unplayable (extremely laggy) but periods stayed consistent all the way through. Periods only seem to be able to increase starting at their base value, usually of 5 or 18 ms but it can go up of 90ms too. It doesn't really fluctuate at all though, It seems to take values among a discrete set of numbers and values don't jump up and down all the time but actually do it from time to time and then stay constant in a 1ms range.

Perhaps you are talking about the average time it takes a random unit at a random time to have an aura buff removed or placed. In this case all you can say is that it will take less than 4 seconds for buff removal and less than 0.5 seconds for buff placement.