On attack Sockwave

i made an ability thats like a flamethrower using shock wave and melee lightning damage bonus so that when you attack it casts shock wave at the target. I've then also set the attack speed pretty fast so that it looks vaguely like a stream of fire. This works fine when you click on a unit to attack. if you let the unit's ai tell them to attack however, it doesn't work, they just attack. the other thing i don't like is that i get an ability that looks upgraded on the unit. id really rather do with out it. my biggest concern is that it only work on targets you tell the unit to attack though. any ideas? i want to do it entirely with out script and most preferable with out triggers. the attack is ranged.

Well don't think that's ever going to happen as player-units (eg. you) playing won't auto-cast their spells unless you tell them to, so triggers are needed (unless you use another method I don't know of).

not auto cast, lightning melee damage is a passive, its off the orb. it also has a field that i don't think blizzard ever uses which is cast ability which i used.

Orb effects simply do not work/happen when the unit auto-acquires a target.

well dam. Thats only abilities though right? or am i reading that wrong. also is there any way with out triggers or script? i don't care about it enough and i doubt ill finish the map, i never do. lol just realized i put sockwave instead of shockwave

Catch the attacked event and cast shockwave. Make sure the cooldown on the spell is comparable to the cooldown on the attack or people will game the system by constant attack/stop. Track the spell with triggers or a buff.

if any one has any ideas my question still hasn't been answered.

Maybe set his attack to instant, make the actual attack do 0 damage, then catch the "a unit is damaged" event, and with condition "attacking unit has Flamer(dummy) = true" then make it cast. Set his attack animation slow, or give the flamer attack the attack animation when cast. That should be a pretty good fake, although i havent tried it yet

Note: the dude just has a dummy ability, or none at all, and then the dummy unit belonging to the same player casts it. Your probably already doing this, but i still thought i should say =P

Sockwave, like you toss a bunch of dirty socks on your enemies?
Disease cloud...

Sockwave not Clustersocks-et nub.

sock nova

Well, I'm not sure if there's a no-trigger way of doing it, but why would you want to avoid triggering it? It's not too hard.

I'm not actually sure how to detect the time where a projectile is launched or even when a unit takes damage, so someone can elaborate in the next posts. The simple way is, as someone said, catch the attack event, create a dummy unit to cast shockwave at the position of the attacked unit. You can do it without a dummy unit too, which is much simpler and more elegant if it suits your purposes.

I prefer to use a way that looks nicer though, since shockwave no matter what you do tends to stick to the ground. I do all the above hijinks, except that the shockwave is invisible i.e. it's only there to simulate damage. Then fire the actual projectile either using a dummy unit or not. That's the general idea. Much more presentable way if you're using a lower camera or air units.

I'm very lazy, i also don't like triggers, one they take a while (sometimes they are faster but what ever), two id prefer to do it "naturally" i cant really explain y i just want to. the reason i chose shock wave is because, except for the ground wave, it behaves like a fire stream, and if u make it fast enough and give it a projectile with particle emitters it looks like a stream. another way i thought of is that every time he attacks a unit it orders him to attack it, don't no if this would fix the problem but what ever. i don't really care any more since it seems it cant be done with out triggers. ty for the ideas though