This thread is going to be an evergrowing list of custom abilities created by the SEN community.

Each month or every two weeks I will host a poll for people to pick their favourite of the abilities. Then that favourite ability will have a tutorial written about it and be uploaded to our Wiki. The goal of this is therefore, to populate both the SEN assets in terms of data editor abilities, units, spells etc.. and also to boost the Wiki in terms of tutorials and articles that it has.




This is still at a purely brainstorming and conceptual leve, so I am keen to hear any feedback related to the topic as a whole.

Here is a 'starter-list' of abilities. Feel free to post saying you will contribute, and say which ability you will create.

• Omnislash - An instant ability in which a Hero unit 'jumps' (or 'blinks', or even 'charges') to X units in Y range (radius) dealing Z damage.
  • Status: Required
    
  • Theorycraft: Instant Ability, Create Persistent, Search Area, Jump/Blink/Teleport and Damage effects. Maybe a dummy unit - since the Search Area cannot be attached to the Hero unit casting the ability / or maybe it can?
    
• Retribution Shield - An activated passive ability which takes incoming damage and reduces it by Y%. Each point of damage recieved in this way will power a second Instant - Target ability which deals Z% damage to a target unit.
  • Status: Required
    
  • Theorycraft: Two abilities tied into one. The shield itself will be Active, Instant which Creates a Persistent Buff. Not sure whether or not Triggers will have to be used to record Damage Taken and store it as a Custom Value. The second ability will be Active - Target and possible Create Persistent > Launch Missile - maybe launching more missiles if the player takes more damage?
    
• Frozen Orb - A targeted ability where the player chooses a point and a missile is fired to that point. However, the missile fires lots of smaller missiles out from itself periodically.
  • Status: Required
    
  • Theorycraft: Going to be very difficult. Obviously Launch Missile would be your starting point, and then I think your missile unit is going to need Spawn behaviours or you are going to have to set this up using dummy units. I really don't know where to begin!
    
  • Reference: It is the level 30 Sorceress skill in the Cold Talents from Diablo 2.
    
• Blizzard
  • Status: Required
    
  • Theorycraft: Instead of area damage. The catch? We want the Shards themselves to do damage, like randomly generated missiles falling from above that do damage in a small area where they land.
    
  • Reference: Warcraft 3 Archmage hero - WoW Mage spell.
    
  • ImagoDeo suggested this one
    

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Dec 6 2010, 8:52 pm by Cardinal.

For omnislash, I think your theorycrafting is spot on. However, with the Retribution Shield thing, I think it'd be much easier than you think. There's a section under the Buff behavior type called Combat, which includes a damage response. It even has an effect slot, so you can hook up a retribution effect to that. Poke around with it and let me know what you get.

I'd like to see something like the World of Warcraft mage spell (also from WC3, IIRC): Blizzard. A targeted area is bombarded by icy shards, dealing damage to anything caught in it and applying a slowing effect.

But there's a twist to add. I want the shards themselves to deal damage, not just the area to deal damage. Randomly generated missiles falling from above- that should be hard.

Nice... I added that to the OP.

One way I can think of doing it would be to find an effect or a model which has a general 'falling animation'. Most dead Zerg creatures simply sink into the ground. Then to spawn a lot of these models randomly over an area, play their animation, and on-death make them cause damage in a small area.

Another option would be to create a set of dummy units randomly over the targeted area. And another set of dummy units on the ground at the targeted area. Then simply have the first set of dummy units attack the second set of dummy units, using a mover and projectile that simulates the Shard.

Not sure the second method is possible through 100% data editor though...

edit: I completely forgot about this topic, thanks for the bump imagodeo!

For frozen orb having a buff on the missile which causes a persistent effect should work fine. Just specify offsets using the periodic effects in the persistent or just have a set of a bunch of persistents if you want absolute offsets instead of relative.

Some stuff I made for IskatuMesk, back when he wanted to do AO2 on the SC2 engine:

Chain Tentacle Therapy: Launches a tentacle at a target. After a few seconds, the tentacle launches further tentacles at three random nearby targets. This continues as long as possible, after which all units effected by a tentacle take damage. The tentacles also do DoT. I don't remember exactly how I accomplished this... I don't really get tentacles so I hacked the Sentry beam into one somehow. It also involved a bunch of search areas.

Wandering Storm: Summons a few Psi Storms with randomized lives. Upon expiring, a storm has a 50% chance to summon four further storms. I think there was going to be a cap on the number of storms. At the time when I first made this, it required a complex hackjob involving dummy units and death responses, due to the lack of the random chance field in an effect. Now, I'd just persistents... Give the persistent a certain duration, then have a chance to summon one further storm (for the randomized life) and a lower chance to summon four storms.

On the tentacle thing - yeah, lots of Search Areas. I've done stuff similar to that in my ongoing AoS project which will probably never see the light of day - one character has a number of disease-type moves that spread among enemy units. The most interesting of these is Silent Fever, which the hero starts spreading and enemy units who catch it continue to spread it. When the source hero switches off the behavior, or when he runs out of energy, the fever is activated and deals heavy damage over time. The problem with tentacles and that particular kind of effect would be actors - getting the tentacles just right would be, at least for me, a major headache.

I thought you could randomize the duration of a persistent effect? Oh, maybe I'm wrong. Meh, whatever. Yeah, that plan for wandering storms would work.