Emulating 'Freezing Breath'

[Thunder_Eye]

I've been messing around with the 'Targets Allowed' and 'Targeted as' fields for a while now and I'm getting out of ideas.

What I'm after:

• A building that can be affected by (Custom) Freezing Breath, but otherwise is mostly unaffected by gameplay elements. That includes damage, splash, other abilities.

As mentioned I've tried most combinations of fields of Targets I could come up with. The result is either that everything can affect the building, or nothing can.

I've thought about triggering it, but the result must look exactly like the normal Freezing Breath in-game. Meaning I need the ice-gfx, halting of production and the command card blacked out. Something like Silence would make all my troubles seem so far away. But then we're back to the Targets field, and it looks as though they're here to stay.

I've tried getting the building to cast the ability on itself, no success. Is there perhaps an ability I can add through triggers that can help me? Any ideas, trigger-wise or not, are welcome.

[Anitarf]

I've used the unit classifications "ancient" and "suicidal" in the past, since abilities and attacks can be made to only hit units with that classification as well as only units without that classification. Of course, if you give your building the "ancient" classification, every unit attack and spell in your map besides the freezing breath attacker will need the "non-ancient" checkbox checked in their targets allowed field.

[Kyrbi0]

Subscribed to see the results.

Do you mean "unaffected by gameplay elements" as in everything else in the game, or just the other effects stemming from use of Freezing Breath?

[Anitarf]

I didn't use the phrase "unaffected by gameplay elements" so I'm not sure what particular part of my reply you are asking about. I can restate it, if that helps:

You can (most likely) get the freezing breath effect by using triggers to attack the building with a dummy attacker that has the freezing breath ability. This necessitates that the building be attackable (so not invulnerable), but you want to prevent all other units from attacking it. For this purpose, you can use the "ancient" or "suicidal" classification as I have outlined above, as long as you are not already using them for other things.

[Kyrbi0]

Originally Posted by Anitarf

I didn't use the phrase "unaffected by gameplay elements" so I'm not sure ...

Originally Posted by Thunder_Eye

... but otherwise is mostly unaffected by gameplay elements. ...

However, you are right; I should've quoted Thunder_Eye to make it clear I was talking to him.

[Anitarf]

Ah, I'm sorry, this was my mistake. I wasn't paying enough attention and mixed you and Thunder_Eye up, so I thought this was just a conversation between me and him. :)

[Kyrbi0]

Originally Posted by Anitarf

Ah, I'm sorry, this was my mistake. With the site so slow I thought this was just a conversation between me and him. :)

Fix'd for ya. : P

[Thunder_Eye]

Thanks for the help Anitarf! :)
I did some tests with the info I got. I've had this part of the project on ice so I haven't made enough progress on that particular system to determine if this will solve my dilemma, though I think it should help with a work-around solution.

Following was one of the things I noticed when doing some tests. The building is targeted as Structure. The units tested was based on the Footman. Abilities seemed to have the same conditions to hit as units.

Could attack:

Building, Targeted as:

Originally Posted by Kyrbi0

Do you mean "unaffected by gameplay elements" as in everything else in the game, or just the other effects stemming from use of Freezing Breath?

By that I meant everything else. The building should be able to produce/research as regular, and it should by all means look normal to the player. But nothing should be able to affect (harm/repair or buff/debuff) it since that will be done artificially. In essence the building is a virtual mimic that reflects an actual building on the playfield.

[iNfraNe]

Originally Posted by Thunder_Eye

I've had this part of the project on ice

haha, very punny.

Are you saying that if the building has ancient as classification and on a different unit you give an attack with targets allowed "ancient", that it cannot hit the building? That seems awfully strange to me...

[Kyrbi0]

Originally Posted by iNfraNe

haha, very punny.

Dang, beat me to it. : )

Originally Posted by iNfraNe

Are you saying that if the building has ancient as classification and on a different unit you give an attack with targets allowed "ancient", that it cannot hit the building? That seems awfully strange to me...

Are you saying that Blizzard might have created an ability with a field that not only doesn't work right, but does the exact opposite of what you'd expect?

WELL I NEVER.

:<

[Fledermaus]

Careful, they might sue and/or kill you!

[Kyrbi0]

Originally Posted by Fledermaus

Careful, they might sue and/or kill you!

Nah, that's Hasbro.
"Four-legged protagonist? CEASE & DESIST!!"

[andreasaspenberg]

you could give it the invulnerable ability and make the ability target ivulnerable. that should work.

[Gorman]

I skipped a lot of this thread, but classifications is really the only way you can make something untargetable by most of the game. So what's wrong with just using classifications?

Here's a test map:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...ATIONSWORK.w3m
My results were as expected.

I don't think 'targeted as' is the same as a unit classification, just stick to classifications.

[Anitarf]

Oh, I didn't even remember there was a "targeted as " field, so I just assumed that Thunder_Eye was using unit classifications. Good catch. It really should work if he uses classifications, I've used them before for this purpose without a problem.