[Trigger] Odd spell idea, any guidance?

[tml616]

I finally decided on the last spell for my Summoner support class. It's called "Spirit Familiar" right now and here is how I want it to work:

The only allowed targets will be allied heroes.
The spell creates an illusory duplicate of the target hero with identical max HP/MP, 0 armor, no attack. The duplicate will follow the target around for 12 seconds or until it dies. If the target hero has less than 100% HP or MP, the Familiar will transfer its HP/MP to the hero at a rate of 30 HP and 10 MP per second until the Familiar is drained or the target is topped off. The Familiar can be attacked and hit by enemy spells and takes double damage.

So I guess I have to make a dummy unit for each of the 6 classes so I can duplicate the HP/MP but have different armor and no attacks. And then I can trigger its creation on spellcast, and link it to the target with a hashtable. I think the movement could be triggered just by giving it a "move" command on the target every frame and any time it is given another order. There are only two damage types on my map: Physical (attack type hero damage type normal) and Magical (attack type spells damage type magic), so maybe I will give these dummy units its own armor type that takes 2.00 from spells and heroes. One problem I would have is it would be cool to have a lightning effect between the familiar and the target ONLY if there is a transfer going on. The frames will be 0.03 seconds apart. Another thing is it would be swell if I could give the dummies a transparency associated with how drained they are. Or better if I could give them a flying height (but I don't think there is a way to adjust to Z loc of triggered lightning is there?)

so are there any precedent spells like this or am I gonna have to start from scratch with this?

 

[Cokemonkey11]

Use mirror image, then remove 'Aatk' from the created image. I don't know how you'll remove its armor but I think simply raising the damage taken % will have the necessary effect.

issue order patrol, give the unit a timed life, then in your stack/hashtable periodic function transfer a small hp with the correct conditions etc.

 

[Freyleyes]

I am not sure you can remove the attack ability like that. Another way is to add the cargo hold ability to the unit(Just set the unit capacity to 0 and add it to the illusion). Instead of using Mirror Image, use the item Illusion ability, it is easier to use.

 

[MortAr]

Use Techtree upgrades for the armor will be better (imo) since I'm pretty sure you can use negative values for armor upgrade and as well as disable the illusion attack with silence or giving it an order to follow the real target every 0.01 seconds which will pretty much make it do only this order.

You can as well trigger off the life/mana drain with another timer and check if the target HP/MP is lost and then transfer some from the illusion.