Ability Lua Tutorial 7: Slardar's Slithereen Crush

Preface

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It's been a while, eh? Don't worry, I'm still pretty much alive (at least physically, but inside...).

So, I've been tweaking around github and decided to split between real version of Dota 2 abilities and tutorial version. Meaning, there are 2 implementations for each ability created in different github branch.

Why the split? I thought that for beginners, it would be better if they just understand basic functions explained in this tutorial, and the ability scripts should only show what's essential for them. Meanwhile, the real version of the ability tends to have a lot of fuss and fancy APIs which may confuse the learners.

I've moved tutorial version of the abilities from "master" branch to "tutorial" branch. Previous links have been updated to the new links, so make sure you get the correct version.

In short, to download ability scripts, go to branch tutorial in the github to get the 'easy' version, and go to branch master to get the real version.

Logic: FindUnitsInRadius

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I think I should go straight to the action, since it would become repetitive if I explain the ability form again, which barely have no new content. So let's start with the main file:

There are 2 LinkLuaModifier. One is for the stun, and one is for the slow. To make life easier, let's just split the ability debuff effects into those two modifier.

Slithereen Crush would stun and slow enemies around Slardar. Dota 2 engine provides an API called FindUnitsInRadius, which do what it says. Here's the snippet:

This function returns a table of units which fits the specification provided, but may be nil if not found. Note that this snippet is a bit different than ApplyDamage or CreateTrackingProjectile; they take table as 1 parameter, while FindUnitsInRadius takes a lot of parameters, but no table. Which means, order matters.

Here's the explanation, based on parameter order:


In this case, we just need to find enemies of the caster's team within a radius from caster's location (origin) which may be heroes or creeps. No special flags, order doesn't matter.

Logic: For loop

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Any programmer should familiar with this loop. Since we have collected all caught enemies within variable "enemies", we'll iterate it through and apply effects for each of them.

Usually, I use this:

There are 3 things to do for each enemy: apply the damage, stun, and slow enemies. We'll do just that:


ApplyDamage and AddNewModifier have been discussed before. The stun modifier is just a copy-paste of the previous stun modifier. What's new is the slow modifier; what's with the duration?

Since both slow and stun are applied at the same time but the slow duration starts after the stun, I simply add those numbers (You can't be slowed if you're stunned *insert roll-safe meme*)

Modifer Property: Movespeed Bonus and Attack Bonus

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Let's implement the slow modifier, starts like this:

I know, the special value names are a bit weird. This lua only follows what's written on the .txt file, so if you want to change them, change them there.

The Crush slows both attack speed and movespeed. The ms slow is a percentage value, while as slow is a constant value. Let's declare this modifier's function:

Wait, why bonus when we want to reduce? As per reference, they can have negative number as return value, so it's fine (no other function for reducing values anyway).

Return the function values using their respective variables, and we're done.

Conclusion

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I hope this may give you insight about how to do an AOE abilities. Next time, we'll discuss Slark's Dark Pact, about intervals.
Sorry for the long void-period, I just too busy building the real version (not the tutorial version). Hope we meet again next time!

References

• Scripting References
• Slardar's Slithereen Crush (Lua version)
• The real version of Dota 2 Lua abilities