Creating custom items

[Sim]

This tutorial assumes you know your way a bit around the editor and have read and understood this tutorial at the very least.

So, custom items in the Dota 2 Workshop Tools are created in a special text file named "npc_items_custom.txt"

This file must be located in a specific place:



Now that we know where it is, time to edit it. Inside, there should be 2 example items already: Recipe for Arcane Boots 2, and Arcane Boots 2 itself. What's more interesting to us right now, is to create a new item.

Let's create a new item named "Ice Mastery" which, unsurprisingly, gives ice-related powers to our owner. Also, the item is only purchasable through the secret shop. For fun.

This is what it looks like:

Spoiler

//=================================================================================================================
    // Ice Mastery
    //=================================================================================================================
    "item_ice_mastery"
    {
        "ID"                            "1007"

        // General
        //-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
        "AbilityBehavior"                "DOTA_ABILITY_BEHAVIOR_PASSIVE"
        "BaseClass"                        "item_skadi"
        "AbilityTextureName"            "item_ice_mastery"

        // Stats    
        //-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

        // Item Info
        //-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
        "ItemCost"                        "20000"
        "ItemShopTags"                    "move_speed"
        "ItemQuality"                    "secret_shop"
        "ItemDeclarations"                "DECLARE_PURCHASES_TO_SPECTATORS"
        "ItemDisassembleRule"            "0"
        "ItemAlertable"                    "1"
        "ItemAliases"                    "ice mastery"
        "SecretShop"                    "1"
    
        // Special
        //-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

        "AbilitySpecial"
        {
            "01"
            {
                "var_type"                "FIELD_INTEGER"
                "bonus_all_stats"        "25"
            }
            "02"
            {
                "var_type"                "FIELD_INTEGER"
                "bonus_health"            "250"
            }
            "03"
            {
                "var_type"                "FIELD_INTEGER"
                "bonus_mana"            "250"
            }
            "04"
            {
                "var_type"                "FIELD_INTEGER"
                "cold_movement_speed"    "-35"
            }
            "05"
            {
                "var_type"                "FIELD_INTEGER"
                "cold_attack_speed"        "-35"
            }
            "06"
            {
                "var_type"                "FIELD_FLOAT"
                "cold_duration_melee"    "5.0"
            }
            "07"
            {
                "var_type"                "FIELD_FLOAT"
                "cold_duration_ranged"    "3.0"
            }
        }
    }

]

A majority of those lines are directly copied from the default Dota 2 Eye of Skadi in items.txt, which you should have extracted already. Here are the important lines to us and why.

"item_ice_mastery" this is the internal name of our item. Obviously important. It must be unique, AKA, not being used by any other of the items in your map.

"ID" Can be any number above 1006, but has to be unique. This is an internal value as well.

"AbilityBehavior" If your item has an ability, this is used to describe how it is used. This will be explained more in-depth in the second part of this tutorial. For now, it should match the original item_skadi in items.txt, which means that it's a passive item (no active effect).

"BaseClass" This line is used to state which item it is based on. In short, it tells what the item is. Basically, you have 2 choices. First, you can set it to an already-existing item in the default Dota 2 game, and reproduce that item. In this example, item_skadi is used, which means that it will behave exactly like Eye of Skadi (the + to all stats, + HP, + mana, and the slow orb effect). It could have been based on any of the default Dota 2 items. The second choice is to set the base class to "item_datadriven", which bases the item off nothing. As this is a complicated process, it will be covered in another tutorial.

"AbilityTextureName" is the icon your item uses. How to use a custom icon is covered in this thread.

"ItemCost" in gold. 20000 here.

"SecretShop" equal to 1. Very important, or else you won't be able to purchase it from the secret shop, even if you set it in your shop.

"AbilitySpecial" Here, the variables are given a value. In the case of our item based on Skadi, 7 variables are included with it, and their values have to be defined here. How do we know that? Sadly, we have to check the default Eye of Skadi, and copy them. Default items and abilities in the Dota 2 Editor are hardcoded into the game and thus, their base effects cannot be changed. Only the values of them

Using item_datadriven, however, allows the user to create his own custom items, with custom effects.

Back to our item, the 7 variables are Bonus All Stats, Bonus Health, Bonus Mana, cold movement speed slow, cold attack speed slow, cold duration on melee units, and cold duration on ranged units. Their values can be adjusted according to the power level of your map.

item_datadriven

This complicated tutorial is still a work in progress.