4* troops - mana or crit?

On attack maybe, defenders get incoming tile damage (ballpark 0.5/tile they get hit with… though cascades change this and I have no real way to estimate that even other than to state “it’s less”) and a 1 tile / turn gain anyway.

Incidentally Khagan being slow was I suspect the primary reason Lancelot got nerfed on beta as Zero so excellently pointed out.

I’m of the opinion that you can bring one slow hero on raid attack and still be OK even against the top teams; however, Khagan vs. Alby raid attack is no contest. Defense it’s a more interesting conversation, Alby is no doubt excellent but he has a target on his back.

That 5% ATK also transaltes into higher crit damage. And those 5% will be multiplied after firing BT and Wu.

On the other hand 6% DEF and HP will be useful only if it actually saves my life. If I get hit by titan for 3/5 HP those 6% won’t save the day. Raid defense is a different story. Those 6% can be a difference between getting killed by tiles or firing a special.

Average damage of 100 over 10 hits:

  • 5% ATK = 105 average damage
  • 11% crit = 110 average damage (slightly greater than 110 but sloppy easy math)

Scale it by Wu or BT or anything else you want; that said, I’m off trying to raise a blue mana troop to 23 and also on the path to get a yellow mana troop to 11… and once those two things happen I’m going to get way more out of using the mana troop than crit strike troops; however, that’s because those are breakpoints for Athena and Jackal respectively taking Athena to 9 tiles, and Jackal to 6… and it will be sick just saying.

Up until those breakpoints, crit is going to be ahead… if you’re spending heavy absolutely you can get mana troops high enough eventually to make them useful, but when talking the fast heroes that are oh so popular everywhere in game currently, that’s a level 29 troop.

I’d also point out that on high level titans, or any progression one really, there’s a big difference if you can survive 3 hits instead of 2 after you’ve debuffed attack with Axe or what not… when we’re talking average titan damage, and giving yourself more time to manipulate the board to one you can kick ■■■ on, don’t discount that additional HP / DEF so easily. Similar applies to raid attacking… and given that raid defense gets a flat 20% damage bonus anyway, not really sure you need to scale Lianna all that much more just saying.

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Great topic, love it! I have a specific case. I have a 4* purple mana type troop to lvl 10 and just drew the crit type same color. I doubt i have enough feeders to get it to lvl 2. Im still using the mana type everywhere for its att bonus. Anyone disagree?

Given the huge investment you’ve already made, I’d stick with the mana troops. The hard question is whether you keep leveling that one up or shift your efforts to the crit one? No best answer.

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Resurrecting this thread for a new interesting find courtesy of Aibretty’s having a wtf moment.

Mana troops vs. Guin (or Li incidentally and maybe other mana burn / control heroes)

Two fast heroes, Nat and Marj, with a 9% mana troop on Marj and two sets of tile combinations against Guin to demonstrate:

35%20PM

Note Marj is one tile faster on both scenarios, the first is very plausible in my fights against Guin fwiw, second is more of an illustration since diamond matches aren’t that common and ghosting is a non-event if Guin (tanking ofc) ain’t dead.

And that first use case? With a level 1 4* mana troop (5%) Marj stil gets charged (8.19 instead of 8.502) and I am profoundly glad I kept a spare 4* mana troop in purple :slight_smile:

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First
Thank you for the math

Second
Glad you kept that purple troop.

As Rook has said many times, keep all your high rarity heroes and troops, the Devs are always tweaking under and over used heroes and troops.

In this case the new reflect blue event hero changed the game, and reflect red and reflect green still haven’t come out yet

MY PERSONAL OPINION
In general, a 3* lvl 3 troop is better than a maxed 2* lvl 15 troop and a 4* lvl 1 troops is better than a 3* lvl 9 troop, so I keep three of every 3* and 4* troop for use with my 3 color teams since you don’t even have to level a 3* or 4* troop to have them become immediately useful, see above, but if you don’t have them, you can spend hundreds of summons trying to get them back, this is a lesson I learned with my duplicate Banes.

It will become a lot easier when next non-bug update rolls out ( Devs have promised the ability to favorite troops ).

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What exactly is this chart saying? Ive been staring at it for 10 minutes trying to figure it out. What is the difference between case 1 and 2? What do the numbers in each column mean as well as the columns themselves? Help :frowning:

The column title is the action, the numbers below is the resulting mana after each action.

So 6 tiles = match 6 on color tiles (hits no ghosting in this example) and the number beneath is the resulting mana.

Guin is a 20% reduction, again numbers are resulting mana, 3 tiles as explained.

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It can be a little hard to understand if you’re not well versed in the mana mechanics.

Basically Fast hero needs 8 tiles to charge up. What rev’s chart shows is that even if guin fires once, with a mana troop at 9%, that offsets Guin’s mana reduction so that your fast hero charges after 8 tiles.

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Thank you bud, still too early for me clearly haha.

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Appreciate the explanation. It’s perfectly clear now. So, are mana troops now overtaking crit troops in the meta? Looking at the top teams, that seems to be the case.

Depends on how much you’re willing to invest. If you push the mana troops to very high levels, they’re better. At lower levels, crit troops are better.

It costs over $2000 to get a fully leveled 4* troop, or an amazing amount of grinding. So I’m with crit troops except for Jackal’s troop (only need that at 11).

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Ok, Now I’m confused or have things changed? The math was done on the Mana troops months ago and it showed no benefit until Level 17 and that was only for slow mana Heroes. I think it was stated that Medium speed mana heroes gained benefit at Level 23 Four Star Mana troops. So, Have things changed then? If so, at what point does a Fast mana hero, Medium mana hero and Slow mana regen hero gain benefit from the troops and how much?

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Either flavor of 4* has a big att and def buff, @Gryphonknight is correct that you would always want to use a 4* in preference to a 3* until you have leveled that 3* a lot. He’s also right that throwing away any 4* troop is imprudent, at least until you have five of a flavor in a color.

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:musical_note:War, what is it good for :musical_note:

Raid and war and Guinevere (see above replies for Guinevere)

The math was done for Titans and that still applies. But it is so expensive to level troops and defense/ neutral/ attack troops have such lopsided stats, that saving at least three of each 3* and 4* troop has benefits.

In war, 4* healing/ mana troops with a Rigard/ Vivica in the upper right corner can fend of 12+ attack teams because it looks easy, and in raids it’s not too bad, but unlike raids the revenge bar fires more often with a single hero. While it does less damage, a healer with cleanse keeps healing so the revenge bar damage doesn’t decrease as fast.

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very fast (jackal) using a lvl 11 mana troop takes jackal down from 6.5 tiles (so 7 really) to 6 tiles to charge.

the rest was correct - to shave off a tile to charge, slow is 17, average 23, and fast 29.

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All my 4* troops I’ve received have been mana troops. And are all at lv 10
I just got a 4* green and purple HP/crit
I’m using Alberich and Toth amun in those spots so would it be worth for me to try to build those new troops up for the extra tankyness to help keep alby alive, and the extra HP it would give toths minions? Or is the difference negligible due to losing some attack and healing affects?
I’m very curious because i use Toth as Tank at the moment.

Is it still level 17 to shave off a tile with Alberich? Does he make a difference?

Yes, still 17. Hard to say how often that one tile makes a difference. Alberich often is the last hero standing, and one extra tile can save a raid. But is it worth the investment? Excellent Troops are that subtle edge that top-shelf players have. While I have all the base troops, I’m not willing to spend the thousands it would take to get my troops to that level quickly.

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