Mana Mechanics

[nitrogenbubble]

Surprisingly, I don’t see any topic summarizing the mana mechanics of this game. Having a deep understanding of how it works is crucial for removing luck from your attacks to make way for planning. I have some second hand information, and I have questions. I am not going to include items in this discussion (yet). Here we go:

Intro:

Mana is needed for your heroes to use their special skills. On offense, mana is gained by matching tiles on the board that are the same color as the corresponding hero (having multiple heroes of the same color does not cause them to share the mana; they all get the full amount respective to their speed). Certain mana effects (mana regeneration) also add mana to affected heroes on a turn-based basis or as triggered. A ghosted tile (one that does not hit any target) counts for double the mana. On defense, mana is gained by being hit with tiles, mana regeneration (regen for short), and from the passing of turns. The mana gained from being hit with a tile is half of the mana gained for the offense for that same tile. The color of the tile does not need to match the hero being hit for them to gain it’s mana.

The amount of mana that a hero (offense or defense) gets from one tile (and from regen?) is affected by:

• the hero’s mana speed
• level 4 mana troops
• class bonuses
• costume bonuses
• family bonuses (Sakura, Pirate, and Wonderland families)
• effects from special skills

The purpose of this post is to delineate how all of these effects affect each other. For example, above I wrote that regen is affected by these bonuses, but I actually do not know which, if any, of these effects will increase or decrease the amount of mana gained from a regen effect.

1. Mana Speed

Below is a summary of: how many tiles it takes to fill a hero’s mana bar on offense according to the hero’s mana speed, and what percentage of the mana bar each tile fills on both offense and defense. The tiles fill half as much for the defense as they do for offense.

Hero Speed Tiles to full Tile % Value Offense Tile % Value Defense
Very Fast 6.5 15.38% 7.69%
Fast 8 12.50% 6.25%
Average 10 10% 5%
Slow 12 8.33% 4.17%
Very Slow 13.5 7.41% 3.70%

We will be converting everything to a percentage of your mana bar so that we can add and subtract things later on.

2. Mana Effect Categories

These effects arise from special skills. The effect categories that I define here are not necessarily going to align with the categories that exist in game. These categories are summarized for their mathematical properties.

Mana Generation Buff/Nerf (Gen) - This category affects the amount of mana gained from tiles.The effect from Alasie, Ariel, and Khagan fall into this category. This percentage is added or subtracted from the tile % value (TPV) (appropriate to the affected hero’s speed). Example 1: Ariel casts her effect, giving all her allies +24% mana gen. An average hero’s TPV goes from 10% to: 10 x (1 + 0.24) = 12.4%. This math represents 24% more mana. Example 2: Alasie hits an average speed enemy, giving them -24% gen. The average heros TVP goes from 10% to: 10 x (1 - 0.24) = 7.6%. This math represents 24% less mana. Buff and Nerf gen effects counter (replace) each other and do not stack.

Mana Regeneration (Regen) - This category adds a set amount of mana to affected heroes, either on a turn-based basis, or as triggered. Alberich, Sumito, and Misandra fall into this category. “A moderate amount of mana” is equal to 0.8 tiles. I do not know if “a small amount” is equal to 0.4 or 0.6 tiles, as I have read both. I’ll need someone to clarify this. I also do not know what bonuses (troops, class, costumes, family, or skill effects), if any, affect this amount, or if the amount is set. Example 3: Your offensive Alberich casts his effect on a fast, average, and slow hero. Each will gain 0.8 tiles of mana per turn. For the fast hero that is 12.5% * 0.8 = 10% of their mana bar. Average hero = 8%, slow = 6.67%. Regen is in addition to other mana gains.

Mana Stop - Hel and Proteus alone fall into this category. The only reason I included another category for just 2 heros is that in the game they have no counter effect; that is, this effect cannot be overridden by any other mana effect. It can only be dispelled or prevented. You will notice that the symbols from other mana effects will be present alongside the mana stop symbol, but as long as this effect is active, ALL mana gains = 0.

Mana Cut - Guinevere, Merlin, and Onatel fall into this category. This effect cuts mana directly from the mana bar (in Onatel’s case, she steals it as it is gained). This effect is either immediate or triggered. Example 4: If Leonidas cuts 40% of an average hero’s mana, that equates to a replacement value of 4 tiles. The amount cut will not be affected by the speed of the hero, or any bonuses or status effects (unless the cut is prevented by Protection), but the replacement value of tiles will. This is why Onatel is included in this category and not in the gen category. The percentage she steals doesn’t change, but the amount in terms of replacement tiles does.

Mana Protection - Any mana protection effect will delineate exactly which effects it protects against. Red Hood’s minions protect against Mana Cut, allowing you to keep the mana you have, but will not protect against gen or steal (?). These effects have no mathematical effect other than to prevent other effects. We will have to figure out and describe particular match ups below.

Silence - this effect does not affect mana gain, only mana use. We will have to figure out and describe particular match ups below.

3. Mana bonuses

These bonuses affect mana generation. I do not know if they affect regeneration. You can add any bonuses you have to the TPV of your heroes as such: new TPV = TPV x (1 + 0.bonus)

Mana Troops - each color has a level 4 mana troop. They all have the same stats at the same level.
Level 1-4 = 5% bonus
Level 5-10 = 7% bonus
Level 11-16 = 9% bonus
Level 17-22 = 11% bonus
Level 23-28 = 13% bonus
Level 29-30 = 15% bonus

Hero Class - each hero class has a mana bonus at a certain level (indicated below).
Barbarian 19 - 2% bonus
Cleric 19 - 2% bonus
Druid 20 - 4% bonus
Fighter 19 - 2% bonus
Monk 20 - 4% bonus
Paladin 19 - 2% bonus
Ranger 8 - 2% bonus
Rogue 8 - 2% bonus
Sorcerer 20 - 4% bonus
Wizard 20 - 2% bonus

Family - The Sakura, Pirate, and Wonderland families have the same mana bonus depending on how many of the family heroes are in your party. These do not combine with each other (2 Sakura = 2 Pirate does not equal 4)
2 family members = 2% bonus
3 family members = 4% bonus
4 family members = 7% bonus
5 family members = 12% bonus

Costumes - the new costumes give their hero a 5% mana bonus when worn. I do not know if you have to level up the costumes first.

4. Calculations

On offense, you’ll want to calculate how many tiles until your mana bar fills and compare that to how many turns until the defense fires at you.
Tiles = 1 / ( TPV x ( 1 + bonuses + gen )) - ( TPV (+bonuses? +gen?) x regen x turns ) + ( cut / ( TVP + bonuses ))

5. Questions

Does the amount of mana Onatel gains change based on bonuses? I know that the amount she cuts is set, but can she turn that amount into a greater amount by having mana troops?

How are mana regens affected by bonuses and mana gens?
People say Albi and Khagan stack. I know that you can have both effects working at the same time, but does Khagan’s effect increase Albi’s effect by 24%? Does Alasie’s effect decrease it by 24%? Do mana troops increase the 0.8 units produced? etc. etc.

6. Match ups

Here is a list of match ups I have tested (or intend to test/need you to test if there is no description of results):

Poseidon vs. Merlin
If Merlin has already cast his effect, Poseidon will not dispel it, and the affected hero will suffer the hit when their mana bar fills up. However, if Poseidon’s effect is in place, it will prevent Merlin’s effect from taking hold.

Hel vs. Khagan
Hel overrides all mana gains and reduces it to 0. Khagan’s effect symbol will be present alongside Hel’s and will resume once Hel’s effect has ended.

Hel vs. Onatel
Hel will prevent Onatel from gaining mana, but Onatel will also cut the mana gained from heroes she has affected. This is how these effects work in tandem and do not override each other.

Poseidon vs. Peters

Red Hood vs. Merlin/Hanzel/Gretel
I do not have any of these heroes and therefore cannot test in which way, if any, Red Hood’s minions prevent the madness effect from these heroes.

Red Hood vs. Onatel
I do not have either of these heroes. Do Red Hood’s minions prevent the steal effect?

Onatel vs. Onatel
see here: Onatel Loop?

Please tell us about other match ups you are curious about. Please provide any information you can add to this and I will edit and update as this becomes more complete. Here is a list (i hope) of how I categorized all current heroes (might be missing some 3 stars) for mathematical purposes:

Cheers,
VEGANS!!!

[Rigs]

Sesh, kingston, neith, miki, grazul are all same category

They increase the rate mana is increased by 4%

They don’t actually generate or regenerate mana

Outside of that, pretty solid little summary put together here

[nitrogenbubble]

Thanks Rigs! Their cards used to read differently, but now they all say they increase mana generation.

[Rigs]

They’re the same

They increase % of mana generation from tiles

[Cruzcampo]

Anecdotally, running with Khagan Alby and Misandra, mana generation buff % increase does not seem to affect the feed appreciably, but it is hard to tell based on amount being small. Experimenting with Misandra and mana pots, troops and buffs appear to affect strength of potions

[Cruzcampo]

Misandra, buffed by Khagan, 3 tiny mana pots fills >90% of the bar.

Full mana Misandra with Khagan buff fires special, any number of 1-4 Misandra hits, drink 3 tiny mana pots, Misandra fires again.

EDIT: I remember the test I was going to attempt. I can now generate sufficient delta in mana generation to try it

[nitrogenbubble]

are you saying that misandra gained more mana by her special because of Khagan’s buff?

Also, yes, troops affect potion strength. i don’t know if other things do as well.

[Cruzcampo]

When I get some free energy, I plan on testing +0% mana generation fast and slow heroes and roughly +30% mana generation fast and slow heroes by counting how many Misandra hits it takes to fully charge them by strictly feeding Misandra mana potions. This should test a few things.

To your question, Misandra, with lvl 16 mana troop and Khagans 24% mana gen, will fill to full after firing her special on 3 25% mana pots.

[Tarrel_Crusher]

I just posted this on a misandra thread today before finding a link to this thread, so this is mainly about her but it might be usefull here also.
Here’s what i’ve tested so far:

Edit: Calculations used are wrong
Scroll down to a later post for the right method

I have a misandra maxed out, and tested this with 2 red mana troops wich I use for wilbur and boldtusk.
1 troop lvl 5 (-7% mana needed, for wilbur)
1 troop lvl 1 (-5% mana needed, for bold)
Both are avarage heroes so they need 10 tiles.
So with the troops wilbur needs 9.3 tiles and bold needs 9.5 tiles. Whenever they are at 9 tiles mana filled and I use misandra and she hits only once, only wilbur gets his special activated.
This means that it’s a fact that she does not give 0.5 tiles per hit, but she does give you atleast 0.3.
So I think it’s 0.4 tiles per hit because Alberich’s “moderate” mana is 0.8 tiles, so 0.4 tiles for a “small” amount would be logical.

In my opinion Misandra is awesome for avarage heroes IF you have atleast lvl 5 mana troops to get the -7% so you only need 1 hit to get full mana at 9 tiles.
Also for fast heroes (8 tiles) you need a lvl 11 troop (-9%= 7.28 tiles) to get to 7 with only 1 hit.
And for very fast heroes (6.5 tiles) you only need a lvl 1 mana troop (-5%= 6.175 tiles) for full mana after 1 misandra hit + 2x3 red tiles.

I don’t have ariel or any other mana buffers but it seems logical to me that it all shares the same mechanic, also for the mana the actual hits give if the recieving party member has the buff/troops.
i.e. 0.4x1.24=0.496 But paired with mana troops she would then give atleast 0,5 per hit.
This would also mean that if you pair alberich
(0.8 tiles per turn) with ariel(24% mana) + lvl1 mana troop(5% mana) you get 0.8x1.29=1.032 tiles per turn. This is only speculation but I really don’t see why it wouldn’t work like this. It’s all mana gain calculated in tiles after all…
Hopefully I pull ariel when she’s available again in februari so I can test it further.

[nitrogenbubble]

Thank you Tarrel, this is excellent information. This information confirms that Misandra gives 0.4 tiles of mana per hit. Unfortunately we still have not discovered if this effect (Mana Regeneration) is affected by mana troops or other mana buffs, however you did give me an idea for a test… I’d prefer we not speculate in this thread in the meantime. We don’t know if Mana Gen and Mana Regen are affected the same ways by buffs and bonuses, but we can figure it out. I hope you get Ariel too. You know, for science.

As for the test:
I am taking a slow hero (Vivica) and a level 20 mana troop (11%), along with Alberich. The slow hero with an 11% boost needs 10.81 tiles to fill. I will fire 10 yellow tiles, then fire Alberich, then fire 0 yellow tiles for 1 turn. If the mana troops affect the mana regen boost, then the regen SHOULD equal 0.88 tiles, and Viv should power up. Otherwise, she won’t (she’ll be short 0.01 tiles). This will answer if troops affect mana regen, but will not answer if other bonuses also do. We can test further after this discovery.

RESULTS:
Vivica’s bar did not fill. Troops do not increase the effect of mana regen.
EDIT: RESULTS INVALID It does not make sense to consider that 0.81 tiles were remaining after firing 10. This is equivalent to subtracting unlike terms, which is not allowed in math.

Next Test: Gen + Regen
Since we know that troops do not affect Regen, I can again take Viv + 11% to put her on the threshold of Albi’s gain. This time, first i will fire Khagan to see if that pushes Albi’s gain above 0.8 tiles.

RESULTS:
Success! Khagan’s boost gave Viv more than 0.81 tiles for her bar to fill. I took videos and will post them. This means that with a 24% mana gen boost, Albi’s regen goes from 0.8 tiles to 0.992 tiles, regardless of troops. We still need to test other things (costumes, family, and class bonuses), but this will do for now.

[Fingol]

I use Alby + Kingston + Ariel in the same team…I don’t know how to calculate but my heores increase their mana quickly

[Tarrel_Crusher]

Nitrogenbubble can you tell me how you calculate it? Because I think there’s an error in your test because you say that a slow hero (12 tiles) needs 10.81 tiles to fill with 11% mana troop. Correct me if im wrong here but 12x(1-0.11) = 12x0.89= 10.68
This would mean that the outcome of your test will be different.

But besides that, i’ve been sleeping it over and thinking about it today and I also think that maybe we are going about this the wrong way, myself included.
Because we say that a hero with troops/buffs needs LESS tiles to fill… but what if we look at it differently and say that for example a slow hero ALWAYS needs 12 tiles to fill no matter the troops or buffs, its just the mana gain that increases. So lets say after 10 tiles with your lvl 20 mana troop you have:
10x1.11=11.1 tiles and you would still need 0.9
Then when alberich does his thing, he will give 0.8 OR 0.8x1.11=0.888 wich either way isn’t enough.
Thats why it DID work with khagan,
e.i. 0.8x1.24=0.992 or with the mana troops 0.8x1.35=1.08

If this is indeed the case then it also means that I have to redo my own calculations, but unfortunately i’m going on a holliday tomorrow so I really won’t have the time until wednesday. But still I wanted to post this for brainstorming purposes and I would very much like to hear your thoughts about this…

P.s. you are right about no speculations in this topic, thats not helping anyone and it won’t happen again

[nitrogenbubble]

I work my calculations the other way around. Since a slow troop needs 12 tiles to fill, i give each tile a percentage value of the full mana bar. so for a slow hero each tile is worth 1/12 = 8.33%. then we increase the value of the tile by 11%. so each tile is worth (1/12)*1.11 = 9.25%. Then we need to multiply to get the number of tiles (t) we need: t * 9.25 = 100, or t = 100/9.25 = 10.81.
The reason I prefer this method is because it adds value to the tiles, where your first method decreases the size of the mana bar. If it only required 10.68 tiles, as with your calculation, then Viv should have filled up with Albi’s 0.8 boost, as 10 tiles were already consumed.
I do see your point about needing to reach 12, and your calculation in that regard is correct, and it matches mine:
with my calculation, 10 tiles * 9.25% each = 92.5% of the mana bar. By your method, 11.1/12 also equals 92.5%. 7.5% remains in both cases.

The question you have posed that is creating the difference in our calculations is, do we need to reach 12, or do we need to reach 100%?

[Tarrel_Crusher]

I’ve been calculating thresholds for your case.
(with this new method of calculating, where 12 tiles needed are 12 tiles needed no matter what, and only the mana gained is raised by troops/buffs)
Might have a solution to test this once and for all…

We now know because of your previous test that atleast the +24% buff works on alberich’s regen, but the troops are still uncertain. If you could do the same test with the 11% mana troops on vivica, but give her only 9 tiles.
That will be: 9x1.11=9.99
Then activate khagan and alberich and let him regen for 2 turns.
If nothing works then he will give 1.6 tiles
If only khagan’s buff works he will give:
1.6x1.24=1.984 wich still isn’t enough to get to 12.
But if the troops DO work the outcome is:
1.6x1.35=2.16
And voila vivica’s special get’s activated.

[Tarrel_Crusher]

Ahhhh oke so that’s your method… interesting

[Tarrel_Crusher]

After trying out your method the outcome stays the same thank god

[nitrogenbubble]

9 tiles boosted at 11%, giving 2 turns of regen, resulted in:
Vivica’s bar filling up.

My first test was invalid because it did not make sense to consider that i needed 0.81 more tiles after firing 10. What made sense is only that i had reached 92.5%, and 10/10.81 = 92.51%. i was considering her bar more full than it was, and therefore the 0.88 units fell short in either case.

We can conclude for the moment that both troops and mana gen bonuses affect regen bonuses.

[Tarrel_Crusher]

Aahh so it worked?! YESSS that means we have cracked the code my friend…
Atleast under the assumption that this way of calculating is the correct way ofcourse.
Might need more tests to verify it, when im back next wednesday i’ll redo my tests with misandra this way.

Thank you Nitrogenbubble

[Aunty_Krauser]

What a plethora of information! Bookmarked and good job to everybody contributing to this thread.

[HatSchoom]

Hi everyone, I did not get correctly if mana troop effect stacks with mana cs. For example if you give a slow a level 17 mana troop and you add to this an ariel cs what would be the maths?

Thanks in advance