Mana Manipulation (from Pandemic Disease)
Note that these are the words of Pandemic Disease that he wrote and posted to Line. They are split into pieces that can be easily pasted into Empires and Puzzles Alliance Chat. They are split into pieces that can be easily pasted into Empires and Puzzles Alliance Chat (Bold text to Bold Text fits).
Charging Specials and Mana Manipulation:
The best way to think about your team's mana bars is in terms of "mana units."
On offense, each tile you use gives 1 unit of mana to your heroes of the corresponding color (i.e. a row or column of 3 red tiles gives 3 units of mana to all red heroes).
"Ghosted Tiles" (tiles that hit the back of the board) give you 2 units each (e.g. 6 units for 3 tiles).
Charging Specials and Mana Manipulation (continued 1):
Very Fast (Jackal) charges in 6.5 units (6.5 rather than 7 is significant and will be addressed below).
Fast (Lianna, Sartana, etc.) charges in 8 units.
Average (Grimm, Gormek, etc.) charges in 10 units.
Slow (Azlar, Isaria, etc.) charges in 12 units.
Very Slow (Owl) should be placed on your trophy drop team alongside kong, morgan and any other shattered dream 5* muppets you obtained trying to pull Panther or Arthur.
Charging Specials and Mana Manipulation (Continued 2):
Some 4* Troops give a percent based mana buff.
Here's how the math works:
A 5% mana buff makes each tile now worth 1.05 units rather than 1 unit.
When trying to determine if this mana buff is useful (i.e. does it allow your hero to charge a special in 1 less tile)
use the following equation:
Charging Specials and Mana Manipulation (Continued 3):
N-1 * X > N
Where N = The number of units required to charge the special and X = The mana buffed unit value of each tile.
For example: you have a slow special which requires 12 units to charge and a mana buff 4* troop giving an 10% buff to mana generation.
N = 12
N - 1 = 11
X = 1.10 <--- 10% buffed unit
Charging Specials and Mana Manipulation (Continued 4):
11 * 1.10 = 12.10
12.10 > 12
Yay!!! You've shaved a tile off your charging requirement and it only cost you tens of millions of hams and the better part or a year farming for troops to feed your 4* mana troop.
Charging Specials and Mana Manipulation (Continued 5):
Let's say however that your mana troop is only giving a 9% buff...
11 * 1.09 = 11.99
11.99 < 12
You're kidding me right? Nope. So close but so far away... you need to farm for a few more months.
Charging Specials and Mana Manipulation (Continued 6):
Break points (the level a mana troop needs to be to shave off a tile) are as follows:
Very Fast: Mana Troop Level 11 (remember it's 6.5 not 7 to charge and this is where that 0.5 factors in)
Fast: Mana Troop level 29 (good luck with that)
Average: Mana Troop Level 23 (still kind of insane)
Slow: Mana Troop Level 17
Charging Specials and Mana Manipulation (Continued 7):
There are currently 2 positive mana manipulation special powers. Here's how they work:
Alby gives a fixed amount of mana equal to 0.8 mana unit each turn that his power is active. This proportionally effects fast and very fast heroes more significantly as they require less units to charge up.
Charging Specials and Mana Manipulation (Continued 8):
Khagan and Lancelot give a percentage based mana buff. It is worth noting that this power is different than Alby's and therefore stacks with it. It is also worth noting that this is an opposite effect same power as Little John and therefore overwriters his negative mana special (i.e. flips the effect from negative to positive).
Charging Specials and Mana Manipulation (Continued 9):
Khagan and Lancelot's special powers are tile dependent simular to mana troops. 24% mana buff effectively turns each tile into 1.24 units of mana while it is active. This effect stacks with mana buff troops so a hero buffed by Khagan with a 10% mana buff troops would generate 1.34 mana for each tile (i.e. every 3 tiles would generate 4 units of mana so a slow hero would charge in 9 tiles rather than 12)
Charging Specials and Mana Manipulation (Continued 10):
As a result those low level/low percentage mana troops have mana manipulative value if you are running Khagan or Lancelot as the extra percentage will push these powers over break points and shave tiles off of your charging times.
Slow heroes get the most relative benifit from this power as they require more units to charge.
Charging Specials and Mana Manipulation (Continued 11):
On your defense team the following factors dictate how fast your specials charge:
1) All heroes on defense receive 1 unit of mana for every tile move made by the attacker.
2) Any hero on defense hit by tiles recives 0.5 units of mana for each tile they are hit with.
Both of these defensive mana unit generating systems are buffed by mana troops and Khagan/Lancelot. Alby's special generates 0.8 unit per move made by the attacker.
Charging Specials and Mana Manipulation (Continued 12):
For example, if your defending hero was hit with 4 tiles while buffed by Khagan's special, Alby's Special and with a 10% mana buff troop equipped you would generate:
0.5 (mana units per tile) * 4 (number of tiles) * 1.34 (24% buff from Khagan's Special stacked with 10% buff from the mana troop) = 2.68 units of mana during the attacker's turn.
Charging Specials and Mana Manipulation (Continued 13):
Then, at the beginning of the defenders turn you would generate an addition 1.34 (defenders 1 unit of mana per turn base buffed by both Khagan and the 10% mana troop) + 0.8 units of mana from Alby's Special.
This 2.14 would then be added to the 2.68 generated during the attackers turn for a total of 4.82 units of mana rather than the 3 units that would normally be generated by 4 tiles hitting and a turn passing