Spritely Mechanics

Ever seen a pet interrupt battle to do this?

For the hundredth time, I am NOT the Green Lantern!

This Pet Talent, Spritely, has recently spiked in its reception and popularity among intermediate and advanced players, and is slowly making its way to fascinate and interest beginners.  In response, I think it's time we explored this nifty skill a little more.

In game, when a player mouses over this talent,

they will see a description box saying "May Cast Life Spell."  Basically, the pet will cast an enhanced Sprite on its owner.  The total amount of heal received from this ability is more than the actual Sprite card itself.

As you can see, the regular card does an initial 30 Heal, and 90 Heal per Tick for 3 rounds.  Spritely does an initial base of 50 Heal, and 100 Heal per Tick for 3 rounds.  And if that's not enough whip cream on your banana split, Spritely doesn't have a Pip Cost...it's free!

"Is there a method to [this] madness?"  Certainly!  While it is uncontrollable, there are actually ways to play to increase your chances of seeing this ability trigger:

Basically, when you see an effect or some number floating and rising, that's a potential for Spritely to go off.

It may trigger when a Charm or Ward (negative or positive), Damage, Healing, Control (Stun, Beguile, etc.), Lifesteal, Star aura, Global Aura (Bubble), etc. is casted.

Following this mechanic/rule, we can then expect Spritely to have a chance to appear up to FOUR times for every AOE (Area of effect; hit-all/heal-all), for one Spritely-Pet.  

Let's say I use Blizzard against four monsters, and I am alone with a Spritely-Pet.  For every chunk of ice that hurts those creatures, I get a "lottery ticket" with a random number.  

Now let's assume there's a rule that only even-numbered "lottery tickets" will generate a Spritely.  This creates a range (-4, -2, 0, 2, 4, 6, ... 100, 102, 104, ... etc.) that my "tickets" have to fall in.

So, if I hit four targets, there's a chance I may see Spritely casted once, twice, thrice, or four times on me, depending on how many "tickets" were even numbers.  With the odds, however, it's technically a smaller range (perhaps the rule is numbers with 0 as the last digit, or with 9 as one of the digits, etc.)

Thus, if all wizards on one team had a Spritely-Pet, Spritely may trigger up to 16 times for every AOE before a turn ends (very, very, very, very tiny chance of happening).  Furthermore, if all of those wizards used an AOE, that would mean 64 times.  (I'd count this as extremely improbable, since the average I've seen is 4 before a turn ends on an AOE team).

The same mechanic applies to repeat-hit spells, such as Minotaur, Orthrus, and Hydra.  

Minotaur and Orthrus both hit a target twice (two floating numbers), and therefore have a chance to trigger Spritely twice on any wizard with a Spritely-Pet.  Intuitively, Hydra will produce three chances per Spritely-Pet.

Also, Damage Over Time can, too, increase Spritely chances.

We noticed that when we were stunned by Blinding Light and hit by a Dragon, Spritely would go off even when our wizards were forced to pass turns.  That's why I originally thought that "passing" could spark the Sprite, but I didn't consider that the Ticks were a factor.  But, after much observation, "passing" was "doing nothing," while the Ticks created an effect.

*~*~* (the information below this separator line is going further into the mechanics, but it's not vital to understand them; skip the text between the pink separators if you'd like)

Now that we've covered how often Spritely can show itself, let's take a look on a deeper process:  when does a wizard get their successful Spritely when more than one wizard has a Spritely-Pet?

Let's say that Missy, Ronan, Fallon, and Cassandra are in the battle circle in this order, so the farthest right (Cassandra) has first turn, and the farthest left (Missy) plays her card last.  Imagine that they get hit by...I don't know...a Rebirth (just to be nice :P); Cassandra casts the spell.  Now let's separate the spell into four components:  Heal on C, Heal on F, Heal on R, Heal on M.  That's the order they are healed under Rebirth, naturally.

Assume Spritely goes off only on even "tickets."  Diving further into scenario-crafting:

• All four wizards receive an even "ticket" on Heal on C
• Only Fallon gets an even "ticket" on Heal on F
• Ronan and Cassandra gets an even "ticket" on Heal on R
• No wizards have an even ticket from Heal on M.

Spritely triggers in reverse order per effect.  Thus, for Heal on C, Spritely will trigger on M first, then R, then F, then C.  For the Heal on R, Spritely will trigger on R first, then C.

Thus, after Rebirth is casted in the above scenario, this is the entire order that Spritely will trigger in, before Fallon's turn is given:

M, R, F, C, F, R, C.

That is why you see the triangle sometimes zig-zagging between players, such as "last turn" then "first turn" then "third turn" and once again for "last turn" for Spritely.  So, in PVP, when I see an interrupt and the triangle points towards the last person, it's good news...really, really great news, actually.  When the triangle first points to the "first turn" wizard, I'm still excited, but there's a lower chance that more than one teammate gets a Spritely before the next wizard's turn.

~*~*~

Well, it took many weeks to understand and dissect, but I'm glad we've gotten this far!  Hopefully this answers JessTheTheurge's question.

A little off topic, but I'm pretty satisfied that my hundredth blog post is about my favorite Pet Talent.  Cheers!



*Special thanks to Perfect Catch for their support, enthusiasm, passion, and efforts in working as a team!