Tired of hitting the same tank unit over and over again? Why won't it just die?
Do as I did - skip a turn, charge those batteries, and blow most of them away with one crucial 3x strike!
In this article, I'm going to do a little analysis of the Recharge ability and the monsters who have been blessed with it. Recharge has been one of those abilities I had a love/hate relationship with from the beginning - I've sometimes found it more of a burden but more often I found myself to be intrigued by the possibility of that one good hit.
So let's take a closer look!
Perhaps the best way to approach the subject is a good old demonstration in which we get to witness Recharge ability becoming a real game changer.
In this Earth vs. Earth showdown, our opponent entered the arena with not only one tank unit but with three well-guarded monsters. Of course, this came as no surprise as this is a 99-mana battle and I too chose three big ones.
And yes, battles like these provide a perfect playground for monsters with Recharge since there's an increased chance of hitting a monster with a high amount of health and taking out a major threat once and for all.
Our example Recharge monster is SUIDAE SHAMAN, a rare earth splinter monster with a magic attack of 2 points. Shamans base health is 9 so it can perhaps take a hit or two and be able to fire that devastating weapon at least one time.
With Obsidian as a summoner, this monster gets +1 point to its attack making it deal a whopping +9 damage every other round.
Now, the trick here is not to "waste" this powerful weapon on some poor creature who has something like 2 health points, or on someone who is about to be wasted anyways.
The ones we are after:
Hit or miss? Check out the whole battle HERE!
I would very much like to say that all this was completely planned out but the truth is that the Mycelic Slipspawn messed up my strategy with its Taunt ability. The Shaman used one valuable +9 magic attack on the monster which could've been taken out by someone else since it had only 2 health points left.
Fortunately, tonight the stars were aligned and Shaman got to recharge again and did something I've rarely seen - destroyed Mycelic Infantry with a single blow. That wasn't enough for the guy and it also took out another annoying creature, Regal Peryton.
Sure, some of it was just pure luck but it makes me wonder, could this be repeated or perhaps calculated to make the most of the ability?
Nevertheless, the fall of the Mycelic Infantry was definitely a turning point and even though we barely marched to victory, a defeat would have been certain without Suidae Shaman and its 3x magic attack.
When analyzing this battle another thing came to my mind. Just like in this one, it's pretty common for both teams to have a tank healer. This will lead to a "healing competition" in which both tanks get their health restored again and again. To take advantage you'd need to get opponent tanks' health as down as possible before it's healed again.
In a case like this, a Recharge monster could bring the mightiest tank to its knees making it possible for a teammate to finish the job.
Who else has this great power and how to utilize it?
TEMPORAL MASTER
Recharging is not only for the big boys. Temporal Master is a good choice for those low-mana battles and if he's somehow still alive when the charging is done he will deal a decent +3 magic damage. This can really help to bring down a well-armored tank monster.
The bad news is that with only 2 health points and no armor, Temporal Master is easy prey for the enemy Opportunity monsters so you'd want to have a Fiend to sacrifice. If you feel like upgrading, I'd target level 4 when his health is at 4 and he receives another magic attack point.
URIEL THE PURIFIER
Uriel on the hand is definitely for the high-mana battles. With lots of health and good armor, Uriel can take a punch or two while recharging. However, you don't want to waste that +9 melee attack on armor.
Patience is the key here. Uriel is also pretty fast and with Flying ability this monster isn't that easy to hit. He will then eventually have his moment. I use him as a tank unit mostly.
In this battle we have Chanseus The Great repairing Uriel's armor while he is taking it easy and slowly taking down enemies one by one. Perhaps not the most exciting battle there is and I can only imagine how frustrating this is for the opponent.
INSIDIOUS WARLOCK
Compared to Temporal Master, Warlock has a pretty decent base health and when upgraded to level 2, his magic is increased by 1 so instead of 20 epic cards you'll need only 4 to make it a pretty good tank killer.
With Thaddius Brood's -1 health debuff Insidious Warlock can be surprisingly lethal.
If we take a look at the market and more specifically legendary Dragon splinter monsters, we can see that the cheapest one is Zyvax Vuul costing $1.69 at the moment. Same thing with legendary Fire monsters - Ifrit Rising is the cheapest one by far.
Exactly. Both of them have the Recharge ability. Could we make an assumption that this ability is somewhat neglected among the players?
IFRIT RISING was the first one of these two I pulled out of a pack and even though I was happy I got a legendary card I just couldn't find a use case for it - I didn't value the ability enough.
ZYVAX VUUL is another one I rarely come across on the battlefield. I remember using it a lot with Byzathine Kitty who will make it a hard target to hit with that +2 speed buff. I then placed it as the last monster where he was dodging Sneak attacks and firing a +6 ranged attack without a chance of missing the target because of Kitty's True Strike buff.
One of the best things in Splinterlands is discovering something new - like a monster with an ability you've ignored before. That leads you to do more research and find other monsters and discover new tactics and combinations.
What are your thoughts on Recharging?
This is a wild idea but what if there was a summoner with a buff giving all friendly monsters the Recharge ability? If you were up against such a team you'd probably want to take out most of them in the first round. Would you like to see such a battle? Comment below.
Thanks for reading!
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Other pictures are screenshots from Splinterlands
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