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- Every unit gains SPD × 0.07 turn meter on each beat of the game's clock (a "tick"). At 100 it is ready to act.
- At most one turn happens per tick, and when several units are ready the one with the highest meter goes first, not the fastest.
- Acting empties the meter completely. Anything above 100 is thrown away.
- Extra turns skip the meter and are full turns. Meter boosts add points (even past 100); reductions subtract (never below 0).
- Because turns cost whole ticks, SPD works in bands: many different SPD values give exactly the same number of turns.
How the meter fills
You never see ticks in the game; you see the bar fill. Underneath, the game advances in small equal steps. On each step every living unit gains SPD × 0.07 points of turn meter. A champion with 200 SPD gains 14 points a step. When the meter reaches 100, the unit is ready.
The fill steps in real fights match this to the decimal. A boss with 170 SPD gains exactly 11.9 a tick, and a champion with 268.8 SPD exactly 18.81.
Who acts first
Two rules decide the order, and both were checked on hundreds of real turn decisions:
- One turn per tick. If three units are ready on the same tick, only one acts; the others wait for later ticks.
- The highest meter acts. Not the fastest unit, and nobody (the boss included) has priority. A unit sitting at 112 beats one at 104, even if the second one has more SPD.
Once a unit acts, its meter goes to 0. The points above 100 are lost, so a unit that crosses 100 with a big overshoot "wastes" part of its speed.
A worked example
Three units start at 0: a fast champion (SPD 260), a medium one (SPD 220) and an enemy (SPD 170). Their fill per tick is 18.2, 15.4 and 11.9.
| After tick | Who acts | Meter when acting | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| 6 | Fast | 109.2 | 6 × 18.2; at 5 ticks it only had 91 |
| 7 | Medium | 107.8 | 7 × 15.4 |
| 9 | Enemy | 107.1 | 9 × 11.9 |
| 12 | Fast | 109.2 | another 6 ticks after acting |
| 14 | Medium | 107.8 | another 7 ticks |
| 18 | Fast | 109.2 | Fast and the enemy are both ready; Fast has 109.2, the enemy 107.1 |
| 19 | Enemy | 119.0 | it waited one tick behind Fast, still filling |
The enemy's delay on tick 19 is how a slower unit gets pushed back: faster units keep crossing 100 first, each uses up a tick, and the slow unit's meter keeps growing until a tick is free. The wait costs it real time. Its next turn is counted from tick 19, and the extra 11.9 it gained while waiting is thrown away.
Speed comes in bands
Since a turn costs a whole number of ticks, two champions with slightly different SPD often take exactly the same number of ticks. Assuming a unit acts the moment it is ready and nothing else touches its meter:
| Ticks per turn | SPD needed (about) |
|---|---|
| 5 | 286 to 357 |
| 6 | 239 to 285 |
| 7 | 205 to 238 |
| 8 | 179 to 204 |
| 9 | 159 to 178 |
| 10 | 143 to 158 |
| 11 | 130 to 142 |
| 12 | 120 to 129 |
The edges matter. At 238 SPD a unit needs 7 ticks per turn (6 ticks give it 99.96). At 239 SPD it needs 6. Over 120 ticks that single point of speed is the difference between 17 and 20 turns. Meanwhile, going from 239 to 285 SPD buys no extra turn at all in this simple case, though the higher meter still wins ties for who goes first.
Boosts and reductions
- Turn meter fill adds points, measured against the full bar of 100. A 30% fill is +30 points. It can push a unit above 100; at that moment it is ready, and among several ready units the highest meter acts first. See champions with turn meter fill.
- Turn meter reduction removes points and cannot go below 0. See turn meter reduction.
- Bosses can be immune. The Clan Boss, for example, cannot have its meter reduced and cannot be slowed by [Decrease SPD]. A reduction aimed at it is blocked, not resisted.
A fill is worth the most on a unit that is far from ready. On a unit already past 100 it is partly wasted, because everything above 100 is thrown away when it acts. The one exception is when the extra points lift it above another ready unit and so decide who goes first.
Extra turns and instant turns
An extra turn does not use the meter at all. The unit acts straight away, before any other meter moves, and its meter is reset when that turn starts. An extra turn is a full turn: skill cooldowns tick down and buffs and debuffs on the unit lose a turn, exactly as on a normal one. See Skills, cooldowns and auto-battle and How buffs and debuffs work.
Stunned, frozen and sleeping units also lose the turn, but the meter is still emptied when their turn comes up, so a stun costs a full turn's worth of waiting.
[Increase SPD] and [Decrease SPD]
These two come in 15% and 30% strengths: [Increase SPD] and [Decrease SPD]. Two rules, both measured:
- Of each kind only the strongest counts. Two [Increase SPD] buffs do not add up.
- An increase and a decrease on the same unit add their percentages. +30% and −15% is ×1.15, not ×1.105. On a champion with 244 SPD that is 280.6, which is exactly what the game showed.
The percentage applies to SPD from the next tick onward; it does not rewrite the meter you already have. Speed from gear and leader auras is a different layer: those percentages are added to the base stat before the fight (see Every stat explained).
What a speed tune is
A speed tune is a set of speeds chosen so the order of turns repeats in a way you want. The usual goal is that a protective buff is renewed just before the enemy's big attack every time. Because of the bands above, a tune is really a choice of ticks per turn for each unit.
Start with empty meters and take a champion with 180 SPD against an enemy with 170. The champion acts every 8 ticks and the enemy every 9, so the champion creeps ahead one tick per round. After seven rounds both are ready on the same tick. The enemy has the higher meter (107 against 101), so it goes first and the champion waits one tick. From then on both need 9 ticks per turn, so the drift stops, and the order has flipped: before, the champion acted just before the enemy each round; now it acts just after. Move the champion's SPD to 179 or 204 and nothing changes; push it to 205 and it becomes a 7-tick unit with a different rhythm.
Clan Boss teams lean heavily on tuning; see the Clan Boss guide for the shape of it.