Unit Behaviour

## General

Units in Minion Masters can be Minions or Buildings.

Minions might be walking or flying.

After being summoned, units are not directly controlled by the player but act according to the following rules.

## Summoning Units

During a match Units are normally summoned by spending Mana in order to play a card. You can choose where to summon these units, but only in your half of the playing field (to the left of the bridges).

Some spells and effects might summon units elsewhere, for example Infiltration or Walking Blind Date.

When you try to play a card, there is a 0.5s delay from click until the effect of the card actually starts.

* For Spells, after the 0.5s delay, there is also a "cast delay". Each spell has its own individual cast delay. Ranging from less than a second (Black Hole for example) to over 2 seconds (Call To Arms)
* Minions and Buildings have an additional 1s of summoning sickness after the initial delay. During that time they are frozen in place but can be targeted and damaged by other units, spells and effects.

## Targeting

### Target acquisition

From the moment they are summoned, and while they have no current target, units are constantly searching to acquire a target.

During that time, they will choose the **closest** unit to them which they are **able to hit**, and which is **within their aggro radius**, as their target.

* The aggro radius is either 8, or the range of the unit (the larger of the two).
* Units will only acquire something they can hit as their target (e.g. some units may only target buildings, or cannot target flying units).

### Target interaction

After acquiring a target, a unit will continue to target that unit even if other units attack or get closer to it than its target.

It will then either attack its target (if the target is within attack range), or else try to move towards it.

### Target loss

A unit loses its target (and will try to find a new target) if:

* the target dies, *or* the unit predicts that the target will die
* the target leaves the unit's aggro radius
* the target otherwise becomes un-targetable (e.g. gains Stealth, enters Black Hole, etc.)
* the attacking unit is stunned, or enters Black Hole, or is taunted by Troubadour

## Movement

If a unit has acquired a target that is outside of its attack range, then it will try to move towards its target. (Buildings will not get very far!)

If a unit cannot find a target, it will try to walk towards the enemy Master's tower along the shortest path.

## Attacking

### The attack animation

Once a unit has a target within its attack range, it will begin its attack animation. The attack animation can usually broken into three parts:

1. **Attack delay** - This is the period of time during which the unit is taking aim, or swinging its weapon.
2. **Attack** - This is the point in time when the projectile is released towards the target, or the weapon hits the target.
3. **Attack recovery** - This is the period of time during which the unit recovers from making the attack.

Altogether, the time to perform a full attack cycle is the Attack speed.

### Losing target & re-targeting

If a unit is part-way through its attack animation when it loses its target, then:

* If there is another potential target within attack range:
It will immediately re-target and continue with its attack cycle from where it was when it lost its previous target
* If there are no other potential targets within attack range:
If the unit was in the Attack delay phase then it will immediately stop attacking and try to start walking.
However, if it was in the Attack recovery phase then it will wait to complete its attack recovery before trying to start walking.

## Special cases and exceptions

### Puffs

Most Puffs will not acquire a target, and will move towards the nearest bridge instead of the enemy tower. Once on the bridge they will stay there, occasionally moving and hopping around but remaining on the bridge.

### Masters

Most masters follow the same targeting rules as other units with the following exceptions:

* Stormbringer
Stormbringer targets the nearest enemy to him, but he re-targets after completing each attack even if his previous target did not die. His next target is chosen as he starts to pull his bow.
* Mordar
Mordar's attack is an AOE that does not have one particular target. He will attack even if the only units on his side of the field are stealthed.

### Other

Scrat Launcher will re-target after each attack (similar to Stormbringer).