Q: What does "cast frequency" actually measure in TFT?

Cast frequency is how many times a unit fires its Special Ability in a single combat. TFT abilities have no cooldowns. The only gate is the Mana bar filling. So cast frequency is just the rate at which a unit's bar empties and refills. Most damage, healing, shielding, and crowd control on a board comes out of these casts. So the number of casts per fight is usually a better predictor of board output than its raw ability tooltip values.

Q: Does Attack Speed scale cast frequency linearly?

Roughly yes, for attack-driven Mana, until the 5.00 Attack Speed cap. Each additional attack carries the unit's role-based Mana value: 10 / 7 / 5 depending on role. So doubling effective Attack Speed roughly doubles attack-driven Mana income, and therefore casts per second. Two things are subtracted from that: The fixed Mana-lock window after each cast. Any time spent in the cast animation. Note: Some units also gain Mana from being hit (Tanks) or from Mana regen. Those non-attack sources don't scale with Attack Speed, so the curve flattens slightly at very high AS.

Q: How does Mana lock affect cast frequency, and is it the same for every unit?

After every cast, a unit enters a Mana-lock window. It cannot accumulate Mana from any source while the lock runs. The window is not the same for every unit. While locked, all of these are suppressed for the duration: Attacks. Damage taken. Items. Trait passives. Riot August gave 1 second as the default. But the real window differs per champion. Community timing tables measure it both shorter and longer. Units with long cast animations sit at the long end. Those are typically channeled or sustained-effect abilities. Note: The lock is a fixed floor on time-between-casts. For very low max-Mana units it caps cast frequency more than the bar size does. Past a point, more Mana income stops helping until the lock expires.

Q: Is there a ceiling on how fast a unit can be made to cast?

Yes. The ceiling is built from three separate floors and caps rather than one number. The Mana-lock window after each cast is a hard floor on time-between-casts. No Mana income of any kind counts while it is running, so past a point extra Mana simply waits. Attack Speed is capped at 5.0 attacks per second. That caps attack-driven Mana income. The artifact that shrinks the bar as you cast writes its own floor into the tooltip. It takes 10 off max Mana up front, then 5% more with every later cast. But it stops at a minimum of 15 Mana, so the bar can never be driven to nothing. Note: Stack all three levers and a unit converges on a fixed maximum cadence instead of accelerating forever.

Question 1

What does "cast frequency" actually measure in TFT?

Accepted Answer

Cast frequency is how many times a unit fires its Special Ability in a single combat.

TFT abilities have no cooldowns. The only gate is the Mana bar filling. So cast frequency is just the rate at which a unit's bar empties and refills.

Most damage, healing, shielding, and crowd control on a board comes out of these casts. So the number of casts per fight is usually a better predictor of board output than its raw ability tooltip values.

Question 2

Which stats and effects raise a unit's cast frequency?

Accepted Answer

Four levers move cast frequency.

Lever 1: Lower max Mana shrinks the bar, so each cast comes faster.
Lever 2: Higher Mana per attack fills the same bar in fewer swings. That comes from flat bonuses or role upgrades.
Lever 3: Higher Attack Speed packs more swings into the same window. It multiplies every per-attack Mana source.
Lever 4: Starting Mana or on-cast Mana refunds shorten how much of the bar has to fill from zero.

Mana regen adds a constant per-second trickle on top of attack-driven income.

Note: See the dedicated Mana and Attack Speed pages for the underlying numbers.

Question 3

Why does the same-name unit cast slower on my board than on another player's?

Accepted Answer

Almost always Attack Speed or items.

Attack Speed buffs are percent-based. They stack from traits, items, augments, and ally auras. So two boards with the same star-level unit can reach combat with very different effective Attack Speed. That directly changes how fast the Mana bar fills.

Items also matter. These all change cast cadence even when the printed ability tooltip is identical:

Starting-Mana boosts.
Per-attack Mana bonuses.
On-cast Mana refunds.

Note: Ally-side effects that grant Mana or Mana regen also shift the count.

Question 4

Why does a small-looking max-Mana increase feel like a huge nerf?

Accepted Answer

Because the Mana bar fills in whole-attack steps, one extra swing is a big cut.

Mana income is discrete: a fixed chunk per attack. So raising max Mana past a multiple of the per-attack income forces an extra swing.

Example: A unit at 60 max Mana takes 6 attacks to cast, at 10 Mana per swing. At 61 max it still takes 7 attacks. That is exactly the same cost as raising it to 70. That single extra attack is roughly a 17–18% reduction in casts per fight.

Note: Tiny tooltip patch changes can therefore look cosmetic but be enormous in practice.

Question 5

Does Attack Speed scale cast frequency linearly?

Accepted Answer

Roughly yes, for attack-driven Mana, until the 5.00 Attack Speed cap.

Each additional attack carries the unit's role-based Mana value: 10 / 7 / 5 depending on role. So doubling effective Attack Speed roughly doubles attack-driven Mana income, and therefore casts per second.

Two things are subtracted from that:

The fixed Mana-lock window after each cast.
Any time spent in the cast animation.

Note: Some units also gain Mana from being hit (Tanks) or from Mana regen. Those non-attack sources don't scale with Attack Speed, so the curve flattens slightly at very high AS.

Question 6

How does Mana lock affect cast frequency, and is it the same for every unit?

Accepted Answer

After every cast, a unit enters a Mana-lock window. It cannot accumulate Mana from any source while the lock runs. The window is not the same for every unit.

While locked, all of these are suppressed for the duration:

Attacks.
Damage taken.
Items.
Trait passives.

Riot August gave 1 second as the default. But the real window differs per champion. Community timing tables measure it both shorter and longer. Units with long cast animations sit at the long end. Those are typically channeled or sustained-effect abilities.

Note: The lock is a fixed floor on time-between-casts. For very low max-Mana units it caps cast frequency more than the bar size does. Past a point, more Mana income stops helping until the lock expires.

Question 7

Does cast frequency stay constant through a fight, or does it ramp?

Accepted Answer

It usually ramps. Many cast-frequency multipliers compound across the fight.

Mana overflow banks the excess past the cast threshold, so later casts start with a head-start.
On-cast Attack-Speed buffs make later attacks generate Mana faster.
Stacking-on-cast effects pay back into the next cast.

Frontline units also see continuous Mana income from damage taken, so their cast cadence is steadier.

Note: Big-Mana backline casters typically fire only once or twice without item investment. For those units, cast frequency is highly sensitive to fight length.

Question 8

Is there a ceiling on how fast a unit can be made to cast?

Accepted Answer

Yes. The ceiling is built from three separate floors and caps rather than one number.

The Mana-lock window after each cast is a hard floor on time-between-casts. No Mana income of any kind counts while it is running, so past a point extra Mana simply waits.
Attack Speed is capped at 5.0 attacks per second. That caps attack-driven Mana income.
The artifact that shrinks the bar as you cast writes its own floor into the tooltip. It takes 10 off max Mana up front, then 5% more with every later cast. But it stops at a minimum of 15 Mana, so the bar can never be driven to nothing.

Note: Stack all three levers and a unit converges on a fixed maximum cadence instead of accelerating forever.

Cast Frequency

What enables Cast Frequency (8)

Completed items that change Cast Frequency (3)

Radiant items that change Cast Frequency (3)

Artifacts that change Cast Frequency (1)

Augments that change Cast Frequency (1)

Gold (1)

See also

Frequently asked questions

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