Syndra's Mana Costs

kcStranger·3/8/2015, 6:28:21 PM·3 votes·799 views

After the patch-5.2 nerfs temporarily made Syndra almost unplayable, Riot has done a good job of fixing the E stun width so that self-respecting summoners can play her again. To get an idea where Syndra is at now: her win rates in ranked solo gold/platinum/diamond are ~46%/47%/48% (based on data from LOLDB and lolking), and she's attracting only moderate attention from pro players (based on probuilds.net and LCS play). Overall, I would claim that she's playable, but lacks compelling reasons to choose her over other (better) options.

To be honest, I feel like the Q damage nerf was a bit of an over-nerf (the base damage on Q is actually less than a level-1 auto-attack, 50 vs. 54), but it's clear that Riot is committed to that change, and I'm not going to ask for even a partial revert. I would like to note, however, that Syndra's mana costs were originally set based on the knowledge that Q was a fairly high-damage spell. To compensate for the insane bully potential that Q gave you, they made it so that you would run out of mana very quickly if you spammed it, and for no reward if you missed it. (The mana cost for Q is 40/50/60/70/80. I'll also note that the mana cost of W, often used for farming, is quite high at 60/70/80/90/100.)

Now that Syndra's bully potential has been cut down so much by the Q damage nerf, I think it's high time to decrease the mana costs on Q and W so that she doesn't constantly run out of mana in lane. This would give her back a little bit of bully potential by allowing her to spam Q a little more, but also force her to earn it by hitting a higher number of Q's. I think that increases both Syndra's potential while maintaining the opponent's ability for counterplay (dodging Q's), which ought to be something Riot is interested in. It's a small change that would make Syndra more rewarding to play without making her oppressive again. I'm thinking something like 30/40/50/60/70 for Q and 50/60/70/80/90 for W (so, a flat 10-mana reduction at all levels for Q and W), though other options are of course possible.

What do you think? (To account for one major factor that might influence people's answers, I'm dividing the poll based on whether people play Syndra.)

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