Mana/mana regen is fine and the changes were needed

The mana regen changes/nerfs that a lot of people are still complaining about were necessary, people give them too much hate. As an avid mage player I don't have too mana issues with them, it just brought back the need to learn the rare skill of mana conservation.

That is not to say the implementation was flawless, a few champions that do not use mana as a resource (not all mind you) still seem to be balanced to go up against the overly spammy mages like pre-nerf Ziggs. Mana vs mana lanes are a bit less spammy now and some mana hungry mages might actually want to build mana regen items other than chalice/grail.

Source: I play Anivia a lot and my main jungle pick is Fiddle, I also spammed Lux for a bit both before and after the mana changes, just get tear (and/or Roa on Anivia) which upgrades into the item with the most ap (not counting deathcap's passive) which also gives a pretty nice shield.