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Why do manaless champs tend to have heals?

Xx420n0sc0p3sxX··21 votes·2,732 views

There are 21 manaless champs in the game. 5 of these use hp (Mordekaiser Aatrox Zac Vladimir DrMundo ), so they should have a heal in their kit. Because of this, I won't include them. I am going to list all of the manaless champions with the ability to heal them selves, through fast regen or actual heals.

ENERGY Akali -Yes Kennen -no LeeSin -yes Shen -yes (Very, very high energy cost, but that's not what this list is about is it?) Zed -no (Tends to build lifesteal, though it isn't in his kit.)

NO ENERGY/MANA/HP Garen -Yes Gnar -Yes (Upon transforming) Katarina -No RekSai -yes Renekton -yes Rengar -yes Riven -No (Only AD scaling shield in the game, and it's 100%, and she builds AD. BUUUUUUUT, it isn't a heal, plus she has one of the lowest hp5 in the game) Rumble -No Shyvana -No Tryndamere -Yes Yasuo -No

Notice how the majority of them have a heal, 9/16, or more then half. Plus, 3/7 of the champs without a heal happen to have a shield.

I'm not saying any of these champs are op or anything, but you have to wonder with Riot balance team. The HP using champs should have heals, and they do (Mordekaiser heals on his ult, so he does have a heal).

Welp, that's all I have, thought I'd share this info.

EDIT: Fixed some silly mistakes I made. Improved quality of post.

50 Comments

Phil Fly9 votes

soraka has lowest hp5, not riven. close, though.

Xx420n0sc0p3sxX1 votes

Ty bb I'll fix that, I wasn't quite sure about it and being the lazy man I am I didn't search it.

Phil Fly1 votes

it;s okay. i actually looked it up afterwards and never knew riven had such low hp5 lol.

Direwolfiez3 votes

That happened after Riven went FotM, if I remember correctly. Cut her pick rate by a lot, and I can't say that I was sad about that; she was a terror.

YouLostMe4 votes

Another trend that helps to explain this is how much melee is represented in the list. Of those champs, only 4/16 are ranged (~30% less than mana-using champs), and one of those ranged dudes is Gnar (who heals by becoming a melee champ, but I'm counting him anyways). And none of those heals are free, requiring you to be fighting something (Renek, Akali, Shen) or cost resources that come from fighting (Trynd, Rengar, Gnar). The only heal that doesn't require interaction is Garen's, which has an almost-greater cost of not being allowed to fight at all.

I think this comes down to resource management. Because of the way Riot's manaless champs work, they can basically use their abilities whenever the CD is up. So the champs' earlygame basically needs to be based around losing HP because there's no way to make a manaless champ go oom. A great way to make someone lose plenty of HP is by making them melee so they have to farm in close proximity (e.g. Shyvana, Shen, Renekton), which is why you see so many manaless melee champs.

Now there's no way of naturally managing the amount of harass a champ takes in laning phase, and in LoL melee farming tends to get you really hurt. Whether Teemo shoots you, Irelia/Riven jumps you, you will probably take a lot of damage. To circumvent that, Riot needs to add some sort of defenses:

  • Damage reduction
  • Extra Armor/MR
  • Natural healing
  • Abilities that heal
  • Abilities that shield

Of those four, the most interesting one is an ability that heals, because it allows for so much more meaningful counterplay (Riot's favorite words). By gating the heal behind some mechanic, like Trynd's crit bar or Gnar's transform timer, you can have sustain that the enemy has a chance of dealing with. So it's not weird, but almost necessary for manaless champs to have heals or else they make laning phase really uninteractive.

This also explains a few other exceptions to the trends we've seen. Champs like Kennen and Rumble don't come with heals because they farm so easily. Shyvana does not have heals because she gets bonus stats. Katarina has damage reduction on her blink. Riven and Yasuo have shields. The only champion you can't really explain is Zed, who is manaless and has safe waveclear and naturally builds lifesteal which makes him heal. There is a reason people hate him so much.

This also extends to some mana-based champions. You don't notice a lot of heals on ranged characters like Teemo, Syndra, Ryze, etc, but you see Gragas with heals and low-mana (previously manaless) damage reduction, Cho'Gath with a passive heal, Wukong with passive Armor/MR, Trundle with a passive heal, and so on.

Done253 votes

Because due to their nature as energy/manaless champions, they can stay in lane for a long time. But what use is being manaless if you can't keep your hp high enough to make that staying power useful?

Xx420n0sc0p3sxX3 votes

I think I understand. Your description makes me think of someone like Mundo or even Nasus if we want to count him, who want to stay in lane and just farm up. Except, tell me, how many of these manaless champs are aggressive in lane. Almost all of them. The reason is obvious, they are manaless so they get to spam their spells, makes sense. The problem is, let's say I play Irelia toplane. I'm up against, idk, a Rek'sai. I don't really know this matchup, but let's pretend we trade evenly, well, Rek has no mana, so I basically lost the trade, in a way. But not only this, she also has a heal. Irelia does too, but Irelia's is only strong if I spend mana to use my w. I can't 1v1 her in an all out fight either, thats another problem. Almost all manaless champions are not only lane builies, but strong duelist, so you can't beat them in trades, and most the times, in all out fights either.

Thanotos Omega3 votes

Most of them do require that you be in melee range, and target an enemy and several are part of their damage rotations, so using them to top off can leave them vulnerable, even Tryn's takes away his crit bonus when used, and if i am not mistaken everyone of them is self heal only, so they aren't like a manaless Taric.

Xx420n0sc0p3sxX2 votes

Shen is the only one, and his heal really isn't that big.

Zazusha3 votes

Shen 's makes sense though, as he has a taunt, and no built in thornmail/returned damage mechanic.

Xx420n0sc0p3sxX1 votes

A few of them make some sense, Shen's is fine, the junglers of these champs need some form of sustain, or atleast a shield, but the problem with how rito designs them is that they are a nightmare in lane.

Kingsgrave3 votes

TryndamereRengar RekSai Renekton would literally be useless without their heal mechanics, which requires them to build it up btw.

Garen absolutely needs his regen because its really the only good thing he has going for him currently.

Gnar honestly doesn't need his and should probably lose the Health Regeneration he gains during Mega Gnar.

Akali Shen both sacrifice a lot for their heal mechanics so I honestly think its justified.

LeeSin should probably lose his.

Nidalee may use Mana but the majority of her damage is Manaless so she probably shouldn't have one in the first place. Comparatively, Elise is fine with hers since it forces her to go in and is limited in usefulness.

xl Kirito lx1 votes

Random curiosity, what does Akali sacrifice for a large amount of spellvamp?

Kingsgrave1 votes

{quoted}

Random curiosity, what does Akali sacrifice for a large amount of spellvamp?

Lowest damage, range and general reliability of all the other Assassins.

If she didn't have natural healing she would not be able to trade, teamfight, duel or even lane without massive buffs across the board which I imagine most people do not want to deal with.

The spellvamp doesn't scale with a stat she gets any real benefit from beyond her E, which is Total AD scaling anyway and a low amount of it at that. She has to sacrifice actual power in order to build it.

chumbler2 votes

We wouldn't want manaless champions that aren't Morde to actually have weaknesses.

Xx420n0sc0p3sxX1 votes

lol, especially Zed and Lee, Riot can't let that happen can they? I've been against Mord twice I think, annoying as balls, was melee mid both times. So I bought him and take him top every now and then and almost always win. Poke under tower 2 gud.

Silents4292 votes

DrMundo Aatrox Zac Vladimir

I am just going to point out right now, champions with abilities costing health doesn't mean shit once they get their first item. Zac is the only one of these 4 who doesn't piss me off with their healing.

Zac has to run to his health and take damage while not dealing it. Morde doesn't actually have a heal so I don't know why you mentioned him. (His ult is bs while would you even bring him up for that miniscule heal?) -Morde

Aatrox is friggin stupid with lifesteal items and attack speed, making late game ADCs look foolish.

Vlad can also go rot in hell, I hate how he is top lane now with infinite sustain, and a lot of it, oh and he is safe. And he has a nuke. And aoe damage..

Mundo. For the love of god he needs his rework I hate this useless sponge, that spams that stupid cleaver.

Rengar. I don't know why he has a heal, and why it has to heal so friggin much, but it is obnoxious.

Now these ones are not overpowered with their heals.

Akali Her built in spell vamp is hardly noticeable since they all rush a gunblade anyway.

LeeSin Lee only only gets like 3 seconds of any spell vamp and lifesteal. And while I know his kit is overloaded, his heal is hardly anything.

Shen He has to last hit with his Q to gain health from it, or attack whatever he Q's. His passive is only around every few seconds, and unless you build full attack speed shen, you aren't going to make a crazy use of his heal in comparison to anyone just building lifesteat/spellvamp

Garen Requires him to not be fighting.

Gnar He gains like 200HP and only happens if he transforms, it isn't a heal really.

RekSai She has a heal? I couldn't tell with all her 2 paragraphs of reading you need to do on her abilities.

Tryndamere has to farm up his bar to get any meaningful heal out of it, but even then it is pretty lackluster and removes his entire fury bar, which removes his extra crit that helps him do damage. I don't mind his heal at all.

Unfortunately for everyone who likes to bash Riot, most of the manaless champions with heals aren't that broken.

The ones who are broken. Are either old and need a rework, or just have a ton of over tweaking to it.

Xx420n0sc0p3sxX2 votes

Rek heals 25*her level if she burrows at max fury, which is pretty large. But yeah, most of the heals are fairly small but still, why do the champs with basically no secondary resource get a heal? That crit Tryndamere gets/loses is just his passive, as any other champion you wouldn't even have the crit, or the heal.

Silents4291 votes

Yes but with that passive tryn is getting a ton of damage, that is why he deals a lot of damage, built in crit.

He gets rid of that extra damage to heal himself, which isn't even that big of a heal.

Xx420n0sc0p3sxX2 votes

Early game, if you max q, that heal is pretty really big. The problem is, he outrades a large portion of the toplaners. If he loses a trade he heals back up, and doesn't have to waste mana. If Jax wins a level 4 trade by lets say 150 damage (Making this up, don't know if it would happen), Tryn will heal and shrug it off while Jax just wasted hp and mana to win the trade.

Silents4292 votes

If Tryn has max fury and isn't going AP Tryn, he only gets 300HP at max rank. It really isn't that much, and the cooldown is lengthy enough to where he can't spam it.

And if he is maxing that first in lane he is weaker in other areas. Tryn is givin up 35% crit to heal himself.

Whether his heal or not is considered overpowered I don't really care, my list was based on whether his owned me or not.

Markus Vakarian1 votes

you forgot Renekton

Silents4291 votes

I played him several times in season 4 and still don't remember anything other then his dashing and ult.

Kingsgrave1 votes

{quoted}

DrMundo Aatrox Zac Vladimir

I am just going to point out right now, champions with abilities costing health doesn't mean shit once they get their first item. Zac is the only one of these 4 who doesn't piss me off with their healing.

Zac has to run to his health and take damage while not dealing it. Morde doesn't actually have a heal so I don't know why you mentioned him. (His ult is bs while would you even bring him up for that miniscule heal?) -Morde

Aatrox is friggin stupid with lifesteal items and attack speed, making late game ADCs look foolish.

Vlad can also go rot in hell, I hate how he is top lane now with infinite sustain, and a lot of it, oh and he is safe. And he has a nuke. And aoe damage..

Mundo. For the love of god he needs his rework I hate this useless sponge, that spams that stupid cleaver.

Rengar. I don't know why he has a heal, and why it has to heal so friggin much, but it is obnoxious.

Now these ones are not overpowered with their heals.

Akali Her built in spell vamp is hardly noticeable since they all rush a gunblade anyway.

LeeSin Lee only only gets like 3 seconds of any spell vamp and lifesteal. And while I know his kit is overloaded, his heal is hardly anything.

Shen He has to last hit with his Q to gain health from it, or attack whatever he Q's. His passive is only around every few seconds, and unless you build full attack speed shen, you aren't going to make a crazy use of his heal in comparison to anyone just building lifesteat/spellvamp

Garen Requires him to not be fighting.

Gnar He gains like 200HP and only happens if he transforms, it isn't a heal really.

RekSai She has a heal? I couldn't tell with all her 2 paragraphs of reading you need to do on her abilities.

Tryndamere has to farm up his bar to get any meaningful heal out of it, but even then it is pretty lackluster and removes his entire fury bar, which removes his extra crit that helps him do damage. I don't mind his heal at all.

Unfortunately for everyone who likes to bash Riot, most of the manaless champions with heals aren't that broken.

The ones who are broken. Are either old and need a rework, or just have a ton of over tweaking to it.

Aatrox has to be allowed to auto, which in a teamfight is almost impossible even with the range increase on his Ultimate.

Silents4291 votes

How the hell is Auto Attacking hard? I have never witnessed it being difficult. Especially since he is able to literally dive into a team. AND slow people to keep in AA range.

Kingsgrave1 votes

{quoted}

How the hell is Auto Attacking hard? I have never witnessed it being difficult. Especially since he is able to literally dive into a team. AND slow people to keep in AA range.

you tend to get CC'd to death before you can do anything

Silents4291 votes

lolno that doesn't happen.

Leti the Yeti1 votes

DrMundo yes Vladimir yes Mordekaiser annnnnd yes :l

Xx420n0sc0p3sxX3 votes

I wasn't gonna include those champs (Zac and gaytroxx Aatrox included) becaseu they use their own hp, they'd would just kill themselves.

OperationDEEZ11 votes

But Vlad heals it all back in a Q or two.

Caezium1 votes

That isn't part of his criteria though. He does in fact use HP on his W(20% of current HP) and E(E is kind of an irrelevant cost after revolver).

OperationDEEZ11 votes

The point of my comment was that his HP costs are negligible because of Q+ Spellvamp.

Tis a nice day1 votes

Hence why he is allowed to have hp-costs.

Leti the Yeti1 votes

well you included zed who buys life steal and these champs buy spell vamp so...

Xx420n0sc0p3sxX1 votes

I didn't include Zed, it has the No next to him, ding dong. These champs deserve to have heals, are they a bit much, aatrox, and vlad heals, imo are a little too much, mundo is just annoying, and mord/zac are ok. I simply didn't list them because it would be dumb for them to not have heals, wouldn't it?

RoyaiChaos1 votes

Because they're mostly melees and need some kind of sustain.

Xx420n0sc0p3sxX1 votes

What about all of the other melees? Jax, Hell, a large amount of the toplaners/melees.

BeatzBoyFTW1 votes

Trundle Alistar Janna Gangplank Kayle Karma Soraka Taric XinZhao Yorick Swain Nunu Nasus Nami Khazix Chogath Cassiopeia

junglerboy166 votes

Uh, they all have Mana. Did you even read the thread?

Kobila20008 votes

Who needs reading when you have all those pretty icons?

Xx420n0sc0p3sxX1 votes

I think we should Include every champ since they can buy lifesteal spellvamp, hp regen, and potions. Seems fair enough.

Erockandroll1 votes

{quoted}

Trundle Alistar Janna Gangplank Kayle Karma Soraka Taric XinZhao Yorick Swain Nunu Nasus Nami Khazix Chogath Cassiopeia

lets not forget

Ahri Morgana Nidalee Ryze Sona Udyr WarwickXinZhao Yorick Zilean

Kobila20001 votes

Well a lot of those are junglers and junglers tend to have heals so they can sustain in the jungle. As for why so much sustain, well, Riot needs a way to make these champions less fair I guess because huge damage and mobility are not enough apparently.

Markus Vakarian1 votes

I agree that Champions without mana shouldn't have sustain Aatrox & Co can have but Renekton,Trynda,Akali....no Rengar shouldn't have too but he needs decent HP regen since now it's too low

Akesgeroth1 votes

Have you jungled as Rengar recently?

Xx420n0sc0p3sxX1 votes

I'm not saying he's good/bad or anything, I'm stating why manaless champs often have heals, especially when compared to mana champions.

The5lacker1 votes

Because the entire reason they're manaless is because their core concept is sustained aggression.

"Hey why do all of the sniper rifles in this game have a scope?"

libraryseraph 1 votes

Rek'sai does have to build fury by attacking to heal, so it's not a free ride

ModKnightsKemplar1 votes

Renekton is supposed to be a lane bully. Self healing is supposed to reinforce that dynamic, as is his lack of mana. The cost? He is trash in the late game.

Akali needs to be weak to burst, but survive in longer fights. That's why she has spellvamp instead of higher resists or shields. It reinforces her ninja persona well, imo.

Rengar, Rek'sai, and Lee Sin are junglers. In order to be good in the jungle, you have to be a tank or have some kind of self-healing. I agree that they should be paying for it somewhere, but it's not inherently bad for them to have healing skills.

Garen, Shen, and Gnar are tanks. While their abilities don't cost hp, they need to be able to tank some shots and get healthy again (only in mega form for gnar, but his is some of the smallest on the list, anyway).

In every case, I agree that their healing reinforces the core idea/theme/role of the champ. In cases where that isn't true (Katarina, Riven), they don't have it. It's that simple, in my eyes. Feel free to disagree.

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