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Unpopular opinion: why flat mana is better for mages than mana regen

Fefnil··2 votes·1,149 views

Disclaimer: this will be a long post, full of numbers.

I want to try and convince everyone that cries about the loss of mana regen that they are wrong. Here's why: First, I'm gonna bring the math for the time between 4-6, lasting 5 minutes. This aims to cover the time where you have to sustain with component items. If you want the calculations with the complete items, too, you can ask it. Also, I did not count Doran's Ring, but know that it sinergizes better with the new items than the Chalice. Level 4-5-6: old Chalice of Harmony vs new Catalyst of Aeons or Lost Chapter or new Tear of the Goddess. Average mana: 600-660-720 Average mana regen: 9.2-10-10.8

  • The Chalice of Harmony gives 50% base mana regen and 2% of missing mana per 5s. Average mana regen during the session is 10, so that means an extra 5. Also, Chalice's passive will give an average of 0 to 13.2 extra regen, which means an average of 6.6. So we can say that Chalice of Harmony gives an average of 11.6 mana regen during this session. This means that in 5 minutes you will gain on average up to 696 mana (only if you are constantly under 100% mana)

  • Meditation is the only mastery that helps with mana, and scales with maximum mana, so this means that only the new items will benefit from it, increasing mana regen by 0 to 1.5% max mana, with an average of 0.75%.

  • Catalyst of Aeons gives 300 mana, with a passive hard to calculate. 15% of damage from champions will be gained as mana. During this session mages have an average of 900 health, 1125 with the Catalyst. Depending on matchup and many variables, between levels 4-7 you can lose 0-150% of your health, with an average of 75%. So you will gain an average of 127 extra mana. And then there is Meditation, that gives an average of 135 mana over 5 minutes. This means that for the this "lane session" you have an average of 562 mana from Catalyst of Aeons. This is pretty much impossible to calculate correctly, so this number can vary.

  • Lost Chapter gives 250 mana, with a passive that gives 20% max mana while levelling. This means that for the next three levels you will gain a total of 20% max mana three times. Counting 250 from itself, Lost Chapter will give an average total of 396 bonus mana during the session. And then there is Meditation, that gives an average of 113 mana over 5 minutes. This means that for the this "lane session" you have an average of 759 mana from Lost Chapter.

  • Tear of the Goddess gives 250 mana, and you gain 1 or 5 or 9 mana every 8 seconds, depending on spell spamming, so I will put an average of 5 mana every 8 seconds. This means that in 5 minutes you gain 188 extra max mana. Also, new Tear grants you 25% refund on mana spent. This pretty much means that your mana pool is increased by 25%, for an average of extra 275 mana. And then there is Meditation, that gives an average of 197 mana over 5 minutes. This means that for the this "lane session" you have an average of 910 mana from Tear of the Goddess.

Tl;dr: So in the end this means that between first and second recall, ideally and on average you would have 696 extra mana with Chalice, 562 with Catalyst, 759 with the Chapter and 910 with the Tear. As you can see, Chalice is not that good. More mana regen doesn't mean infinite mana. You always have to take into account the time needed to recharge. At the end, total mana is what matters. It's the same principle of potions, that can be seen as extra health. Also, having a wider mana pool is better, because you can cast more spells quickly. Of course, if we talk about long sieges, then yes, it's a nerf. But that's the aim of the rework. It won't change the laning phase, because you will recall after 5 minutes anyway, it's not going to shorten. You will have even more mana, instead, because as you saw only the Catalyst is worse, and only because it has a passive hard to calculate. And, as I said, I did not count Doran's Ring, but know that it sinergizes better with the new items than the Chalice.

10 Comments

ValyrianBlade3 votes

I understand and to an extent agree with the math, but disagree that the laning period is 5 minutes. If you're out for longer, it becomes a larger and larger nerf. You're also including the mana from meditation, however not everyone takes 5 points in it (I often take 3 in executioner and 2 in meditation).

I think the problem is this sort of scenario though: In lane you're playing a mana champion against a non-mana champion. You're at a disadvantage because of mana. You manage to outplay your opponent and poke them down consistently, but they're smart enough in the matchup to not let you kill them. Eventually, you're low on mana / out of mana and can't complete your combo to kill them. This is a frustrating feeling because you've managed to outplay them but due to you being resource constrained and them not, you can't punish them for letting you get lots of favorable trades.

An more frustrating scenario is this: You're playing against a mana-less champion. You're aware of mana constraints and are playing accordingly. You've been forced to recall a couple times due to low mana, and since they're manaless they've roamed on your recalls. Despite your pings, your bot lane dies to the roams which gets your enemy ahead of you. Despite that, you're the better player, you outplay them and kill them 1v1 with your full combo. Not only that, but you did so with a lot of health leftover. You're thinking now is the perfect time to roam bot and get your bot lane back in to the game - only that your poke + kill combo has drained all of your mana so you can't roam after the kill, while your opponent could.

I can't begin to count how many times this latter occurrence has happened to me. Where I want to roam after getting a kill or forcing a back when I have high health, but I also have low mana and can't. If I've rushed Morello in those games I can roam and will have regenerated enough for a rotation of spells by the time I get there. If I bought an early NLR I can't though. Replacing mana regen with flat mana will hurt these circumstances.

The overarching point is that a lot of the time you need to take advantage of your missing opponent after successfully executing your combos for kills or forcing them to back. This relies heavily on being capable of staying out longer without having mana problems. While on average you'll have more mana from flat mana sources than from regen, you won't have the extra mana WHEN YOU NEED IT. Great, you got a kill, now force the turret / roam for a kill / do dragon. Oops, you can't, no mana and it won't be coming back (can't push the wave out, can't use your escape spell if the jungler comes to defend turret, can't do a rotation on bot lane, can't contribute much damage to dragon, etc...).

Fefnil1 votes

Exactly. Mana regen scales with time. The question is: how much time does it take to pay off? With my calculations I showed that, without Doran's Rings or other items, only by themselves, 5 minutes are not enough. I'm prone to think that most people don't stay for more than 5 minutes without recalling. About manaless and energy champions, ok, but remember that their abilities are way weaker than yours, because they are resourceless. About the mana, but that's exactly the point of the rework. If you had chalice, after you killed your opponent you would be oom, but if you have a larger manapool, this is unlikely to happen. For example, I'm a Malzahar player, and I think he's a good example. He has a mana recovery mechanic, but that's because his spells have probably the higher mana costs in game. I'm a conservative player, and, as a rule of thumb, I always keep my mana over 75% of the bar. Now, there comes an extended trade, I use Q and E, we battle, some time passes, my skills are up, the enemy is right where I want hi, I use Q, E, W, R... and I die, because I didn't have enough mana to cast R. That's because I had a chalice. That's why I instead always go with flat mana. The point is not casting spells forever, it's casting spells when I need them. I want stay out in the open for more than 5 minutes, so it's ok. If you rushed Morello, you probably wouldn't have even survived the battle in lane, because you would have gone oom earlier. That extra mana saved your life. Remember that.

ValyrianBlade1 votes

{quoted}

Exactly. Mana regen scales with time. The question is: how much time does it take to pay off? With my calculations I showed that, without Doran's Rings or other items, only by themselves, 5 minutes are not enough. I'm prone to think that most people don't stay for more than 5 minutes without recalling. About manaless and energy champions, ok, but remember that their abilities are way weaker than yours, because they are resourceless. About the mana, but that's exactly the point of the rework. If you had chalice, after you killed your opponent you would be oom, but if you have a larger manapool, this is unlikely to happen. For example, I'm a Malzahar player, and I think he's a good example. He has a mana recovery mechanic, but that's because his spells have probably the higher mana costs in game. I'm a conservative player, and, as a rule of thumb, I always keep my mana over 75% of the bar. Now, there comes an extended trade, I use Q and E, we battle, some time passes, my skills are up, the enemy is right where I want hi, I use Q, E, W, R... and I die, because I didn't have enough mana to cast R. That's because I had a chalice. That's why I instead always go with flat mana. The point is not casting spells forever, it's casting spells when I need them. I want stay out in the open for more than 5 minutes, so it's ok. If you rushed Morello, you probably wouldn't have even survived the battle in lane, because you would have gone oom earlier. That extra mana saved your life. Remember that.

The points were just examples. I also disagree with the idea that manaless champions have weaker abilities because they are manaless - Riven and Zed are great examples of lane bullies (i.e. they have great damage on their abilities) who are also manaless.

Trying to rephrase my overarching point though: Flat mana or mana regen, the item is equally strong either way if Riot is balancing to a mark of, let's go with the one you chose, 5 minutes.

And that mark might be correct on average, which means that when you're recalling more often than every 5 minutes you're stronger and less than every 5 minutes you're weaker.

The point I'm making is that if you're recalling more than every 5 minutes, that extra strength isn't going to be used. It doesn't matter that you can spam your spells, because if you're going to recall within 5 minutes you don't have the time out in lane to bully out your opponent (or kill them) and then continue to pressure a tower or another lane.

In contrast, when you're out for more than 5 minutes, it's likely due to the fact that you're pressing an advantage. If you don't have an advantage to press, you would recall and buy (because having excess gold on you is wasteful, might as well get the stats out of it to help you fight later). Which causes the problem - flat mana is weaker when I'm trying to stay out longer, which is EVERY time I want to press an advantage that I EARNED.

Basically, changing mana regen to flat mana hurts the risk-reward framework for mana users, because previously with mana regen it would be: Risk: Run out of mana before accomplishing your goal (e.g. kill or bully out of lane) and thereby get killed or bullied out instead Reward: Can regen mana after success and pressure tower or another lane

Now it is: Risk: Run out of mana before accomplishing your goal (e.g. kill or bully out of lane) and thereby get killed or bullied out instead Reward: None, you have to recall because you're out of mana and can't pressure afterwards.

Perhaps the risk is reduced because of your math (i.e. that flat mana is better than regen if you're not out for too long), but the reward is eliminated entirely (remember, kills don't win games - objectives do).

If the non-mage mid can get a tower or dragon or pressure in another lane off of every successful risk he plays, but the mage can only get the direct success of the risk, then the mages are going to fall off. Given that overall mages are already weaker, it hurts them too much.

Also a side point: Malzahar is one of the champions that these changes would really help. Any mage that builds RoA instead of Morello benefits from this. Malzahar's mana regen in his kit means that he's better off prioritizing a larger mana pool so he can put out a bunch of spells in a short time frame when necessary and farm his mana back up when the threat is averted. A mage that currently builds morello over RoA is hurt because Morello was nerfed. There's obviously a reason these champions tend to rush Morello over RoA, which is because they prefer mana regen over flat mana for the reasons I listed above. The champions that prefer flat mana have a different playstyle that allows them to get the already-strong RoA instead of Morello/chalice.

Fefnil1 votes

Yes, flat is worse after a certain point. For now, I think it's somewhere at 7 minutes. But the point is that this is exactly Riot's goal: avoiding endless sieges. Also, remember that mages mana costs were balanced towards the existence of mana regen. If they get cut out, there is a good probability that costs will be tweaked accordingly.

Zone of Endless1 votes

Until they make mages scale with mana, like ryze, flat mana is an extremely crap stat the longer the game goes on.

Fefnil1 votes

Only if you stay out. But on average you recall once every 5 minutes, unless you only build complete items without components. And in 5 minutes, as my op showed, mana regen doesn't pay off.

DrNova1 votes

Recalling every 5 min on average first of all is bogus and a made up stat. You don't know what the average is.

And flat Mana is just worse. Sometimes you need to cast more often to keep up with waveclear, or have a lane where you need to be aggressive because of enemy champ, or are getting g ganked a ton and using snares or stuns to survive.

Teamfigjts can mean you burn a ton of Mana in one fight and then are forced to back because you can't capitalize and push wave.

There is no way flat is better, your math doesn't account for the many varied situations that occur in actuality.

Fefnil1 votes

You usually stay out more or less than 5 minutes? Mana regen scales with time spent before recalling. More time = more payoff. What I meant with my calculations is not that 5 minutes is the average, I meant that 5 minutes, which is a reasonable amount of time, is not enough for regen to beat flat. At 5 minutes, you still would have better spent your money on mana than on regen. You think that flat mana is worse, but you can't be aggressive if you don't have the mana to cast spells. Numbers don't lie: 1 mana per second just means that in 1 minute you recover 60 mana. If after that time you have to recall anyway, simply buying 60 flat doesn't change anything, don't you think?

Linna Excel1 votes

For me the problem with meditation is you lose out on merciless. I think it will be better with the update, especially if most people go seraph's like I think they well. However if your champ needs the cdr, you may not opt for the mana management of seraph's.

Fefnil1 votes

Fair enough. Even without Meditation though you still have Doran's Ring, which scales better with flat mana. I don't think they will be forced to Seraph's, the Chapter is still better than Chalice and we still don't know how good is new Catalyst.

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