So, I'm not going to spend time yelling at riot or anything, but I want to point out that the two character Riot defends a lot (Lee Sin and Zed) Are both energy characters. What does this mean?
EDIT: Note I wasn't saying anything about balance. I was discussing what they were referring to as "good, healthy fun characters", as in, these are what they think all characters of their role to be like.
cooldown reduction should not be a valuable stat on energy based champions. energy is supposed to be a burst resource. the fact that zed can go to 25% CDR with brutalizer + ionians and it's considered a strong build on him is just crazy.
maybe it means they shouldnt have gone so far with the mana regeneration nerfs, if they consider 20 seconds to full regeneration on your resource as healthy.
The issue with Lee and Zed is that they just don't have any massive limitations caused by messing up with their skill like shen does when he misses his taunt.
Say if Living Shadow had a an cost that is twice what it currently is then zed might have some real limitiations caused by energy and make energy managment more important.
Lee also is lacking something like the First part of his Q is say 100 energy and the second part if used restores 20 energy or something like that.
I guess being highly mobile is his identity but it is somewhat lacking in real limits currently.
"We would like mana management to become a crucial aspect of the game again, so we'll nerf mana regen, keep releasing manaless champions and play dumb when they keep getting overused" ~Rito
All they really needed to do to mana regen was delete Athene's instead of rework the system.
That having been said I learned to deal with mana being a limit before Athene's was added as an item to the game. It isn't really screwing me over as it is.
Energy vs Mana (what they're supposed to be)
Energy: Fast regeneration over time, allowing you to poke extensively. However, you can choke if you combo rapidly without letting up.
Mana: Slow regeneration, large pool, meaning you can combo extensively. However, if you poke too much, you will eventually run out and be forced to back.
Both of them have pros and cons, however, as it is right now, mana is far more dominant than energy.
Edit: I meant it the other way around. Energy is more dominant than mana. Disregard the above statement pls, I was writing this really late at night.
Personal opinion: I don't think Mana is an effective resource as used in LoL. And because of it, Energy has lost focus.
For the sake of comparison, look at DawnGate (until it shuts down on the 10th). Most champions are limited only by cooldowns. The few that have secondary resource management, genuinely need it. Moya: An AA'ing bruiser on Steroids with a spamable stun, slow, and one of the strongest ults in game. Nissa: ADC with good AoE and an insane move speed/atk speed steroid. Sakari: Uses an Ammo system for her stackable slow and her anivia wall (creates small chunks, not the full wall). Fenmore and Viviyan both use health, and have really strong healing. The Upcoming "weapon master" used a barrage system for her abilities that, otherwise, had no cooldown. (shame we'll never get to see her finished product.) And Freya: . . . who had the Lee Sin Syndrome of having a kit with everything in it (including HARD CC) and a secondary resource that can be fully replenished twice in a single burst rotation... )Ya, that approach is just as toxic in other games. Who knew?) Secondary resources could not be expanded (except health). (actually, I think there was a rune to increase energy regen that nobody ever used.)
Not to say Dawngate didn't have it's own problems (Lillian having insane base damage, hard scaling, %max health damage and defense shred on every skill). But compare the approach to LoL's approach. Nearly every champion is mana gated by default. You can buy items to remove that gating. Resourceless champions are usually designed around aggression and enjoy low cooldowns. Energy champions can't expand their resources, but get it back so quickly that their only true gating are their cooldowns. (exception: Shen).
Personally. If Riot truly wants mana to act as a gating mechanism, they should treat it like energy. Nerf item-based mana and mana regen into the ground. Give hugely buff base mana and mana regen to compensate (and/or start handing out more return gimmicks). This should also make balance easier on you all around. Since you no longer have, say... Sona being balanced around the fact that she can spam all her abilities rapid-fire once she gets a chalice/tear. They play styles you want from champions can be maintained all game. If you do want to item scale a champs resources (say, Anivia or Ryze), tie it to their AP. +5 mana for each point of AP or some such non-sense. This can also help to further separate champions with overlapping kits (Sona/Nami, Varus/Kog'maw, Morekiser/Morello)
You're already going in that direction with the regen changes. I vote you just take your foot off the break and see where this takes us.
Y'all can start down-voting me now.
Energy has it's own strengths and weaknesses same as any other resource type, be it mana, rage, hp cost, or no cost.
Actually I'm not entirely sure what weaknesses the no cost resource has... I'm looking at you Yasuo.
It's because at high level they play meta champions, so there's no incentive for Riot to do anything as it would damage the professional scene. Zed and Lee have huge followings: for some reason Riot seems to think that nerfing them with be degrading for the game.
Or at least, that is what this predicament feels like. Attack Speed on Zed wasn't the problem at any point. It is his passive Attack Damage boost and his low energy costs that make him unbearable for any mana-using mage midlane now. You can't be aggressive because you'll go OOM before you can kill him and his ability to Turn-and-kill is one of the best in the game after Level 4. You can try to conserve mana and farm...but not really because you can't spam abilities like Zed can.
To balance Zed: RIOT HAS TO INCREASE HIS ENERGY COSTS. Stop making us feel like you're catering to the top champions until everyone is sick of them, even if you're not. It feels bad playing against Zed. It's a one-sided lane. This opinion has a LOT of following to it everywhere across the board.
I won't even go into Lee Sin. I'd rather save energy walking around a hill then trying to walk up it.
