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How many champions actually have mana as a MEANINGFUL resource OUTSIDE OF THE LANING PHASE?

Be Kind Rewind·12/30/2014, 6:37:27 PM·11 votes·2,599 views

It's well designed on, for example, Karthus Karthus , because he needs to be able to have his E up whenever (so it can't be cooldown gated without ruining him) BUT it drains mana massively.

The result? You only use it when it's wise to, and sparingly. You're also encouraged to use your Q to farm to maintain your mana. Mana is a meaningful gate on him.

The same can be said for Anivia Anivia with her ultimate. It needs to be able to be activated at a moment's notice, but without being infinitely spammable. Hence the heavy mana costs + toggle-ability. Mana is a meaningful gate on Anivia. (although she's a little bit on the weak side right now, unfortunately, considering the mana cost of her ulti and the chalice AND blue buff nerfs.)

Swain Swain functions in the exact same way. But then - see the pattern? These champions need mana as a gate because their power is toggle-able. But why on champions with long cooldowns? Take a random resourceless champion and a resource using one. Gnar Gnar and Lux Lux. They both have similar harass patterns, both have long-ranged poke and utility and CC. But one of them gets to never run out of a resource ever. The other is Lux.

But how many Mana champions are generally just gated by cooldowns, with the occasional, "Oh shit, my opponent automatically wins this fight because I happened to run out of mana at this moment. Dang."?

For the most part, mana is useful as a gate during laning phase for some like Xerath and Lux. But after laning, it is nothing more than "you occasionally don't get to fight anymore cause you happened to go oom, sorry. (Energy & resourceless champions can still keep going though.)"

Not only this, but Riot is releasing more and more energy & resourcless champions who are gated by cooldowns only (if at all), so you don't get that cheap 'fuck im useless because i have an arbitrary resource and my opponent doesn't' feeling. I mean, when was the last time you saw a Zed go out of energy? Why doesn't Rek'Sai need mana? Gnar was one of the strongest picks in the game for awhile, and he is, once again, another resourceless champion with similar cooldowns to mana-users...

It honestly feels like it's only purposeful to restrict harass-spam during laning, but afterwards, serves nothing but an occasional punch in the face when you run out of mana at a key moment/teamfight etc. (And your resourceless opponent gets to carry on casually.)

So wasn't chalice being the one-stop mana solution a good thing? It kept mana champions from being arbitrarily gated more than resourceless & energy champions during the mid-late game, but it still kept them from being able to spam nonchalantly early game.

I'm just tired of seeing new, EXTREMELY STRONG resourceless champions and thinking, "If they used mana, everyone would think it was balanced. So why do they get to be resourceless? And why do I have to juggle a resource when they don't?" RekSai Gnar

43 Comments

SmokingPuffin12/30/2014, 6:43:42 PM7 votes

Ahri Alistar Ashe Blitzcrank Cassiopeia Corki Diana

That's just up through the Ds. I got bored fast. Most champions with mana have mana management considerations.

A better question is "on the champions that generally don't have mana gating, would adding mana gating to them improve the game?"

I mean, when was the last time you saw a Zed go out of energy?

Zed actually has much harder resource gating than most mana champions. Easy to make him go OOE if you juke his stuff.

So wasn't chalice being the one-stop mana solution a good thing? It kept mana champions from being arbitrarily gated more than resourceless & energy champions during the mid-late game, but it still kept them from being able to spam nonchalantly early game.

Chalice was broken. It made mana costs not a thing, which in turn made the built-in risk/reward calculations in things like Ahri E not a thing.

"I don't want to manage mana" is a fair complaint, but the solution to that is definitely not an item. Maybe some mana champions would become better kits if they became resourceless. Can talk about that on a case by case basis. For the above list of A-D, though, I can only argue for Diana as a potentially more interesting resourceless champion.

Drunk Rummate12/30/2014, 8:42:42 PM2 votes

Honestly I think mana vs energy is a cool mechanic, but it's just been implemented wrong.

Mana regeneration could be very low in general, but mana pools then could be much much larger. Imagine if every mana champion basically had double their total mana, but regen was halved. This this would bring out true mana management.

The other problem is that mana champions are gated by cooldowns equally to manaless champions. This sort of removes the usefulness of having mana because you don't have the ability to "blow your load" so to speak, like an energy champion can.

Sure, you run out of energy with Zed after a WEQ in lane. But early on this has minimal impact since your cooldowns are long enough that you're topped off by the time you can W again. Orianna on the other hand does equal damage to Zed with her QW but at the semi-permanent cost of ~1/3 her mana pool early on. She can do that 2 more times over the period of her cooldowns, while Zed is allowed to repeat this process permanently. It makes laning very one sided and the mana gated champion has no ability to fight back aside from completely outplaying their opponent, dodging everything and spending minimal resources to do so.

As the game progresses Zed's energy costs get reduced. Akali still gets energy back from her Q. Lee Sin never runs out of energy because his costs were designed poorly due to his passive. But a mana champion has their costs increased. Why?

Drunk Rummate12/30/2014, 6:58:29 PM1 votes

ahri and syndra are the first two my mind jumps too, especially because they generally rush DFG over a mana item.

these days orianna runs out of mana quickly even with a completed athenes. i've been building RoA on her a lot lately due to the mana issues i have with her.

i oom pretty quickly on Azir once i finish my second morellonomicon, funnily enough. despite the 200% mana regen it also brings 40% cdr which ends up costing more mana than it brings.

i've basically given up on playing diana in soloqueue because without blue buff i'm just constantly oom, and i only seem to be given blue buff in about 20-30% of my games as mid.

i go oom with jinx pretty regularly, as do most people who use her rockets properly in the early-mid game to harass and teamfight.

i play a ton of sivir and whenever i max Q instead of W i'm perpetually oom. it's kinda sucky and it feels like i should run into skillshots with my E to get it back, but whenever i try that always seems to be when someone on my team decides to hard engage and we lose because i cant shield the ahri charm or something.

Kowe The Ewok12/30/2014, 7:06:55 PM1 votes

Mana is meaningful on Orianna... These days she can't even keep her mana up with 2 mana items after the mreg nerfs.

The Legend Momo12/30/2014, 7:10:00 PM1 votes

Rek sai's kit just doesn't work with mana, with such short cd's she would run out of mana very quickly. Now if they i reworked her kit to run on energy instead of fury i would be ok with that.

AccountaBilabudy12/30/2014, 7:58:05 PM1 votes

Nocturne has mana issues. Kassadin has mana issues. Diana has mana issues. Taric has mana issues. Poppy has mana issues. Urgot has mana issues.

AccountaBilabudy12/30/2014, 7:58:26 PM1 votes

And Shen has energy issues. Probably the only one.

Kuroi8612/30/2014, 8:20:10 PM1 votes

How many champions actually have mana as a MEANINGFUL resource OUTSIDE OF THE LANING PHASE?

Not many, but then, mana is really only meant to gate most champs early game. By mid/late game, most champs should either have the additional mana/mana regen to go a few skirmishes before needing to back. Any champ that needs additional mana gating typically has an aspect of their kit, in particular the part that needs gating, which in and of itself has a built in gate. Examples that come to mind are Kassadin KogMaw

I mean, when was the last time you saw a Zed go out of energy?

Play Zed once, I dare you. You'd beg for a mana based champ after you realized how hard energy champs are gated.

AccountaBilabudy12/30/2014, 8:46:02 PM1 votes

Shen has serious energy issues. Miss a Taunt? GG might as well spam B.

Sammystorm12/30/2014, 9:02:17 PM1 votes

energy for most champions is a good gate in the sense that it is better earlier but worse later. Mana has a much larger pool then energy so late you can casta lot more spells in a row then a energy user can.

SleepyLionCub12/30/2014, 9:04:11 PM1 votes

I agree. Make mages resourceless.

GloriousKaiser12/31/2014, 2:11:08 AM1 votes

Dang it, now I want Garen to have mana just for a chance at an excuse to say he's complex because he's gated by more than just CDs.

Brenticus1212/31/2014, 3:49:32 AM1 votes

Kassadin gets cockblocked by mana when he uses his rift walk one too many times.

Alistar Even late game can get cockblocked by no mana because his combos and heals use up so much (Plus the heal is pretty shit unless you spam it)

Cassiopeia I'd say she runs out of mana faster outside of laniing phase than in unless she's just killing off champions like they're CS.

Manwad12/30/2014, 6:51:20 PM1 votes

Now, it's Xerath.

High mana costs, very high damage with a mana sustain tool in his passive, but it requires him to auto attack something.

Also Vel'Koz due to how spammy all of his spells get. He can drain mana like no tomorrow.