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Can we make a Mana equivalent for non-magical champions?

48983507DEL1·5/1/2017, 9:48:00 PM·2 votes·513 views

Okay so the title is a little confusing, so let me explain.

Mana is portrayed as a fuel for magical abilities, at least in most fantasy games. Essentially, a character will spend Mana to magically empower an attack, such as casting a ball of electricity or creating an illusion. The ability to use magic is gated by how much Mana a character has available to them in the same way that keeping a fire going is gated by how much fuel you have available for it.

However, Mana doesn't gate physical activity. That's why most characters in MMOs and RPGs have an extra Stamina bar, since non-magical characters don't need Mana to do perform their feats.

So why does it cost Mana for Darius to swing his axe in a circle? Or for Caitlyn to fire a net out of her rifle? These aren't magical activities, and some characters do the same things WITHOUT Mana gates, so why do this?

Maybe on characters like Darius or Fiora, you could introduce a Stamina bar. It would be essentially equivalent to Mana in every aspect, just with a different name and a different color (like Black or Purple).

This definitely doesn't need to happen at all, but it would be a nice little edition.

5 Comments

Micbran5/1/2017, 10:02:06 PM2 votes

There's zero point, it would just add more confusion.

Big Lincoln5/1/2017, 9:52:18 PM1 votes

so it would just be a different colored mana bar?

Zezockary5/1/2017, 9:58:14 PM1 votes

They DO need magic to perform those actions though. Where do you think Caitlyn's endless supply of nets come from? We can assume the hextech rifle itself makes the bullets it fires with a built in magic of some sort, but in my opinion if the champ is using mana then they are using magic. Likewise, Darius's Q is using magic to empower his blade and steal life from those hit by it.

Basically, they are using magic to enhance themselves or their tools, or to create things out of nothing (or summon them).

Dynikus5/1/2017, 10:12:20 PM1 votes

Why would Darius swinging his axe heal him if he wasn't imbuing it with some type of magic?

Kiharon5/1/2017, 10:46:45 PM1 votes

This would be a lot more effort than you've implied and has negative gameplay impact, but all it gives in return is a small amount of "lore" flavor.

What you get:

  • Characters that currently have mana but don't do "magical" things with it now call it something else

What you spend:

  • Decide which characters get said name changes (What's the cutoff for "magical enough"? What if some skills are and others aren't?).
  • Decide if all characters get the same new resource name or if there will need to be multiple new names. (I hope not, but now that we've opened this door, we'd have to investigate it.)
  • New color(s) in the resource bar that players have to recognize but still treat mentally exactly the same as mana.
  • New name(s) that must be created and translated to all the supported languages.
  • New name(s) must be changed for appropriate characters
  • New name(s) must be added to items, runes, and masteries to indicate that they provide these "new resources" since they really are just mana.
  • Explanation in patch notes about the new name(s) (and why it is worth the above costs to put in instead of whatever else those people would have been doing).
  • [bonus] Third parties must also update their websites for all of the above changes.