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Can someone @Rito reasonably explain the shift away from immoble mana mages + mastery nerfs?

Lord Macaroni··84 votes·4,077 views

It's been painfully obvious that in balancing over the past year that more traditional, immoble mages with few to no escape mechanics have been slowly whittled down to utility support status, or just plain non-competitive. Popularity-wise, FOR THE MOST PART (excluding the rise of AP Kog'Maw and Cho'Gath mid - both have safe farming and end-game potential) a majority of immoble mages are barely picked in comparison to their resourceless/mobile counterparts.

And, with increasing nerfs to mana regen, there is no justification to pick an outdated mana-hungry mage like Lux, Swain, Anivia, or Brand over something like Zed, Ahri, or Katarina (and now Ekko). The main problem I have with resourceless/low-mana cost mobility champs is that they have absolutely no decisions to make in the mastery tree. They do not have to ever consider blinking twice at utility to sacrifice offensive power for staying power.

At this point, It's not really a secret that you don't want mages that are known to poke/farm/siege defend to be successful. It's no accident that you designed the baron buff, dragon buffs, stronger minions, weaker towers, and buffed tanks up to they way they are now to end games sooner. I'm just wondering if i'm missing something beyond the continuation of making over half of a champ pool completely inferior to mobile/resourceless picks just to make games end quicker with more flashy plays.

70 Comments

Dreadlocks30 votes

Sometimes i feel like they do this on purpose.. instead of making every champion a safe pick.. they make certain types of champs stand out.. S4 it was Mages with blue buff.. then it became assassins.. then it became adcs.. now its tanks... why cant every type be equally a solid pick?

SlytherinUmbreon9 votes

Because #Strategic Diversity

Remlap12236 votes

Because #LC$BIGPLAYS.

Biffolo3 votes

{quoted}

Sometimes i feel like they do this on purpose.. instead of making every champion a safe pick.. they make certain types of champs stand out.. S4 it was Mages with blue buff.. then it became assassins.. then it became adcs.. now its tanks... why cant every type be equally a solid pick?

Because that creates a stale meta that brings in less revenue. This keeps the game fresh and always changing.

Kuroi862 votes

This.

Keep the game shifting, mages will come around again for a while.

Yasu0 is dog3 votes

Personally, I don't consider Blizzard class balancing to be the pinnacle of game design.

AbodyHUN6662 votes

I think they try to force variety in the game this way. True balance can never be achieved, and with so many similar champions in the game, some will always be a better pick, than the other one. With these balance shifts people have to constatly relearn new aspects of the game, probably keeping the experience from becoming stale. I could be wrong though.

Vekkna1 votes

They could lower mana costs or lower CDs and reduce CD scaling on a shit load of mages without changing a single thing about the meta. A mage with full mana versus a Zed or Yasuo in lane is usually not in the mage's favor anyway.

The only thing mana or CD tweaks would do is allow mages to actually participate in the game instead of being totally underpowered mid game because they had to spend thousands of gold to have reliable access to any of their abilities.

DeynaTaggerung2 votes

I don't think they purposefully make one role stronger than the others but since as you said, "True balance can never be achieved", I mean it's like trying to to make Dark Chocolate, Milk Chocolate, and White Chocolate all be equally tasty. Of course personal preference, demographics, and the innate difference between types will affect this. So as you change aspects to create something like balance they each rise and fall depending on tons of variables. I think they've done decently with an impossible task. (with exceptions of course)

Fisk1 votes

Tanks stand out right now because they have been under powered for a long time. They are a little strong but nothing to dominant. Its true you need one on your team right now but that's honestly fairly healthy for game play because it shuts down assassins fairly well. It's pretty difficult to balance a game, especially one with so many champions and frankly, game balance is really quite good right now. Pretty much every champ that doesn't have significant kit issues is viable.

Gigablitz1 votes

Because there's itemization overlapping that creates problems. HP items are bought by tanks and fighters alike. Same goes for AP items - add in mages and assassins here. AD is bought by ADC, assassins and fighters.

So, making something good for one class will also buff another one.

The problem in my opinion is much deeper. There needs to be more systems changing to address this. My guess is they know but don't have the game code set up to help them that way, which is why it takes so much time for them to implement meaningful changes.

Aeolian Melodies26 votes

Some old champions just need to have their mana costs modernized. It makes no sense that Lux is OOM after a single rotation and Ekko can spam as much as he likes (let's not get started on non-mana champions). Same goes for supports, why do I run OOM with Lulu after a EWQ trade when Braum and Thresh never seem to know why they even have a blue bar under their HP?

Naramiel10 votes

[{quoted}](name=Aeolian Melodies,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=ONGjFiJb,comment-id=0005,timestamp=2015-06-01T23:30:03.693+0000)

Some old champions just need to have their mana costs modernized. It makes no sense that Lux is OOM after a single rotation and Ekko can spam as much as he likes (let's not get started on non-mana champions). Same goes for supports, why do I run OOM with Lulu after a EWQ trade when Braum and Thresh never seem to know why they even have a blue bar under their HP?

In general, they seem to have decided they regret having mana be a limiting factor... but they've responded by making ALL new champs have mana costs that are completely irrelevant, while older champs still run out frequently.

kunkudunk2 votes

Yeah biggest offenders are champs like braum and vel'koz. I love vel'koz, partially cause he can get in like 3 full rotations before running oom. That is way more appropriate than champs like lux with her 130 mana e. I had forgotten till they changed it this patch how absurd taric's heal cost was as it was leveled, maxing at 140. It wouldn't be to bad if many of these champs need their abilities to farm safely since they can't dash out.

Stiv12341 votes

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...

Anivias Q had a fcking 160 mana cost at rank 5. One hundred friggin sixty.

Oh, wait, that wasnt a galaxy far, far away...

FistOfSharkiesha3 votes

Upvoting for the Braum mention. His base damage is too high for how much of a slow and how little mana it costs on his poke. Build him full tanky, spam Winter's Bite every 4 seconds for permaslow, forget you had a mana bar because it's impossible to go oom.

Feathermane1 votes

nope

ChaoticPinecone1 votes

to be fair, thresh has some intense mana costs early game if he uses a full combo. But i still agree - lulu is meant to be pokey, while thresh can all in.

KazaLyn Shao17 votes

Riot: We want LCS "big plays", that look fancy even though they're mechanically simple. Next question.

Synx714 votes

[{quoted}](name=KazaLyn Shao,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=ONGjFiJb,comment-id=0002,timestamp=2015-06-01T19:41:12.257+0000)

Riot: We want LCS "big plays", that look fancy even though they're mechanically simple. Next question.

It's LC$ " big Play$"

Migrañaboy7 votes

LC$ big Pay$

ftfy

Stackless Python15 votes

How to get a Rioter to read your post:

  1. Make the topic about art work or your birthday
  2. Include a picture that isn't related to the actually post, but art work so it shows up as the topic icon
  3. Write your well thought out questions inside said topic and pray they read it

This seems to be the only way a Rioter is going to post on topic on their own boards.

Alternative idea:

  1. Post on Reddit
  2. Done
stealthfox947 votes

Swain and Brand are pretty decent though, just not very popular.

Feathermane3 votes

Swain is bad. Can't waveclear and at that point, you might as well play Poppy

Also, everyone bursts so hard right now the only time he gets to heal is when Zhonyas is active.

Stiv12341 votes

The fun thing is that 90 % of the guys who can actually burst him at Level 6 either have already died 2 times or have 3 CS.

ModAcademy Kayn5 votes

Swain mana hungry? Ah helllllll naw. It's not like you're not going to be farming CS anyways, so your passive is literally keeping your mana full.

Did they get too close? Q-E then farm while they run away. Do you want to do damage? W-Q-E while they once again runaway from the bird and then farm Do you want to kill them? W-R-E-Q and stick on their asses till they die or flash. Then farm.

Plus Catalyst is pretty good for mana too :P

DeusVult3 votes

you have obviously never swaind

ModAcademy Kayn3 votes

I main him in fact. If my experience is different from others then can't really do much. I just never find myself low on mana.

TheMoonMan1 votes

this is exactly how you play swain actually.

Trundle Bundle2 votes

To add to this, Swain isn't a normal mana user. He is one of the legitimate cases of mana being a mechanic to manage and play around, rather than a simple throughput cap. The current state of mana does impact him, no doubt, but he can work around it in ways most champs can't.

ModAcademy Kayn1 votes

I like how you put it. Very nice.

Stiv12341 votes

This is actually very true. Mostly mana is only there to keep mages drom spamming in the early game. In the late, mana is hardly noticable.

doviende5 votes

I'm curious how you fit Vel'koz into this, since he's an immobile mage with reasonable mana costs, and does well in solo queue in multiple positions (played top, mid, support in challenger). He has a low pick rate, perhaps due to meta game fads, but not due to win rate.

Lord Macaroni2 votes

{quoted}

I'm curious how you fit Vel'koz into this, since he's an immobile mage with reasonable mana costs, and does well in solo queue in multiple positions (played top, mid, support in challenger). He has a low pick rate, perhaps due to meta game fads, but not due to win rate.

Vel is in an ok spot, pretty balanced, but that's mainly because of how able he is to safe farm from a distance, true damage, and has modernized mana costs vs his waveclear/poke/kite ability. He's the modern immoble mage done right, but like you said he's not very popular.

MrButtermancer1 votes

Vel is still not ideal, because honestly he scales better on magic pen than on AP. Itemizing for him is a freaking joke, he barely benefits from gold. Which is why he gets played as support.

Devack The Holy1 votes

You forgot that building M. Pen on him almost ensures that he burns through tanks in addition to his passive.

ActualPain5 votes

DEATH TO MANA!!

His Goatliness5 votes

I think the balance team just genuinely hate's mages. They think immobile characters can't make big plays, when they clearly can, so they just nerf them and hope that it makes the pro games more fun to watch. I'm willing to bet a lot of people agree with me when I say," Pro tournament matches are boring 90% of the time, and the commentators overplay everything to trick people into thinking it's fun to watch". Pro league games are like soccer.

Maybe one day dorans blade ashe mid will be meta again, and we can go back to when this game was fun.

Slamurai Jack4 votes

If you can't think of good reasons to pick Lux, Swain, Anivia, or Brand, you're not thinking hard enough. They all have very good reasons to pick them, especially in a tank dominated meta.

DanofDemacia3 votes

[{quoted}](name=Slamurai Jack,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=ONGjFiJb,comment-id=0006,timestamp=2015-06-01T23:32:26.960+0000)

If you can't think of good reasons to pick Lux, Swain, Anivia, or Brand, you're not thinking hard enough. They all have very good reasons to pick them, especially in a tank dominated meta.

Ahri is a lot better than lux in every situation,

Slamurai Jack6 votes

She's definitely not. Ahri can't 1 shot their adc from 1100 range. Ahri can't snare multiple people. Ahri can't shield a single person, let alone 3-4 people at once. Ahri can't wipe out half of a teams hp in an instant (3/4ths if Lux lands a good E first). I'm not saying that Lux is better than Ahri as a whole; she clearly isn't. But to say Ahri is better in every situation is ridiculous.

DanofDemacia2 votes

[{quoted}](name=Slamurai Jack,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=ONGjFiJb,comment-id=000600000000,timestamp=2015-06-02T00:13:07.568+0000)

She's definitely not. Ahri can't 1 shot their adc from 1100 range. Ahri can't snare multiple people. Ahri can't shield a single person, let alone 3-4 people at once. Ahri can't wipe out half of a teams hp in an instant (3/4ths if Lux lands a good E first). I'm not saying that Lux is better than Ahri as a whole; she clearly isn't. But to say Ahri is better in every situation is ridiculous.

But whos safer and whos better to stand behind tanks and shoot out spells the answer isnt lux. Who has arguably the best laning phase of all champions not lux. Get gud.

Slamurai Jack4 votes

I will grant that Ahri definitely has both stronger and safer laning than Lux. But safer teamfighting? I have to vehemently disagree. Yes, Ahri is much more mobile, and that is a form of safety in a teamfight. However, her kit by its very nature forces her into danger. If you want to hit your W, E, or ult on enemy squishies, you are going to need to dash past enemy tanks to do so, since her W and R are autotargeted to the closest enemies to your location and charm can be blocked. Even her Q only has 880 range, which very likely puts you into the threat range of enemy tanks if you want to hit squishies with it.

Compare that to Lux, who has 1175 range on Q, 1100 on E, and 3340 on her ult. That is an enormous range difference, and all of those spells can bypass the first target hit, with the E and ult being completely unblockable. If you ult their ADC as Lux, it doesn't matter how many bodyguards that adc has, he's going to get hit and lose at least half his health, and is likely 1 shot if you landed either Q or E before ulting. Yes, Lux has no mobility, but she has no need to be mobile to deal her damage, whilst Ahri is completely reliant on her ult to hit anything other than tanks. Having no mobility doesn't mean you can't be safe. Always being at 1000+ range of the enemy team sounds pretty safe to me.

P.S. Whats with people 900 elo below me telling me to get gud? You just look silly.

WookieJesuz4 votes

Anivia Brand Lux Velkoz Veigar RIP

TheI3igDaddy2 votes

They don't want to return to the afk farming meta of mid laners that promoted no flashy plays. Just 'Sit in lane for 20 mins then group for the game-deciding teamfight'. So, of course you can still use mages now, it's just that Riot doesn't want you to brainlessly farm.

Vekkna2 votes

But the current state of mages means they have to farm longer and safer to do almost anything. Think about Syndra for a second and the item barriers to her participating anywhere that's not under a turret:

  1. Has to buy pots to sustain in lane
  2. Has to buy tear or chalice early to poke
  3. Has to buy high AP to burst
  4. Has to buy defense to survive any all-in
  5. Has to get boots to catch anything
  6. THEN she has to hit 3 consecutive skill shots to get a kill in a duel

So you basically need about 4400 gold to get anything close to the power level that a Kat or Riven or Zed gets from the grueling work of hitting level 6.

A Syndra then has to continue on with building a fuckton of CDR to not be constantly skill locked in team and objective fights. There just aren't any advantages to mages except with sieging, which is becoming irrelevant since it's so insanely easy to tank a turret for the few seconds it takes for a fighter or adc to burn one down.

A mage without a global or pseudo-global presence is becoming a synonym for support. Mages like Syndra, Zyra, and Orianna would be so much more enjoyable if you could be rewarded for landing difficult skill shots instead of doing mediocre damage, being instantly oom, and then having punishingly long cooldowns.

TheI3igDaddy1 votes

And that's why I'm under the impression that the game will never be truly balanced until they balance resources. Right now, mana users are at a severe disadvantage. Energy users (excluding Kennen and Shen) seem to never run out and cooldown-based champs don't have long enough CD's.

It's why I think Kat's fucking retarded, because she's only gated by CD's, and then her passive snowballs her incredibly by removing said CD's.

Demonsolder212 votes

Malzahar But this guy is still the beast....

Miku Lv992 votes

Because Riot fails to understand how good mobility is so they fail at balancing.

You watch an LCS game and they talk like J4's ult to make an enemy use up a flash? J4 will take that trade any day. So yeah, LCS players and announcers know that even a simple mobility skill is better than an ultimate. And there are champions that have these on like a 4-second cooldown.

Riot is so in totally in the dark about this. They nerf Kassadin's ult from 700 range to 450. Seeing that mobility is insanely powerful, reducing someone's mobility by that much is a gargantuan nerf. But you know what they thought? From listening to their talkshow afterwards, one guy said that he heard that it got slightly shorter. LOL at this since he had no clue how big of a nerf this was. And Kass went from like 97% ban rate in the LCS to under 40% win rate.

Really they just need to nerf a lot of the mobile champions and buff a lot of the immobile ones.

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