Manaless Champions
I've been curious for a long time about what goes into the decision to make a champion manaless. Recently, we've seen the rise to prominence of many manaless champs, and several new manaless champions have been introduced. Now, like many players, I don't enjoy being OOM, so more manaless champions seems like a fun idea to me. But when I think about it, it strikes me as odd from a balance perspective... Mana is another thing players need to keep track of, much like cool downs, keeping them from using their abilities too many times in rapid succession. Obviously, this makes more sense for some champions than others. What I always wondered about is what is the trade-off for being manaless? Surely if a champion is going to be handed an advantage like that, or perhaps more accurately, relieved of a disadvantage that the majority of champions need to worry about, there should be some drawback in exchange.
Surely we can all agree that if there were two otherwise identical champions, one with a mana pool one without, the manaless champion would be considered superior, so being manaless is certainly an advantage. Obviously, things aren't as simple as that, as no two champions have the exact same abilities, so it's hard to analyze being manaless in a vacuum, there are so many other factors to be taken into account when comparing two champions. But sometimes I feel that certain manaless champions get this advantage essentially for free. They get to use their abilities all day without worrying about running out, and don't seem to need to give up any advantage in exchange for this ability.
Now, obviously I'm not claiming that all manaless champions are overpowered or unbalanced, that would be a gross oversimplification, and more to the point, not accurate. In fact, there are numerous manaless champions who are barely considered viable in the current meta. So my main question is, what makes them balanced? There are very few manaless champions who I would point to and say "this is unbalanced", and in the cases of the manaless champions who I feel are unbalanced, it's usually not the fact that they are manaless that leads me to that conclusion. Therefore I'm forced to conclude that Riot has somehow made these manaless champions balanced, but I can't put my finger on how. What did they do that keeps these champions from getting an advantage for free, because for the life of me, I can't figure it out. I see manaless champions and say, "this seems fair, but I don't know why." Why does it feel okay for this champion to be allowed to go without a consumable resource that so many other champions are forced to play around?
TL;DR: What makes a manaless champion balanced, and what do you think Riot considers when they decide to make a champion manaless? What keeps these champions from being unfair? I'm not complaining about the existence of manaless champions, most of them seem fair to me, but I can't put my finger one why I feel that way, when my instincts tell me that being manaless should normally be an unfair advantage.
