A not so new approach to balance

Myself- Top lane main since season 2 - platinum for last 2 seasons.

TL: DR - Mana pots were removed so mana casters have to be more mindful about how often they can cast abilities -> resourceless/energy/auto attack reliant champions were all left out of that balance update. If you want to keep a champ blatantly overpowered, fine, just give them proper risk for their reward.

We've seen plenty of champions rise and fall with the simplest of changes, and when we think about balance we usually just consider damage vs utility.

As far as I remember, balance for each skill resolved around many factors; range, cost, damage, offensive/defensive synergy with the champ, utility (from speed to crowd control). So for this post I'm going to focus on the cost of a skill.

Each of these factor in to the risk vs reward of every action we make in the game. And lately there hasn't been enough risk with many champions.

I've noticed all too hard that the current line up for most popular champs are very well damn near abusive.

Zed can freely pick off kills with the cleanest escapes (countered by QSS or zhonyas but forcing a champ who was out of position to pop their defensive item means death regardless). His costs are energy which don't equate to much, they can be freely spammed and will regen by the time cooldowns are up.

Jax currently is very abusive with the new guinuus filling in the niche of multiple items needed previously to reach his level of damage. Very low mana costs (hardest hitting move costs 20), he can stick to people and burst harder an assassin for 1/3 of the mana costs and requiring less items.

Fiora after her rework hasn't been left alone. A pure powerhouse requiring little items, she can unleash an onslaught worthy of the LCS without the need to even think about her mana.

Darius is another piece of work with much free damage built into his kit where he doesn't need to spam abilities to kill someone, one round and auto attack sticking will guarantee anyone dying.

The point I'm making is that champions are allowed to hit like trucks without any repercussions to their physical cost. For example Talon needs to get fed to reach the damage an assassin should, but it's difficult when his rake hits for less damage than an auto attack at level 1, has a huge mana cost, and requires glass cannon damage stacking to deal substantial damage.

Instead of being preoccupied with looking at a champions damage output or his they play, simply raise mana cost / give mana costs to resourceless champs. Mana pots were removed so mana casters needed to be more mindful about spamming their abilities. Well you left resourceless/energy/ auto attack reliant champions out of that balance update.

Yasuo shouldn't have 3 passives which clearly remove his early game weakness counterplay that's supposed to exist and will be allowed to freely spam his no-cooldown gap closer all day to dodge, engage, and disengage whenever he wants. Where's the mindful risk vs reward? Give him mana costs so he has to be mindful of how he spams his abilities.

Riots favoritism is really sinking this game. I'd like to see some real changes. If you want to keep champions overpowered, fine. But give them proper risk for their power.