Modest Viktor buff proposal

Reduce the mana cost on his Q.

Riot has made it pretty clear that they expect all mana-gated mages to rush a mana item. But Viktor can't, because of his hexcores. Manaflow band nerf was very warranted, but it makes him oom even faster in early lane, where he already struggles a lot.

His Q mana cost isn't that high to begin with. But his mana costs are pretty high on all his other abilities. He goes oom very fast trying to trade with anyone, or even just trying to keep up with waveclear before he completes hexcore mk1.

I don't think you can really reduce the mana cost on his E, because the high mana cost is the only thing gating it. It's long range, very difficult to dodge, and gives him massive wave clear.

You can, however, reduce the mana cost on his Q. His Q is already gated in other ways. It's very low range, and gives plenty of opportunity for counter attack if he's spamming it aggressively.

Viktor feels circumstantially pretty strong at the moment, but he has a lot of really tough match-ups. Reducing the mana cost on his Q would give him a little more flexibility to Q for the shield against the mages who can really bully him in lane right now (early game bullies like and long range pokers like ). I don't think this change would overbuff him in those lanes where he already does fine.

(Big picture... I think Riot should take a look at his E. It makes him very hard to balance. Either increase the counterplay or reduce the waveclear, which would frees Riot up to make his first two purchases less punishing. But this would be a nice band-aid until that happens)