It def makes him harder to play. I would have gladly given up base stats in every area just to have some greater forgiveness in the war on mana.
The Q cost is up 10, which isn't completely horrible - I guess the 5-second add on the W cooldown at earlier ranks will save me mana, but not in a way I'd have preferred.
I have deep misgivings about the war on mana as a general rule. Most champions that use mana are next to useless without it, and it's just fundamentally not a fun play experience to play a champion that can just do nothing but weakly flail its arms because it is so tired.
It would be one thing if you could still reasonably contest, just with more limited abilities. But you can go 100 health to 0 against near-dead opponents if you run out of mana and all their cooldowns come up, and there is no option except to back to the platform, and walk back slowly - which can easily cost you a kill's worth of gold alone for your opponent if
isn't up.
I wonder if a more nuanced approach to exhaustion/"energy" in gaming is necessary generally.