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The Problem With Mana Regen

LankPants··26 votes·2,484 views

Recently a lot of people have been talking about the overnerfed Athene's and it's effective replacement in Morello's. Riot nerfed Athene's because it's a 'cure all' for mana regen, and are nerfing Morello's for the same reason. I think there is a fundamental problem with mana regen, in that it's not a stat that you really ever want, it's a stat that you have to sink a certain amount of gold into to be relevant.

The only other stat in the game that shares this discrepancy from other stats is mana itself on champions outside of Ryze, but this problem is alleviated somewhat by Seraphs Embrace giving you extra AP and the shield. This makes mana feel better as a stat to build and makes it feel like less of a mandatory gold sink.

The main problem with mana regen is that it lacks anything at all to make it something that isn't just 'you need to sink 2.5K gold into this stat and never have to worry about it again'. There's no interesting uses for your mana regen, it just kind of sits there being a gold sink that you need to buy. I think that by making mana regen items with interesting passives and actives could help to make mana regen far more interesting, even more so if the effects were somehow bound to your mana regen.

26 Comments

Kowe The Ewok19 votes

Good post.

Heavy mana users had certain advantages for their high consumption. While ressourceless or energy using champions used to have significant downsides. With how Riot lately designed manaless and energy usign champions this concept has been thrown off.

Not using mana doesn't come with downsides anymore. Ressourceless champiosn don't come with meaningful weaknesses. hell, they even have compareable or better waveclear. Look at Zed: 6s Q AoE Q for 55 Energy while he regenerates 50 energy in 5s.

Having to invest in mana or mana regeneration was completely fine as long as it was tied to having access to a higher powerlevel making up for investing into mana-stats instead of AP/AD.

But now there are champions which are equal, or simply better in a direct comparison without even taking mana into account. If we now add the mana to this comparison it starts to be completely off for certain champions.

Kiwi Wizard8 votes

It always sucks when I have to throw in gold into mana regen items, while my Katarina opponent womps on me because I don't have enough AP to womp on her. ._. Besides the fact that I need mana regen, the mana regen items just don't seem worth it.

Kiwi Wizard1 votes

Well, I hope that makes sense. I'm not good at iterating my thoughts.

Quort3 votes

You did fine, I got what you were saying! Bonus points for adding "womp" in there! x3

Seriously, though, I have to agree. Investing into an item just so that I can consistently cast spells while Energy/Resourceless Champions already sustain better and are able to build straight damage kinda sucks. I don't know why I even bother trying to play immobile Mages in mid lane when every single match is Katarina/Zed/Yasuo.

Cindikle3 votes

Lower it's mana regen to 25% Change the passive to "Grants 25% mana regeneration. This is doubled for every 25% missing mana".

Makes it highly effective at low mana. Thus strong on siege champions. But the cost is that they will likely enter any fights low on mana. Maybe get a good rotation off then have to back off for a bit. And it doesn't require a mana pool to work. Which was just a bad change in general.

Problem with Athene vs Morello's is that they built to do the same thing. Mana sustain. This is fine for Morello's Athene's should be built for mana recovery. Recovering from low mana. Not sustaining. They should be built differently based on the game. Otherwise there will always be a "best option" between the two.

Then remove the regen off Tear and company. Add a new passive "Grants 25% mana regeneration for every 500 max mana.". This makes Tear the mana regen item for mana stackers. But it is still a lategame item.

Sire Hippington1 votes

sutain is recovery, if you just want to throw out as many spells as possible before going oom instead of recovering from beeing oom, you would go for flat mana instead of regen. The difference between morellos and athenes should ne that one is defenseive(mr) and one offensive(more ap) Hoever, since the mr-nerf on grail, the defensive part just isn't strong enough to really offer a choice.

Cindikle1 votes

A Ziggs with a tear and 25% regen wouldn't be able to play as a siege mage for very long. He's expecting to be throwing out spells. Mana stacking mages build that because they can expect to need a lot of mana to work in a teamfight.

Problem was that he could do this while never going below 50% mana on the old chalice.

The passive I suggested would allow him to do this at 25%-50% mana. But he'd still be a risk of going OOM. Just not as much. And the biggest threat would be that he wouldn't have the mana for constant team fighting. But with proper management he can still have more mana then he would with a Morello's without draining too much mana.

Sustain isn't necessarily recovery.

Sustain tends to refer to "over time". An ADC has high sustained damage. In League terms anyway. Recovery can mean sustain. But a heal from Nami isn't sustain. But it is recovery. It's more-so burst healing.

Thus why I used those terms. Morello's % never changes. But Athene's should give you a burst of % at lower man pools. Which it ideally does. When you have the mana pool for it's passive.

LankPants1 votes

Athene's should be built for mana recovery. Recovering from low mana. Not sustaining. They should be built differently based on the game. Otherwise there will always be a "best option" between the two.

They'd still be a best option between the two, it just wouldn't be as obvious at first. you need to create an incomparable between the two items which makes them fill completely different niches. More importantly it makes you want at least one of the two items, not just have to build it because if you don't you OOM to easily.

Then remove the regen off Tear and company.

Seraph's and Muramana are two of the very few interesting mana items in the game, they alone make the mana stat worth buying. Do not take that away from them.

Cindikle1 votes

They would fill different niche's. Morello's would be your standard mana sustain item. Athene's would be your "crap i'm low mana, better do something" item.

Morello's would be better on champions such as Lux who will be using spells here and there. But she's not spamming them every minion wave. She's not really expecting to be too low on mana unless something happens.

Athene's would be better on champions who would likely be wanting to throw more spells such as Ziggs and Xerath. But they wont be able to so easily have the mana for constant fighting if it breaks out. This was always meant to be the point of the item. And honestly it still could of done that if they just lowered the base mp/5 on the item instead of reworking everything.

Each on has an upside and a downside. It's about the situation. If you don't need Ziggs to be the master of waveclearing for the team. He can still get Morello's. If Lux can expect to do most of the waveclearing she can still get Athene's.

If you want to chose based on the MR vs AP. You can still do that if you're good at managing your mana or have good control on blue buff.

You also missed the part where Tear would get it's 25% mana back and a new passive to take place as the "mana stacker mp/5 item" since Chalice really shouldn't be in charge of that job.

LankPants1 votes

The problem is that all of the items fill the same overarching niche of giving more mana, so which ever gives more mana the best is the one that would be used.

Athene's would be better on champions who would likely be wanting to throw more spells such as Ziggs and Xerath.

Every mage ever wants to be able to throw around more spells. You give them an item that lets them and they'll buy it. The thing is you don't need more mana regen while you're at high mana so if chalice was at all viable it's logically better.

What I think would be a better way to go about it would be to make the two items distinct from each other. for example

Morellonomicon

Unique passive changed to> after regening 250 mana your next single target ability (or AA) deals bonus magic damage based off your level and applies grievous wounds to the target for 3 seconds.

and

Athene's Unholy Grail

Unique passive> mana regen doubled when out of combat for 10 seconds, if this effect is active you will gain a shield for 250% of your MP/5 upon taking damage, lasts for 1.5 seconds

While I don't expect these to be at all balanced it's a good example of how to make them different items while also making the MP/5 stat more interesting as they both scale with it.

Cindikle1 votes

The problem is that all of the items fill the same overarching niche of giving more mana, so which ever gives more mana the best is the one that would be used.

By that logic Bloodthirster and Blade of the Ruined King are overall the same because they both give lifesteal. But it really comes down to one gives a shield for extra sustain Other gives an active heal and a bit of CC Both give lifesteal and have an extra form of defense.

But in the end BotRK is built by those who need the self peel/extra burst/%hp damage. BT is built by those who need lots of AD. Although maybe not the best example as BotRK is currently considered OP and champions who built BT are not in favor of the meta.

Every mage ever wants to be able to throw around more spells. You give them an item that lets them and they'll buy it. The thing is you don't need more mana regen while you're at high mana so if chalice was at all viable it's logically better.

Of course every mage wants to pew pew more. The idea is that Chalice/Athene should only be better than Morello's at low mana. A siege champion that is expected to be using a lot of spells and is expected to be lower on mana should have an option to help with this. Athene did this in S4. Just too well.

If you change the base of the item to both regen the same but give other different functions. The same thing will happen. People will just figure out which one is better. Or people wont look at them as choosing your mana regen option.

It's the biggest problem with itemization in this game. Managing your mana and having the right mana regen item should be part of your itemizing. What you're looking for is them on equal terms. Then building mana regen becomes a task of "build X of this item till you have enough". Instead of choosing the item based on your mana regen needs.

junglerboy163 votes

Or they could actually take the time to tune each champion's mana pool and mana regen so that they are balanced around it. This would allow Riot to actually make use of mana as a realistic gating method, rather than a "buy a bunch of stats to make this gating go away".

The Yetii Rider2 votes

I'd certainly like to see an item that gave supports a bonus based on their mana per 5, seeing as how Sona has to build 3 Mana Regen items to stay relevant.

Pyro1 votes

What should happen is that mana regen and CDR should be distributed more among good and powerful items such as Rylai's Crystal Scepter (it has too much health for mages anyway) or Twin Shadows (which seems good on paper, but feels underwhelming when compared to other options) in order to allow them to compate with Athenes and Morellonomicon.

Sire Hippington2 votes

i kinda agree, though i do think there is a nother fundamental problem with manaregen: It'S entirely passive and un interactive. Usually, you either have not to much regen and are at a disadvantage vs no-mana users, or you have so much regen that you are basically a resourceless champ, which is particulary problematic with high range poke champs or high sustain champs. So I think we need other more interactive manarestoring mechanics instead/ontop of regen, thinking of xeraths passive. I also think missing mana based regen is a better aproach, as it helps staying relevant in a fight, but you won't be able to spam all skills on cd. This way, longranged champions adn sustain-supports would be forced to take some risks in order to sustain their spam, which would allow for more effecktive manasustain per gold without makeing it overpowered.

and besides that, offereing more different meaningfull sustain options would really help aswell.

ProfDrDeath2 votes

Or ways to circumvent mana costs in a pinch. For example, Athene's Blood Grail gets an active that makes the next spell you use cost double the mana in HP.

GaleWinUnleashed1 votes

I like the Evelynn mana sustain as an idea: Stay out of combat to regen faster. It's underwhelming on Evelynn in its current iteration, but I believe that it could be leveraged on a larger scale.

It's possible that raising mana costs a bit across the board, while also adding this mechanic to mana (or an item, whatever works), could greatly change engagement patterns and the uptime of certain champs. It would most strongly affect seige-type waveclear (hi Ziggs and Co.), disrupting their continual cadence of spells and leaving openings to engage.

Aurelius Maximus1 votes

Good post, and I agree to an extent but the reward of sinking gold into it is not having to worry about it. When I play ziggs, I often skip mana regen and go straight for damage bc i don't miss much. It makes my mana worth more and I win duels if i play well.

The advantage to buying mana is being able to spam. It's hard to strike a balance for mana between feeling choked and feeling like you are managing. It's difficult in this game because you typically need to use all your spells in fights all the time. Not always tho.

Sir Fuzzi1 votes

turn MP5 into the same thing as income, you get one item and you build it over the game and it gradually turns your mana problem into a mana non-issue

either that, or we find a way to balance resourceless champs-- higher cooldowns, higher costs for energy/other resources, or slowing regen in combat (alternatively, speeding up mana regen in combat?).

honestly, mana's never been such a huge problem as in this most recent patch. Athene's (and now Morello's) dying out as a viable one-off for mana-- expensive as it even is, and with as few additional benefits as it comes with these days (25 MR? joke's on you, chump)-- has signaled that we need new items for mana or a new solution to mana entirely.

ladention1 votes

**is mana itself on champions outside of Ryze ** and singed :D

RevyUp1 votes

{quoted}

**is mana itself on champions outside of Ryze ** and singed :D

If youre looking to stack health you're better off buying health. Singed just gets more of a benefit out of it because alot of mana items give defenses.

LankPants1 votes

Typical singed build

item 3027 item 3027 item 3027 item 3027 item 3027 item 3040

7ha7guy7771 votes

it seems like Rod of Ages is a much more cost effective way of getting the mana you need on some champions that have a "mana back" ability than the mana regen items than don't provide mana. however, you lose out on 20% cdr with that choice.

if you're going to spend 5k on mana (that's the amount i keep hearing thrown around for Orianna) then why not buy RoA and Morello? you get mana, mana regen, hp, 140-160 ap, cdr, grievous wounds, and the Valor's Reward passive

LankPants1 votes

It's cost effective but not great because of how most mages work. As a mage you have super high mana costs with above average mana and very good mana regen. Because of this buying a ROA gives you about 6 extra spell casts and an extra 2 or 3 whenever the passive procs. Mana regen on the other hand can give 15-20 extra spellcasts per base because it's multiplying an already high stat.

5K on mana is excessive on Ori IMO, I feel like or can get by with just a Morello and some mana management. On some more mana hungry mages like Swain and Anivia tear/morello or tear/ROA is super good though, I guess if you felt you needed it tear/morello could be good on Ori.

Raptamei1 votes

Mana only serves to prevent interaction by punishing aggression.

I bet Riot now wishes they never implemented this mechanic.

It's different in Dota because half of the laning phase is about recovering mana, but Lol is supposed to be more action based and less about strategy and number crunching.

LankPants1 votes

It's a necessary mechanic, it doesn't restrict aggression outside of a few edge cases like Cho and Poppy where they can often OOM before casting a full rotation. What it does is punish mindless spam, if I spam clear every minion wave I'll OOM super fast, if I just mindlessly throw poke towards enemies I OOM, if I go ham all in and try to kill my enemy I will almost always have enough mana.

The champs who feel the worst to play against are champs with no restrictions to wave clear, like Zed because they just shove every wave mindlessly and throw out infinite poke leaving you no opportunity to do very much other than shove back until you OOM.

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