The Nerfs to Mana Regen & Chalice/Athene's Reduce Strategic Diversity: Analysis and Discussion
TL;DR: The recent nerfs to mana regeneration, especially to Chalice of Harmony and Athene's Unholy Grail, reduce strategic diversity and Riot's stated goal of preseason 2015. Obvious TL;DR is obvious, old meme is old.
**Obligatory Great Wall of Text Warning. This is an analysis of Riot's actions regarding mana regeneration in light of their stated goals in the preseason developer blog and the 4.20 patch notes, and present some possible ideas for solutions near the end. It's all gonna be long and detailed. That's why the TL;DR is up front. Proceed at your own risk. **
Here are some relevant quotes from the Preseason Dev Blog and the 4.20 Patch Notes to set the stage for our analysis and discussion.
"This preseason, we’re looking for ways to support more strategic diversity in League of Legends." -- Preseason 2015: Increasing Strategic Diversity Dev Blog
"Since we believe that League is at it’s best when multiple strategies are battling it out on the Rift, we had to target champions to bring strategies in line to allow others to emerge. We’re hoping the path being set by the 2015 pre-season will allow us to create an ecosystem where multiple strategies can prosper... and kill each other." -- Preseason 2015: Increasing Strategic Diversity Dev Blog
"A common theme you’ll notice is a focus on specialized offense but generalized defense. What this means is your offensive strategy is going to be strengthened by specializing into it. If you want to opt into a specific strategy, you’re best off picking a team comp and purchasing items that enable this strategy." -- Preseason 2015: Increasing Strategic Diversity Dev Blog
"Another major focus is on deepening the demands on players and champions so that there are more ways for a champion to express strength and power."
-- Preseason 2015: Increasing Strategic Diversity Dev Blog
"Unlike Tear of the Goddess, Chalice 'turns on' (ie: accesses a majority of its power) very early as a purchase, giving both defensive stats and piles of mana regeneration to safely push / farm. As a result, most mid-laners who don't want to deal with mana problems (or interacting with their opponent) can just rush a Chalice before figuring out the rest of their items. While these changes are definitely a nerf to Chalice (particularly when it's rushed), our goal is to reduce its value as a "one-stop shop" for mana regeneration while also increasing the amount of time it takes for a player to fully tap its strength." -- Patch 4.20 Notes (emphasis is mine)
When I watch LCS play, I can see what Riot talks about regarding "mid-laners who don't want to deal with mana problems (or interacting with their opponent)". In fact, the part in parantheses is the part that needs to be bolded, italicized, and shouted from the highest mountain: there is a very real and prominent strategy that many high-level midlaners use their abilities to simply clear waves, safely farming gold and experience while never threatening the enemy midlaner, only to explode the Rift with their AP carry power during teamfights around objectives such as dragon, towers/inhibitors, or Baron. And there are champions that seem to do very well on this playstyle. I see Xerath as the epitome of "farmception mages" but other contenders include Ahri, Brand, Syndra, Ryze, and I'm sure others. And Riot is right: this playstyle is rather boring and offers low counterplay, and therefore is a net loss in strategic diversity.
So, in order to nerf these mages (or more accurately their players) who solely focus on farming without every threatening the enemy midlaner, Riot nerfed mana regen, arguably the most correct statistic for the task, since these mages use their abilities to farm and rely on mana regen to clear waves.
However, there is a second class of mages that do afford themselves to a more aggressive playstyle. Azir, Vel'Koz, Ziggs, Swain, and Twisted Fate (and others, I'm sure) all have kits that enable the player to actively seek, and even create, opportunities for big plays through constant skirmishing and harassment of the enemy, then going ham with devastating plays if they can catch their opponent out. These mages rely on mana regeneration as the primary source of their playmaking ability. To use Riot's own words, these skirmishing mages needed that "early turn-on" of power that Chalice and Athene's used to bring.
Therefore, in Riot's attempt to nerf the farmception mages through their mana regen, they actually rendered the skirmishing mages almost completely unviable. What will actually happen, should these changes remain as-is, is that high-ranked players and LSC teams will instead double down on farmception mages because the game no longer has the mana regen to support skirmishing mages. Farmception mages will continue to offer the most safe and successful returns (wins) for their picks because skirmishing mages can't capitalize on their abilities: skirmishing mages can't make the plays their kits ought to allow because they no longer have any sustain. This obviously results in an even greater net loss of strategic diversity, exactly the opposite of Riot's stated and intended goal of this preseason.
So there is our problem: skirmishing mages no longer have the resources necessary to support the their own kits, while farmception mages took a relative slap on the wrist. Simply returning to Season 4 Chalice/Athene's won't solve anything because it's a sum-zero exchange; while skirmishing mages would get their needed mana regen back, it would also mean the same to farmception mages as well.
So the current system isn't viable (at least for skirmishing mages, and neither is "going back to the way things were". What, therefore, could be a solution?
Treat yourself to a cookie for making it this far. I hid this in the middle because I figured skimmers won't see this in the middle of all this nerdy goodness. Go on, really, you deserve it. Don't worry, I won't go anywhere. Okay, ready?
I play a very mana-hungry Lucian/Sivir/Caitlyn. I'm always running out of mana whittling down my opposition and setting up opportunities, and therefore when I'm trying to take those opportunities in earnest, I'm unable to do so. And that sucked. At least until Essence Reaver came out. I still have to buy a couple mana pots every recall before I complete Reaver, but once I do, I never have to worry about mana ever again.
Perhaps the same kind of thing can be offer to mages, in a way that is meaningful to them; a kind of "spell-mana-vamp". Such an item or item line could have a unique passive that reads something like "when an enemy is hit by your abilities, restores X% of your missing mana". This would solve most of the current problems for skirmishing mages by giving them meaningful sustain as well as an incentive to engage the enemy laner; meanwhile farmception champions would have no interest in buying this item or line because they are focusing on not fighting the enemy laner and not using their abilities on champions until mid-to-late game. Such an item or line could put skirmishing mages back into viable play while keeping farmception mages from total dominance; this can only result in a net increase of strategic diversity, and it would be far more interesting to play and watch the mid-lane.
Another possible solution could be to make a kind of clone of Spellthief's Edge/Frostfang/Frost Queen's Claim, giving mages bonus gold and/or damage (and/or spell-mana-vamp (as above)) for hitting enemy champions with a spell. This again rewards skirmishing mages without directly demanding the enemy laner answer with the same item. Unlike the support line, this passive couldn't be disabled when the mage killed a minion, for obvious reasons. However, this potentially is too open to abuse by non-mages and non-mid-laners looking to leverage gold and damage advantages. This new problem could in turn be possibly resolved in a manner similar to the new Hunter's Machete and upgrades being restricted to players running with Smite; obviously the criterion for purchasing this item/line would be different. Because I'm coming up with these solutions as I write this, I'm realizing implementing this hypothetical item would be more complicated than I originally thought when I started writing this paragraph, but if it can happen with jungle role and items without too much hardship, doing something similar in mid-lane can't be that much more complex. And, just like jungle items and roles, implementing such an item or line could only have a net gain in strategic diversity.
In closing, I would like to invite Riot to consider alternate ways to reduce the domination of farmception mages without punishing skirmishing mages through across-the-board brutal nerfs to mana regen, and I would like to offer my own ideas expressed here as foundations/inspirations for discussions and possible solutions.
I'd also like to take this opportunity to mention that I'm really excited about the direction League of Legends is taking and I look forward to many more hours in your great game. Thank you very much, Riot, for all your hard work.
~SquirrellyOtter
