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The Case of Athene's and Mana

RomanorumLegio·9/10/2014, 4:48:42 AM·3 votes·1,169 views

As a mage main (specifically Viktor) I would like to speak about a key game topic: Mana.

Riot uses mana to aid in balancing which is very fine in its own right. However, there has been a rise of manaless and non-managated champions. These champions basicly are only limited by cooldowns, and this gives a significant advantage in siege situations, prolonged teamfights, and in lane-sustain. Due to the current importance of these situations to the meta, nearly all heavily managated champions, specifically old-school mages are forced to build mana or mana regeneration.

This should be okay, but unlike other champions, managated mages become useless if they run out of mana. ADCs have their autoattacks to fall back onto (mage autos come close to a non-factor in the grand scheme of fights). Tanks will still be tanky without mana. Fighters will still be tanky and have autos that sting.) If an assassin runs out of mana while trying to do his/her job, then he/she was trying to assassinate the unassassinatable. This again, forces managated mages to purchase mana or mana regeneration.

Most champions that have severe mana problems tend to be older champions, which is understandable. Mana itemization was more welcoming, especially at earlier levels because of the existence of the Meki Pendant. For 390 gold, it provided +7 mana regeneration which is the flat amount that Chalice of Harmony provides. This meant that itemization was gernerally more mana-saturated compared than now, and many older champions have mana costs/regen/pools balenced to this. Urgot Galio Lux Sion Poppy Orianna Viktor ect.

Many of the severely managated champions, especially mages, can run Athene's dry with mana regeneration runes.

Athene's Unholy Grail is currently the only item that can support the mana costs of these champions if they are to be competetive with the manaless and non-managated champions. Tear can work ocassionally, but for most champions it takes far too long to charge up because of cooldowns. This creates a terrible situation where a group of champions are relient on an item, so direct nerfs and buffs to the item directly nerf and buff the champions. Unfortunately, Athene's is not a niche item, so other champions can pick it up when it's strong and ignore it when it's weak.

An added problem for champions reliant on Athene's is with its stats as well. There are many cases where enemy team compositions make Magic Resist become a cost-ineffective stat. Many people will say to just pick up Morellonimicom due to it having more ability power instead of Magic Resist. This does not work, however, because it lacks the all-important Manafront passive.

In summation and for those who didn't read, managated mages need lots of mana and are stuck with Athene's.

In my opinion, the steady nerfs to Athene's (along with that darn mobility creep) are responsible for the decline of immobile, old-school mages. Released during the Darius patch and buffed in the Jayce patch (Stats: current passives, +15 mana regen, 40MR, 15% CDR, and 90AP (Shut -up about it being OP now)), Athene's was originally design to be a strong late-game item, but attempts have been made to turn it into a more situational-niche item. Although, it can never be niche with how core it is to many champions.

My personal solution is to remove the MR from the base Chalice. This would allow different builds, one with MR, another with armor, and maybe one entirely offense based with no defenses. The key part would be that since the MR and Manafront passive would not come from the same base item, further items could have the key Manafront passive without creating problems by dragging on MR too.

I want to have a discussion here, so other ideas are appreciated. Anything that I overlooked? Anything that I just got plain wrong? General ideas on the situation?

5 Comments

Tapu Fini9/10/2014, 1:19:41 PM1 votes

I would like to see more itemization options for the heavy mana spenders, and I do think they need to take a moment and consider making Athene's less critical for so many mages. It should be an item for the champions who spam the most, or have the highest costs (See: Xerath), not core on nearly every caster because no other mana item can keep any sort of pace with it.

I believe a large part of the issue is that some mages simply cannot function without Athene's due to their high mana costs and/or spam-heavy nature. Athene's was implemented to help this, but was far too strong on champions with mid to low range mana costs. It basically allows long-range, low mana champions to lane indefinitely, and that's holding back the high-cost mages from getting what they need.

Cloud Potato9/11/2014, 2:30:27 PM1 votes

In an environment where every AP champion buys Athenes, those that no longer need to manage their mana will outclass those that do. The reasoning is simple: if everyone is sinking 2600 Gold into rushing an item every game, then how each champion performs at that point is very important. If Athene's is not mandatory, then champions who need it will buy it, whereas those who don't will buy something else, and the variety created by this means more potential combinations and a lower chance of outclassing occurring.

How do we bring more diversity? Nerfing Athene's is a sound solution. The nerf needs to hit the champions who do not have much mana issues the hardest though. There is another item that builds out of Chalice: Mikael's Crucible. I think a nerf that makes these two items further seperated from one another is the right way to go. I would personally take the CDR from Athene's (or reduce it to 10% at least). Champions who want to spam abilities get more mana regen and 20% CDR for picking Mikael's, but get no AP for hitting harder. Athene's could get more AP to compensate so that while you do get more out of each individual ability, you won't be using them as often.

Another potential fix is more mana / mana regen item diversity. Seraph's is a very powerful item but has a tradeoff of being weak to begin with. It doesn't really compete with Chalice because it competes with itself. Rod of Ages is in a similar position, where it's very powerful in the end but you have to deal with being crappy until then. Chalice doesn't have such a harsh tradeoff for itself, as while its offense isn't too strong until Athene's its components are much easier to build and once its complete it's done, rather than waiting for stacking. The other mana items don't even come close, so I won't mention them, and the other mana regen items are decent but the mana regen part is just miles behind. Changing some of the other mana / mana regen items could bring Athene's down a peg as other champions that could synergise with the other items would be better.

In short, Athene's being mandatory means that the champions who abuse it best rise to the top. We need to bring other items up to par, and two potential solutions is to hit Athene's somewhere that will punish champions without mana issues hardest, or buff other mana / mana regen options so champions who synergise with them can get relatively better.