A way to bring back Mana Burn

doublelift fg·Mar 3, 2015·3 votes·627 views

EDT/ attacks burn mana equal 10% of your target's AP

mana burn was removed because bruisers were useless against this item. Well, then just do this so bruisers won't be hurt since they don't build AP

30 Comments

mjack33Mar 3, 20153 votes

Let's look at the effects:

Current Mid: Akali Katarina Zed Yasuo Ahri Leblanc Ezreal

New Mid: Akali Katarina Zed Yasuo

Just an example....

I..... realistically I think you have not seriously thought about the effects of this. I think you like the idea and want to be able to do this to people, but aren't seriously thinking about the balance problems involved. Especially when I read some of the responses here. This would be terrible for the health of the game, and it's generally the worst idea I've read on the forums today (so far). Maybe this week (so far).

doublelift fgMar 3, 20151 votes

where is xerath orianna? yasuo in current mid? akali? wtf?

mjack33Mar 3, 20151 votes

[{quoted}](name=doublelift fg,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=j0rk2OpF,comment-id=00020000,timestamp=2015-03-03T18:42:50.824+0000)

where is xerath orianna? yasuo in current mid? akali? wtf?

And congratulations. You have proven you can't argue against what I just said so you have to deflect from the main point with minor nitpicking.

67chromeMar 3, 20153 votes

mana burn was removed because bruisers were useless against this item

Ehh, I think it was removed more because:

Link to Zilea's List of Game Desgin Anti-Patterns

Fun Fails to Exceed Anti-Fun Anti-fun is the negative experience your opponents feel when you do something that prevents them from 'playing their game' or doing activities they consider fun. While everything useful you can do as a player is likely to cause SOME anti-fun in your opponents, it only becomes a design issue when the 'anti-fun' created on your use of a mechanic is greater than your fun in using the mechanic. Dark Binding is VERY favorable on this measurement, because opponents get clutch dodges just like you get clutch hits, so it might actually create fun on both sides, instead of fun on one and weak anti-fun on another. On the other hand, a strong mana burn is NOT desirable -- if you drain someone to 0 you feel kinda good, and they feel TERRIBLE -- so the anti-fun is exceeded by the fun. This is important because the goal of the game is for players to have fun, so designers should seek abilities that result in a net increase of fun in the game. Basic design theory, yes?

I'd also like to expand on the "feels terrible" aspect here:

Mana burn essentially doesn't accomplish anything until it's depleted to 0, but then with MP/5 rates - you've essentially silenced a champion for **~30 **seconds. If there aren't any 30-second silences in game, I think we can agree mana burn shouldn't be either.

Also, here's a post Phreak wrote on mana-burn:

Mana Burn has a number of issues:

It's inconsistent: About 1/3 of our champions do not have Mana. Thus, the item is sort of niche and isn't very useful in a lot of scenarios.

Its use case is counter-intuitive. Normally one would think, "Oh, Mana Burn! That's an anti-mage ability right?" Wrong. It's actually best against tanks. Tanks are just as reliant on Mana as mages are, but tanks have significantly smaller mana pools than mages, in general.

It actually sucks really hard to run out of Mana, compared to a similar ability like Silence. They ultimately serve the same purpose of "you can't cast abilities."

When you Silence someone you go, "Oh sweet! I locked out his Flash, cancelled his channel, and he can't Ice Blast me as I run away." Meanwhile the other guy goes, "Alright, he stopped my channel, grats to him. But I'm back on my feet in 2-3 seconds. No worries!" Overall, this is a pretty fun situation.

When you Mana Burn someone to zero, you don't really have that same active satisfaction. You don't really know if it was you that removed all his Mana or if he ran out of his own accord. No one really counts how much they burned. You don't even get to cancel channels with it. Meanwhile your opponent goes, "Well, can't cast any more spells until I go back to base. /wrists." Overall, this isn't very fun for the wielder, and really sucks for the receiver.

Thus, we don't have Mana Burn in the game and instead opt for Silence when we want to give "anti-mage" attributes.

This isn't correct in the 1/3rd champions being manaless (it's only ~1/6th if you include half-manaless champions like Nidalee and Elise), and that ratio was probably a little lower when Phreak posted this, but manaless champions existing is nonetheless an issue with mana-burn, as any non-mana champion would render such a mechanic pretty useless.

Finally - while AP would go a decent way in offsetting mana-burn's penchant for perma-silencing champions that didn't build mana while not doing a whole lot to champions with a large mana pool (making it extremely counter-intuitive and misleading in general), it would still not do a while lot to champions with a large mana pool with an AP scaling factor applied on to it.

For one, consistently auto-attacking a champion is usually something you do when they screwed up their QWER rotation in the first place and silencing them doesn't really mean anything. Secondly, the most irritating mana-spending champions tend to stay well outside of AA range in the first place, pretty much obliterating any chance mana-burn would be at all useful against them. Nidalee, Lux, Ziggs, Ezreal, Xerath, Kog'Maw - they're either at 100% HP poking you from off the screen, or they're dead. Or you're dead and Nidalee is tea-bagging your corpse. In essence, mana burn on auto-attacks will essentially never counter mana-using champions. You can counter auto-attacking or melee champions without that didn't build mana, but that's pretty much it.

The Bearded BardMar 3, 20151 votes

Do you mean that targets lose 10% of their AP or that they take damage equal to 10% of their AP? Either way, not a fan.

doublelift fgMar 3, 20151 votes

no, they lose mana equal to 10% of their AP, their AP or HP isn't touched sry i didn't make it clear

The Bearded BardMar 3, 20153 votes

[{quoted}](name=doublelift fg,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=j0rk2OpF,comment-id=00000000,timestamp=2015-03-03T18:21:36.617+0000)

no, they lose mana equal to 10% of their AP, their AP or HP isn't touched sry i didn't make it clear

Ahh I see. Still don't like it. Mana burn is a super unnecessary thing for this game. There are already resourceless champions that gain an advantage simply by not using mana, why give them the ability to take away an enemy's mana on top of that?

doublelift fgMar 3, 20151 votes

because it is needed and could have balanced champions like kassadin/leblanc

The Bearded BardMar 3, 20156 votes

[{quoted}](name=doublelift fg,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=j0rk2OpF,comment-id=0000000000000000,timestamp=2015-03-03T18:31:35.152+0000)

because it is needed and could have balanced champions like kassadin/leblanc

Really? I don't see that happening. It'd be pretty useful in lane phase, but you don't start out with enough gold to buy a full item. 10% of let's say 700 AP is 70, so every autoattack you get on LB will take away 70 mana. If she's got 700 AP, she'll kill you before you get two autos off, and if she doesn't she'll die to the third auto regardless because she's squishy. So you either take away 140 of her mana, which leaves her more than enough to do whatever she needs to do, or you kill her and the mana burn was useless regardless.

doublelift fgMar 3, 20151 votes

you're right, but that's because the champion is concerous, also 10% was an example

The Bearded BardMar 3, 20153 votes

[{quoted}](name=doublelift fg,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=j0rk2OpF,comment-id=000000000000000000000000,timestamp=2015-03-03T18:44:00.316+0000)

you're right, but that's because the champion is concerous, also 10% was an example

Any amount would either be too much or too little. Also it would punish players for building what they're supposed to build, riot's not about that.

doublelift fgMar 3, 20151 votes

then what about veigar ulti?

The Bearded BardMar 3, 20151 votes

Also, it's 2015. There are AP bruisers in this game now.

Diana Chogath Elise Karma Maokai Ryze

(Of course not all of those champions are primarily played as ap bruisers, but they can very effectively be played as one)

doublelift fgMar 3, 20151 votes

and? they should be affected by mana burn, they don't use basic attacks, and use 90% of the time their spells

mana burn used to completly kill champions with poor mana pool like alistar who isn't a caster doesn't do damage and doesn't have tons of mana, who built full support and were useless because they couldn't help the team. Same for bruisers like gangplank/nocturne

The Bearded BardMar 3, 20152 votes

[{quoted}](name=doublelift fg,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=j0rk2OpF,comment-id=00010000,timestamp=2015-03-03T18:25:23.789+0000)

and? they should be affected by mana burn, they don't use basic attacks, and use 90% of the time their spells

mana burn used to completly kill champions with poor mana pool like alistar who isn't a caster doesn't do damage and doesn't have tons of mana, who built full support and were useless because they couldn't help the team. Same for bruisers like gangplank/nocturne

Five out of the six that I mentioned DO use their basic attacks, although I'm not sure what that has to do with mana burn.

doublelift fgMar 3, 20151 votes

mana burn should target people who use spells, maokai doesn't use his AA, diana does but not more then 30% of the time she mostly just press Q-R-R, i agree for elise but she should still be affected because she uses spells to damage. Ryze/karma same for maokai

The Bearded BardMar 3, 20152 votes

[{quoted}](name=doublelift fg,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=j0rk2OpF,comment-id=0001000000000000,timestamp=2015-03-03T18:30:48.223+0000)

mana burn should target people who use spells, maokai doesn't use his AA, diana does but not more then 30% of the time she mostly just press Q-R-R, i agree for elise but she should still be affected because she uses spells to damage. Ryze/karma same for maokai

Karma uses autos to lower her ult cooldown, Maokai uses autos to heal (Don't tell me things about Maokai, come on now, you think I don't know Maokai?)

Point is, mana burn is unneeded.

doublelift fgMar 3, 20151 votes

but karma doesn't have spells which empower her AA, same for maokai. GP for example couldn't press E or Q

The Bearded BardMar 3, 20151 votes

[{quoted}](name=doublelift fg,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=j0rk2OpF,comment-id=000100000000000000000000,timestamp=2015-03-03T18:37:46.849+0000)

but karma doesn't have spells which empower her AA, same for maokai. GP for example couldn't press E or Q

We're off that. We're now onto the discussion of how useless or cancerous mana burn is.

CindikleMar 3, 20151 votes

Shyvana, Jax, Fiora, Talon and Ezreal all walk up to an AP mana user.

AP mana user dies and sells everything.

AP mana user builds ADC because spells are now useless.

CindikleMar 3, 20151 votes

And why shouldn't they be able to?

Managing mana is part of playing a mana champion. When you throw in the ability to take away that mana why even make mana management worth it? If mana was out of control like it was in S4 I could maybe see it if it was fine tuned to be so niche that it only effected those casters who did nothing but stall games with spells.

And Moa does have an empowered AA. It just heals instead of damages.

Point still stays, it's is not a needed effect in the game and would only create massive balance issue that would lead the game either back to massive passive regen or mana users would become unviable.

Adrian UmbraMar 3, 20151 votes

As someone who's been playing since S1, when was mana burn ever added? The only ways to burn through mana were items like Seraph's Embrace and Muramana and those were self-use. Furthermore, I distinctly remember Riot saying they'd never add mana burn to League of Legends. So when was it removed, why, and why would adding it back really help the game when manaless characters are already strong?

ElphrihaimMar 3, 20153 votes

[{quoted}](name=Adrian Umbra,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=j0rk2OpF,comment-id=0003,timestamp=2015-03-03T18:44:36.383+0000)

As someone who's been playing since S1, when was mana burn ever added?

In the beta [or alpha?], Wit's End among other things did Magic-damage-to-mana.

Adrian UmbraMar 3, 20151 votes

Looking it up now, it burned mana from the beginning which means probably beta. It was changed during mid-season 1 (May 2011). Thanks for the heads up!

67chromeMar 3, 20152 votes

As someone who's been playing since S1, when was mana burn ever added?

item 3091 used to have it. Burnned something like 42 mana per hit, which was nerffed out of it in favor of MR sometime in the middle of season 1 I think?

Adrian UmbraMar 3, 20152 votes

Ah, thanks for that, I hadn't remembered that that was a thing. It was changed back in May of 2011 (Vayne patch) where it dealt a flat amount of magic damage per hit (42) and gave MR per stack (formerly burned 45/35 mana per hit). The MR steal was added later when it was merged with Malady. Thanks for the heads up!

PerishSoftlyMar 3, 20151 votes

I think the only way to make that viable would be that:

Mana-user only.
"if your target does not have enough (any) mana, this damage is instead dealt to their HP as true damage."

There, we have introduced a punishment for not having mana into the game.

CindikleMar 3, 20151 votes

I wasn't there for it. But I recall hearing it was removed because it lowers how a champion's abilities feel.

Much like how they often will resort to changing the distance on a spell as a last ditch effort. It really hurts players who have learned to play with those ranges.

When a player knows they have just enough mana to do something and one mana burning effect shuts down all of their planning it's a very toxic playstyle. Defeats the reason of mastering a champion and the game when effects that

Also with the this seasons mana changes, you really want to hurt mana more?

And AP bruisers do exist.