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Opinions on Resourceless Champions.

VentusDragoon··4 votes·1,832 views

I've been noticing that Riot is more and more often releasing utterly resourceless champions lately, and it's unbalancing the game a bit. Now, when I say resourceless, I mean they have absolutely no limiter-- Champions being:

  • Garen (Although his cooldowns are adjusted to be balanced)

  • Gnar

  • Katarina

  • Rek'sai

  • Renekton

  • Rengar

  • Riven

  • Rumble (Although to a lesser extent--he has heat, and isn't at full power unless in 50% heat, plus can silence himself)

  • Shyvana

  • Tryndamere

  • Yasuo

I am not including health using champions or energy using champions in this, as they still have a gate.

But I truly do want to ask the community's opinions on these such champions, and why Riot keeps releasing them. I can understand that one resourceless champion on a team is still manageable, even if that one person is a Yasuo/Katarina/Riven/the known aggravators. But once you get even just two of them on the same team-- the unbalance is noticeable. I had a game where an entire team of resourceless champions was our enemy, situated as such: Gnar ADC, Rek'sai Support, Yasuo mid, Renekton Top, Rengar jungle. Not only did they have nearly infinite sustain in comparison to our team (who's only manaless champion was a Kennen), but all of these champions really don't have drawbacks either to compensate for their resourceless nature.

  • Gnar had a free long range two-way poke every few seconds. In addition, free heal every little bit and of course, Vayne's silver bolts passive.
  • Rek'sai had a free poke/slow (which actually did quite a bit of damage early game), free popups every 10 seconds or so, free sustain, rendered going into bushes useless, and quite a bit of damage.
  • Yasuo had--well. I don't need to explain this. Everyone knows the pain Yasuo gives the community.
  • Renekton had free sustain, tons of damage and tankiness, stuns, a fairly safe poke combo, and of course, super tower diving potential.
  • Rengar had free sustain, high damage, ability resets (when he gets max fury), slow/stun, invisibility, etc.

4 of those champions had free sustain, the last had a free shield that was stronger than Riven's shield even with around 400 AD. All of those c=hampions have very low cooldowns as well. It was nearly impossible for our team to do anything in laning phase, and by that, we got stomped pretty much throughout the entire game just because of how much more limited we were than their team.

Now I promise this isn't just a "OMG Yasuo/Kat/Renekton/Riven/Whoever is OP plz nerf" thread. In fact, I play Rek'sai (sometimes), Renekton, Rengar, Riven, Rumble (how I love Rumble), and Shyvana, and also Shen, Kennen, Zed, Mordekaiser, Vladimir, and Zac. So I know full well each champion's strengths and weaknesses-- and I can say that with the exception of Yasuo, I really don't mind playing against any of them. I have just come to realize the uncounterable potential of having more than one resourceless champion on your team-- and the dangers it could pose to the health of the game as a whole if more people decide to try it.

Now I understand the freeness and creativity that having a resourceless champion enables-- heck, Yasuo, Gnar, Rek'sai, and Shyvana essentially have double kits. (Shyvana's abilities are all altered, and Yasuo has Poke/Tornado on his Q, the double passive, etc.) But some balance has got to be in place when you make champions this creative-- Garen was done right. He has long cooldowns to compensate for his resourcelessness. Kennen has generally lower damage to compensate. (He can't burst in like 3 seconds) Shen and Zed have very high energy costs for their combos. (And Shen has to shove his crotch in someone's face to actually taunt them now.)

But Yasuo, Gnar, Tryndamere, Rek'sai, Renekton, and Rengar all are resourceless without any fallbacks, and in fact, they have free extra buffs to their kits. Yasuo has his flow shield, Tryndamere has a free heal, Rek'sai has a free heal and true damage, Renekton has... a lot, Gnar has a free health burst (not to mention his ms boost when he transforms back), and Rengar has Extra Damage, heal, and a Root. All of these champions also have fairly short cooldowns, to VERY short cooldowns. How is that balancing out their strengths?

Anywho, I really do want to hear from you all on what your opinions are on utterly resourceless champions (the ones on the list above), and how you think they could be balanced. Thank you!

24 Comments

Dr Clueless PhD3 votes

You say that each of these Champions can be dealt with individually, but they are a problem all together. My question to you is: why?

There are some things that, yes, are quite strong when put multiple times on the same team. Each addition increases the strength of the last. An example is a large AoE damage/CC ultimate. We all know how wombo combo teams work, and each makes their allies stronger by that synergy.

However, there's no obvious benefit to stacking this mechanic on your team aside from the strength of the individual Champions. The only real combo strength that jumps out at me is the ability to hold a position without worrying about depleting mana reserves. However, that's certainly possible with other characters, and they do still have to manage health (and most of these characters are melee).

So, why does a whole team of these characters present a problem to you? What great benefit is it bringing?

VentusDragoon1 votes

Well, it works just the same as you described with the heavy CC team-- they all have quite low cooldowns, good sustain, and have absolutely no resource to bar them, in ADDITION to their kits themselves syncing together. Yasuo syncs with anyone that has a popup, rek'sai and gnar, have great cc, etc. These resourceless champions run strong on their own and together, plus have the ability to layer that wombo combo on top of it. Imagine if you had a wombo combo team-- like Fiddle, Amumu, Galio, MF, and someone else. Now make them all resourceless. Do you see my concern?

Dr Clueless PhD3 votes

No, I don't, actually. Yes, they all have no resource, but that doesn't make the team inherently stronger than the sum of the parts. The synergy any of these characters have with one another isn't related to their resources at all. Once again, the only synergy I'm seeing from a team like this is the ability to hold out a position without draining mana. But, you still have health to manage, and most of you are melee, with relatively little siege capability.

VentusDragoon1 votes

I didn't say the resource gave it synergy. What I mean is that whatever synergy they already have-- which most of them have plenty in their kits-- also has the perk of resourcelessness on top of it. What I was saying with the analogy is imagine if say, Fiddle, Amumu, Galio, MF, etc had no resource to go off of, and had low cooldowns like the listed champions-- there would be absolutely no counterplay whatsoever. And with Riot releasing more and more resourceless champs, that also have favorable kits, they can have that synergy from their kits, and also have absolutely no resource to burden them. THAT is the problem there. That they already have the power of the rest of the champions, but with an added benefit on top, instead of how a resourceless champ should be-- slightly weaker than resource champs unless fed.

Dr Clueless PhD2 votes

Okay. So, you're saying that these Champions are just as good as everyone else, but are resourceless on top. However, I don't think you're correct about that. These characters being resourceless is a BIG part of their power, and it's what keeps them up with everyone else, not what puts them over the top.

That's not to say that there aren't one or two resourcelss Champions who may be too strong at the moment, but they're not categorically better than other characters. It's a Champion-specific balance issue at that point. Resourceless characters aren't, as a class, better than everyone else. The data shows that quite well.

VentusDragoon1 votes

Like I stated in my original post, there are some handled better in balance than others, e.g. Garen having high cooldowns to compensate, and Katarina being supremely squishy and having only one thing to save her to go with hers.

But as a whole, resourceless champions do tend to have an edge over others-- and that's why I was asking other's opinions on it, and how this future problem of all resourceless champions being favored to be averted. (As I said in some other posts, some are getting to the point that it's rendering champions useless-- Rek'sai counters every single stealth ability in the game. Yasuo counters any pokers, and Gnar counters almost all top laners, except maybe Ryze, because of his great range and sustain, in addition to amazing escape and super spammability on abilities.)

Centuros2 votes

Renekton's mechanics with his Fury are a HUGE limiter, and were the reason he was bad for a while. Rumble's mechanic is akin to energy (spam too much and you can't cast for a bit), just with a different implementation and more gameplay.

VentusDragoon1 votes

Oh, I agree that Renekton/Rumble do have their limiters-- just not in the same case as most of the other champions. Rumble is probably the most balanced non-resource champ because he is actually significantly weaker if he's not above 50% heat, below 100%. I think the problem a lot of players have with Renekton, though, is that Renekton still has quite a bit of damage and heal even without his fury at 50% or above. In addition, Renekton's ult gives him constant high fury-- allowing him to spam his upgraded abilities the entire duration. It would be like a Karma (or Post-Rework Heimerdinger) having multiple charges of Mantra/Upgrade respectively. I think that's why so many people have a problem with Renekton.

TehNACHO1 votes

Tryndamere is not a problem, at least specifically due to his rage. The problem is that he's a melee auto attacker.

Not even kidding, think of it like this: Imagine if Tryndamere ran on Mana (and his Damage is recalculated to be roughly equivalent to now). What difference does this make? Unless our Tryndamere in question is excessively reckless, or his mana costs are absurdly high, literally none. Early game, he'll farm through the early to mid game with not a care in the world, turning engages around simply by smacking the opponent back with autos or healing off damage with his heal (which again, unless he's reckless/his mana is skewed, he shouldn't have problems maintaining), all up until he reaches his mid game power spike in B.F. Sword+Undying Rage. Mid game, he can either continue following the pseudo-passive play style of the early game, meaning he would have absolutely no reason to be burning mana excessively anyway, or he can go for an all in engage and probably have to immediately recall due to the nature of his ultimate. In other words, mana is not an issue once more. Late game, unless your name is Jericho Swain, almost all champions' mana problems fall off anyway, even without having built a mana item for the mid game, and because Tryndamere's Auto Attack hyper scaling kicks off by late game, there should literally be no reason to worry about mana.

What I listed with Tryndamere is just an example of the rest of these champions tend to have problems with; there are much larger problems at hand than just their resource/lack of resource. It's either plainly not going to matter (Tryndamere), or their mana is so skewed that they are doomed to either be op or unusable (Yasuo, Renekton).

Just a disclaimer since a lot of people seem to be misreading my posts lately, I'm not disagreeing with you, in fact I am agreeing, sort of. Champs like Tryndamere are a problem, just for different reasons than just their apparent 'resource' bar.

Another disclaimer, you should realize that sometimes being resourceless is a good way to gate champions in entirely different ways. Tryndamere is an auto attack champion who benefits from keeping his rage as high as possible. Think of how Rek'Sai, another resourceless champion, circumvents many of the problems with Tryndamere's kit through how her kit interacts with the rage bar.

VentusDragoon1 votes

This is true with Tryndamere-- although most ADC's are able to do the same thing. (With the exception of maybe Corki, Ez, Lucian, and Kog'maw, as they are caster adc's) Tryndamere is literally a melee adc-- but with more damage and a heal, and of course his ult. So of course tryn is a little tuned stronger since he doesn't have the benefit of range. The difference with Rek'sai is that her fury doesn't have to be managed as well as, say, Renekton. Her only uses for fury are to heal, and for her true damage-- otherwise, she does not need it whatsoever.

As for Tryn having mana, or any other resource, it would solve a problem most of the listed champs have-- that they are much stronger in laning phase due to not having that. Tryn can heal, do his spin, or the slow as many times as he wants as long as they're off cooldown. If he had, say, mana, or used health, he would have to watch it so he didn't run out of mana to heal, or run too low on health by spamming abilities.

TehNACHO1 votes

My point with Rek'Sai is that she is almost always roaming the map in submarine mode and consumes her rage, whereas Tryndamere is usually split pushing, and has full rage. Rek'Sai's underground utility is so great that you almost never go around without if, and thus she generally won't start fights at full rage. This is what makes her rage slightly more interesting; Rek'Sai is gated by combat time. In long lasting fights, say against another fighter, Rek'Sai's well equipped, but against faster opponents, Rek'Sai's bite lags behind by quite a bit. Tryndamere doesn't have this; he's just almost always at 'lol+35%critgetoutplayedson'.

Also, that just sounds like a really reckless Tryndamere. With but a semi decent gank, or even controlling minion aggro well, he's screwed.

roflcoptars1 votes

{quoted} My point with Rek'Sai is that she is almost always roaming the map in submarine mode and consumes her rage, whereas Tryndamere is usually split pushing, and has full rage. Rek'Sai's underground utility is so great that you almost never go around without if, and thus she generally won't start fights at full rage. This is what makes her rage slightly more interesting; Rek'Sai is gated by combat time. In long lasting fights, say against another fighter, Rek'Sai's well equipped, but against faster opponents, Rek'Sai's bite lags behind by quite a bit. Tryndamere doesn't have this; he's just almost always at 'lol+35%critgetoutplayedson'.

Also, that just sounds like a really reckless Tryndamere. With but a semi decent gank, or even controlling minion aggro well, he's screwed.

Rek'sai is also gated by map control, which I think is super interesting. If your team is running around and controlling the map (responding to invades, wards, etc...) you become significantly more effective because your tunnels will stick around. The tunnels are like 50% of her kit and you need them to stick, considering you need them for your ult and the CD isn't affected by CDR.

Once the enemy begins to take your towers and push up, Rek'Sai becomes a lot worse until the team can re-establish some control over the map.

VentusDragoon1 votes

^ I will admit this is true. Rek'sai, due to her kit being BASED around roaming-- loses a lot of strength when she can't... you know... roam. It would be interesting to see how she would work with an Azir on the same team or something though. Give momentary map control back by reestablishing a turret.

Sir ArmaMalum1 votes

There are several points to address here, but I'll start by saying thank you. You have a problem with a certain few champions and actually went explaining why a certain few were a problem for you instead of just raging and expecting everyone to rally behind you anyway. Need more of you ^_^

----warning----warning----wall of text alert----warning----tl;dr at bottom

  1. These (Renekton, Rek'sai, etc.) champions do not have a gate

I will have to argue they do. Using the rage types as an example, the gating is ramping up in combat before they can use their cooldowns effectively. Renekton loses a lot of health and damage if he uses an ability without rage, Shyv has to stay in melee range with someone to maintain her ultimate and Trynd can do very little if he has just used his Q. Now these are specifically not long term gating like mana and about as easily replenished as energy so it does not give a large window of opportunity to exploit, so I can understand why it seems like you can't. Hell, if a trynd has momentum there are times where you simply can't I'll admit. However, there is still gating present. Now there is a separate topic of general game balance which I'll poke later.

Even with truly resourceless champions like Riven and Katarina, there is gating but in other areas. Most of these champions are highly combo reliant. Katarina for example has a lot of damage locked away in her Q, and if she's not able to capitalize on it she loses a lot. Riven on the other hand is highly reliant on casting her abilities, making her really vulnerable to silences. She's not an auto attack champion so taking her abilities away for even a moment makes her relatively helpless and kitable. Now I completely agree that these are niche things specific for each champion, and that leads more into a problem with Blind pick and over-countering which I will also get into later.

And then there are uniques like Rengar and Rumble. As you said Rumble has an interesting and relatively balanced mechanic behind his resource. Honestly, imho, it functions very like rage. Forcing a Rumble to use abilities to build his heat up for better damage and ability use, with the added interaction of giving a ceiling. Imagine Renekton with some kind of 100 Rage effect, he would be functionally very similar. Rengar's mechanic promotes planning and preparation, and if used right with jungle mobs it can really play a role in his dominance, but at the same time his 'gate' is the fact that he once he uses his full ferocity effect he cannot get another unless he either a) stays in long enough to get 2 abilities off twice or b) he used his ult. He simply cannot get 5 abilities off in one combo alone, so effectively he only gets one ferocity effect no matter what he does (besides ulting).

These are definitely different ways of going about limiting these champions and are more geared towards Energy-style combo based play than about management for the long term. The limits are only hampering briefly and if done right they can stay in forever because of the easy replenish or lack of the need, but at the same time it becomes an even bigger hamper later game in teamfights when minions and trading become much more dangerous to pursue. If you've played Renekton, you must know how difficult it is to do anything without your ult (and therefore starting rage) in a teamfight.

  1. Mana tuning

Many of the current mana champions, imho, got a little shortchanged with the ultimate homogenization (100 mana ults everywhere) because it seemed to add power in the decreased ultimate cost, bu at the same time since it hit a large portion of the champion pool the effect in context didn't do as much as on paper. Little things like that and the weird tuning we have no in season 5 among others have made mana champs slip a little. They're supposes to have lower cooldowns than a resourceless counterpart with more damage because they have to manage a resource in the long term, but I don't believe they have as much of an advantage as they should. This excludes mana scaling champion like Kass and Ryze however, as they make up for it by having an offensive synergy with a defensive stat, which helps them a lot.

This is mostly an issue of small discrepancies, not one in general imho. (Although Athene's has played a larger part than most) So in turn it's not a huge issue but exacerbates the resourceless dominance feeling.

1a) Fighter balance

Being resourceless has been a partial answer to the fighter problem for a little while. For those who don't know, fighters are the hardest role to balance in League. This is because you have to give them enough tankiness and damage in their kit so they can both deal enough damage to be relevant and stay in the fight long enough to be effective while not letting them be overbearing (ala Fed Riven). As you can probably guess this hasn't been perfectly done, especially over a large range of skill levels (i.e. balancing ideally for silver can screw over diamond players and vice versa). And to be completely honest I doubt it will ever be perfect, and neither does it have to be. It's the whole point of the MOBA genre's core theme of perfect imbalance. BUT it can easily get out of hand for this same reason.

Most of your pain point champs are fighters and suffer from this same issue. Giving them a short-term resource rather than a long term one is an answer to their vulnerability to harassing laning opponents.

Specifically on Rek'sai: she's the new champion, she's going to seem overtuned at the beginning as the playerbase learns. imho her Q poke is probably going to get a ratio nerf in the future to kill AP Rek cheese but I could be wrong.

2a) over-countering

Now this is an issue I haven't seen discussed much, but there is a problem with making a champion (i.e. Riven) too counter-able (i.e. Silences + Riven). It allows justification of more power in a champion's kit and seems to work fine in higher elo where that counter is always accessible. Specifically in draft pick. But lower elo (less champions available) and Blind pick ques do not get this luxury, and must deal with champions who's main weakness (champ select) is no longer present. Champions like Katarina, Riven, Fiora and others run a gamble in Blind pick and Team builder but when they win that gamble they have an absurd kit advantage that really nixes their opponent's chances in lane.

This in turn leads to a lot of "OP QQ" arguments where, at least imho, both sides are right. The OP's situation (Blind pick, TB) made one of these champs have a huge advantage that they couldn't do much about whereas the champion in question isn't actually overpowered because of tenable counters available if you knew who you were going against.

TL;DR I think the problem you are having is not with the resource-less aspect but with the core problems that caused them to have that. In other words I think you're looking at a symptom rather than a true issue. I'm not saying you're wrong, imho a few of those champs can be slid around a bit in terms of power but overall I don't believe their gating is the way to go about it.

Sir ArmaMalum1 votes

Note: a lot of typos I can't fix due to the character limit being weird. Sorry.

VentusDragoon2 votes

Oookay, this will take a while to reply to. But I shall do so. ^^

  1. These (Renekton, Rek'sai, etc.) champions do not have a gate

As I told Centuros above, I will agree with you that they do have a gate-- but not in the same sense as others. Others have a gate of the resource-- spam too many spells and you'll run out of mana, and not be able to do anything, or you'll kill yourself by using too much health to cast. As for energy users, you'll end up running out of energy and won't be able to do your full combo if the enemy engages, for example.

When it comes to the above listed champions though, this gate (or lack of so) extremely influences the laning phase-- as these listed champions have the same if not stronger stats as other champions, but do not have something to force them to recall or take extra potions. Renekton and Yasuo for example--

Renekton has high damage, a good amount of tankiness, and a great heal on his Q. So if he does manage to get hurt, after he's out of potions, he doesn't need to recall for health or mana or whatever-- he can simply wait for a minion wave and Q on them, especially if his fury is above 50% at that moment. His health is back up, and he can continue like nothing ever happened.

Yasuo is extremely safe in lane, with the exception of against enemies like Cassiopeia. (Who can poke him from pretty much everywhere, and 2 of her spells do not have a travel line, so cannot be blocked by wind wall) He has Kalista-level dodging ability with his E/Sweeping Blade, a Wind Wall that is literally stronger than Braum's Unbreakable (as it has no limit, stops literally everything that's not instant travel, and has a wider area of blocking at higher levels), and finally, if he DOES manage to get hit, he has a free shield that, as I said, " was stronger than Riven's shield even with around* 400 AD,"* and refreshes fairly often. (I actually went and played Yasuo on free week to confirm any suspicions I had-- I will admit that he is squishy-- but he's extremely safe to the point where it doesn't matter too much. Heck, I fountain-dove two enemies, ulted them, killed both of them, and got out alive when I played him. And that was my first time playing him.) Yasuo is also made in a way Riot said they hated--where he is stuck in one playstyle because everyone knows how good it is. (I have yet to see a Yasuo that didn't follow the Statikk Shiv-->Infinity Edge build path, due to his second passive, which also makes Ashe cry.) And even if the said player can't land his tornados, they made his kit forgiving enough that you can just dash in and pop up enemies, and you never have to build around, say, armor, because of the passive on his ult.

These resourceless champions do not have to recall as often as other champions do, as I said, and therefore do not miss out on farm, or give the enemy time to push their tower unless they die. So most of the time, they only have to recall when they have enough gold to shop. These champions can also stay in extended fights much longer than other champions-- I can't remember how many times I've seen a Katarina, Tryndamere, or Yasuo play clean up crew after a teamfight, whether it went well or not so.

Okay, next point...

  1. Mana tuning

Okay... I stated much of this in the previous section, how these champions do not have anything that forces them to recall and such. I would like to also add though that what you said is true-- these resourceless champions should be a bit weaker than everyone else thanks to their resourcelessness, but unfortunately, they are almost all stronger. Yasuo, for example, is known to be a monster mostly wherever he is, although most often mid or top. He has high damage and is safe, as I said before, a passive that makes Ashe cry, and is stronger, plus a counterpick to many tops and mids. He isn't restricted to melee so he can counter a lot of tops with poke, and can close in on squishy midlaners very quickly as well, plus block any range with his kit. It is well known that Yasuo is a good pick in most situations-- and he certainly isn't weaker than most other champions, not only mid laners, but most other champions at all. Just as Gnar is an amazing pick top due to his sustain and range, and heck, Rek'sai completely counters any invisibility and is probably the most mobile champion in the game, maybe behind Lee Sin. These champions all excel at what they do, plus have the benefit of no resource.

1a) Fighter balance

You covered mostly everything here, and nice video. "Most of your pain point champs are fighters and suffer from this same issue. Giving them a short-term resource rather than a long term one is an answer to their vulnerability to harassing laning opponents." Honestly, it would be GREAT if they had a short term resource--heck, I would even be fine with a buffed version of energy. They are strong in that they have that damage and tankiness, plus they can use their full combos at almost any time without worry of running out of mana in the middle of it or something. (Looking at Lissandra for being guilty of such.) I do want to point out that there is one exception to this though--Gnar. He has the damage AND tankiness of fighters, heck, he has the damage of an adc and Mega gnar has the tankiness of a tank. He literally has the best of both worlds. The problem with Gnar is that he is also Ranged-- and unlike shyvana, all of his tankiness and damage carry in between forms. (Shyvana only gets her extra damage and tankiness while in dragon form--which she gets much less often than gnar, plus doesn't get a heal.) Not to mention the fact that Gnar can use Sivir's boomerang blade every few seconds, and has Vayne's Silver bolts for all of his autoattacks, adding up to a crap ton of damage early to late game.

And finally...

2a) over-countering

You covered pretty much everything that needed to be said in this. Players shouldn't have to dread certain champions popping up in blind pick; e.g. Fiora, Yasuo, Riven, Teemo, etc. It is fairly easy enough to counter them if you're in Draft or Ranked, simply because that gives you the ability to see they are there. Unfortunately, this also makes it so you're down a champion choice because you want to specifically counter one person. These champions should be equally as counterable in blind pick as well-- you should be able to "counter" a champion with anyone as long as you're good enough, not if you have the right champion. If one team has a Yasuo and a Malphite jungle, you should be able to deal with that equally in both blind pick and draft/ranked, not dread having to deal with it because you didn't know they were there.

Conclusions

^^ Thank you for taking the time to discuss with me what your opinions on this were. This really isn't a QQ thread, I really do just want to hear what people think on the matter.

Kuroi861 votes

On the team you listed, you're facing a very strong early game. However, those champs also face the risk of falling off around mid/late unless they are able to push their early advantage and get some kills early. Now, this is not to say they aren't strong. But them lacking resources doesn't really give them that much of an advantage outside of early game.

VentusDragoon1 votes

I agree with that. Cause as some others said, people with Mana or health costs typically don't have to worry about them too much lategame. But a problem is that this resourcelessness does cause them to have such a strong early game-- and having such a strong early game gets you fed and ahead, so you end up being ahead of the enemy team anyways.

Kuroi861 votes

Yes, their strong early can get them ahead. But it's also a big risk. Give the enemy team two late game champs and so long as they play safe and avoid feeding early, the early game advantage is wasted.

People have tried early game team comps before with some very good success. But it only takes one, maybe two late game champs to ruin your day when that late game hits.

4nth0l0gy1 votes

Riot is big on the 2 bar philosophy. If you have more than 2 bars over a champion, you're doing it wrong. This explains many cases: Renekton, Rumble, Rek'sai, Rengar, Gnar...lot of Rs in there...Tryndamere, Yasuo, Shyvana.

The three I didn't name, Katarina, Riven and Garen...they really don't have an excuse. I guess they're just older champions, and Riot thought not having them gated by mana gave them an advantage that they needed? I mean design philosophy back then was nothing close to what it is now.

So yeah, maybe look at those three.

VentusDragoon1 votes

I would like to add to everyone another thing that I thought of-- whomever the next support champion will be (kinda hoping Ao Shin will be a support, but it seems he's a mage similar to Kennen), what if they were resourceless? We have plenty of resourceless top laners, a couple of resourceless midlaners, and now a dedicated resourceless jungle, and Gnar (among others) can function as a resourceless adc. The only role that doesn't have a dedicated resourceless champ in it yet is support. So what happens if we do get a resourceless support? If they have any sort of recovery ability (similar to Soraka), that's free heals for absolutely no cost, or free shields/CC/anything else a support might have. (I'm honestly hoping the next support doesn't have as much of a stacked kit as Thresh.) They will probably be favored more than other supports considering that most supports are either kill/poke lane supports, or are meant to help the adc sustain longer in lane. So what happens if they do make a resourceless support, that is able to pretty much give infinite sustain? Riot already dealt somewhat with this by making new Soraka have to use both health and mana to heal-- as it certainly makes it so she can't just sustain herself and her lane partner forever. But if a new support with whatever abilities gets the resourceless bonus, they'll have a massive amount of sustain that no other support would be able to really keep up with.

I mean, Imagine if Leona, Braum, Blitzcrank, Thresh, Soraka, Janna, Zilean, ANYONE of those supports were resourceless. It would bring a whole new meta to bot lane. (Kinda like how Marksmen/ADC's are now-- If you don't have a dash, you're not an adc. (Looking at Tristana, Lucian, Kalista, Corki, and to a lesser extent, Graves and Ezreal-- Pretty much most of the top tier marksmen.)

Yosuke Apperu1 votes

I actually have a really good idea..atleast to balance riven, she can keep her kit(it all synergizes very well but by itself it's not op). Make her use mana! Her Q could work akin to a fiora Q but for her it would be (this ability can be recast two more times at no extra cost). Then just give everything else a fair mana cost so she can't abuse the hell out of her low cool downs... now that mostly refers to her E... but the fact that her q can be used as a gap closer along with her E ..so she'll go E,Q,Q,QE and you arent going to escape her... in the same respect she can escape ANYTHING using this type of method..even if she plays recklessly..giving her mana would take away a lot of her spamming in my opinion and that would be a good thing... honestly though being resourceless in general is kind of annoying... for example yes rek sai's may not enter a fight with full fury... but if she does... she can deal up to 240%ad true damage? that isnt right..also the fact that she has stupidly low cool downs like a 4 second cool down to make her next 3 auto attacks cleave for bonus damage...combine that with a hydra and its even worse... she doesnt even need the fury and she'd be scary.. this is all merely my opinion of what i've seen from reksai... not even gonna start on yasuo.. a lot of these champs are strong without their secondary resource bars.. but with them? they just get stupidly strong..anyways i'm just a bronze and this is my first time posting on this forum but i'd still like to see some feedback =]

VentusDragoon1 votes

I do like your idea-- although balancing someone like Riven is difficult. Riven isn't a champion that can just hit two abilities and win-- she has to use her full kit every time to get a kill down. So giving her mana could limit her laning and teamfight abilities a lot--you'd have to give her quite low mana costs, like below Fiora's. (I personally think they did great with Fiora-- she has some of the highest base damage in the game but she can run out of mana after about 3 full fights, plus she doesn't have full fight potential without her ult.)

As for Rek'sai-- I honestly have to agree with you there. While they DID build rek'sai as a fighter-- with not that great defense or ability power-- Rek'sai still has a ton in her kit-- the highest mobility in the game, constant Janna-level aoe popups, PLUS her extremely high damage and low cooldowns (And I didn't think it was bad at first--until everyone started building Hydra on her, and her being able to win a 1v3 easily in mid-late game). My main problem with Rek'sai used to be her resourcelessness and sustain, but her Damage really is the main problem here. An idea I had for it would be to make it so the bonus Damage on her Q only applied to minions and monsters-- and that would seriously balance her for teamfights, so she couldn't just burst 3 people at once. (Which, let me remind you, even Darius cannot do.)

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