@riot What is the downside of playing a manaless champions?

BreadCrusher·Jan 10, 2015·1 votes·377 views

Why would i play a champion who manages resources like mana and energy if all i have to worry about is cooldowns.

5 Comments

JustMyBassCannonJan 10, 20153 votes

Well, the first downside is that items that directly affect your Mana are unusable by any non-Mana champion. While that's somewhat obvious and almost petty-sounding, it means they're either punished for or wholly excluded from using items like Athene's, RoA, and Lich Bane.

The next one would be that they tend to have worse late-game scaling than mana-based magi because they're given an early-game advantage. Yeah, Katarina's being an obnoxious, free-roaming assassin at level 6 while I'm still trying not to run out of mana, but when I'm capable of burst that eclipses her full rotation, including a fully channeled ult (ignoring the possibility that I could/would interrupt it with my CC), it seems fair to me. Says this Brand player.

The thing is, manaless is an advantage of safety. You don't have to worry about an extra resource in order to keep up, you just have to worry about health and CD. It's easier, not necessarily better.

Kowe The EwokJan 10, 20151 votes

Since you pay for mana as a stat that's not really downside. There's barely any midlaner who is like "wow I can buy an Archangels staff, AWESOME". Mana as a stat is a money sink. (P.S: Who would buy Athene's at these point? Even mana heavy casters don't do it. It's an incredibly overpriced and overnerfed money sink)

Worse lategame scaling works for Garen. Forc hampions like Zed, Gnar or Rek Sai that's however totally untrue.

JustMyBassCannonJan 10, 20151 votes

Seraph's Embrace is actually one of the higher AP items, pretty much guaranteed to grant over 100 AP on all but the absolute lowest mana pool champs.

"But 100 AP is nothing, Rabadon's and Zhonya's exist."

Until you remember that the average manaless AP ratio is lower than the average mana-based AP ratio. Y'know, unless the champ has something ridiculous like Vel'koz's passive, which lets them scale well without AP.

Kuroi86Jan 10, 20152 votes

Many powerful items are non-viable for you since the mana portion would be a total waste of stat and would cost you more in the long run.

While you've a stronger early game, should a mana using mage or tank hit their mid/late game about the same time, they will be a considerable problem for you and likely is going to start out scaling you and leaving you in the dust.

If you don't snowball, well you're going to have a rather sucky late game.