The mana regen problem (A change for Athene's)

TL;DR: Athene's and Chalice used to scale with mana regen and provided it, but now they scale with mana and mana regen on its own is insufficient. Give Athene's and Chalice mana, and adjust recipes accordingly in order to fix the mana issues, while removing kill for mana.

At the moment, we have 3 main item paths that provide mana regen to the casters who need it:

• Athene's Unholy Grail
• Morellonomicon
• Seraph's Embrace

Currently, there is a problem that many casters don't have the mana regen they require to stay in lane, or simply be viable in the current meta.

Mana exists for 2 reasons. To provide an additional factor to manage, adding depth to the game, and to prevent mages from spamming their skills nonstop as if it was URF ( I HATE YOU). However, at the moment mana regen itemization is quite poor. Thus, energy and resourceless mages are far more popular, and since most of them are assassins we currently see a lot of assassins mid lane.

For mana based champions, the ideal situation for both them and their opponent would be if they had costs and regen in the early game which allows them to cast spells, but not too frequently, making dodging skillshots and using mana to push the wave significant. Make the enemy pay for missing a skillshot by reducing the skillshots they'll be able to output for a while. Later in the game, their mana costs should be significant enough that they still have to watch their mana somewhat, but are allowed a lot more freedom when casting spells. Their mana should be enough to sustain them in a teamfight and they should be able to waveclear, but they shouldn't be able to do so endlessly without any issues. Nobody wants to play against an who can constantly spam her ult to clear waves at no cost.

Mana regen was nerfed for 2 reasons: To provide more variety in the item choices that mages make instead of using as a one-way ticket out of mana hell, and to prevent...well, the late game situation I just described. The problem with mana regen at the moment is that it doesn't restore enough mana early-mid to early-late game, the place where assassins the manaless champions are strongest. Late game I've found mana regen to be quite sufficient with morellonomicon, nearly 40 mana per 5 seconds and over 1000 mana is enough to sustain even the hungry (albeit barely, which is probably a good thing).

is situational depending on the caster and thus I'll ignore it, but lacks the necessary mana regen.

would hypothetically sustain a champion later in the game, but it has 2 issues. The missing mana scales with the amount of mana you have, yet the AP itemization for mana is quite poor, being only . Secondly, its second passive "Restore 15% of max mana on kill or assist" is highly situational. I understand that this is meant to promote teamfights over stalling later in the game, but most of the time it isn't really noticed and quite franky most casters don't want to take the risk of picking an item they can only get maximum effectiveness out of if an enemy dies. Look at 's.

Athene's VS Morellonomicon Ideally, the roles of the 2 items would be depending on what the ingame situation is.

If you're more skilled than your laner and more powerful and want to be aggressive, then ought to be chosen to rely on for the increased damage output that will make you even more powerful, and the grevious wounds which can be used to force an enemy who is behind out of lane more often. The increased base mana regen will allow the laner to sustain themselves throughout the game, yet during mid-game their regen should be lower, providing windows of opportunity for jungle ganks and the behind laner to get CS.

Choosing should be the more defensive option, as you trade the AP for some magic resistance, and you get the mana font passive which will provide better mana sustain for someone who has to spam their abilities constantly. In addition, the Chalice ought to provide better mana regeneration for someone who is behind than the forbidden idol, as while the laner who is behind can use mana to close the gap, the laner who is ahead ought to rush which will give them the sustain they need. Here is also a problem with the current system. It makes absolutely no sense to need to rely on enemy deaths in order to get the full effectiveness of a defensive item.

The two should provide equal mana regen late game, with the difference being primarily the AP, passive, and MR.

So what's my proposal to help make (and Chalice) more useful mid-game, while keeping end-game roughly similar to Morello?

Quite simple. We remove situational passive, and we give it some mana instead, along with giving chalice some mana and adjustments to builds and prices accordingly. Chalice would be built out of a charm, a mantle, and a crystal, give 25MR 200 mana and 25% mana regen along with the current passive, and cost 1200g. Athene's would be built with the current recipe and 2800 overall price, and give the same stats it currently has along with 250 mana. I'm not sure about cost efficiency and the like, but it could be adjusted.