Midlane mages =/= Bottom lane mages

Daetnas··10 votes·1,425 views

With the removal of mana pots from the game, Riot's trying to compensate it by increasing mana regen across the board on certain champions. That's a bad idea and here's why:

A midlane Lulu can get away with using a lot less mana in the laning phase than a support Lulu, because she can use her mana to efficiently clear waves. Similarly a midlaner Velkoz can freely clear the lane with a W and a couple of autoattacks, and he never needs to interact with the enemy laner If he chooses to.

Meanwhile a bottom lane Lulu Karma Zyra Sona need to use a lot more mana to shield against abilities on much lower mana costs, and even ADC autoattacks. They also need to poke the enemy to keep their zones of control against hard engage tanks that threaten their adcs just by moving up Blitzcrank Alistar Thresh

If Riot increases the mana regen of these champions by that much that midlaners will get just enough to make midlaners not mana starved, supports will suffer in bottom lane. Conversely If they decide to buff the mana regen of these champions enough that these bottom lane mages have enough, their midlane counterparts will be able to constantly spam their abilities and still have enough mana left for clearing the waves.

So what's the solution? Well they could keep mana pots, but seeing that's not an option in this case, I suggest buffing the regen of the starting items instead of buffing their base stats. Some buff for Doran's Ring mana regen and a little bit more for spellthief's edge and Coin basically.

11 Comments

Darkwind2 votes

I mean, what you're describing isn't actually how to correctly conserve mana in mid lane.

If you're playing a mana gated mid laner, you don't try to shove using your mana. You last hit with your auto attacks and save your mana, using no skills on the creeps. Then, if the enemy tries to trade with you, you use your skills in a way that is very mana efficient in terms of damage onto your lane opponent. Since they're initiating the fight, it's much easier to land skillshots on them, so you're less likely to waste the spell/mana. If they shove into your tower using their skills, you use as little mana/creep as possible to get at least a reasonable proportion of the creeps (some % similar to what your opponent is getting, if not slightly better).

Trying to use your mana to shove the lane will just run you OOM, get you ganked, and open you up to free trades. Using mana to shove the lane is what you want to do if:

  • You're looking to roam
  • You're going to base (immediately)
  • You're going to farm the jungle
  • You lack the damage/survivability/range to trade with your opponent, and wish to force them to focus on their creeps.

-Anivia main since late Season 2

Daetnas1 votes

Fair enough, I just tried to describe the worst case scenario in terms of mana usage for a midlaner.

Athenes Lulu2 votes

This is why spellthief now has even more mana regen in general.

Even though this is a great reminder for Riot and people that don't know. We don't want another season where poke supports are kicked out of botlane even more anymore.

Bijorn1 votes

Pretty much. The removal of mana pots really hurts my supp Brand and Karma. This may be a way to push out these support mages to allow the actual supports (Nami, Sona, etc) more opportunities to be picked.

I still do not like this but gotta find away to play and adapt to it I guess.

Meep Man1 votes

They are buffing Spellthief's and Doran's Ring Mana Regen, and I think but Im not certain that they are buffing Coin as well.

Stellafreyja1 votes

From what I've seen, I know Doran's Ring has 50% Base Mana Regen. If I remember correctly, Frostfang's mana regen got increased to 100%.

Darkwind2 votes

Doran's is much better than 50%, though, due to the +4 mana per last hit. Plus, it gives 3 per 5 as a flat amount, rather than a % of your base mana regen. Therefore, Doran's is typically much stronger than percentage based regen until later in the game. For the lane phase, the ring as it currently stands is better than a 100% base regen frostfang, assuming competent last hitting.

Stiv12341 votes

MP5 at level 1 is at least 6 for any champ besides Lissandra Ryze TahmKench. 50% * 6 = 3 MP5. So 50% base is basically stronger on 95% of the champions.

Hupsis1 votes

I thought they increased mana regen on support items.

item 3098 50% mana regen --> 100% mana regen item 3114 cost from 600 --> 550 etc...

The new flask is going to be upgradable and provides mana and health as well as making your spells deal magic dmg over time when they hit. Might be suitable for supports due to cost efficiency.

Also there's most likely (probably maybe) going to be some utility masteries that provide mana sustain. Mid lane mages are most likely going to focus on the offense tree anyways.

Daetnas1 votes

{quoted}

I thought they increased mana regen on support items.

item 3098 50% mana regen --> 100% mana regen item 3114 cost from 600 --> 550 etc...

The new flask is going to be upgradable and provides mana and health as well as making your spells deal magic dmg over time when they hit. Might be suitable for supports due to cost efficiency.

Also there's most likely (probably maybe) going to be some utility masteries that provide mana sustain. Mid lane mages are most likely going to focus on the offense tree anyways.

That's a good change and I appreciate it, but it's probably going to be too little too late. Levels 1-6 is the harshest time period for mana hungry supports, and realistically you will need to save up for your sightstone as well before buying mana regen items. Especially since you won't be able to buy some green wards and delay your sightstone purchase now.

Altricad1 votes

It's almost as if Blitzcrank Thresh mains never bought mana pots to bot-lane...

1 missed hook is game over for Blitz now, while your stupid Annie Morgana are gonna spam their spells with their increased mana-regen over and over on us

  1. Really, what hope is there that Blitzcrank is gonna get increased mana-regen? G&B would lose their heads if someone suggested blitz needed compensation too

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