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ADC/Supports without mana, and a cool Champion concept

SorinBlack·4/30/2015, 8:22:02 AM·4 votes·1,042 views
Manaless

So, i was thinking about the diversity in champions, and how many of them have cool and unique aspects to their kits, when i realized something. There is not a single ADC or support in the game who uses anything other than Mana as a resource. And no, i'm not counting champs who can also adc/support when their primary role is elsewhere. (looking at you Kennen/Gnar/Shen) Anyways, when i look at this, i can't help but wonder why? I mean, there are plenty (ok, not plenty but some) of champs in other roles that benefit from being manaless. For Mid-lane, we have Zed Katarina Yasuo , Top has Vladimir Garen Rumble , and Jungle has LeeSin Zac RekSai just to name a few. But ADC and Support are all caged to their Mana resource. What would be so bad about giving Energy or Fury to an ADC? Why not have no resource for a Support? I know some of your are going to say "You can't, they would be way too overpowered!" But look at Katarina . She has no resource, decent cooldowns, a passive that lowers them by 15 seconds on kill, and INCREDIBLE damage output potential. She is one of the most played champions in the game, and for good reason. But, she can be beaten with smart play, and coordination by the team. And it's not like there aren't Manaless champions who are generally weak. Right now, you only have to look at far as Zac and Aatrox to know that not all that glitters is gold. or goo. or blood.

Anyways, my point is that we are missing out on some pretty cool character potential here, which could lead to some novel and unique champions. But what are your thoughts on this? Should something like this be attempted, and if so, what would it look like?

Personally, i like the idea of playing with cooldowns as a resource. Imagine a Champion who's abilities cost nothing, but instead add a 1 second increase to that spell's base cooldown. There base three spells would work off of this mechanic, while their ultimate upon cast would remove 10 seconds of permanent cooldown (up to the base amount) from all of their other spells, and reduce 20 seconds from their spells currently on cooldown. I'm not talking real numbers here, just an idea, but the concept is interesting. So you see, there are plenty of cool things we can do with Champions that we haven't explored yet, especially when it comes to our resident Bot-laner's. What do you guys think?

Also, to see a list of all Champions that don't use Mana, click on the link provided.

2 Comments

Booleans4/30/2015, 3:08:54 PM2 votes

Let me answer your question of why supports and adcs only use mana as a resource. Imagine if thresh or blitzcrank or Leona never went oom. That would be a nightmare for an adc to lane against Because the support would spam their abilities whenever they were off cool down to get a pick. As a result, the adc would be spamming his mobility spells to constantly dodge the supports skills, and would therefore need an alternate resource to keep up.

Giving a support or adc the Katrina treatment would be awful because it highly encourages spamming spells instead of strategically and selectively using them. Imagine a vayne who can tumble to her hearts content, or a corki able to spam his Q and ultimate without a drawback. It would dumb down the lane not necessarily because things would be OP, but because there would no longer be any second thought to using abilities to fastclear minion waves and constant trading. This would result in a consistently hyperaggressive bottom lane and oppressive roaming because you know that when their spells are up, they are certainly going to use them Almost immediately. In a lane that houses champions that scale harder than anyone else, mana is a very efficient restricter on damage output and no alternate resource that currently exists can match it.