Character Concept: Mana Drain

Morotikiasis·Oct 23, 2019·1 votes·1,291 views

I'm back once again to place my insane ideas onto the forums for the sole purpose of having myself a personal laugh. I know this one will be the last in terms of what order it will show up on the forums, but whatever. Tonight I intend to take you on a deathly journey filled with knights of death and stuff. But first, I was looking through the most recent concepts and saw a comment that said mana damage was dumb (not verbatim) and I thought that I couldn't let that stand. All niches have their place and I must let them breathe.

Mana is a nuisance. While it must be managed early on, as the game progresses mages, carries, and tanks alike begin to forego their worries about mana and go straight balls to the walls. This cannot stand. Energy users must consider their energy at the very least. The other alternate resource users are a different thing that won't be talked about, but mana users should once again fear the depletion of their mana. Too little and they may see their lives cut short. Numbers can always change.

Mana Drain is ranged and magical.

Passive- AA's drain .5% of an enemy's mana. When spells deal damage they drain 1-4% mana, increasing with each rank of the ult.

Ability 1- Conjure 4 spectral blades that, from a set distance, travel to you until they reach you. Each spear damages an enemy they pass. If the mana drain drops them below 75%, 50%, or 25% mana, they take additional damage.

Ability 2- Charge system- Dash in a target direction, slowing enemies you pass and drain 2-10% of their mana for yourself. Multiple dashes through the same targets only create the effects at 25% efficiency.

Ability 3- At a target location summon a spectral spear. The spear will mark nearby enemies for 2s. After that time, the spear will deal damage based on their missing mana. If their mana hits 0, you can reactivate this spell to throw a spear at them that deals 15% of their mana as hp damage.

Ult- Create a ring of spears that rapidly orbit you. Enemies inside have 1% of their mana drained every .5s. After 3s, the spears will converge towards the enemy who had the most mana drained. The spears damage anyone they pass. The main target takes the total amount of mana drained multiplied by 10x the % of missing mana they have as hp damage. Ex. A destroyer with 2000 mana is more likely to be the target rather than one with only 1000 mana. If only 150 mana was drained in total and the target was only missing 39% of their mana, then they would take 150 x 3.9 damage.

Mana Drain is clearly strong against high mana targets if they get the chance to smack them around a bit. With a fair amount of mobility, Mana Drain can dart on the outskirts of a fight and act as a kiting mage or can get more aggressive by dashing onto their enemy and drain higher amounts of mana in one go. While they can punish enemies that drop mana quickly, their damage isn't all that high in reality and even when reducing a destroyer to zero mana, if that destroyer doesn't even build mana items and as such only has maybe 1000 mana by late game, the execute on the E is pathetic and the ult doesn't have much to work with if the target isn't in the ring for the whole time and they might not even be the target. The obvious counter is just anyone that doesn't use mana. Rage, energy, nothing at all. Bring this against Mana Drain and their screwed. The point of the kit is an alternate win strategy, but you can't beat someone over the head with their own bat if they use a chainsaw.

Anyway. If you like it, cool. If you don't, hey. At least it ain't in the game.

6 Comments

KFCeytronOct 23, 20191 votes

Champions with high mana pools are also likely to have more mana regeneration and restoration effects, making mana drains disproportionately affect many juggernauts, tanks, marksmen, and similar classes who usually focus on other stats. Your champion concept would deal more damage to a high-mana target, but a low-mana target would have trouble maintaining enough mana to cast spells.

MorotikiasisOct 23, 20191 votes

Which is also the point. It's two of their core strengths. This makes them a high priority target. You treat them as you would any other carry. It's a different way of shutting down a champion. They just hit mana instead of hp. Mana regen isn't also all that high, so if Mana Drain sticks on someone for too long, even if they have high mana regen, the damage potential can still become a threat. Fair point though.

Posui GartOct 23, 20191 votes

Its not a good idea to make a champion useless against certain enemies. Its ok if you can counterplay this, not as ok but still passable if you can counterbuild this, but if you can just counterpick it to the point where 0 skills work against you, this is a bad design. Also, mana champions still fear the depletion of mana. Thats why they build mana items.

MorotikiasisOct 23, 20191 votes

They build mana so they don't have to worry about mana late game. Of course they fear the depletion of it. When I play a mage in late game, mana is the last thing on my mind. The point of Mana Drain is to make that fear remain throughout the game.

Also, you aren't keeping in mind that Mana Drain's cd's and drain numbers can be balanced to where someone can still cast spells. You counterplay them by avoiding the Q which is easily telegraphed as it always converges on Mana Drain, so if they want the most drain potential (which is only 36% in one rotation late game) they have to actually jump on you which makes them an easy target.

Mana drain is super niche. They are designed to counter and to be countered. I put the numbers always change bit in the intro because the numbers aren't what's really important. It can be changed so that it's balanced. Also, look at dota. They have multiple heroes that drain mana and they do just fine from a balance perspective when played against correctly. It all depends on the type of game your playing.

This mechanic isn't even that bad when you consider how quick fights can be. So what if you lost a quarter of your mana if you can burst down the one draining it. When you play the game well enough, this isn't a concern. If you go oom because you couldn't position correctly then that's on you. It's no different from getting half healthed because you mispositioned. Imagine if this was a hp drain mechanic instead. Now you die because you lost your health instead of dying because you couldn't cast a spell. It just seems bad because you went oom, but you're still alive.

Posui GartOct 23, 20191 votes

They build mana so they don't have to worry about mana late game The point of Mana Drain is to make that fear remain throughout the game.

Not worrying about mana in late is exactly the point of building mana. Imagine someone saying "junglers don't have to worry about jungle sustain in late game, lets change it". Mana is a dead stat. It gives nothing else but the ability to use spells. Its both the weakness(cant spam much early, regen is too slow) and strength(can spam late, regen is faster) of mana users.

Mana Drain's cd's and drain numbers can be balanced to where someone can still cast spells

No, they can't. Its either broken against heavy mana users, useless against champions without mana, or both.

Mana drain is super niche.

And thats why its bad.

Also, look at dota. They have multiple heroes that drain mana and they do just fine from a balance perspective when played against correctly.

In dota, everyone has mana. Even jungle units and ranged minions have mana.
There is no champion designed around manadrain only. Closest to that is Anti-mage, and he has just 2 spells that interact with mana. Of them, only 1 actually drains mana, and manadrain value is flat, so it actually works better against low mana targets.
In dota, counterpicks matter much more than in lol. Its ok for them to have a champion that counters the whole class of champions by himself, its not ok for lol.

Imagine if this was a hp drain mechanic instead

Everyone has hp. Not everyone has mana Everyone dies at 0 health. Not everyone is dead/useless at 0 mana This comparition is worthless

MorotikiasisOct 24, 20191 votes

Not worrying about mana in late is exactly the point of building mana. Imagine someone saying "junglers don't have to worry about jungle sustain in late game, lets change it". Mana is a dead stat. It gives nothing else but the ability to use spells. Its both the weakness(cant spam much early, regen is too slow) and strength(can spam late, regen is faster) of mana users.

And Mana Drain is meant to counter that strength. Instead of dealing damage to make someone useless, they instead attack mana. If you build lots of defense so that you can be tanky then the enemy builds armor shred/pen. The only difference here is that Mana Drain is made for the specific purpose to attack targets in a different way.

No, they can't. Its either broken against heavy mana users, useless against champions without mana, or both.

It's supposed to be useless against manaless champions. That's the point. And no it can be balanced. The numbers for late are literally 38.5% mana drain if you land everything, not even including aa's, in one rotation. The number of times I've been one banged by carries in 1 rotation is more than I can remember. If you got hit by everything and then you die afterward because of the mana execute then that's on you for not being able to outplay it. Plus, I can set thresholds that determine the power of the drain. Less than 1,300 mana and the drain is at half strength. Over that and it's full strength.

Let me also put this caveat in here. I balance my concepts with the intent of controlling what items they are allowed to build. Like Smite, but to a greater degree. Mana Drain would not be allowed to build heavy defense and there's still scaling to be accounted for that forces them to build damage. That means Mana Drain is squishy. Don't like your mana being sapped? Kill them.

And thats why its bad.

Because it's niche? Not really. League has only 22 manaless champions out of 145. You pick Mana Drain if you see the enemy team has all mana (which is more often than not) or more specifically if they have a heavy mana builder like Ryze. You don't pick them as first pick unless you wanted laning phase to be a nightmare. Do you pick Kassadin into literally any AD assassin? No. He gets destroyed. He has an anti-magic niche that aids his ability to kill mages. He has damage to fight ad champs as the game goes on, yes, but he might as well be another squishy in the eyes of an AD. Mana Drain is strong against high mana builders, decent against mana users that don't build mana, and terrible against manaless champs. There are some things you just don't play into and if it's bad to have counterpicks then why is this game competitive? And don't say that counterpicks are fine, but not heavy counter picks because there are plenty of heavy counterpicks in the game.

In dota, counterpicks matter much more than in lol. Its ok for them to have a champion that counters the whole class of champions by himself, its not ok for lol.

I don't balance based on lol, I just use it for comparison when it makes sense and plan to point it out in comments because all my other concepts from some days ago have that blurb. I've played my fair share of mobas and I design based off of my own philosophy, aka a different style of moba. but don't act like for a second that counterpicks don't matter in lol. Every time I watch a pro game draft the casters are going on and on about counterpicks. See a Gnar, you can take Yasuo into him. See a Rakan, take Naut, Leona, or even Fiddlesticks into him. There is other macro to worry about, but counterpicks do matter in lol. If they didn't then why even have a draft phase with bans?

Everyone has hp. Not everyone has mana Everyone dies at 0 health. Not everyone is dead/useless at 0 mana This comparition is worthless

No, it's not. I made the point clear that Mana Drain is not supposed to be able to deal with everyone. The weakness is plain as day. He deals with mana based targets, more preferably spellcasters. They are his target. Assassins don't go after tanks, they go after squishies. If someone picks him into a matchup where reducing the enemy's mana to zero is worthless than that's their fault. Mana is his personal win condition. It's how he kills. Just because hp has always been universal doesn't mean you can't have characters that attack specific stats or playstyles. The point of the comparison was that if this was hp drain then they would be effective against everyone and would have all the standard weaknesses that every single champion, hero, god and whatever share. Yay! I wanted a different condition to put an enemy out of a fight, one that allowed for even the most iron of players to be able to recognize the potential strengths and weaknesses.

Niches are important. As a game progresses and as more mobas create new characters people will want something different, something that hasn't been done before. If you don't create characters that have alternate playstyles than you run into the issues of characters feeling the same. We can keep creating characters that attack hp because it makes intuitive sense or we can be more expansive and create niche characters that have their golden situations and their garbage situations. It is still on the player to use them well and counterplay is still possible. Outrange Mana Drain and avoid the telegraphed Q. Problem solved. This is not a problematic character.