User blog comment:Willbachbakal/(Item Concept) Fixing Mana/@comment-3974211-20151208054314

With standardized mana pools, mana regeneration and mana costs - I'm not sure removing mana itemization is actually necessary. Or, at least, removing all of it. If all champions have 100 mana and they each have a proportional number of rotations tied to 100 mana - what's wrong with having an item that grants 100 mana or 5 mp/5? Twice as many casts is twice as many casts on everyone; only 50 seconds to regen instead of 100 is true for everyone. They don't have to be basic items.

I'm just really sceptical about how the pacing of the game will be affected if Varus can only cast 5 Qs and he's out of mana, with zero way to influence it. Not only pacing, but builds. Varus players current invest around mana efficiency, and it creates variation between Varus as a champion and Caitlyn as a champion. Ezreals currently use one of their item slots on Tear of the Goddess - if that item is removed, is Ezreal suppose to just build the same things as Caitlyn? They aren't the same champion and they have different goals - either Ezreal's cost will need reducing in such a way that mana essentially becomes irrelevant on him innately (e.g. Mystic Shot costs 5 mana, which is regened during the cooldown) or his ability to basic attack someone to death has to be buffed because his mana pool prevents him from being a caster capable of duelling Caitlyn, which ultimately homogenizes champions.

Other MOBAs offer a relatively finite mana pool systems (where it can take 20 seconds to regenerate enough mana to cast one ability once you've run out, e.g. Annie with a 20 Disintegrate cost) - but League's relatively relaxed stance on casters is actually one of the allures of this game over the competitors. I'm not saying League's system is perfect as is (it really isn't - why do I gain mana per level if my ability costs go up? What would actually be different if neither of those happened?) and I wholeheartedly agree with creating a standardized baseline as a starting point. But removing the gameplay attached to it entirely is a HUGE change that I really don't think amounts to a whole lot of positive results.