User blog comment:Emptylord/Sandbox/Custom Patch Notes/@comment-1330314-20140324195326/@comment-1330314-20140327233319

That is true, but the problem with mana burn comes from it taking mana management out of the player's control: the point to having mana is that you need to be careful with how you're spending it. If you manage your mana properly, you potentially get to lay down a burst of power whenever you want, which energy-based champions can't do on a sustained basis (they burn everything and then end up with either feast or famine depending on how well they played) and which most manaless champions can't do at all, or at least have to trade in a lot of power in exchange ( and, for example, have no crowd control). If you cast your spells often, you get to exert a lot more power on average than manaless champs, but if you burn everything too quickly don't put that mana to use and run out you'll end up with downtime (i.e. going back to base). That's also why some champions have risky ways of restoring mana: sure, you can lay down ungodly amounts of poke from a safe distance as, or land a nasty instant combo as , but if you want to keep doing that often you're doing to have to give the enemy an opportunity to retaliate.

If you're a champion like and are running out of mana in the middle of fights, I would actually recommend flat mana and not mana regeneration: flat mana will give you the extra juice you need to keep on going, whereas mana regeneration is mostly there so you can get back up to full strength in between fights. That's one of the reasons why mana regen is attractive on supports but not so much on mages or tanks: supports have to be always ready to offer peel, crowd control and utility, and so need to have as little downtime as possible, even if they're low on mana. Mages and tanks, on the other hand, are all about their rotation, and so need the raw mana to pull it off without being hamstrung in the middle of a fight. Mana regeneration as it currently exists is actually extremely powerful (you regen a huge amount over time, particularly with a item), but is not by any means meant to be overly effective in the middle of combat, just as health regen on items isn't meant to offer drastically increased in-combat regeneration (unless of course you're ).