User blog:Nhan-Fiction/How Resourceful

'''Click here for the original post on my personal blog, which has lots of pretty pictures. ''' - In “League of Legends,” an interesting aspect of the game is how champions with alternative resource systems (basically, anything other than Mana) exist. What this means is, well, some characters in the game basically play by different rules compared to other champions.

At times, this may seem kind of unfair in the sense that these special champions will never have to worry about stuff like going OOM (out of Mana) when their abilities are paid for differently. We all have faced that awkward scenario where you have to manage your Mana carefully against a foe who literally just spams their abilities left and right at their leisure. It creates a lot of strange duels.

Below is a list of how I would rate the resource systems currently available in the game from best to worst, judging strictly in terms of effectiveness. - 1. Ferocity

Hands down, Rengar definitely has the BEST resource system you could want in LoL in the form of Ferocity.

OK, so what you have here is a resource mechanic that grants free use of your abilities. And upon gaining a full bar of Ferocity, your next regular ability becomes enhanced with a bonus effect. Wow. Just wow.

Free abilities and the buildup toward an even-better version of a regular skill? Talk about vicious. - '''2. Heat '''

Rumble‘s Heat mechanic is second in my book in terms of power and flexibility.

So you get free abilities again that grant you Heat whenever you use an ability. After reaching the halfway point of the Heat bar, your abilities actually get stronger as long as you maintain it in the Danger Zone. The reason why I put this as second on the list is because of the overheating drawback, which silences Rumble but does grant him a big boost for his auto-attacks to make up for this fact.

Regardless, any “free” resource system that encourages you to spam your abilities will always trump something that has a restriction. - 3. Fury

GET ANGRY! As I write this post, three champions currently use the Fury mechanic in the game. These Fury-based champions are Renekton, Shyvana and Tryndamere.

Now, each of these champions actually utilize slightly different variations of the Fury system, so I will use the unpopular crocodile’s version as an example.

As you can see, there is a bit of a trend with how I rank these resource systems. Abilities with no real costs, aside from their cooldowns, are inherently more powerful than anything else in the game. With Fury-based champions, the idea is to build up your bar to work toward extra effects. And in a lot of cases, this often means wailing on foes until you fill that bar up with your FURY! SO ATTACK, ATTACK AND ATTACK! - 4. Cooldown

This is slightly worse than the aforementioned resourced systems, but it is still a pretty sweet resource system to take advantage of in LoL. The other resource systems at least provide bonuses of some sort for the abilities.

In regards to champs who are completely Manaless and run strictly on cooldowns, well they really don’t have much to worry about because their moves are completely free. With only a cooldown to keep in mind, these champs can use their skills at their leisure, which in turn leads to a lot more aggressive spamming against their enemies. After all, what’s holding you back?

If you are playing as a completely Manaless character who just has cooldowns to deal with, it’s like a crime in itself NOT TO use your skills.

Go nuts! - 5. Health

Paying your HP to use some of your moves is pretty extreme. I have to say. It’s not a terrible resource system (honestly, most of the health-based champions in the game like Vladimir can often handle the HP costs just fine), but your moves still have a cost involved by putting your champion’s life at risk, if only just slightly here and there. This can prove dangerous at low health. Otherwise, it’s a solid resource system. - 6. Energy

The nice part about Energy is how it refills itself rather quickly (especially if you nab the refund bonuses). So even after you use an ability, you can always wait a bit and you will be good to go. The issue behind resource systems like Energy is that you have to be more mindful of how you manage them in spurts. The idea behind the ninja characters in particular is to combo your abilities correctly, using every bit of Energy in one smooth and elegant sequence to take down your foes.

This resource is lower on the list due to the fact that there is a limitation of sorts and because it punishes carelessness on the player’s part. - 7. Mana

In a weird way, having the blue bar under your champion’s HP bar is kind of a curse for LoL. Technically speaking, of course.

- You have to be more aware of how much your abilities cost in terms of Mana. - Your abilities are dependent on if you have enough Mana to use all your moves at once, which can delay or stop ability combos in their tracks. - Running out of Mana means you cannot use your abilities until you refill your blue bar up. - Fighting a foe who does not use Mana can be very frustrating at times because your opponent can potentially out-sustain you with their free abilities. - In other words, Mana is just very restrictive compared to the other champions who are privileged to use moves without any resource spent.

Fortunately for the game, most of the champions in LoL do in fact use Mana as a resource. This makes it so there is more or less a level playing field, so it is not like there are 50+ champions who don’t use Mana. However, despite being the majority as far as resource systems go, Mana is sort of a disadvantage to have when a select-few characters in the game break the norm with their Manaless (and superior) systems.

So remember …

Blue bar = bad?

No blue bar = better (in most cases)!