Talk:Heimerdinger/@comment-68.53.157.96-20130106012213/@comment-5052127-20130111122011

^ grenades were originally balanced that way because they had longer range and much better AP ratio. Because of how strong his turrets are mechanically in lane, part of the nerfs necessary to stop his broken early game was to get rid of a lot of that range and AP ratio, while leaving the mana costs the same.

His mana costs are all about the early game. They are high because of how hard it is to safely harass him or trade damage back in lane for any of his abilities, and how his abilities all let him farm and push. His mana costs have to be high so he can't just spam those very hard to answer, hard to dodge poke spells forever while also farming nonstop.

Late game, the slow speed and how hard grenade is to use effectively balanced out the fact that grenades also had longer range than just about anything else in the game and a decent (0.77) AP ratio (though I'm fairly sure they also did have a slightly bigger stun radius too, besides longer range). Basically, with his range, letting it go any faster or stun any easier would make him too safe; since he could see you coming and react long before you ever get in range of him and then be able to lead and hit you every time with grenade.