Talk:LeBlanc/@comment-76.92.140.157-20130313102252/@comment-4019444-20130313105541

You generally should be saving mana for burst combos on your opponent, but times have changed and pushers are what you're going against frequently (Kha'Zix, for example). So you will need to use Q for last hitting and such, thus losing mana. This might sound insanely stupid but here goes: Chalice. Now lower your pitchforks, lemme explain. There are three common mana-centric items being built these days: Rod of Ages, Tear of the Goddess and Chalice of Harmony. Now, LB wants damage and a lot of it.

RoA: If you're a mage wanting a lot of damage, RoA is not what you want. RoA is built for a bigger mana pool and health to survive things (the AP you get from it is a nice little bonus). If you build that on LB, you're sacrificing her powers of burst and just becoming a beefy mage who tickles, basically ignorable.

Tear: LB doesn't need a gigantic mana pool. She has no spammable abilities like Ryze and she doesn't have any toggles that require such mana pools like Anivia. Plus, I doubt LB can ever charge a Tear quickly to get Seraph or Muramana without the game going into an hour.

Chalice: Now, you may say "Well, LB doesn't need mana regen from items because she can save her combos to farm enemies". Well, yeah, that's true, in laning phase you should be smart in your mana usage. However, like I said, you will be countered by a pusher (which LB hates) and you need to do something to get that wave away from your tower. You can manage that with regen seals. Okay, that's cool and all but what about mid-game (post-laning phase) or late-game? You have to push with your team and so you need to use your spells to push as much as you can (unless LB got some huge AD growth per level that I'm unaware of). You will go OOM quickly through that. This is where Chalice comes in. You will have a constant source of mana to help push with your spells and have mana ready for any team fights. Plus, Chalice gives some nice MR if you want to build it during laning phase to prevent your opponent from trying to burst you down. And then the biggest bonus comes up: when you do upgrade it to Grail (don't rush it though... this is like a later item after your Deathcap and Deathfire), you'll get a boost in mana regen and much needed CDR to make your ultimate just another spell (like Lux) along with AP which is then boosted by Deathcap. Just a thought. You can always just rely on mana regen from runes but I'd like to see how helpful you are in pushing later in the game.