Energy Champions: The CORRECT Way To Design Manaless Champions? | League of Legends 

Technically, even if Udyr isn't from Ionia, it would still make sense for him to use energy because he trained alongside Lee Sin

I think the idea of en energy juggernaut sounds really interesting since juggernauts are defined through their team fight ability etc. Making them play tighter trade windows through the usage of energy sounds very interesting since u have to know when to fight and when not to.

The energy as a whole is one of the most interesting mechanics in the game and we haven't seen energy champion since Zed. Let's hope to see new energy champion in 2022.

I firmly believe and have believed that the lack of a limiting resource like mana/energy is beyond stupid for the balance of spammy champions like kata, riven, viego or even yas and yone to me it just seemed unfair for me to be playing into those matchups trying to manage my mana (for the first 10 mins) while they use abilities on demand

I wish more champs had energy, I just enjoy it a lot more as a Shen main

Crazy spammers, like Katarina, should be balanced by energy consumption. Champs who have longer CD like Garen should not. Since they have energy restrictions, the abilities should be stronger. Champs like Aatrox should not though since his cast times are much slower and not loaded. For example, Zed has tons of spam and I notice what holds him back from spamming is only energy usage. Lee gets two iterations of abilities, thus energy is needed

Maybe giving energy to Yi is a way to balance him, that way he can't just spam Q after every kill.

Lee Sin is the greatest ninja of them all though. When he's on my team, he's nowhere to be seen - which is truly ninja-like and when he's on the enemy team, he's the feared assassin that strikes at night.

One thing about manaless champions, gnar rage serves very well as a restriction, the fact he will transform with very little you can do about it sometimes serve to limit the fact he doesn't use Mana. We need a marksman with energy. Just make him a true caster that can't attack but who's Q serves as his damage, like ezreal Q with a whole new kit around it

Vars: we shouldn't make auto attackers with energy Also vars: lets make Udyr an energy champion

Energy is a good mechanic for limiting burst potential since the only way to restore Energy is PoM, which means you lose out on other potential runes. Katerina needs energy, no reason she should have zero resources

Energy is really interesting resource compare to just straight up resourceless. It basically Mana but you don't have to build mana item. it had similar purpose but with different ups and downs.

Energy Champions seem like a solution to a problem Riot made themselves by making Manaless Champions

One thing I didnt notice you mention is how Shen has a MASSIVE 400 energy bar (double the amount of other energy champions) and huge ability costs. It's got the same regeneration rate as other champions but it allows you to throw everything in one big go and have a loooong downtime if you dont want to work around your refund mechanic. I think they allowed him to use all of his kit quickly considering hes the only tank of the group and might have to engage in less than optimal circumstances.

I think Kayn should also be an energy champion, it makes a lot of sense considering that he's Zed's student.

Energy has a ton of untapped potential. I feel like it isn't impossible to make other classes of champions that could work with it. Xayah for example is a champion that for a very long time, was night and day with Essence Reaver. Before it, you couldn't use abilities often because her mana pool is extremely restrictive, and that's including the fact that it's difficult for her to force situations where her abilities even become useful. After Essence Reaver, she became a champion because her abilities weren't very impactful at all outside of her ideal circumstance, but she finally had the mana to afford using them for something other than trying to survive or trying to catch. She could afford to consistently poke or shove waves, or even just set up feathers for zoning. I feel like if her E was given a slightly higher cooldown, feathers stayed on the ground for a pinch longer, her Q damage was reduced, and maybe her w given a shorter cooldown and also shorter duration (not sure about that, but it's an idea to consider,) she could be made an energy champion. Rakan might also make the cut with the same sorts of changes, where his E has a high energy cost, his Q heals for less, and something gives him an energy refund would work for him. He already has almost no mana troubles at all, all things considered. I don't think I've ever seen a Rakan forced to base by mana when they're not also below 100 hp.

I think Wukong and Yi definitely could be energy champs and might honestly be better as energy champs. However, Karma is a full blown mage so I think mana fits her better.

First, I would enjoy an Udyr mini-rework that gave him energy instead of mana; his current passive incentivizes switching between stances during gameplay, but with mana he will eventually run out without a Tear item that only gives him mana and one stat. Only thing is that the persistent effect also triggers on the first hit after activation, though that might incentivize him to be played more aggressively. Second, as far as energy mages go, I agree burst mages might be a bad idea, but what about artillery mages or battle mages?

I played shen for a good time when i started(i magically got the pulsefire shen skin) and i bought faerie charms trying to increase my energy regen XD

Energy on a support is totally fine in principle. Just make the cost high enough and give them a active/risky option to gain energy, like auto-attacking champions, hitting them with skill-shots or staying very close to an ally.

“Dangerous to put big aoe damage on a mana less or energy champion” Kennen: let me introduce myself.

Ya know, I've allways wanted Kayn to use energy because he is Zed's -son- star student

I really liked the idea of master yi using energy.That way he would not be able to perma spam his Q after 3 auto attacks in late game

What about Riven, if she was an energy champion, I believe she could be more skillful, and reward better Riven champions, but also there's also the possibility that it pushes away people from the champion. I'd like to think Riven's energy restoration would be similar to Lee Sin where she recovers a portion of it by auto attacking while her passive is up. There's a lot to change to balance her out with energy though, but I would like Riot to try this in PBE as a quick idea. She is also a Ionian champion after being exiled from Noxus.

I think there should be way more energy champions than there are currently, just like you said, i would love to see an energy based juggernaut rather than a full manaless one, juggernauts run out of mana in the laning phase all too often, i think at least one or 2 energy champs to the class would be a good addition

This might be far-fetched but I have a slight suspicion that the upcoming marksman will be energy based. They teased a lot about it in the champion roadmap.

I would honestly love to see an energy marksman. The potential for occasional explosive moments lategame would be pretty interesting to work with IMHO

I think Energy is a decent mechanic, but I also think it's proven over the years to have a lot of problems. Calling it only a coincidence that 4/5 of the champions who use Energy have been balance nightmares for years, in large part because they have the long term consistency that Mana Champions lack. Playing against Energy champs as a Mana Champion still feels awful most of the time, cause they almost always have shorter cooldowns than you, their abilities get more forgiving as they level up, and every single one of them has frustrating mechanics to play against. Having Mana is a downside as much as it is an upside, and Energy while great in theory, has created a lot of balance problems because it can be restored so quickly compared to Mana. At Level 3, your combo is gonna leave you missing 30-50% of your mana depending on the Champion. Toss one one trade and now you have no combo. Energy Champions not only get their full combo that first time, have an ability for a trade, and then have their full combo for the 2nd fight, and the Mana Champion can't do anything but sit there and watch, much the same as a Manaless champion. tldr - Energy causes a lot of issues, and I think it's good that they're not trying to force it into the game. I dislike it because in a lot of cases it's a dishonest limitation because they'll have their combo back up by the time you're trying to fight again. It's preferable to Manaless Champions, but it has a ton of issues as well, if they release another Energy champion then I only hope they make them better than any of the others (Except Shen, Shen's pretty cool)

I think talon could be a good option for energy using, actually his kit has low mana waste so is like if he was already a manaless champ and it could be possible to implement the energy restoration in his passive or jumps, in fact it could be possible to remove the individual jump's cd for each wall and replace it with energy waste, so if he jumps twice the same piece of wall he waste more energy but if he jumps different walls each time it cost less or even it recover energy.

I like the idea of an energy bot laner. And I think there's a good chance of it with one of the new champion also being form ionea

As someone who was able to pick up most every hard champ (azir, Asol, gp, zed, sylas, etc) in the game in a couple games, rework vlad. He’s the only champ that in 10 or more games I haven’t started rolling lobbies on, you have to exclusively play vlad, and I mean hundreds of games, to know his limits into each matchup at each level and the only way he’s good, is if you know limits perfectly. Even less friendly then Asol when it comes to not one tricking him.

Idk if this was the case but ekko might have been an energy champion during development but the Q made it so that he couldn’t be because it would be infinite shoving in midlane, it would make sense because god knows why his ult didn’t cost any mana on release

Imagine a champion who's cost is time, like HotS deathwing, whenever you cast a skill you are committed to it and can't stop the long animations, you also need skill since none of his skill deal damage at the start.

There is a chance that udyr will be the latest energy champ . We won’t have to wait long to know as his rework is just around the corner

Energy Juggernaut sounds cool, don't think it would be that limiting though since they already have other, bigger limitations

gotta love how every energy champion has a situational condition to restore energy via abilities but akali can just press W

One guy I feel could've worked as Energy is Nocturne. In fact it might've been a nerfed version of nocturne. since I occasionally find myself with more than enough mana to spam my q for ever and just poke mid to late game compared to Energy where if I did do that with Energy I might not have enough Energy for an emergency W cast.

Akali's energy refund on her passive was not technically removed because it was too consistent, it was removed because it created a too big of a skill gap between bad to average and great players, the champion is already too hard to be balanced properly at all elos and to make her viable in lower elos with her passive refund she would basically be a spam machine in the hands of great players

Lee Sin is from Ionia. And as for Zed: SPOILER FOR ZED'S COMIC ISSUES He faked killing Shen's father so that he (Shen's father, his name is Kusho) could lead the Shadow Order in secrecy, as he deemed it necessary for Ionia to have an order that rules the land and protects them from outsiders and maniacs like Jhin, while Shen is fooled into thinking Zed was the bad guy and upholding the traditional values of the Kinkou. Later down the line Zed Does end up killing Kusho, but that's way later when Kusho gets too corrupt and covets the power of shadows more, consuming his humanity and becoming an abomination similar to Nocturne.

I wonder if riot will ever add a energy support character. There's a character from heroes of the storm called *lt. Morales* that use to have mana until they reworked her so now she has energy, that really increased how long she could stay in Lane before having to reset. (Tl:rd, riot should make an energy based support)

You COULD turn some mages into energy champions, by changing the rate of energy regeneration and size of the energy bar. Like, 10 time the amount of energy, but 12 time slower regeneration.

I liked the point where you mentioned ability haste. If they were costless or mana champions you would be able to build alot of ability haste on zed, akali or kennen and just spam the everliving shit out of your abilities. Max ability haste akali sounds especially bad

Which would also make Udyr more balanced cause then he can't just run around the entire map with a shield on all the time cause he has a blue and like 2k mana

As an akali main i love energy a lot, i feel like its such a skillful mechanic and just the managing of it takes a lot of skill since most energy champion have a spammable ability (5 points strike in my case) that can make u run out of mana pretty fast

In theory mana is suposed to limit you, but riot keep on giving everyone means to get mana regen.I cannot think of a champ other than syndra or tear champs that runs out of mana in lane, so I don't see the point for mana in champs like qiyana or ekko who can cast full rotations of spells multiple times with 5% mana

i think an energy enchanter is possible as long as their a buff enchanter or deisigned to more easily top off health pools but have a hard time against burst so a patch healing enchanter instead of a burst healing enchanter.

While she is completely unrelated to Ionia in any way, the way Samira plays makes me think that she's a champion who could use energy very well. Just make her refund mechanic something like landing a melee range q or blocking a projectile with w and then bam, instant energy champ

I tried to make fan-reworks for an energy adc , ignoring lore I think my best atempts are: -Varus , make his CD shorter put high energy cost on them and ad energy refunds when he pop blight stacks (based on how many) -Samira not much to do, her Q is similar in usage to akali's Q (realy short cd main damaging spell ) so give it a high early cost, for W and E and give them a 30 to 40 cost. She regain energy based on her style rank. Aphelios a really unique take on energy where it works almost like a reverse rumble heat mechanic , each auto consumes energy shared for both weapons you wield , reach 0 energy changes your on hand weapon and refounds you half your max energy. I didnt made the numbers yet but it would be like , just last hitting you can keep the weapon indefinitely ,playing normaly or fighting but with low atk speed will give your weapons the same up time they curently have but pushing too hard or with too much atk speed ,you quickly change weapons . Bring down the dmg on his spell in favor of a shorter CD (also create a way for him to use the gravitum spell out of combat) give it a huge energy cost (around 80) . This rework in my opinion gives Aphelios a smoother gameplay , spamming your spell in lane our out of combat to get to the weapons you want dont leaves you OOM and useless for long because energy regenenerate much faster . Spamming spells in combat gives you a higher dps but will leave you with a sub optimal weapon combination much faster than in his current form

One thing to note. Mana serves a big purpose after getting your mythic for mana champions. And that is to gate wave clearing and wave management. Sure if i'm playing Orianna i'm not likely to run out of mana during a team fight. But if we add having to hold a siege for a few waves now things aren't looking that good unless i got blue buff. Mana gates how long a mage can hold a siege and how long can it stays on the map. If mana wasn't a problem after min 15 then a lot of mages would be way stronger.

I think Energy is way better than manaless, it takes skill and experience to play them. Really want to see more of them.

I think Riven should have energy. She has too much mobility to run from danger without any cost, making it pretty frustrating to fight against, and if she refunds the energy with her passive, she would be the same on the agressive, while not being able to escape as much

Crazy as it sounds, I always think Samira should have been a energy champion

What you say about mana champions being able to never run out is completely true. Any mana jungler can smap their abilities as long as they have a blue buff.

Can you please talk about true damage champions (champions that deals true damage).

A Juggernaut with energy as resource would be very interesting!

I feel like it might be possible to make riven use enegy, and make her passive restore it so people can't mindlessly spam.

Hey Vars, would you consider doing some premade team orianted video? Something like comps and things to abuse when you are playing with your friends and are able to voice chat

The first energy champion I played was Shen and I really enjoyed energy over mana. Especially being a complete noob at that time that didnt understand what runes or items did. I clearly saw how I spent more energy in an all in than mana but at the same time it was regenerating quick enough so I could try engaging again. It allowed me to learn the champion and laning while not excluding the resource management completely out of the equation. Completely resourceless champions dont make much sense to me, especially when they have things like wind wall in their kit which literally renders half of the existing champions useless in a teamfight for free. (windbros are honestly their own category of bs for me)

an energy base enchanter could be really cool. you give them low cooldowns and high energy costs so they can only do 1 rotation for like 180 energy but they get all their cooldowns before the energy recharges. you could give a champion like this an energy refund if they hit everything to let them only have to wait for the cooldowns. and the part I like the most is that it's super easy to tweak as it's just the cooldowns and numbers that would be the issue and energy refund. nothing in that idea would be broken just a rewarding and new way of rewarding good ability usage. I am thinking a support that is like small heal, small shield, and some cc basically sona-milio mix but idk what they would be to be interesting and different in how they heal and shield and stuff. but I really like energy idea.

Im sure Qiyana could be reworked into an Energy Champion

I love energy. Please give us more energy champions

Vars : I think I forgot something Viewer : if you forgot, then it wasn't important Vars :yeah,you right................. Hold up, wait a minute ( loaded His D-eagel and start shooting Yone head again) The entire Yone Subredits : stop he already dead

I wonder if there will ever be another energy champ. Hasn't been one since Zed and he came out in S3...

Riven would be a good energy champion, given she went to live in Ionia to repent and help them rebuild and face her guilt. She’s already manaless. All basic ability casts would cost 40, making all 5 casts use up the 200 energy. Obv, her ult would have no cost. And her passive for weaving autos could refund 30, so she could refund 150 on a full rotation, if done correctly. Meanwhile since her full rotation is 200, it still means newer players to her can still do a full rotation, but won’t be as efficient. It could also be a huge lore moment for her, showing just how far she’s come on her path towards redemption, and having left Noxus behind.

I would love to see a enchanter sup that uses energy, but I know it would be trash because riot loves bruisers and assassins and hates enchanters and adcs.

There are some energy marksmen in mobile copy of League (Kimmy and Lesley). And one of them have unique type of autoattacks which probably will have that new mm in 2022.

The reasons for why Syndra doesn't have energy costs makes me think why they made Zed an energy champion... doing a full rotation from safety just to do it 15 seconds later... sounds familiar... also dirk items are perfectly balanced

Rumble's ressource is the most interesting and flavourful ressource in the game and it's sad that nothing that has been released in the last few years that even tries to think outside the idea of mana or ressourceless champs. The only thing I can think of now are these "3rd level ressource bars" like Irelia passive, Gwen Q or Corki R (or Sett W), but I can hardly call those a ressource, more like an indicator of power windows. I really hope that Riot releases a champ with an interesting twist on a ressource, like a champ that needs to gather a ressource by auto attacking to cast most of his kit. Riot teased an electric ADC, it would be cool if he uses autos to charge himself up to cast strong abilities that he cant use when he hasnt charged himself up before. Similarly Vlad could be reworked that his E damage depends on his Q stacks, it's much more flavourful and forces him to set up a combo before he can delete anyone

Well, if I'm not mistaken, Yi, Karma and Wukong are all older than Zed and by the time Zed got released, league's lore was very different.

I feel like Yi is not energy user because he's an beta character. The idea of energy wasn't even close to execution back then and he just left like that. Karma is actually a mage so it fits her to use mana Wukong actually does look like someone who would heavily benefit from switching to energy pool

Just my humble opinion: Energy should be renamed to ki/chi depending on the localization. Fits better thematically and is more distinct from the Fury resource (aside from their obvious differences mechanically).

Maybe the new marksmen works with energy or a refilling passive to use auto attacks non stop till he runs out of it.

All champions should work with mana, then have a secondary energy bar when and where needed. Nearly all energy champions are hard to balance.

Akali is the champion that doesn’t follow the energy rule. She is an assassin that uses energy, yet she gets multiple rotations of spells off in one fight. I have always felt that her design is just wrong because she is an assassin that plays more like a bruiser. Assassins are meant to go in and then get out or die. Akali can go in, use her shroud and zone the entire enemy backline for 5 seconds, then she can also zone for an extra 2.5 seconds with hourglass.

Can you imagine if Master Yi couldn't just spam Q? How wonderful the game would become?

I never really care about any energy Champion becouse of the skill cap they required (expecialy Lee sin) but I thing is a really good resurces to use. And I thing Udyr can be a really good usage of that like you mentioned but seeing the list of champion I think Riot did everything soo each champion is really depended on his cost/non cost with the exept of Yone that is a copy cat of Yasuo for some reason.. Even if before he was released we know that only Yasuo can use the Wind tecnique but Yone you it too soo... Yea it does not make really sense... In the future if they realise a new energy championor a new cost I would love too try it out... For sure it will not be with the next 3 champion becouse the marksmiten use electricity and they are focused on his auto meccanic, the next one will be a Chembaron from Zaun and related too gold and mind control(?) and the last one will come for the preaty much comfirmed Void event with a new (maibe female) VoidBorn along side the secret rework (spoiler is Spawn from Spider-Man). But maybe 2023 will have some new good stuff.

idc if its energy or rage or a new resource, i just want more alternatives to mana

Ironically, i think manaless ap champs were hurt, or at least didn’t benefit as much, from the s11 item changes. Imagine a vlad with everfrost or crown

i think they could rework master yi and wukong to be energy champions, but master would need a lot of changing to do that

I would love to see an energy marksman

Yi and Wukong as energy champions... That might not be such a bad idea.

i like the energy mechanic. what i dont like is how certain energy based champions, dont have any negatives to using energy but get all the benefits. akali for example when she had 2 different ways to refresh her energy on per passive and her donut. Energy has this issue where it can easily go from the "constant moderate use of abilities" you described to "im practically in urf because my abilities have no real cooldown and my energy refreshes let me spam non stop huehuehue xD lul git good scrub"

An enchanter with energy could work like, small and regular shields

Personally I always felt like Sett was supposed to have energy but something went wrong

I tought it was for ninjas too, until i tought at all the champions that use it and took Lee'Sin out of it. So looking at what ninjas and monks have in comon, we can see they're all martial artists. So, the martial artists are the ones to use energy. At least that's my point of view.

In my opinion energy is just mana by a different name. They really shouldn't count as manaless champions sure it's rapidly recharging mana but the thing still gates in the same way as mana. Unlike something like fury.

Theoretically, Yuumy is a mana champ that has the properties of energy champ, her passive and E has fixed percentage mana stats, she can't benefit to much from stacking mana, and pls riot fix the client and the game

Idk why they don't just halve Shen's Energy costs, refunds and maximum energy. I think there is no point in having double the maximum energy but basically doubled costs

Too bad almost all energy users don't actually care about the concept of having "limited casts in a short time frame"... because they can still simply burst you with their entire kit and still end up 2 screens away at the end of it.

Really sad to watch this video, after Udyr got reworked and they didn't change him into an energy champion. What an opportunity they missed.

Any cost is fine, mana, energy, rage, HP... even no cost is not bad, it's always balance by conditions. Zac is a good HP cost champion if he land his ability & play smartly with blob he can fight forever but he need's to fight. Mundo's Q is good rewarding for hitting champion moreover with revitalise and/or spirit visage. No cost needs a trade of... to be balance What is good about energy champ is the need you to play the champ "the good way" to have refounds. ___________________ On Vlad : i would like his Q to change passive to mark target like Eve W on spell once it's full channel, you consume the mark on the next spell & heal (high on champs very low on minions. That would reward vlad to go into the fray mark as much target as he can and blast them.

Lee sin is probably the only champion where energy is well designed. If you don't get autos off you very easily get energy lockedf

Hot take: Nocturne should be reworked into an energy champion. It’s never made sense to me why his mana pool is so low and it doesn’t same to fit. Obviously his kit would need to be adjusted, but it could open some neat opportunities to work in more skill expression with landing his q.

I honestly think Kayn should've been an energy champion

QOTD: No Energie Champs please, the reason riot didn´t made more is because they are broken, all 5 energie champs are strong and picked like every 2nd game, if they add 5 more we will have only energie champs in every game for sure

Yone should be reworked to become an energy champ so he doesnt spam shit so often x) thanks for the video

Sadly a rioter just said that they aren't going to make any other energy user champ, since apparently they are so difficult to balance :c

I'd rather see more energy champs than manaless champions, because manaless champions don't always even have long cooldowns...