Recently I started playing Falstad. I never liked him, but I had some theoretical notion about this character. It’s a very enjoyable game but I immediately noticed the huge mana costs of its basic skills:
60; 60; 70;
Earlier, I played a lot on Hanzo and in no match I felt mana problems, his mana costs are: 15; 40; 50.
Do you also have the impression that there is a problem of mana cost balance? Some heroes consume too much and others too few?
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Some heroes have absurd values for mana costs. Falstad goes oom fast but his blow up potential is also pretty high. Falstad is also one of the oldest heroes in the game, and a lot of the original cast has pretty high values.
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Falstad does a ton of damage, is a global hero that can soak offlanes and has some of the most powerful gamechanging ults. Mana issues should be a weakness.
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you’re not wrong, many of the recent releases are much more mana efficient than the older 50% of heroes
instead of tuning the damage and wasting many working hours reworking talents, a good move would be to first revisit mana costs of low popularity and overall considered weak heroes, people might start playing them more and discover new synergies with regularly played heroes
sometimes winning an early lane solo fight might go a long way and bring a snowballing advantage, this can easily be achieved by adjusting the mana costs, also it might make fighting most powerful solo laners that dominate their lane a little less horrible
having mana for one more spell sometimes translates into the difference between getting an extra soak or having to teleport back early, and in no way does it affect the larger picture and team fights in a negative manner
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Falstad do have high mana cost but he also can B and come back with minimum to none xp loss contrary to non global ranged so it does kinda balance out i think.
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Also, during the laning phase you don’t use anything except your hammer. So you shouldn’t be spending very much mana except in team fights.
Yes I totally agree. Many older heroes like Falstad, Uther, Zagara have absurdly high base ability mana costs and will go completely OOM after only 3 spell rotations. These heroes need their mana costs reduced to be more competitive with the newer lineup of heroes.
For example if you look at Alarak it is almost impossible to go OOM. Other heroes like Genji and Kelthuzad were in the same place until they had their mana costs (rightfully) increased. I don’t think every hero should be able to spam their abilities with impunity, but every hero should at least be able to go through 4-5 spell rotations before being OOM.
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ya…its not that their mana efficient. its that they dont burn mana enough to even worry about it most times. which at that point why even have mana? its just a blue bar there to look pretty. might as well make everyone energyless heroes.
you see back in alpha, and probably for a little while after release even, mana actually meant something. the design philosphy there was that it was a limiting factor in team fight engagements. you would run out of mana and have to go back to the fountain or port to base. so wise use of the fountain was required or you would find yourself porting back. ppl also picked up globes like always. there was none of this “oh…a globe… meh it doesnt matter” crap.
on some heroes now i can go half the game and never even port or use the fountain. like wtf is that?
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Pretty much agree with OP.
Only I would prefer if low mana consumption heroes got their costs increased.
Mana management is important part of the game.
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Mana in Heroes always has a tendency to be either too much or completely negligible. Often times, there are heroes that even beg the question why have a mana bar? Other times, there’s heroes with high mana consumption with no way to mitigate it either. High mana cost characters like Jaina at least can talent mana returns.
I’ve always felt as though mana needs to be looked at in Heroes differently, especially since one of the core appeals of Heroes is that you can play characters that theoretically don’t have to go back to base.
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Okay, the game has several different ways to put constraints on characters.
There are timers, stacks, mana, energy, all that help to regulate a given character to keep their power level from being overwhelming.
Timers are the most obvious, weaker abilities have shorter cooldowns, while ultimates typically have rather hefty cooldowns for their relative power. But many people overlook the fact that mana/energy is supposed to be one as well.
This constraint is most easily seen in the game by Li Ming. She’s capable of dishing out untold amounts of damage to the enemy, especially when she can trigger her trait with takedowns to keep going with the damage fountain… but that’s where the mana comes in, go for too long and you’ll run out of mana. It keeps her from just steamrolling over the enemy team.
As a general rule, if you’re running out of mana a lot, you might want to throttle back on the ability usage. You’re expending a resource, so the question is whether you’re getting the most bang for your mana buck. Are you just chasing down an extra kill after a teamfight? Or are you eliminating a healer that caught caught alone on their way to the objective that’s about to be fought over?
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I think we all understand the basics of game balance, more or less. The point here is that we have seen a form power creep regarding resource management for newer heroes.
If you look at Falstad vs Hanzo for example from the OP, Falstad’s basic abilities are not 2x more powerful than Hanzo’s - they are pretty comparable. Yet Falstad’s mana costs are almost 2x Hanzo’s (190 vs 105).
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Yeah, those terrible mana costs for Illidan and Abathur really make them unplayable . . .
DIdn’t falstad just get a mana cost buff recently?
The mana costs of abilities reflects on the heroes ability to mana sustain. Heroes like Falstad and Uther have trash tier mana sustain, they have to use their abilities sparingly and spend a lot of effort managing mana, including extra hearths and well pickups. On the other hand Hanzo and Ana have fantastic mana sustain and may never need to hearth or take a fountain for mana.
Yeah but there are several heroes that have insane mana issues. Falstad is just one but off the top of my head Uther, Imperius, Genji, Yrel anmd Xul all have drastic mana issues. Hell, Jaina, Arthas and Nova have almost mandatory talents to mitigate their mana problems.
You can make the case that several heroes I listed have huge reward for their abilities and that is true. That doesn’t mean the heroes I listed above couldn’t see some changes to enable them more. Like others pointed out, many heroes lack mana issues at all while being just as strong. I would like more talent options to mitigate mana issues over making broad changes.
I think falstads mana costs are high to get him to juggle that with the timing of his global.
Similar to brightwing, she too has high mana costs to z around
I understand that Falstad has global mobility, but I mean that there are heroes who theoretically use mana, but in practice do not feel it. I believe that every hero using mana should return to the base once a match to complete mana. Of course, there will be exceptions to the rule, e.g. Guldan.
I gave Hanzo because he never comes back to make up for mana, but he often uses his abilities, pratically non-stop.
Honestly I hope they keep mana management a thing because it gives more spice in gameplay.
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Somewhere between Uther and Tyrande mana costs/cooldows is a sweet spot. Thats how, in most cases, game should be played. You think and decide when and on who you should use your more impactful abilities. Otherwise the game turns into brainless button spamming. On the other hand someone has to start the fight so dont be surprised poke got low mana costs (noticed mana refund on Falstad Q?).