Vainglory Forums

The role Energy plays is sometimes hard to understand and often not discussed. I hope this thread can remedy this.

I've been thinking about this for a while, but after watching the new Ardan character in action today, I decided it was time to write something down and discuss the role energy plays -- I think an overlooked and important one.

Energy, as I see it, goes hand in hand with the capability to use a hero's abilities.

This is not to be confused with cooldown acceleration, which is the speed at which your abilities come off the timer. One can be fully cooled down, but if you have no more energy, you are still unable to use your abilities.

So there you have it, you have two aspects to the use of a hero's abilities. The rate at which you're able to use an ability after you've used it, and the energy to actually use an ability.

For example, taking the two extremes, if a hero is at full energy, after using an ability a timer starts cooldown timer starts, where you cannot use that ability again until it's done. Yet if you're zero energy, it doesn't matter of you're timer cooldown has finished, you'll not be able to use any abilities.

Items that accelerate your cooldown timer revolve around Chronograph, and Items that increase your energy levels revolve around the Energy Battery.

What was surprising to hear today, after watching the Ardan video, is that this hero does NOT use energy. And why don't we know more about this aspect of the game? What hero's need/require more energy than others.

Although I realize you addressed this in your post, the reason energy is not as significant is because of cooldown on abilities. For example, if Ringo uses his ultimate on my ally, then he becomes a much lesser threat (still dangerous) because he cannot finish off fleeing attackers. Vainglory is a game of battles that quickly resolve themselves in most cases.

Energy is always a concern for players, however the cooldown on abilities is often long enough that energy to use those abilities becomes irrelevant in such a fast-paced game.

On top of this, energy is rather intuitive. It is visible to enemies and high-damage abilities will typically use a lot of energy while low damage abilities do not use nearly as much energy. Obviously, a Taka without any visible energy can be hunted down without fear. However, energy plays little role in most of our decisions in a battle.

Typically smart players will not fight a battle when low on energy and will retreat. Players with faster cooldown on their abilities will win out over players with loads of energy. This is because ability damage comes in burst and often the difference in a straight engagement is who bursts faster/more frequent.

I hope that helps.

Thanks for your feedback!

That's what the thread is meant to foster, discussion and debate. I'm not such a smart player, so your comments really help (at least me)!

I honestly don't know why Ardan does not use energy. It's not his heroic perk and has nothing to do with the lore. I have no idea why he is so unique (Maybe future heros may have this, or even the remaining 2 who are part of the trio). The only use for his vengeance (Replacment of energy) is to detonate damage (I think it does more damage that more you build up, with is shown as energy in yellow). So I don't really get it at the moment.

And to add on to your post, I think people need to know the difference between cool down reduction and cool down acceleration. With clockwork, many people think 50% Cool down acceleration meant that abilities' cool down times were cut in half- This is WRONG. 50% Cool down acceleration is accelerating the cool down meaning for each second 1.5 seconds of the abilty it cools down. Example, Without clockwork, 12 Sec. With clockwork, 8 Sec.

Ardan does use vengeance , but his abilities deal crystal AND weapon power attack at the same time, so getting an item with + crystal power will still help him. You just do not need anything like a battery. I think it's pretty rad and I hope the other two new characters incorporate this as well. Just adds more to think about, so the game will not get monotonous.

Well, you sir didn't read the lore. The lore said Ardan's wife got killed, and guess how is called his "non-energy" ? Vengeance. He wants to avenge his wife, that's where his power comes from, from this anger he has.
And this new type of gameplay will refresh the game, that's only a good point !

For Ardan, I'm guessing the devs couldn't get him to play the way they wanted using energy. This meant creating an alternative - vengeance.

I'm not sure if other MOBAs have heroes that do not use a traditional "mana/energy pool", but this will open the possiblites for new and exciting heroes that may not have been possible otherwise. For example, Sniper's (from DOTA) first ability Shrapnel doesn't have a traditional cooldown timer. Instead, he is granted charges every 40 secs (max of 3) and then can spam all three charges at once.

While that's different than energy, it does show that new playable characters shouldn't always be stuck with the same restrictions.

Well, Rek'Sai in League of Legends doesn't have energy costs either, he works like Ardan by building some "Vengeance" (but it must not have the same name, whoever it works the same way)

In Fates Forever (other iOS-MOBA) there is Skippard. He's the only one there not using Energy/Mana but building 'courage' with every enemy he kills, which he can use for his skills.

I think this is definitely a good way to make the game a little bit more interessting and provides variety.