When is buying Manamune appropriate?

Built from a Tear of the Goddess (995 gold) and a long sword (415 gold) with a recipe cost of 700 gold, the manamune is a 2100 gold item that can be bought relatively early and can be used very well when used properly. However, the item seems to be much more valued in normal and low elo games, with it seeing little to no action in the competitive scene. Now, we’ll go over a list of champions commonly seen wearing this item, and why it’s a those champions should or could utilize the item.

Yorick

Called the best top laner in the game by many professionals, Yorick has gained a reputation for being annoying to deal with, thanks to his innate tankiness, good sustain, and ability to poke. However, his natural stats and ability leave him with a problem, mainly his dependency on abilities. First, he’s a melee champion, meaning it will be hard for him to get free poke in lane using autoattacks. Second, his passive runs off the amount of ghouls he has up at once, and since his passive reduces all incoming damage, this can be very important. Third, his abilities are his only sources of sustain and poke.

So in conclusion, Yorick is dependent in most regards on his ghouls, which average around 50 mana each, so Yorick can potentially run dry quickly. In addition, one solution can be to run 21 mastery points into the utility tree, but 9/21/0 (source) is the best for last hitting, poke, and tankiness. Therefore, a good solution to these problems is manamune. Due to his reliance on abilities and using autoattacks to last hit, Yorick can fill up manamune rather quickly, even if he just uses his Q (40 mana 9/8/7/6/5 cooldown) Therefore, manamune is a very smart choice on cooldown, and with it, you can easily dominate the laning phase.

Urgot

Due to his devastating E-Q combination, and his using abilities almost always, manamune seems like a perfect choice for Urgot. However, if we look at the numbers, a much better solution for this undead menace would be another build choice, cooldown reduction. The numbers prove it: his main ability, his q costs 40 mana, which can be draining, but Urgot gains 55 mana per level, which is relatively high. In addition, Urgot can more readily put points into the utility tree due to his long range. Now, as for why cooldown reduction is the best choice, we need to look at his abilities.

E: Launches an area of effect ability that damages them and reduces their armor for 5 seconds.
Q: Normally a skillshot, but against a champion affected by his E, becomes a point and click. Has a two second cooldown, but with CDR, you can actually get four Qs off in a duration of an E, because with 40% cooldown, the cooldown on Q becomes 1.2, and 1.2 multiplied by four is 4.8, letting you get 4 qs off in the duration of one E. 40% cooldown can be reached with Brutalizer, (10%), masteries (offensive tree, 4%) and runes for the remaining 6%, or with boots of lucidity. This will increase your damage much more then a manamune could, and the extra mana that comes with the frozen heart can make it so that you don’t have problems with mana.

Ezreal

Even with his recent nerfs, Ezreal is still a strong champion, but one of the biggest mistakes people make with him is buying manamune when going a duo bot lane with a support. A lot of summoners seem to believe that Ezreal has mana problems, but in reality, if you use your spells effectively, he doesn’t. His W does cost quite a bit of mana at later levels, but by then, Ezreal will probably have a sheen for his triforce which gives max mana, or will have enough attack damage that his W isn’t needed for strong poke. Also, his Q is one of the lowest mana costs in the game, and can be spammed with little consequence as a result.

His E should really only be used as an escape mechanism, or as an engage, so the high mana cost on that has little effect since it shouldn’t be casted often as harass. Also, Ezreal is not often a part of “kill lanes,” where the main goal is to kill your laning opponent, so getting a support like Blitzcrank or Leona with hard engages isn’t necessary. Instead, a support with strong poke, like Lulu or Sona is often the best choice. This makes manamune unecesary with AD carry Ezreal. Solo lane Ezreal on the other hand, can benefit from manamune as his q and w will do much of the fighting in the earlier levels. But when it comes down to it, triforce and BT will do much more damage in the long run, even without spells.

Kog’Maw

Kog is very similar to Ezreal, except has higher mana costs, but longer cooldowns. When played in the AD carry role, seeing as his AP status was nerfed to the ground, Kog’Maw doesn’t need his spells that often, his Q is used best for the attack speed passive that comes with it, his W has a relatively low mana cost at 50, and his E should not be used TO POKE often due to its high mana cost, but is incredibly strong when your jungler is coming to gank, or during trades thanks to its slow. His ultimate, on the other hand, is how many people justify manamune on him. While this can be acceptable in some cases, his ultimate doesn’t really need to be spammed as much as people think it does. His most damage, without a doubt, comes from his W being turned on and autoattacking, especially with an IE and PD. Again, due to his long range (one of the highest with W activated) Kog can easily go 9 points into utility to make up for mana problems too. Therefore, going a straight up AD build is best on Kog, and he doesn’t have the versatility to go top or mid without an escape.

Blitzcrank

Blitzcrank has a terrifyingly strong passive, and with a fully maxed manamune, is essentially given an extra 600 or so health every 60 seconds. This can make him great for tankihng, even at low health. However, as strong as this hypothetically is, Blitzrank has two problems with going manamune:

1. All of his cooldowns are insanely long, averaging over ten seconds. This makes it hard to spam abilities to get his max mana up, unlike Yorick or Ezreal. Also, his abilities all have pretty high mana costs, making it, again, hard to spam.

2. It doesn’t fit in with the current meta. Blitzcrank is currently being used as a support, and as a support, Blitzrank won’t have the gold to buy a manamune. Instead, Gold per 10 items are much stronger, into support items like aegis, shurelya’s, and zekes. So unless you’re playing normals or going the rare bruiser top lane blitzcrank, you’re better off without manamune.

Conclusion 

Therefore, we can judge that manamune is an alright item. It fills a particular niche, but the niche is so small that it really ends up working in certain aspects. The item can be used to supplement a lack of mana or mana regen runes and masteries, and can really shine on a couple of different champions. But all in all, it's an item that should only be seen far and in between.