If you get a poking champ like Jayce or Galio or whoever, there are 2 main choices to deal with mana. Tear and Chalice. (philo is fine for occasional pokers)

Dominion has a built-in chalice x2 effect (at 0 mana you regen 3x as fast as normal...or a 2% bonus per 1% mana missing).
This means that pretty much ANY MP5 effect will significantly help mana regen since its effect will be up to tripled.

As far as I can tell, Proving Grounds has no such bonus, not according to wiki.

Hence, even on AD champs like Jayce, I take a Chalice. While a tear is cheaper and doubles my mana regen rate from say 7 to 14MP5, that improves from 84 to 168 mana per minute recovered. having lots of max mana is nice but doesnt help sustained firing rate.

The chalice on the other hand if I am oom is recovering up to DOUBLE that from 84 to 336. That is quadrupling my mana regen rate, plus as I level up, it scales.

This makes chalice 3 times as effective for returning mana, plus providing magic resist. However, its a dead end item...usually not a big deal in ARAM though.
If you arent actually USING all this extra mana then its not needed

The tear is also a bit cheaper, but lacks the MR (worth500g) but can eventually turn into a Manamune or Murumana. Hence you have the option to pay 1400g to buy 60AD (2100g worth) with only a 2k mana pool.


So what do you think? Which one do you use and why?

The chalice provides more total mana regen, as long as you're always using some mana (and thus often low). It also works much better combined with some other mana regen, or if you really like cdr (for later). The tear on the other hand provides max mana and consistent regen, so it's better if you don't need as much, can make great use of the later items, or need a large amount of mana for a burst combo.

On ADs who can only afford 1 mana regen item, i'll usually take tear. Manamune is fairly good, and ADs usually don't have too high mana costs or need a burst combo. On APs I'll usually take chalice since tear's often not enough mana for spamming. On Kog I take both because it's hilarious.

honestly, it depends on the champ, jayce I take tear, since after your first death around 6-10 mins you have pretty much have infinit mana, galio, since he has mana issues no mater what you build on him gets a chalice.


Chalice:
Galio, ADC's with good pokes (varus/sivir/mf/cait/ect), any AP that doesnt start tear or catalist (barring assassins like fizz or yi), tanks with pokes (mundo, teric, ect)

Tear:
Ezreal, zyra, jayce, karthus, yorick, urgot, eve (not sure about this, seems better then chalice though), kahzix (if not the tank), syndra....thats all I can think off the top of my head, but Im sure theres a few more that tear is the best start on.

I thought this was going to be a thread about chalice vs tear on ADC's like varus/sivir/mf with strong spamable pokes in the early game (for the record, I take chalice in that situation as my first item with a dorans, then sell chalice after I finish my 2nd tier 3 item and start doing more dmg with my autos)

I'd say Jayce poke is strong and pretty spammable (well, since its 2 spells needed for the poke the mana cost is significant despite longer CD on gate).

But yeah Sivir is a good example too...I take chalice on her also.


the way I figure it, Chalice is only costing about 400g for 7MP5 and its doubling effect that scales as I level. The ohter 480g is for the magic resistance which certainly isn't bad at all.

So from that point of view its actually 'cheaper' than the Tear, though you can eventually recoup your tear costs lategame with Manamune and potentially do really well with Murumana if you have 1 target pokes especially.

Chalice always, and then pawn it off late game for a better item. It has a high re-sell value (75% I think?) and the bonus MR early game is quite strong. Manamune is outclassed late game (imo) on the map, and doesn't give you the mana regen early game that chalice does.

Nah not "chalice always" there's no such thing as item x "always". If you want a manamune/manamura, and you're confident you can stack your tear in ~16 mins, then start tear.

only time i would consider getting either item is on ez or corki. Even then i like vamp scepter + boot start to give me lifesteal sustain asap.