Underused Items: Ohmwrecker

Hello everyone,
In this post about underused items, I will be discussing Ohmwrecker.

First of all, the item's stats:

+350 health
+50 ability power
+15 health regeneration
+15 mana regeneration
 Unique Active: Prevents the closest enemy tower from attacking for 2.5 seconds (120 second cooldown). This effect cannot be used against the same tower more than once every 7.5 seconds.
Recipie:

Ruby Crystal (475g)
Blasting Wand (860g)
Philosopher's Stone (700g)

Item cost 2850g (800g)

According to the wiki, this item's gold efficiency without it's active is: Total Gold Value = 3452g.

So, seeing as this item is so cost effective, why is it not picked up? Well there are many reasons for this. First of all, it builds out of Philosopher's Stone, which is an item built almost exclusively on supports. Of course, the item's active is a great active for a support to have in a dive composition team, because it allows for safer turret dives. However, look at the item's overall stats. First of all, it builds out of a blasting wand, and gives 50 AP. Supports in general don't want AP. Sometimes they are built with penetration on someone like Elise, but almost never with any more AP than comes with a kage's lucky pick and possibly one of it's upgrades. So, while this item may be cost efficient, it is not the stats that the obvious intended buyers (supports) would be buying. This is problem 1 with the item.

The next reason is that the active on the item is really a niche active. It is only worth putting gold into this active if you are playing a turret diving composition, which is a team composition not always used.

Another problem is that this item's active could easily become useless to you very quickly. Let's say you buy the item to allow your team to turret dive, but then something goes wrong in the next fight and the other team gets ahead and now your team is on the defensive. Until the moment that you are able to go on the offensive again (if ever) this active is not helping you at all.

So, to balance this item, two things need to be fixed from what I see. First of all, this item needs to have stats intended for one role, not stats split all over the place. Secondly, the item's active should have some kind of use when you are on defense. I do not believe that the item being niche is a problem that necessarily needs fixing, because niche items can be kind of cool and allow for some interesting diversity when trying out new team compositions.

There are two ways that I could possibly see this item going. Either it could be made into a tank item, having tank stats along with the active, or it could be made into a support item, still building from philosopher's stone, but also out of other stats that a support might want.

So, let us explore both of these options. First of all, how to make it into a tank item:

When it first came out, Ohmwrecker was designed as a tank item, then later changed into the weird supporty item it is now. So what went wrong to make them change it? Well, the item just wasn't worth it to buy on a tank. The logic was why build this item to be tankier against turrets for 2.5 seconds when I can build this other item to be tanky against everything all the time? Riot realized that there was no reason for a tank to buy this item, and turned it into what it is now (which is not much better in my opinion). Initially, it build out of catalyst and chain vest, ending up with 350 health, 300 mana, and 55 armor. It kept the same active. So what was wrong? First of all it had mana, which while a good stat on a lot of tanks, limited the item to tanks with mana, and is not a stat that you see tanks build. This is really the main problem I see with the previous iteration of the item as a tank item. It gave health and armor which as you can see from sunfire cape are great stats, but because it gave mana, it didn't give enough of the tanky stats to make it worth it over something like sunfire cape, which is also a nice damage and split pushing source for tanks.

So, how would I change Ohmwrecker back into a tank item? Well first of all, let us start with it's old recipie. From here there are a few options we can go with. But for all of them, we will be removing catalyst as a recipe item, and mana as a stat. At this point, we can go a few different routes. We can either turn it into a health/mr item, a health/mr/cdr item, a health/armor item, or a health/armor/cdr item. For the sake of balance, let us keep cdr off of it (meaning no kindlegem in the recipe). This leaves us with giants belt, or two ruby crystals as the source of the items health (since it clearly needs more based on the first iteration of the item's success). Let us just say giant's belt will be the health item, but keep in mind that it could easily be two ruby crystals.

So, the item could either build out of the chain vest and giants belt like sunfire cape does, and be a decision item based on this. Do I want to be able to turret dive well, or split push well? The other option is to replace the chain vest with a negatron cloak. This will make the item into a health mr item that gives you another option from banshee's veil and spirit visage, both of which are niche pick items. Either of these fixes would make the item worth it for tanks with the right team composition in my opinion.


Now lets move on to making the item good for supports. For this, we will edit it's current recipe. First of all, remove the blasting wand and AP from the item; supports do not need this. Replace this with mana manipulator, another support item, and lower the item's combine cost. This will do a couple of things. First of all, it will make the item more affordable to supports. Secondly, it will give only stats that supports would want to have. Note that I had initially thought of replacing blasting want with emblem of valor, but I do not want to make it not worth it to buy both ohmwrecker and aegis of the legion, and I do not want to make any too powerful aura stacks. So mana manipulator was my next thought. Also please note that mana manipulator is gold effecient if at least one other person on your team has mana and is near you, and considering most teams with have 3-4 mana users, this aura will continue to be useful in the late game.

So, the item will now build from Philosopher's Stone, Mana Manipulator, and Ruby Crystal, which all gives stats that supports want, and the active will be an active that supports may want on aggressive tower diving teams.

There is one last change that I would like to make for this item, whether it be a tank item or support item. This change is to address my second problem above, and it is to make it so that if cast near an allied turret, ohmwrecker will give this turret a buff in damage output, and make it immune to enemy ohmwreckers for the duration. Making this change will make the item less of a risky take, since it will have uses whether you are on the offensive or defensive, which was one of my goals for the item.

So with these changes in mind, I think that this item could be turned into a strong niche support or tank item. What does everyone else think? Leave a comment below if you have any questions or anything to add!

Until Next Time!
"Stand and Fight"
-Rikukun

Underused Items: Banner of Command

Hello all,

In this new series of posts, I will be discussing some of the most underused items in League of Legends. I will cover why I think they are underused, and if I think there are any simple changes for making them more useful.

In this, my first post in the series, I will be discussing Banner of Command. First, let us look at it's stats to refresh everyone's memory.

Builds from Emblem of Valor and Fiendish Codex.
+40 ability power
+30 armor
+10% cooldown reduction
Aura Unique - Valor: Nearby allies gain 10 health regen per 5 seconds and nearby allied minions have 15% increased attack damage and ability power.
Active Unique - Promote: Transforms a nearby siege minion to a more powerful unit. You gain all the gold this unit earns. 180 second cooldown.
Item cost 2360g (890g combine cost)

Also I would like to note the following from the League of Legends Wikia. "The aura applies to pets, but not clones (e.g.  Mordekaiser's  Children of the Grave)." and "Contrary to the in-game description, Banner of Command does not increase a minion's total damage. Instead, it increases their attack damage or ability power stats. As such, Banner Of Command only increases the damage dealt by the minion's basic attacks and has no effect on other damaging effects the pet has (such as Tibber's aura)."

Problems With the Item:
So, the only champion I can see this item actually being useful for it Yorick, but he does not want AP.  A support could use AP, but they wouldn't be building an item just to support a Yorick, who you would want to be your team's tank.

Also, supports are already starved for gold, so they really don't have a way to obtain this item. And even if they did have the gold, would it be worth a slot over boots, wards, sightstone, philostone/upgrades, and other support items? My guess is that unless you have a siege team composition, then probably not. Even then, by the time you are actually able to buy this item, while still properly warding for your team, you will be sieging so little that it really just isn't worth it.

Tanks also wouldn't want this item because they need to get tanky, and 30 armor and 10% cdr isn't enough to justify the cost. a tanky mage might could get this item, but again is it worth the tradeoffs of other items? Any AD champion will of course not want this.

So the only one who could really get this item is gold starved, and this item has high opportunity costs. These problems put the item in a place to where no one in their right mind would really buy one.


Potential Solutions: 
My attempt to fix this item will focus on making it more gold effecient for it's users. There are two directions that this could go. It could either be made cheaper with less stats and be targeted at supports, or it could be made tankier and used by tanks. Either way, we are dropping all of the AP from the item, as neither tanks nor supports really want to spend too much gold value on AP, with the exception of Kage's pick and potentially it's upgrades.

First, making it into a support item. Keep the passive aura and active the same. Make the item build out of only emblem of valor. Combine cost can stay about the same, or perhaps be lowered. The only passive stat outside of the aura will be the armor, which may need to be lowered. These changes will take away the AP that supports don't really need, and therefore make it more cost efficient for supports, and allow them to buy it earlier on in the game, so it will be more useful to them.

Next, let's make the item into a tank item. First of all, replace fiendish codex from the recipe with kindlegem (yes I know this will give it the same recipie as locket of the iron solari, but does that really matter?). Next, remove the part of the passive aura that affects minions, or at least make it not affect Yorick's minions to avoid that problematic case. Now we have an item similar in stats to Locket of the Iron Solari, but that serves a different purpose. Locket is used for early turret dives, and late game team fights. This item will be designed for Siege compositions. While this may make the item more of a niche item, at least it will be a cost effective (for the stats you want) niche item. So, you will have more options with what to build and how to play, which is something I like in games.

Out of these two options, I like the making it into a tank item better, since because of it's recipe it just seems to fit better on a tanky champion.

These are my solutions to fixing Banner of Command. What do you think of them? Let me know in the comments below!



Until Next Time!
"Another claimed for the Shadow Isles"
-Rikukun

edit: One thing that was brought up to me about this post and another by some friends is that some of them disagree about the viability of AP on support champions, in that it is much more viable than I give it credit for, especially on Janna. From what I have seen in the LCS, the only AP items ever bought are ones that build from Kage's (usually twin shadows, sometimes morellonomicon) and haunting guise on aggressive supports like elise, which is more for the magic penetration that the ap.

Don't get me wrong, AP is still a very useful stat on support's. However, when you are starved for gold, which is often the case in evenly matched games, you generally won't have the gold to afford it because you need to be building other support items. That being said, in solo queue if you are able to take a lead on your opponent, and you are a champion like Janna that scales well with AP, then by all means feel free to buy AP, as long as you aren't sacrificing the wards and other support items that you should also be buying. Just make sure that if you don't have the gold for it and your support stuff, get the support stuff instead of AP.

Fixing AP Evelynn's Feel

Hello Everyone,

In this post I would like to discuss a small change to Evelynn which I believe would help make her playable again.

Since her remake, Evelynn has went down quite the strange road of nerfs and buffs. Initially she was considered weak, and buffed repeatedly. Then it was discovered just how OP she was, especially with the old deathfire grasp, and she then had to be nerfed repeatedly, along with deathfire grasp.


So, after all of these nerfs, Evelynn has been put into a state where she is generally viable, but hardly ever used and definitely cannot play how she used to. The biggest change that I would like to note is the change of her ult from %max health to %current health.

Personally, I actually welcome this change, because as much fun as Evelynn was with %max health damage, it was just too strong. However, I feel as though having it deal % current health just makes it too weak, unless you initiate the fight with it.

However, you should not be initiating fights as Evelynn; you should be wandering around, waiting for the perfect change to strike at one of the enemy squishies, preferably the AD Carry. But, in the time you wait to do this, many of your targets will have already taken a decent chunk of damage. This means that by the time you wait for the perfect moment to strike, you have already missed out on a lot of potential damage.

Another thing that I would like to note is that Evelynn's ult was designed with the intention of being an initiation ult, not an executing ult, so I will avoid any interesting changes like making it be %missing health instead of current.

So, this leaves me with two options that I can think of for making Evelynn feel better when using her ult properly. The first change is to give the ultimate a minimum damage dealt, similar to Mundo's Q. After all, it makes no sense that your big powerful aoe nuke ultimate cannot actually kill anything. I really don't care how Riot tries to make it sound like it's not so bad. It is bad. It is supposed to be a powerful aoe nuke, and powerful aoe nukes should be capable of killing things. That is my expectation as a player, and is also the expectation of many other players from what I have read on the forums about this.

My second Proposed change would be to make the ability deal a flat amount of damage plus a (smaller) %current health. This essentially is meant to have the same feel as with the first change, but it weakens the spell against tanky targets, while buffing it against squishy targets, which are Evelynn's target as an assassin. Part of the problem with Evelynn's ult with %max health was that it did so much damage to high health targets, but with this change, that would be less of an issue.

Now I am not sure which of these changes would be best in practice, but I feel as though they both put Evelynn into a better state than she is in now, and make her a more fun champion to play.

What does everyone else think? Let me know in the comments!

Until next time!
"Your pain is my pleasure"
-Rikukun

edit 4/18/2013: Of course a few days after this post, Evelynn actually gets used twice int he LCS. However, my point that Evelynn's ult lacks the fun element that it should have still stands, and I still feel that these changes would be good for her overall.

How to fix Sion while meeting community expectations

In my last post about Sion, I talked about how I would fix Sion if he had not yet been released, and therefore had no community expectations, other than the normal expectations of high quality champions that all champions should have.

However, this is not the reality of things. Sion's kit has to meet community expectations, and those expectations involve him being viable in both the AD bruiser role, and the AP bruiser role, which makes my previous change irrelevant.

So, let us again revisit the problems with each spec. First of all, the shield does not fit thematically as the rest of his kit does, although his shield is such an integral part of his kit, that we cannot change the fact that he has a shield, though we can perhaps work with it to make it better for AD Sion.

Another issue is that Sion's ultimate is pretty much useless to AP Sion. It can be slightly useless early game, but once even mid game hit's, it is just useless. So, the first goal of mine will be to make his ultimate useful for both AP and AD Sion.

Now, you are probably wondering, how to go about this? Well, right now Sion's ultimate serves as a buff to his AD stats. So, keeping with the idea of it being a major buff, let us have it also buff his AP abilities for it's duration.


There are a few different stats that we can have to help. My first thought was spell vamp that will work in the same way as the life steal does on it, though I have to wonder how useful this will be in reality. My next idea would be to add cool down reduction, though I would prefer not adding in any stats that require adjusting his current cool downs, so this would need to be tested before added. Lastly, adding in additional AP and mana regen seems to me to be the best way to go. Even better, to make sure that AD Sion is not really affected at all, you could add on an increase %AP, like with deathcap, but a smaller amount. This would obviously require having Sion's ratio's worked out, and it would need to be fine tuned to make sure that Sion's abilities still felt good when used without his ult being activated. Because of this, it might would need to just stay as a flat amount, or at most a small buff to his ap, 8-10% at most at rank 3.



Now, I would also like to do the same change to Sion's passive that I brought up in my last post, which is moving his current passive onto his W as a passive, and giving him a new passive that either makes him resistant to slows, cc in general, or just bonus move speed.

Lastly, I would like to add a bonus AD ratio onto Sion's W Shield part (not the damage part). AP Sion's benefit from this will be minimal, but AD Sion will actually feel better for using it. It can be a small ration, and perhaps even have the base value lowered, but I feel that Sion should be able to feel like his shield is meaningful for both specs, and it doesn't feel too meaningful for AD Sion. Note that I do not necessarily believe that Sion's shield's strength should grow in power by much at all, merely that I think that he should have an AD scaling on it so that building AD feels better for the Sion Player.

Sion's Q will be left alone for this change, as it is useful for both spec's and relatively non-problematic from all perspectives as I see it. Sion's E will also be left alone, at least until all of the rest of the changes were tested, since it does have it's uses for both specs, even if it is better for one, which is fine.

I feel that these changes to Sion's kit will help to better unify his kit among both specs, while still maintaining both play styles, and will still leave Sion in a balanceable state for both specs, perhaps even moreso for AD Sion than he is now. What does everyone else think? Let me know in the comment below!

Until Next Time!
"What is best in death? To crush your enemies, see them driven before you and hear the lamentation of noobs!"
-Rikukun

Should Fiora be Remade into an Assassin?

Hey guys. So in my second post about melee carries, I want to focus a bit more on Fiora. But before that, I want to talk about something else.

That something is the kit and play style of an assassin. An assassin is a champion who's sole purpose is to latch onto the enemy carry, and kill them really quickly before that carry has a chance to kill the assassin. That is how they play; they someone get on an enemy carry, through either stealth, dashes, or blinks and destroy them. Then, they hopefully GTFO. If not they will likely die in a team fight, although if they were able to assassinate their target, then that is usually okay.

So what kind of kit does an assassin have to help with this? They have some mechanic that helps the get to the carry, some mechanic that helps them stay on the carry, and usually some mechanic to help stay alive after the carry is dead. Along with this they are supposed to have exceptionally high single target burst damage. Example assassins are: Akali, who's ult helps her get to and stay on a carry, and w helps to live after the carry is dead. Evelynn, who's stealth helps her sneak up on a carry, burst damage helps her kill the carry, and ult shield and w help her survive and escape after the carry is dead. Diana, who's Q + Ult + E Combo can allow her to get on and stick to a carry, and even escape sometimes. Her shield also helps with surviving. and Zed, who's ult and W help getting onto a target, his whole kit helps with damage, and his w can help with escape.

All of these assassins share these qualities, though they execute them in different ways.

Now, you may be wondering, why I am going through the trouble of saying all of this when this is supposed to be a post about Fiora. Well, last night I was reading the League of Legends forums, when I came upon the following post from a Rioter (QA position, not design to be clear).

"Speaking as a player, and not as a designer, Fiora, in my experience is a pretty potent champion. I don't claim to be amazing (plat IV) but i'm sitting at a 60% win ratio with her (9-6) in S3.

Fiora tends to be extremely snowbally in lane, but what's critically important is how you transition to mid and late game. With a double gap closer and her ultimate, she can jump on and abuse ad carries. If you are able to successfully kill, or full-zone an enemy ADC, your team hopefully will win the teamfight, and you'll be able to take objectives.

Even if you die in that fight, you add value by doing your job.

As someone who has been playing a lot of melee carries (34 ad trynd games, 15 fiora games in S3) I feel confident stating that her contributions to a team when she is played correctly are undervalued."

From how this Rioter, who is a platinum player, describes his play style on Fiora in team fights,  she sound A LOT like how I described assassins above. She jumps in, quickly executes the carry, and then maybe dies after her job is done.

So this brings me to the following question: Should Fiora be remade into an assassin, instead of a melee carry? If her current optimal play style is to play like an assassin, and she already has a kit similar to that of an assassin, then why not finish turning her into one? If her play style and most of her abilities stay constant, then she will still feel like Fiora, especially if you were playing her in an assassin way before. You will just feel better for doing so. Basically, why not make her kit better fit her play style? While some people who obviously be opposed to this change, I feel like it would be better for Fiora overall.

So, let's say we want to turn Fiora into an assassin. Based on the current workings of her kit, she already has most of the qualifications to be an assassin. All she is really missing is the ability to escape, and less reliance on her attack speed/auto attacks.

Also please note, my changes are to get the functionality of her kit to a good place, not the numbers balanced. The number would definitely have to be tested and fine tuned later on by the player base.

So to make Fiora fit this, we going to change the way her Q and E work. Let's start with her E. To start with, greatly lower the attack speed on it. From let's say 20% at rank 1 to 45% at rank 5. Next, add in that when Burst of Speed is activated, her next auto attack deals a percentage of the targets missing health as physical damage. Keep the reset mechanic.


This change will turn Fiora into a bit more of a burst down assassin instead of the melee carry she is supposed to be now. So now, Fiora is only missing the survivability/escape that an assassin has, unless she can Q to a minion that is, which will likely be on cooldown after your full combo. So, let us look to her W to better buff her defenses.

However, I do like the idea of her Q being used to escape, since it is her main way of getting around in a fight, so let us work with that. Add in an additional effect to her Q, that says that after Q goes on cooldown, if Fiora is able to kill an enemy target within 5 seconds of Q going on cooldown (from the second cast) then she gains another free third cast. You cannot gain more than one free cast of this per initial cast of Q.

So in easier to understand terms, what will happen is that if Fiora goes all in and gets a kill, she can use her Q to then escape if a target is nearby that she could escape to, but only once until her Q is off cooldown. It's cooldown might should be increased with this change.

So with these 2 changes, Fiora would be turned into even more of a bursty assassin, while still keeping her core game play in tact. As an assassin, I feel she will be an overall better balanced champion than as a melee carry.

So what do my readers think? Feel free to leave any and all constructive feedback, and any questions that you may have!

Until Next Time!

"I Long for a worthy opponent"

-Rikukun

Edit - 4/13/2013: I also just thought of one other reason that my proposed change is a good one. Fiora is known as the grand duelist. Duelist's are known for being good in 1 v 1 combat. Assassin's also excel at 1 v 1 combat, while AD carries are supposed to be good at shredding everyone. So, by changing her into an assassin instead of an AD carry, Fiora better fit's the theme of being an exceptional duelist/1 v 1 fighter.

Let's Talk about Melee AD Carries

In this series of posts, I would like to talk about melee carries and their problems with finding a place in the game on the summoner's rift.

When looking at competitive play, the only times I can remember ever seeing a Tryndamere (Tryn), Master Yi (Yi), or Fiora, other than at times when they were considered OP, and later nerfed, is when Yi or Tryn were played using their ability power off builds.

Just take a second to let that soak in. These two champions have been considered stronger with their off build, a build that were not even intended to have when designed, than they were with their intended design or being an AD Carry with melee auto attacks.

Clearly something is wrong with AD Carries, or something like that would never happen. Not to say that it isn't fun to have a viable off build, but when it is the only viable build, there is clearly a problem somewhere, and this problem seems to be a lot more than just the characters needing a numbers fix, as Riot has performed those on at least Yi and Tryn many a time, even giving Tryn a full rework once.

Something is inherently wrong with the way these champs are able to function in League of Legends. In this post, I was to delve in to trying to figure out what that problem is. In later posts, I will offer suggestions for how to improve their usability.

Problem 1: Where should these characters lane?
If they go to the bottom lane with a support instead of a ranged carry, then they will just have to sit their and eat harass whenever they try to farm (which they need just as much as ranged carries need).

If you send them to the middle lane, they will not be able to keep up against a mage or assassin that will likely be there, and they will either be pushed out of lane early, or feed the enemy.

If you send them to the top lane, which is where they normally go, then you are missing out on having a tankier champion there. This many be fine some of the time in solo queue, but in general, you are going to want someone beefier than a Fiora in your top lane to help tank for your team once team fights break out.

Lastly, if you send them to the jungle, there are a few problems. First, you are missing out on having a tanky champion, just like with top lane. Secondly, your jungler will have no cc, outside of maybe a situational slow if you are Tryn. Lastly, since you are squishier than a tank, you are more limited in what kinds of ganks you can perform, such as turret dive ganks; Also, your damage is relatively low early game. This would force you into being a passive farm jungler, which will likely hurt your team from the early stages of the game on.

So, there is no good lane for a melee carry to go to.

Problem 2: Poor team fighting ability
Carries by definition in League of Legends are champions who can die really quickly, but deal a lot of damage throughout fights as well; enough to kill the enemy team. Melee carries do have the potential to deal this damage for sure, but they often lack the ability to actually do it in most situations. Why? Because they are melee. They cannot kite and deal damage to enemy champions. They cannot sit on the outskirts of a fight away from the AoE damage and enemy carry while killing the enemy front line. They have to get up right in the enemies faces and hope that they can live long enough to get their damage out. However, this leaves the carries very vulnerable, and makes it near impossible outmaneuver the enemies like a ranged carry can.

So what can a melee carry do? Well, the best situation would probably be to just sit back and wait for someone on the enemy team to start to get low, and then run in, kill them, and use your only escape ability(Yi's Q, Tryn's Ult and E, Fioras Ult, and of course flashes) and hope you get away and didn't die in the process. So basically, you win your team fights that they are already winning, like AP Master Yi tends to do, but AP YI does it better and more safely.

Problem 3: Sieging turrets
You see this all the time in games of all levels. The enemy team gets pushed to their turret, and your team is slowly trying to poke down their turret. The best person on your team to help poke down the turret is your teams ranged carry. They have the range to stay safe, many different positions they can be in, and high AD and attack speed.

However, a melee carry cannot help your team siege a turret like this. They do not have the range to poke a turret from afar, and they cannot position like a ranged carry can. Any time they try to walk up and hit the turret is a risk if the enemy team is around; a much greater risk than doing so as a ranged carry.

Now, if you have both a ranged carry and a melee carry, then this is irrelevant, but if you are in this situation, then you likely do not have an optimal team composition, and will at least in the late game be too easily countered by the enemy team for having too much physical damage or not enough tankiness.


These are the main three problems that I see melee AD carries having in our game. In my next post, I will discuss one or more ways that I think that melee carries could be helped. Have any comments? Did I miss a fatal problem of AD Carries? Do you feel that I am flat out wrong about something? Feel free to leave a comment below with constructive feedback, and I will respond when I can and edit my post if needed.

Until next time!
"This'll be a slaughter!"
-Rikukun

What I would do to Sion's kit if he had not been released yet

Hello Everyone

In my second of three posts on Sion, I would like to discuss what I would do to Sion's kit if I could do anything at all, without hurting the expectations of the player base. Basically, what I would do to fix his kit if someone proposed this kit to me, with the magical zombie who was a powerful warrior in life theme.

PLEASE NOTE! This is not how I would actually fix his kit, because it would go against player expectations for how Sion should be, and upset many a player.


Based on my previous post, it is clear where I think Sion's main issue lies; it is in his W. It does not really fit thematically with the theme that Sion is trying to bring to League, and it also allows him to build AP, which while not a bad thing in and of itself, doesn't fit as well with the rest of his kit. So basically, I would just remove the ability to play as AP (keep in mind, this is assuming players never knew that he could be played that way) by changing his W completely.

So, how should his W be changes? First of all, let's looks at what role it fills for AD Bruiser Sion. All his W is for this kind of Sion build is some occasional extra health, that doesn't last very long in a fight, but can help him stay alive, especially if maxed second. Considering the role Sion was intended to play, I like the idea of having something that makes him beefier, so lets go with the idea of keeping him strong defensively.

There are many ways to make a champion tankier, from shields, to defense steroids, to %less damage taken. They all already exist in League. So what would be a fun thing to put on a champion, that would not make him too beefy?

Well first of all, let us take his passive, and make it be a passive part of his W. He automatically gains the chance to take less damage. At rank 1 it can reduce 20 damage, up to 60 at rank 5.


Now we also add a new active. This active could behave in a few different ways, and I would prefer testing it before deciding which is better. Basically, we could either have a w active similar to Garens', or to Rammus', gaining either %damage reduction, or armor/magic resist for a few seconds.


This active would have the same effect for Sion as his shield does currently, making him more survivable in fights, without the harmful splitting his kit in half effects that the ap scaling shield has.

So now you may be thinking "but Rikukun! how is this a better fit thematically?" Well just sit right there and I will tell you how. Zombies do not have many weak points like a human does. Their brain is their only real vital point. So this means that a zombie, like Sion, would take less damage from attacks than a human would (assuming that the zombie didn't have easily removable rotting flesh, which he doesn't "have" to have, especially in a game like League of Legends). So adding in a defensive steroid to make him take less damage does fit the theme of being a zombie in my opinion, so long as it is the beefy hard to kill kind of zombie, like some of the more powerful ones in the Left for Dead series.

After this change, Sion now has room for a new passive ability, since his old passive is attached to his W, which I mainly did because having defensive abilities split up like that just feels kind of weird to me. So what should this passive be? To answer this, I think we should look at what problems Sion has currently as an AD bruiser (since we did not really change how that plays) and find something to help with his weaknesses.

So what are these weaknesses? Well, I have not played too much Sion myself in a while, but from my experience, and from drawing on the experience of some others I know, his biggest issues right now seem to be how easily he can be kited. To fix this, there are several routes we can take. The most obvious route is to give him conditional bonus movement speed. However this is very similar to how udyr's new passive works, so I would prefer not to copy it.

Another idea is to give him passive tenacity like Irelia has, but I would hesitate to do this because it might be too strong on someone with his healing capabilities, and might make him really hard to counter. So what does this leave? Well, one thought that I have had is to give him resistance to slows. Either they have a smaller effect on him, or have a shorter duration against him. To not devalue tenacity on him, I think that making slows weaker on Sion would be better. So basically, he starts out only taking something like 90% of the effect from a slow used again him, and then this value perhaps changes over time to a min of 70% or 80%. Or perhaps just the flat 90% would be enough throughout the game. This would require testing to know for sure.

So this new passive would definitely bring Sion's kit as an AD Bruiser more together design wise, and I don't think that this is too bad of an idea thematically either. The reason being that many slows involve ice, and I don't think a massive hulking zombie is going to care too much about a little chill, and it makes sense to me that the undead body would be more resistant to some attacks and abilities against him anyways, like in my argument for his new W.

Until next time! 

"Stop being a bonehead."

-Rikukun

Let's talk about Sion

Hello Everyone,

Today I would like to talk about the champion who has in my opinion the weirdest kit in the game, Sion.

Sion is a magical zombie, who has a weird accent based off of Arnold Schwarzenegger. Okay, not really sure how these two things fit together, but moving on...

Sion was originally designed to be a melee fighter bruiser kind of champion, which some spells to help bring his kit together. However, instead of bringing his kit together, his spells has done the exact opposite. Split his kit apart into two different specs, the melee fighter that he was intended to be, and an AP bruiser than deals high damage every few seconds, similarly to AP Twisted Fate, other than having the bruiser aspect instead of the ult utility of Twisted Fate.

This has left Sion in quite the awkward position. As an AP Champion, he really only has 2 spells in combat, his stun and his shield. As an AD, his E and Ult come into play, and the utility of the stun sticks around, but his shield falls off in usefulness. His passive is an odd one, but useful for both specs.

So no matter which spec you play, you can never feel good for using all of your abilities, which in my opinion is bad for a character in a game like League of Legends where each character has so few abilities. It makes you feel like you only have half a kit (especially for AP), and having a passive like his that is so invisible in team fights just makes things worse. So from a straight up how he can use his abilities standpoint, Sion is in a very bad spot in my opinion.

Next, let us look as his kit thematically. Sion is a magical zombie who was a powerful warrior in life. So let us look at his abilities as to how they fit with that theme. First his Passive. Sion has a chance to randomly take less damage from auto attacks. Well, Zombies have a lot less vital points than the living, so okay, this checks out as fitting. Secondly, His Q which allows his gaze to stun people. I like the idea of using your magical abilities to fear someone, perhaps so much that they cannot move for a brief period. While the whole idea of a stun from your eyes doesn't really seem to work in my mind with enemies who are not facing you, this kind of ability at it's roots is close enough to being able to fit.



Next, let us analyze his W, the shield. This may fit under the magical part of his theme, but it really does not feel like the kind of spell a zombie would use. I would expect a zombie to raise undead minions (like Yorick) or be able to turn others (perhaps minions, or a killed champion) into zombies. Something like these kind of ideas, that fit more with the undead theme, like his Q does (kinda). The exploding shield just seems kind of tacked onto his kit in my opinion.

His next ability is his E, which gives Sion extra damage, and can give him permanent extra health on kills. This damage part fits the warrior in life theme, and the gaining extra health on kills makes sense since zombies in some renditions do grow stronger as they feast.

Lastly, let us look to his Ultimate. This ability grants him attack speed and lifesteal, and also heals nearby allies. Attack speed once again fits with the warrior in life theme, and stealing life from your pray fits the zombie theme. However, healing nearby allies, especially nonzombies, does not really fit in in my opinion, so I am going to have to say that this ability only 2/3rds fits thematically. Still not bad for an old champion though.

Now as many of you would probably already be thinking, I have already talked about a lot, and I have not even began to propose a solution to Sion's problems. So, I will have two more parts in this series about Sion. The first will be what I would do to Sion if he was a champion that had not yet been released. The second will be what I would do to him now, since players already have expectations about what makes Sion Sion.

I will try to get these posts up in the next few days. Until then, "Get on my Chopper!"
-Rikukun

How to Fix Shaco

Shaco is a champion that Riot has had a really hard time balancing over the years. He is the kind of champion who has a bag full of tricks that are designed to mess with your opponent, confusing them. These tricks have time and again made Shaco into a great champion in solo queue, allowing him to crush uncoordinated or unsuspecting players. Basically, with his free Blink + stealth, boxes to fear people all over the place or in stacks, and a clone minion that he can completely control and fool players with Shaco has a bunch of frustrating and difficult mechanics that you have to deal with at once and requires coordination to deal with effectively. High level teams are obviously very coordinated and can deal with Shaco with ease, which is why he is not viable there. However, most solo queue teams will lack this coordination, and will therefore be unable to deal with his tricks.

This leaves Shaco in an odd position. Either he is strong enough for competitive play, but is then a must ban in solo queue, or he is completely unviable in competitive play to where he is manageable in solo queue. Alternatively, he has also at times been in an in between place, where he is very difficult to manage in solo queue, but high level teams can still deal with him with ease.

Right now, Shaco is in the second position that I mentioned above. He is viable in Solo Queue, but I would be shocked to see him played in the LCS unless some changes happen.

So what changes must happen in order for us to see Shaco in the LCS without seeing him permabanned in solo queue? To see this, let us first analyze Shaco's kit.

His Passive: Shaco deals 20% bonus damage when striking a unit from behind with his autoattacks or abilities.

His Q: ACTIVE: Shaco instantly blinks to a target nearby location and enters stealth for up to 3.5 seconds. His next auto-attack within 6 seconds is guaranteed to critically strike for modified base critical damage. Bonus critical damage from items, runes and mastery is applied for the full amount.

His W: ACTIVE: Shaco creates a Jack in the Box at the target location with 150 health. It will stealth after 2 seconds and lasts a maximum of 60 seconds. When an enemy comes near the box activates and comes out of stealth, fearing nearby enemies briefly and attacking them for 5 seconds, dealing magic damage with its attacks. Casting Jack In The Box breaks stealth.

His E: PASSIVE: Shaco's attacks poison his targets, reducing their movement speed for 2 seconds. It also gives affected non-champion units a chance to miss their attacks.
ACTIVE: Shaco throws a dagger at a target enemy dealing magic damage and applying his slowing poison to them for 3 seconds. The passive is deactivated during the cooldown.

and finally His Ult: ACTIVE: Shaco becomes stealthed and untargetable for 0.5 seconds, then creates a clone of himself that will last for up to 18 seconds. The clone deals 75% of Shaco's damage and receives 50% extra damage. This clone deals 50% damage to towers and inhibitors. At the end of its duration or when dying the clone will explode, dealing magic damage to nearby enemies.

From this, let us look closely at the abilities that are a part of his bag of tricks. These are his Q, W, and Ult. His Q gives him a free flash and stealth for a few seconds. His W gives him boxes he can place that CC his enemies and deal damage (significant damage if built AP) and his ult gives him a clone that deals 75% of Shacos auto attack damage, applies on hit effects, and explodes for extra damage on death.

Now, my idea for how to balance shaco is to change part of his bag of tricks. This will allow Shaco to be strong in other areas, which will help with the goal of making him strong enough for competitive play. It will also nerf what makes him such a solo queue destroyer when he is strong. So both of his issues can be fixed at once.


So, what part of his kit do we hit, and how do we approach these changes? There are a few things to keep in mind when deciding what to do. First of all, we want to try and keep Shaco feeling like Shaco. Many players would reject changes that make him not feel like he has always felt (like with the recent Karma changes), so any changes that drastically change his play style should be avoided if possible. Well, that means that we cannot rework his Q or Ultimate, since they are such key components to how you play as Shaco. We could number tweak them, but that is something that Riot has already done, and it does not fix his core design problems.

So this leaves his W, the boxes, as the area to fix. Changing his boxes also makes a lot of sense since they often are useless in actual combat, and are pretty much useless late game to AD Shaco anyways, besides a potential fear from a bush, or for kiting. So here is my proposal for how to change Shaco's W.

First of all, you can no longer place multiple boxes at a time. You will place one larger box at a time. It will stealth much faster than boxes do now, and use a health system similar to that of Zyra's plants (perhaps taking less damage from neutral monsters/minions). It will still fear in the same way that it does now, and afterwards it will prioritize champions to attack, specially the last one you attacked within the past few seconds if you did attack one. It will disappear after a few seconds just as it does now. It will have about the same base value as a box does right now. The ap ratio will be adjusted (likely buffed) as needed. However, this box will also now scale with a percentage of your bonus AD and bonus Attack speed.



So what will this change do for Shaco's kit from a design standpoint? First of all, Shaco's boxes no longer have to be balanced around whether or not you are stacking them. This allows for it to be a much stronger minion, for both AP and AD Shaco when you place just a single one. Secondly, it will make it so that Shaco will never be able to do silly things in the jungle such as clear camps while not even being there with his boxes as he has been able to do at times in the past. Lastly, it makes AD Shaco feel much better for using his W late game, and adds in more decision making when it comes to where to place your box, instead of just places boxes everywhere. Shaco's basic theme and playstyle are even kept, and to be honest, I feel that his late game playstyle will be amplified by this change, at least if you are playing agressively as AD. His playstyle as AP Shaco will be changed a bit, but in my personal opinion (however valuable that is) Making AP Shaco being able to do more than stack boxes and hope that someone is foolish enough to walk into a stack of them is a good change for him.

Now with these changes, there will also need to be a lot of number tweaking to all of shaco's abilities, in order to keep AP viable (which will be much easier without having to worry about box stacking cases) and to make sure his numbers stay in check. However, I feel that changing his boxes in this sort of way would put Shaco in a much better position for being balanceable at all levels of play, and keep him feeling like Shaco at the same time.

Feel free to leave comments if you have any suggestions, or critiques of my idea! All constructive feedback is welcome here!

Until next time!

"For my next trick, I'll make you disappear!"

-Rikukun

edit1: Updated parts of the post based on feedback from comments.

My History as a LoL Player

So as many people will probably wonder, what elo/ranking am I as a player.

Currently, I am unranked for Season 3, though I plan to finally start playing ranked games soon. Last season, I was a Silver Player for Solo Queue, and Gold in both Twisted Treeline and Team Summoner's Rift. On Dominion, while I have went down in elo as of late due to lack of practice, I have been as high as the 1900's (based off of when you could find your normal elo), and I have likely been in the 2000's.

I have also lead a team in multiple Domination Dominion Tournaments, landing third place one time around.

My University, UNC Chapel Hill, also hosts Riot Sponsored LoL tournaments several times a year; I have been in the winning team more than once in these games.

My current favorite positions to play are Mid laner and Jungle. I have played with every champion in the game somewhat except for Zac and Quinn and Valor. I love playing in ARAM's and am greatly looking forward to having matchmaking for them.

That's about it for now. Feel free to leave a comment if you have any questions!

Until Next Time!
-Rikukun

Introduction

Hello Everyone!

My name is Jacob, or as you may know me online, Rikukun. I have played League of Legends for well over two years now, and I simply love the game. So much so that I would really love to work for Riot as a Game Designer one day to do everything that I can to make the game even better. However, I know that there are thousands of others out there who would also love this position, and may even look or actually be more qualified than I am. In fact, I was recently turned down from the game design internship position from Riot, so they clearly feel that this is the case.

However, I am not going to give up; working at Riot Games is my dream. To that end I decided to make this blog, which will focus on discussing my ideas of design issues and suggestions involving characters, items, and maps in League of Legends.

I hope that I will be able to give my readers engaging material that will fully explain my thought process behind my ideas, and I hope that when I apply to Riot in the future and put this blog on my resume, they will actually look at it so that they can better see how I think and they will hopefully feel that I would be a great asset to Riot Games.

Until Next Time!
-Rikukun