Can we talk about Viktor again?

"Embrace progress! For real this time!"

So, a long time ago (roughly a year ago in S3), there was a discussion about Viktor and what could be done to improve his viability, playability, and overall fun. The main point of contention seems to be the fact that his passive, while being very handy around midgame, seems to kinda hold him back lategame since you can't upgrade or sell it - essentially meaning that you have one Tier 2 item and five Tier 3 items tops. There was a proposed idea that Solcrushed said "required S4 technology," and since S4 was in the far-off, Jetson-esque future, the discussion kinda petered out.

I'm not complaining about the conversation being dropped, but now that we actually live in the future - with flatscreen 3D TVs, videophones, robotic vacuum cleaners, and Feral Flare - it's a perfect time to touch on our favorite hexmage once again!

The Situation

Viktor's kit is essentially fine. It is unique, it has synergy both within the kit and with the team, and it has plenty of room for player skill expression and big plays.

The Hex Core passive, however, is failing to meet its potential to the point where it holds Viktor back as a champion. On paper, he should be able to pick one of the three options to fill one of three roles. In practice, only one of the cores is ever picked, and the other two are mostly ignored because a) they aren't as gold-efficient as Death Core and b) they augment Viktor's less-popular abilities, ie. not Death Ray.

In addition, the passive allows you to upgrade a free, unsellable item to a great Tier 2 item for 1000 gold - excellent for his early-midgame effectiveness, but terrible later on when you'd probably rather have something like Zhonya's or Void Staff.

Sure, this could be solved by adding a Tier 3 upgrade to each core. But this is League of Legends we're talking about. Why merely solve a problem when you can make it AWESOME?

The Proposition

Expand the Hex Core. Extend it back toward the start of the game, with a 365 gold upgrade to a basic, no-frills augment (ie. same cost as a support gold item) that you can upgrade two ways:

1. With Feral Flare/Bonetooth Necklace-style item evolution, where accomplishing a certain goal opens up access to new abilities for the item. Viktor's a scientist - he improves technology with research, not with pure cash!

2. With gold upgrades to improve evolution efficiency and stats. Because regardless of how sound your methods are, better equipment always helps - you'll have an easier time studying astrophysics with an observatory than with a pair of binoculars.

This gives the Viktor player a bunch of new opportunities for interesting play. On Live, a Viktor player is going to grab his Death core for 1000 gold as soon as possible, then play around it as hard as possible while it's still an actual asset. If he's fallen behind, he can't get the augment easily, which sucks. If he's way ahead, then his super-efficient item on top of his other mage items will give him a stupid amount of snowballing capability.

With this proposed new iteration, a Viktor player who's falling behind in gold won't be utterly screwed - he can still grab potions and whatnot, building items that will help him keep up, while still gaining his Hex Core bonuses by snagging those evolution goals here and there. But a snowballing Viktor won't instantly jump to the head of the pack, because the extra gold only gives him the standard bonus stats - he still has to deal champion damage or kill minions or whatever the research comes from, if he wants to get access to the neat stuff.

The Cores

There's a ton of room for experimentation (pun totally intended) when it comes to actually making this idea work, but here's an example of how each core upgrade might look as a proof-of-concept.

Power Core Level 1

General concept: Improves health, survivability. Empowers Q. Intended role: Tanky mage, ie. like Swain, Karthus, Lissandra.

Passive: 10% Spellvamp.

In addition, the Power Core gains new abilities based on how much damage Viktor has prevented with shields.

300: Power Transfer (Q) applies the shield when it hits the target, rather than when it returns.

1000: Power Core now grants Viktor bonus health equal to 40% of his ability power.

2500: Viktor's basic abilities grant him 5 bonus armor and magic resistance each time they affect an enemy champion for 3 seconds, maximum 10 stacks.

7000: Viktor deals magic damage to nearby enemy champions each second equal to 5% of his ability power.

18000: Power Transfer (Q) now bounces up to 4 times, at 25% effectiveness with each bounce beyond the first.

45000: Chaos Storm (Q) now has a wider radius and shields allied champions within for 15% of the damage it would deal to enemy champions.

Obviously these numbers are utterly bonkers, partly because I have no idea how much a person can expect to shield over the course of a match when they're going out of their way to do it, partly because I didn't intend to spend this long on it.

Upgrading it with gold could add stats like HP, resistances and HP/5, while increasing the amount of spellvamp provided and increasing some of the numbers in his evolution tree - bringing the HP per AP up to a 1.2 ratio or something for example.

Similar evolution trees are easy to come up with for the Gravity and Death cores - the former intended to make Viktor kind of a utility mage like Janna/Lulu, the latter to make him more of a pure damage mage like Brand or Syndra.

The key here is that in order for the core to really feel like the central part of his kit, it needs to do more than just augment one ability - you need to feel bits of it everywhere. Gravity core should add a slowing effect to his entire kit, Rylai's-style, and give him bonus mana based on his AP. Death core should make Chaos Storm reduce magic resistance with each tick of damage.

And naturally, the "research" goal should be different for each core. Viktor wants his power core to be as effective as possible, so he needs to study its shielding effect. With Gravity, on the other hand, he wants to amplify its ability to hinder an enemy, and with Death, he just wants to damage champions.

I'm nowhere near qualified to provide values for these but hopefully the idea is clear.

The Drawbacks

With evolving items, you kinda need to keep the enhancements low-key. Evolution progress isn't particularly visible for opponents, so it can't be something that changes the counterplay significantly - just a cool perk here and there for Viktor, with the occasional impactful perk for big milestones.

Having 3 drastically different cores also means Viktor will probably have 3 drastically different kits. It will be tough to balance. The person in charge of Recommended Items will cry.

And of course, it has the potential to be crazy complex. The Viktor player will need to consider the upsides and downsides of each core for their lane, they'll need to remember what angle they're going for in terms of evolution points, they'll need to remember "Oh yeah, I have this bonus now, I should take that into account." But low-key buffs a la Rengar's Bonetooth Necklace should keep this to a minimum - you could theoretically play Viktor the exact same way and just let the evolution perks help you in the background.

Oh, and it'd be hard work, and might warrant some new animations/particles/whatever. Luckily, this is just hypothetical, so it doesn't matter. Hurray!

I'd love opinions, especially Rioter opinions, and if nothing else let this start a discussion in terms of bringing Viktor's passive up to snuff. He's got a really cool kit, excellent themes, and so much more - I wish it was more satisfying to play him.