Elyn, the Blade Princess: Round Two

A while back, there were a few concept arts floating around that were the product of a design exercise in a school someplace. You might remember it, or maybe not. Here's one of the super-memorable ones, and that's the one I want to talk about. That's Elyn, the titular Blade Princess.

I'm not much of a lore person; I don't know what she's princess of, or whatnot. But I know that she has a lot of weapons and I like what that could mean from a gameplay standpoint.

So I'm looking at ideas for her, as a champion, that would add a fun, unique, useful, and balanced character to the League.

The most immediately-obvious characteristic of Elyn is that she's got 3 weapons. There are a couple of different ways that that could be expressed, traditionally: there's the Vayne approach, where the character wields one of their weapons to signify that they're using a powerful attack (Condemn) or steroid (Final Hour); there's Jinx's two approaches, where she pulls her pistol to Zap!, but has full control over whether she's using Fishbones or Pow Pow, otherwise; and there's the Jayce paradigm, whereby he changes the entirety of his kit by changing his weapon.

I think you'll agree with me when I say that Jayce has the most ability depth resulting from his weapon swap, and I think that that style should seek to be emulated. The downside to Jayce is that he doesn't have a real, compelling ultimate, but I think that we can remedy that.

Before we can really talk about what Elyn's abilities should do, we should establish what each weapon, overall, should do. Overall, we know that Elyn is to be, primarily, a melee fighter, but there should be some distinction between "Chainsword Elyn" and "Dagger Elyn". Fortunately, the weapons themselves all have strong thematic ties:

• Daggers are typically associated with assassins: they are mobile, hit fast, and strike targets where they are weak.
• Elyn's Chainsword is interesting, but I'd imagine that, being a large weapon, it hits hard and slow, taking out big chunks of health with each swing and knocking enemies around. The chained blade makes me think that it should shred health or armor.
• The gunblade, next to her other weapons, seems safe and poke-oriented. This makes her set very well-rounded, I think.

With each of those paradigms, we can look at what Elyn's abilities should do in each form.

Q should be a weapon-based offensive attack, but it should feel similar in usage, regardless of which weapon is equipped; this adds a consistency to her kit and combats information overload. I think that, for Elyn, the ideal way to keep that familiarity is to make Q available only within a short window of hitting with a basic attack; this way, she can have three different Qs, but her summoner shouldn't feel at a complete loss when picking it up for the first time. Auto -> Q is easy and memorable.

As to what the abilities should be, I think they should vary heavily based on what weapon she's using:

• With her Gunblade, Q should fire a shot at and through her target, as a linear targeted ability (like Piercing Light). As it's only usable after basic attacks, this means that Elyn's poke in lane is limited by her either lining up shots through minions, or gated on her ranged attacks (but more on that, later).
• With her Chainsword, Q should suppress Elyn and her target while she grinds the weapon down into them, shredding armor and causing a bleed effect. Think of it as sort of a melee-range, physical version of Malzahar's ultimate. I feel that this ability is balanced as a non-ultimate due to the nature of channeling while in melee range: it's not easy. After the attack, the blades should continue to spin for a while, letting Elyn keep the bleed and shred.
• And with her Daggers, I think a quick bonus autoattack would be reasonable, perhaps with marginally reduced damage. This makes the daggers deal the most damage when built as an ADC, becoming the lategame carry weapon choice.

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W, I think, should actually toggle weapons. Additionally, I think W should manage Elyn's weapon-based passives, like Jinx's Q manages hers:

• Gunblade: every few seconds, Elyn gains the ability to attack a foe at range. Attacking in melee reduces the cooldown on the ranged attack, but will not consume it. This ranged attack synergizes with Elyn's Q to become her primary poke in lane.
• Chainsword: Elyn gains bonus AD and her attacks splash, but she has reduced attack speed.
• Daggers: Elyn gains bonus attack speed, critical chance, and critical damage.

Each passive emphasizes her respective weapon's niche.

This ability should have a short cooldown that procs when Elyn hits a target or uses another ability, to prevent her from swapping weapons while actively attacking; perhaps that cooldown can decrease with ranks (1/0.8/0.6/0.4/0.2 seconds)? Other than that, though, I don't think it should have any associated costs.

That leaves E for a utility-based ability and, again, it should vary based on Elyn's weapon:

• Gunblade: Elyn shoots a target, slowing it. This matches her poke-based gunblade playstyle while also giving her the chase potential that she needs for her more-offensive weapons.
• Chainsword: Elyn knocks away foes in front of her; they are stunned if they hit terrain. A move that feels like raw power for a weapon that looks like it.
• Daggers: Elyn dashes toward the cursor, gaining a burst of movement and attack speed. Whenever she's the target of an attack, nearby enemies take some damage.

Because Q is so consistent in usage (auto -> Q), I think that having 3 different abilities for E is manageable; after all, this is what most champions manage at any given point.

I thought for a while about what to do with R, but I think that the most bad-ass option is twofold: firstly, leveling R gives Elyn the ability to upgrade one of her weapons, similar to Kha'Zix. Unlike Kha, upgrading one of Elyn's weapons empowers both her Q and E, but only while the weapon in question is being used.

For upgraded Q:

• Gunblade: Q refreshes Elyn's ranged attack.
• Chainsword: Each tick deals %current health damage; Elyn can reactivate after full (uninterrupted) channel to execute her target.
• Daggers: Elyn can stab more times; each stab deals %missing health damage.

And for upgraded E:

• Gunblade: if Elyn shoots a target facing away from her, they are stunned instead of slowed. If she shoots a target facing toward her, they are silenced and slowed.
• Chainsword: after striking a foe, Elyn can reactivate the ability to jump to them, dealing physical damage.
• Daggers: Elyn blocks incoming attacks while the effect persists. Basic attacks reduce its cooldown.

For the second part of the ability, R should have an active component. I'm not sure exactly what it ought to be, but my personal favorite idea is allowing Elyn to wield a combination of weapons, either permanently (R swaps secondary weapon), as a toggle that drains mana, or in some other fashion. As a "master of multiple weapons", I think "using them simultaneously" would be a very fitting ultimate ability.

Early game, Elyn should seek to play safe in the top lane with her Gunblade (her starting weapon), poking with its passive and/or Q. After acquiring all of her abilities, she can continue to farm and harass with her gunblade, using her chainsword to punish trades with Q -> E (suppress -> knockback), or she can go for an all-in by dashing in with daggers and going for a wallbang with the chainsword or immediately going for the suppress, then switching to her gunblade to try to kill the retreating foe.

Her role in teamfights will depend largely on her chosen upgrades. With the upgraded gunblade, Elyn can use poke damage and utility to assist her team while she's not strong enough to be in the thick of things; with an upgraded greatsowrd, she can act as a huge deterrent to enemy tanks and fighters with her health/armor shred, peel, and execute potential, and if she gets onto an out-of-position soft enemy, she can destroy them. With upgraded daggers, Elyn can perform like other AD carry/assassins (Riven, Yasuo), steadily chunking away at targets near her and looking to dive into the fray to pick off out-of-position targets.

In conclusion: the end.

Questions:

• How do you think her ult would work?
• Do you think she's too complicated?
• Alternatively, do you think she doesn't have enough depth?
• What would you think fitting, from a lore standpoint? I think she's got Piltover written all over her.
• Would you want to play her? Would you want to play against her?