[Champion Concept] Anima, The Minion Queen

**Anima, The Minion Queen **

Design Concept: Anima is a pet controller through her commandment of minions, who uses them to enhance her own abilities. In order to make a more interesting decision choice, Anima can grab either melee or caster minions to increase her utility or damage respectively. She is meant to be built with damage and cooldown reduction, somewhat like Lux or Karma, to provide maximum amount of utility when using melee minions, as her skills have a decent AP scaling by themselves. She can also be built as a AP carry like Veigar when using caster minions since she gains AP scaling per caster minion. Anima by herself is almost defenseless without minions, does significantly less damage and provides no utility so taking out her minions makes her much easier to deal with. Higher level play with Anima involves managing the placement of her minions, as she has a strong ability to zone opponents in lane, and can hit from far ranges if minions are placed correctly.

Lore:

The magic that surrounds the Twisted Treeline is truly a mysterious energy. It turns out Maokai was not the only champion that spawned from the enchanted land. A purple caster minion suddenly gained sentience while marching towards its inevitable demise early in a match. It quickly realized what was happening and snuck out into the wild forest, unnoticed by the six champions.

Within the evil Shadow Isles, the minion adapted a name for itself, or “herself” as she would prefer to be called. She trained her magic powers and discovered that she could reanimate unmoving objects and repurpose them for her own agendas. With her new name, Anima, taken from the land that bred her, she travelled to the mainland Valoran to become a part of the League of Legends and gain access to her soulless brethren.

It is known exactly why Anima wanted to join the League. However, she seems to have some master plan involving the minions, perhaps due to some knowledge of the Institute of War hidden away for some time. Despite the inconsiderate behavior that she has towards her lesser kind, she almost seems to be planning something with them. The Institute of War has decided to allow her to participate in order to keep an eye on her.

(Anima is sort of a link to some of the secrets that happen within the Institute for War that are unknown to regular summoners. At least, that's my idea of her. She possibly has some knowledge of minions that she acquired during her animation. I'm not a writer, so this probably isn't the best lore for her. I may find a story writer to help me if I wish to pursue a more complete champion package from Anima. (Extra note: This is pretty out of date since I think Maokai's lore was changed. I might edit this again some day, or get someone else to make one))

Resource: Manaless

(Honestly, I couldn't come up with a reason to give her mana as I didn't want her cooldowns to be short and spammable with mana as a limit. I liked the idea of her having longer cooldowns that she needed to hold for important cases, especially since most of them have fairly strong effects.)

Hidden passive: Anima changes colors depending on what team she's on.

(This doesn't have to happen, but I thought it would be fun.)

Passive (Promotion) – Every 60 seconds, Anima may select a allied melee or caster minion to become a Knighted Minion by right clicking it. Knighted Minions have the same Movement Speed as Anima and will follow her until given an action. All Knighted Minions gain (100 + 15 per level) health. Knighted Melee Minions gain (30 + 2 per level) armor and magic resistance and Knighted Caster Minions gain (8 + 2 per level) attack damage. Anima can have up to three Knighted Minions at a time.

Knighted Minions can be commanded to move and attack with (default) Alt + click and can return to Anima by targeting herself. Clicking a Knighted Minion and then clicking another minion when Passive is off of cooldown promotes the minion and demotes the Knighted Minion.

(Her passive is her method of controlling minions. The passive cooldown is high in order to make the minions she already has more valuable, as if she loses all of them it takes three minutes to gain them back. This is one of the ways she can move her minions around, particularly Knighted Caster Minions. The level scales are meant to improve the respective strengths of the minions and have them be relevant later in the game. The order you pick the minions will be shown by a hovering crown on their heads with a number. Knighted Minions are worth an extra 5 gold from their initial taking when killed.)

Q (Queen's Gambit) – Anima calls Knighted Minions to her and creates a shield that blocks (100 + 25 per level + 60% AP) damage from her army and her for 3 seconds. Anima also channels for 1 second, at the end commanding Knighted Melee Minions to push back enemies for (150 x (number of melee minions + 1)) units and Knighted Caster Minions and herself to deal (60 + 30 per level + 20% AP x (number of caster minions + 1)) magic damage in a cone. (20/19/18/17/16 second cooldown, 400 range)

(This is Anima’s only defense without minions, and only way to defend her minions from harm by herself. The shield has a pretty low base health so it makes sense to get that extra AP. The difference in minions is emphasized in this skill with the attack after the channel. Players can use this as a disengage, or possibly a way to displace enemies towards her team with enough melee minions. It also can be used as burst damage with enough caster minions.)

W (En Passant) – Anima enhances her and her Knighted Minions auto attacks for 5 seconds. Anima gains (10 + 10 per level + 15% AP) bonus magic damage to her attacks. Knighted Melee Minions gain a ((10% + 1% AP) * number of melee minions) 1 second slow on hit. Knighted Caster Minions gain (5 + 4 per level + 5% AP) bonus magic damage to their attacks. (18/16/14/12/10 second cooldown)

(I wanted to make her and her minions’ auto attack relevant, since regular minions use them and it keeps with her theme. Again, the skill emphasizes the minion’s differences. This also makes Alt + click more powerful, as it allows her minions to actually do a decent amount of damage on a target.)

E (Castling)– Anima sends a charged ball of magic in a line that does (60 + 30 per level + 60% AP) magic damage on the first champion hit. Anima also commands a Knighted Minion to attack, causing Knighted Melee Minions to charge in a line, stunning the first champion it comes in contact with for .5 seconds and Knighted Caster Minions to send a charged ball of magic in a line dealing (15 + 10 per level + 10% AP) damage on the champion it contacts. Can be cast up to three times within a 5 second period, once per Knighted Minion, and Knighted Minions attack based on the order in which they were promoted. (20/18/16/14/12 second cooldown, 500 missile range)

(Her main damage/utility skill. This skill allows Anima to stun three champions for a small amount of time, or one champion for a long time using Knighted Melee Minions, or nuke one champion with three smaller but impactful secondary bursts. The skill is cast similarly to Lulu’s Glitterlance. Minions will attack in the direction of your mouse on skill cast. This skill combos well with her W.)

R (Ultimate) (Checkmate) – Anima commands her Knighted Minions to do a special attack towards a targeted area. Knighted Melee Minions charge towards the area, knocking enemies in their path upwards and stunning them for (0/.5/1 per melee minion) seconds. Anima sends a charged beam of magic towards the targeted area, dealing (120/200/280 + 70% AP) magic damage to enemies in the beam’s path. Knighted Caster Minions also send a charged beam of magic towards the targeted area, dealing (30/60/90 + 10% AP) magic damage to enemies in the beam’s path. (150/130/110 second cooldown, 600 range)

(Her ult allows her minions to initiate a fight with a long range AoE knockup/stun, or hit hard with several beams of magic. If used in conjunction with her w E or Alt + click, it can hit a large amount of people, even if they aren’t grouped together. Using this spell is similar to Orianna’s Q; Anima and her minions all attack until they hit the targeted spot.)

Pitfalls to design: I'm concerned that this champ might be too much micromanaging for a player to handle. In essence, a player would have up to four things to keep track of during play. It may be a bit too much, but it may not be as punishing as I think.

I'm also a bit concerned that being able to switch her minion crew from AP to CC may be too flexible for a champ to have. Though, I think it makes her a more engaging champ overall.

Let me know what you think about her in the comments!