Tryndamere Rework, For Fun and Fancy

Hello, fellow Summoners, Poppy's Father stopping by to discuss an original rework for a champion! This is something I personally enjoy doing, and I hope you guys can get as much thought out of it as I can.

DISCLAIMER: I do not work at Riot Games, I do not have the numbers, testing capabilities, feedback, etc to perfectly create a rework that everyone will like or be perfect in any way. Sometimes I like to push the envelope of champion balance, so if something seems a bit farfetched, it's just me having fun. Please try to consider the positives and let your minds be open. With that said, let's get into it.

Why Tryndamere?

Personally, I love Tryndamere. I enjoy champions like Nasus, Udyr, and Trynd who aren't particularly team-reliant. That being said, he is definitely a more outdated champion. Tryndamere in particular was my choice because on a Boards post I read ~2 weeks ago in which people were asked which champ they'd see reworked after Urgot, a surprising amount said Tryndamere. I would put Evelynn, Kayle, Akali, Aatrox, Morde... etc over Tryndamere, but it got me thinking; what would a Trynd rework look like?

Goals and Identity:

Trynd likes two things; split-pushing and making the fight come to him, and not caring what he's fighting, charging into battle without caution for his life. Boxer Pete himself stated that the reason he mains Trynd is "because he's a tank and a carry at the same time." Of course, he's not tanky in the normal sense. I think it's important to keep this aspect of "hard to kill skirmisher" intact, but making it a bit more interesting. I also think it's important to introduce more options for team-fighting outside of his ultimate, but still retaining his strong split-pushing.

Critical Strikes:

Oh boy. You are facing a Tryndamere as Riven. You are fighting him at level 1-2 very carefully. You can survive one more auto and have your Q come up just in time for an Auto-Q, but he crits you. You die, you tilt, he snowballs, you lose. OR you are playing Tryndamere. All you need to make Nasus your pet for the rest of the game is one or two good crits at level 1. Lo and behold, they do not come, and Nasus has 400 stacks at 15 minutes. This rework is going to do what many recent crit-based kits do, and that is incorporate them a tad more reliably into the kit. You still want to crit, but your early success won't hinge on getting lucky.

The Kit:

Each ability will have a fairly detailed description of what the change is meant to improve. Remember that I cannot test numbers (and I'm very poor at math), so I try my best to compare with previous stats, other champ's abilities, etc. Passive: Battle Fury- Tryndamere gains 5 Fury for each basic attack, 10 for critical strikes, and 10 for killing a unit. Each point of Fury grants Tryndamere .25 bonus Attack Damage. At 100 Fury, Tryndamere's next basic attack critically strikes for 125-250% and consumes all of his Fury, healing himself for 40-200 (based on level, +.2 Total AD). Deals 50% damage and heals for 50% against structures, healing 50% against minions.

This passive follows a similar trend to Vladimir's Q stack mechanic. You stack up your Fury, your opponent sees it and if they react, they can avoid the damage. As Tryndamere, you still get a solid 20 health at level 1 for using it on a minion. With more attack speed and crit chance, stacking this becomes fairly easy as you dish out heavy crits. It gives more reliability and is overall more rewarding than randomly winning or losing your lane. Note that this does not stack with a normal crit.

Q: Great Cleave- Cooldown: 9/8/7/6/5, No Cost, 375 Range Tryndamere slashes in a half-circle in front of himself, dealing 30/50/70/90/110(+100% Total AD) and slowing enemies by 20/30/40/50/60% for .5 seconds. Great Cleave can critically strike for 110/120/130/140/150% damage.

Fairly simple, works quite similar to a Rengar's Q as far as targetting/AoE is concerned. It is essentially an extended basic attack in a half-cricle with higher base damage, but cannot crit as strong. This gives Tryndamere more wave control and pushing power early on in the game, as well as a way to fight back against auto-attack-immune champions like Jax or Teemo. Notes: does not interrupt movement, but has a short delay (about the same time as Riven's 3rd Broken Wing). The spell does not proc Lifesteal (still procs on DD of course). This gives opponents some room to play around, since it is still quite short ranged. The slow can be removed if necessary, but I don't think it exactly breaks the ability. The main reason for replacing his current Q is that it is extremely uninteractive and botches a lot of mechanical potential. The heal was moved to the passive, so Tryndamere still has some form of in-fight sustain.

W: Mocking Shout- Cooldown: 14, No Cost, 850 Range. Tryndamere shouts out a mocking battle cry, causing all enemy Champions facing him to gain 40 (flat) movement speed towards him, but deal 15/20/25/30/35% reduced damage to him for 4 seconds. Enemies with their backs turned are instead slowed by 30/37.5/45/52.5/60% for 4 seconds.

I think this ability rework is honestly very interesting. Mocking Shout in its current form is carelessly thrown out when spinning in to slow the enemy, or perhaps to make last-hitting under tower harder for your opponent. This iteration causes both Tryndamere and his foes to make a choice. If Tryndamere is getting ganked, but he thinks he can turn and fight the 2v1, he can W to bait the enemies into running faster towards him, but dealing less damage once her turns and fights. Alternatively, if an enemy is running from Tryndamere and they are slowed, he no longer reduces their damage whatsoever and the opponent has a chance to turn and fight.

E: Spinning Slash- Cooldown: 15/14/13/12/11, No Cost, 650 Range. Tryndamere spins through his enemies, dealing 70/90/110/130/150 (+80% Total AD)(+50% AP) + 3/4/5/6/7% of enemies' missing health as physical damage. Spinning Slash's cooldown is reduced by 1 second when Tryndamere critically strikes, increased to 2 against champions.

AP ratio was changed to discourage AP Trynd. It's healthier to discourage because the heal was changed, and it was worse off no matter what. I wanted to keep, however, for Guinsoo's, Natural Talent, Infernal Drake, and Baron buffs giving it that little extra kick. Execution damage was given instead of some base damage to encourage more of a decision. "If I dash away, won't get the extra damage if I get them low, but if I use it to execute someone, I may not have it to get out of tower range or to escape the enemy jungler). Overall works the same, though. Cooldown was increased to heighten the choice-making, as well as forcing the player to invest in some early CDR if they want more spins before getting 50%+ crit chance.

R: Barbarian King's Rage- Cooldown: 100/90/80, No Cost, Self Cast For 6/8/10 seconds, bringing Tryndamere below 50% health causes him to tough out the difficult battle. During this time, he takes 1-99% reduced non-turret damage, based on his missing health, maxing out at 20 health. Upon reaching this amount, and when the duration ends, Tryndamere's Battle Fury is refreshed. Tryndamere can take a minimum of 4/3/2 damage.

Ok, this one may seem a bit weird, but there is method to it. One of the most frustrating parts of Tryndamere's kit is very similar to old Poppy; complete immunity to damage/death. These kinds of mechanics are overall unhealthy and take power away from the champion. This new ultimate still provides the effect of "difficulty to kill when low" without being impossible to kill. It may be easy to get him low, but when you do, it gets harder and harder to finish him off, so all of your efforts need to be focused on actually killing Tryndamere, otherwise his passive will allow him to get off big chunks of damage and potentially healing him enough to survive the fight. This also takes away the sheer frustration of being helplessly turret-dove, while making tower dives against Tryndamere still very risky.

What does all of this do?

This rework is best thought of as modernization. Tryndamere doesn't need the level of rework that Poppy, Sion, etc. needed, but definitely needed to be brought up to date in gameplay standards. A deceptively large portion of Trynd's flaws came from two frustrations; random crits and full immunity to death (particularly for tower dives and teamfights). This kit solves both of those issues. But what I believe is most important, is that it keeps Tryndamere's build, playstyle, and identity intact while making him more interactive and decision-based and without making him any more mechanically difficult. Familiarity, as well as keeping a learning curve that is similar in nature to the original champion is immensely important. Tryndamere's mastery should not be the same as an Azir or Lee Sin, it should be more similar to an Udyr or Nasus. Please tell me what you guys think, things you like, may not like so much, etc. If there is anything that can be clarified, please don't hesitate to ask. Please try to be considerate and open-minded, and I hope that you guys can enjoy reworks as much as I do. I would also love any Rioter comments and your opinions on this ;3

-Poppy's Father