Add Clarity to Trundle's Ult

Wobly··2 votes·819 views

I have a short request for Riot to add to the pile; please add clarity to Trundle's ultimate.

I love Trundle. I think his balance is just fine, and he has a great niche. However, he has a bad case of hidden power. He's a rarely played champion, and at least down here in Silver, lots of players are only passingly familiar with him. If you asked someone what his ult does, they'd probably be able to tell you. But if you asked them to describe what his ult animation looks like, I bet you'd see a lot of blank faces.

For an ability that is so powerful, it's very easy to miss the visual cues, particularly if Trundle ults your team's tank while you're paying attention to something else. I've definitely had games where I played a tank, and backed off from a fight when Trundle ulted me, only to have my team engage the fight during his ult duration anyway. They didn't make a strategic error, they just weren't aware that his ult was active.

If you've been playing for years, you're probably familiar with Trundle and his ult, and this isn't a problem for you. But for newer players, even if they've played hundreds of games, they may only have seen a few Trundles. His ult animation should be immediately recognizable to everyone watching, even if you aren't watching him closely. For an idea of how to fix this, compare Trundle's ult to some other self-buff ults like Renekton or Nasus. The increased size and colorful, noticeable aura makes it impossible to miss when they are ulting.

For the sake of tanks and their teams, please add clarity to Trundle's ult.

6 Comments

TehNACHO2 votes

I think a nice big faded blue aura should help. Light blue stands out very hard on the new summoner's rift color scheme, so even a faded or potentially muted light blue will stand out and is easy to see. Being faded though, it also doesn't clutter the screen nor interfere with other bits of information (a see through light color doesn't hide any other buffs a champion may have; you should still be easily able to see if Trundle has a Blue Buff even if he has a faded blue aura around him). A similar effect can also apply to who he's targeting, just to make it that much more clear.

Waffletimewarp2 votes

Maybe a big pair of jaws chomping for the initial cast with some sort of debuff symbol above Trundle's and the affected players' head?

Or working with your idea, NACHO, make a connection similar to the tether that appears when KAlista soulbinds someone along with those light blue auras.

Wobly1 votes

I really like the idea of a tether or debuff symbol over both champs. The aura around Renek/Nasus denotes their AoE damage from the ult, whereas Trundle's ult doesn't have any AoE DOT, so giving Trundle a bigger/brighter aura might just end up confusing the really new players who don't know what the ult does.

TehNACHO1 votes

It doesn't have to be the big ground circle like Nasus has, it could be something more like the cloudy effect the old elixirs gave, just a whole lot bigger.

Serevas1 votes

I was under the impression that a blade of the ruined king - like drain appeared in blue right as the size increased. I might be mistaken, but I was pretty sure there was that little clue.

Wobly1 votes

The drain effect does appear, but it's rather faint, and it doesn't persist for the duration of the ult, so it's easy to miss in a chaotic teamfight, particularly if you aren't actually sure what it looks like in the first place. And AFAIK, there's no size increase for Trundle during his ult. That would make it much easier to spot though.

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