The Truer Evolution - cont.

All hail our master

Thank you, thank you. You are all to kind

All hail our-

**No one likes a brown-noser Skarner **

:(

Hi, I am a Viktor main and I feel that although Viktor's skirmish potential will rise he will be very vulnerable to quick gap closing assassins. For example currently I am not afraid of playing Viktor into something like Talon or Zed because I know that if I can react fast enough I can drop the gravity field beneath my own feet so that I may be able to outplay my opponent before being blown up by their quick successive damage. The longer wait for the gravity field will give them more time in which to kill me while I try to compose myself and return damage. Another thing is I'm sure we are all aware of how difficult it is to escape ganks as Viktor specially when playing against some high mobility Udyr/Rammus or even the long initiates of Zac/Nocturne, the zone provided by the gravity field beneath the feet of Viktor allows him to somewhat deal with ganks as it gives him a window in which he can return damage or get away to safety. I'd like to make a suggestion, perhaps you could make it such that depending on distance the time in which gravity field deploys is shorter or longer. This would allow all Viktor players to have a bit more counter play vs the more difficult matchups we face (i.e. Fizz, Zed, Talon). While still being delayed and giving the opponent ability to dodge his initiation at distance.

TL;DR Viktor's W should take less time to deploy the closer it is to him to allow for counter play.

"The E augment on the other hand, has undergone significant changes. It will no longer apply a DOT on hit, but instead an explosion will follow the initial laser's wake."

So as a visual aid...something like this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DElgPm6hQaA

Hey Sol. Gonna weigh in on the changes. Hope you're reading every post at your own pace, since I'm a little late to the party this time.

Q: I'm optimistically cautious. I was a little nervous that the Q would be an AA with return benefits on-hit, but the ability being split into a cast animation, followed by an AA buff shows that you recognised the benefits of the shield + speed buff being tied to a cast animation, rather than a right click (which can make for some awkward charges right into the enemy's faces when attempting to get a shield up :P).

W: It's.... weird. At first glance, the augmented effect doesn't totally seem to make sense. The suck-in effect is kind've cool, but is it ultimately necessary? I suppose it helps clump the enemy up during teamfights, or if a Xin/Udyr gets stunned closer to your side of the circle.

The range increase is nifty. The setup time is a bit worrying, but I suspect it won't be as long as everyone's making it out to be. And with a guaranteed speed boost on Q at some point in the game, Vik now has another escape tool - so, again, I'm cautiously optimistic. This could be good.

**E: **The explosion. This is a strange direction:

Viktor's waveclear is very nearly unmatched with that extra 1 or 2 pts of dot. You can legitimately run into a minion wave, laser as you go, and pick up all 6 without stopping (+ a Q on the big minion if it's there for 7). If we're waiting on a delay, we're going to be missing some of those minions. Potentially trading out that waveclear isn't something I'm entirely thrilled about. It is, after all, an iconic central piece of Viktor's kit - and the secondary explosion would simply be a slightly inaccurate form of overkill.

Also, Viktor's snipe potential may take a hit, here. If the laser still moves really slowly, a max-range hit is immensely unlikely to result in the secondary explosion making contact. The DoT kill after hitting a max-range snipe is so utterly gratifying, there's no words for it. But a thought occurs, Mr Solcrushed: What if the secondary explosion initiates from the far side of the laser, trailing back towards the initial impact point? As I type this, I remember you talking - like 2 years ago - about a potential secondary "reverse-sweep" effect. Would this explosion act anything like that?

If the explosion starts nearly immediately from the far end of the laser trail, that snipe still does full damage. In addition, the backtracking explosion could allow Viktor - the zone control mage that he is - to herd up retreating enemies; or punish sticky bruisers who are running into the explosion's point of origin.

I'm only one guy, but I feel that an explosion that hits hard when you snipe well, then backtracks in such a fashion as to allow you to lure pursuers (minions included) into it would be leaps and bounds better than a Vel'Koz clone.

R: Shame it's not getting a once over. Don't get me wrong - I love the silence and the churning effect, but I hate the low-radius initial impact zone (and the channel time! Ugh). I was totally gunning for an obscene expanding electrical cloud or something. :P

It's a strong move, though, and I'm glad it's not getting toned down or anything.

As for the splash teaser

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Don't PLAY me, Solcrushed. Please let this be more than a splash art. I would strangle a newborn baby for a VU and some interactions with other champs. Viktor is cool, but I have absolutely no freakin' doubt in my mind that a VU would easily make him 10 times cooler. You guys excel at hextech art. You just do.

I like the changes to Q. It should open up some interesting options. Q E, run in attack, and run away. Great harass. Also, Q -> run forward -> W should be great at catching runners. That said . . .

I'm not so sure about this. The main problems with W right now are the range and the escapability. Fixing the range is great and all, but how useful will that be when this skill is already fairly easily escaped. Adding additional warning seems unwarranted. The "sucking in" effect of the augment is great (and coincidentally was my suggestion in my post!), but maybe if you are increasing the difficulty of landing the ability, the rewards should be increased as well. Maybe give mana return, magic resist reduction, or something.

I'll have to see how this works. If the delay is like 's W, then I think it is safe to say most Viktor players will be unhappy with it.

Overall, it seems like these changes are designed to change Viktor from being an imminent AOE threat into being a potential AOE threat. His W and E are both more escapable, and his Q's damage has been split into two components requiring an additional auto-attack to complete. I can understand why his ult is not changing in this case, because it seems like his whole kit will now revolve around allowing opponents to escape the full effect of all his abilities . . .

Does the new Q reset AA modifiers and does it work on towers?

Will we get Viktor the tower killer?

Aren't you the guy that unlike CertainlyT, your releases tend to be UP? I don't have a good feeling about this, and I have more than 500 games on him in my belt.

Everything I see here trades reliability with uncertainly, save ultimate because it is unchanged. Sad to see.

Since his kit is getting reworked, this sounds like the perfect time to ask about a really hidden Viktor bug that's been around for a while that nobody really knows about. I haven't tested it recently, but on Live, if you buy Viktor's yellow augment, there's a bug where you can cast Q on a unit that's about to die, and if it dies before the cast animation finishes, you'll still get the speed boost but it doesn't use up your spell, so you get the huge speed boost without spending any mana or putting the spell on cooldown. Has this been fixed on this reworked version of Viktor?

Can't tell us what your ult plans were?

Love these updates by the way. I adore Viktor's theme, Creator Viktor is totally sexy but gameplay wise the only thing that ever felt really satisfying to me was his laser - but I LOVE that laser, so bringing the rest of his kit up a bit will hopefully (and seemingly) result in a more cohesive champion that I might see myself maining pretty soon.

This is not what I hoped for and that makes me sad because Viktor is one of the only Champions who really are different for me. I don't think Viktor needed a change and this is the exactly opposite of an improvement. :/ Q - This was an interesting spell because your shield wasn't instant and made it a biut tricky to trade and that's good! There are already enough champions who can trade easy. The normal hit thing after the spell is also against his kit. You gave him more range on his Q just to let him run to his enemy afterwards to deal real damage. Viktor was always a great champion in mid/long-range bur it seems like he will have great problems when fighting against champs like Riven. W - I also think that it's easy enough for many champs just to jump/dash out of it and giving them a warning just makes it easier. The second effect sound awesome. E - Viktors main Spell and what makes a big difference! I think it's good you left it but I am sad that you took the DoT. R - This Ult just needs range or an augment that improves an aspect of this spell.

The only real thing I liked to see was a better augment for Q and W and maybe an upgrade that improves a second skill or the ult in different ways but not an item that is always the same at the end of the game.

I think this is already too late to stop this change but Viktor is the champ I liek the most so I think I had to write this.

Please make this good.

So basically Viktor's new E is basically Velkoz's line thing that explodes upon casting and another after a few seconds...............? Can't you guys just keep the DoT? I don't see what was wrong with a DoT on the E o.o

I am not realy sure how i feel about these changes.

As a Viktor main, I have to aknowlege the fact, that I am propably biased on this topic. For a while now I have argued against people trying to explain the rest of the world why Viktor needs a change, after they played him a few times and didn't think he felt right. I always had to think "If you don't like the kit, why do you just not play him, why do you have to argue for altering his kit into a generic one you love on your main champs. Why ruin the experience of different style changes"

Ok so this was old Viktor. What do I think about the new concept of your Kit?

I like the Q change, even though I don't like the dmg reduction and the higher range. So well sound as if I don't like it after all. No! I like being able to make use of the shield. But i'd like it even more if the shield would just be applied upfront and not upon returning. Buit at least for me nothing will change, I will keepin maxing the E and than the Q, maybe i can use the Q more for poking now. So I am looking forward to testing this. Might be nice after all.

The E. Not DoT?

You are making me cry. I loves my DoT as much as i hated the fact that you got tower aggro for the time it ticked, so you had to decide, harras the enemy, or push the tower, both was most of the time not an option. The new explosion. Well if I can deal more dmg overall... I guess its OK. Again I have trouble imagening the impact of this fpr teamfights. Old Viktor, get out your E and let the whole enemy team get a nice DoT. Now... hm I guess you will still hit them with the laser, but normaly they react to this and run away so the explosion might not hit them... I like to test this. Because this was the main reason i loved viktor so much, he could just be so usefull for teamfights. By going for the squishys but dealing side dmg to the rest of the enemy team just by trying to kill one target. So I will again just say, I have to rest it before i decide wether its a good thing or not. I guess it will still be possible to farm save and get a whole minion wave with one E if not i am disapointed.

The W... Well well well Higher range you say? Nice, might be usefull in lane now... but wait there is more. Even more time to escape? Is this realy usefull in times like these where every champ gets a free dash? You could just walk out of it without being stunned, I adit, you were slowed. But a slow does not prevent you from using Zhonyas or flashing. So it that of a nice engage due to the short range already. Now with higher range. I will be able to just try randomly stunning people from behind my minions. Nice and save. but will i be able to get the enemy? I guess not. Ofc it will depend on the acutal cast time. But you had quit some time to doge it before. It did not apply its slow until it was fully build up, i guess this was something between 0.3 or 0.5 seconds? At least it felt like ages. So now it will work like swains "nevermove"? Time to get away plus time to use an escape or engage on me befor you get stunned? Who needs movement speed if you are a caster like Ahri or Xerath who does not depend on hiting AAs? or Fizz? Who already just had a good time with me by just engaging on me? Don't like that... no not at all. It will not help me getting away. The old one was great for being chased. just use it and let it block the way. now the enemy gets time to dash through it without being slowed, means he can dash right through to me. Because if I won't cast it on high range when i am chased, i try to save it for danger not for a possible threat to me. I use it on a range where the enemy is just about to engage on me. So in this situation the range won't help me and the longer cast time will possible kill me... And the dragin effect towards it's middle... well i dont need that for a TF. i Can laser them any way don't need a focus.

Ok so for now i will remain nutral on this topic. Q and E could be still working out for me. W I dont realy like... but has it's bright sides aswell i guess. and R basically not changed...

I'm loving the proposed changes so far but I have a HUGE concern.

You mention Ult stays pretty much as is... are you fixing the horrendous cast/lockout time on it to improve reliability? It's a strong spell so I can sort of understand it having a long cast time but in its current state it's only really useful vs stunned or point blank targets that are eating your face.

Either the ult cast time needs to be reduced or it needs to apply its silence BEFORE the cast is finished so people can stop freely flashing/jumping out of it when they see him wind up the animation.

oh my god new viktor splash or potencial VU/ TU / MTU whatever ... Viktor hype train !!!

edit: Will the changes make it into patch 4.16 ?

On first look i really like the Q. A question though

Does the Q auto attack damage get stopped by blinds/dodges. Part of me wants to suggest that no, it should not. But another part of me thinks that the idea of blinding Viktor to stop part of his combo is something that is a very interesting from a gameplay sense and theme fitting sense. Additionally does the bonus Q damage hit towers? It probably should not, otherwise the combination of Q shield and bonus damage will make Viktor one of the strongest tower pushers in the game(especially if he has lichbane).

With regards to his laser. I am not sure i like this. Viktor doesn't really have a problem clearing waves as it is. His Augmented Laser is one of the best wave clear skills in the game as it stands (behind Anivia ultimate, and Twisted Fate's Wild Cards imo), and has more damage than almost all other AoE abilities. Giving it more damage doesn't really up its waveclear potential, it just overkills waves. But being forced to hit people twice means that his poke/siege is significantly reduced. Is the laser getting anything to compensate for this nerf?

I also don't understand the W changes. I get the range buff (not that it didn't have a long range already). And i like the augmented mechanic(though its something i was figuring you were going to give to Veigar if/when he is reworked per meddlers thread). But enemies already have 1.5 seconds to get out of dodge anyway by using dashes, flash, or abilities. I am not sure the point of giving them more time to get out of dodge. Rather than giving Viktor clear strengths and weaknesses (strong vs immobility weak vs mobility) it just seems to make the idea of landing a stun less about where Viktor places his cage and more about whether or not the enemy is paying attention.

Overall it seems like Viktor's reliability will be going down and his risk will be going up and I am not sure I like direction for potentially small damage gains

edit: On the whole i am cautiously optimistic. I do really like the Q changes I am just not sure that you can reasonably add enough power into his Q to make up for the nerfs to his E and potential nerfs to his W.

edit2: To clarify. So currently Viktor is an E max champion. Sometimes he will want to put two points into Q early for laning power, but he is defined by his laser and he maxes it by level 9 so that he can have the highest teamfight impact around levels 9-11.

I do not believe that you can nerf the laser with compensation in Q and still keep Viktor an E max champion who is defined by his laser under the current scheme. The reliability nerfs to the laser mean that Viktor may need to land his stun in order to get full damage with it(a stun that is harder to land now!). If you're attempting to compensate for that by adding to his Q power you're probably going to end up making Q strong enough that its the first thing you max.

But changing Viktor to a Q max champion significantly changes his character from an early team fighter to a really strange kind of bully/skirmisher. Significantly it moves his team fight power peak back to level 13(a point when the rest of the team fighting mages start coming into their own, giving him less of a mid game power window)

Fake edit within edit 2: If you really want to make Viktor's E unique and thematic, with team fight power and counterplay, here is what you do. Instead of having a secondary explosion on his laser have the laser's path become a zone after .5 seconds for a few seconds which produces a one time chain lighting effect like shiv(hitting a max of 5 or 7 targets with enough jump range to go through a minion wave). Thus enemies can decide whether or not to trigger it and who will trigger it and can attempt to keep away so that only one person gets shocked with the secondary damage.

Alternately leaving a DoT in its path like a mini rumble ult minus the slow

I do not like what you have done. I personally see it as a nerf. Even if the numbers on the bonus AP are mind blowingly amazing, I don't like where this is going.

Q: Deals lower damage while the trade off is now we get the shield instantly. We/Viktor should have had this at the start and it should have stolen Ar/MR for the duration of the shield. Now it deals less damage for a potential Augment that you might buy. I got excited with I saw that it had an auto attack modifier, but was crestfallen when I saw that it did nothing to towers. There went my dreams of building Marksman Viktor.

W: This was a mixed bag to me. I liked how the base version had extra range and the Augment had a pull in. (I suggested a similar thing in the "True Evolution" post from 2 years ago.) What I dislike though is the new longer cast time you are proposing. Viktor's W takes .5 seconds to deploy, interrupts current commands, has a 1.5 second wind up to stun and the stun lasts for 1.5 seconds. So that means on live, I have to wait a good 2 seconds to deploy a 1.5 second stun on a Fizz/Xin Zhao/Kass/Kat/Lucian/Master Yi (The latter two are immune to Vik's W anyways). I fear this "extended cast time" will really screw over a lot of Viktor players who have practiced the fine art of throwing the field on themselves to prevent any unwanted engages. If you really have to do that, then I read a good idea that the cast time should be reduced the closer it is to Viktor. Don't you go getting any ideas to further increase the cast time at max range as compensation, W is already hard as is to use effectively.

E: Now this is where my Jimmies were rustled. His E was a magical (I use this in an endearing way, not as it actually does magic damage) laser that rewarded long range snipes with a damage over time. I loved watching enemies run away in vain as my DoT ripped apart their health and hear the wonderful pre-recorded message "An enemy has been slain" as they escaped into the fog of war. I understand that the numbers on your test version is significantly high to compensate sniper Viktor in favor of your battle-mage Viktor, but I will no longer have the joy of knowing the enemy can't do anything against my glorious damage over time.

R: No changes, so no comment. The .5 second silence after a .5 second delay has been hilarious though. I've been able to stop Pantheon mid jump, Malzahar mid void vomit, and Warwicks mid superslash. Good times.

Here's an old personal rework I suggested that accentuates the role taking ability of Viktor. The original way that we wanted Viktor to work. A sort of champ that could be a tank mage, a damage mage, or a utility mage. Not some sort of Kha'Zix replica who can tank, deal damage and have tons of utility. http://forums.na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?p=46375363&posted=1#post46375363

Viktor main here. 30th in NA at the moment. First off I love the champion how he is but some these changes do seem to be good for him. One issue I do have with his ultimate I would like addressed if possible is the cast time. Unlike a lot of burst champions (annie, fizz, etc) Viktor has a much harder time bursting someone offensively because of the delayed cast time whereas other champions can unload it instantly. In my opinion removing this would be a fantastic quality of life change for him.

tl;dr remove R cast time so he can burst offensively like say an annie or fizz

The lazer of death(E) without the DOT effect after augment won't be very the same as it was. Believe me, Viktor's kit identify with his (E), anyone who've played Viktor enough will be unsatisfied of the even slightest (E) changes, such as removing DOT. Also, an explosion, really? Sounds so generic and just copycating from the other already existing champions kits. Viktor is unique with his actual kit, and him being unique is what we love the most. Don't make the same mistake as with Xerath rework, don't change Viktor into a generic champion. Mercy please, all what the old Viktor lovers like me need is just his (E) not being changed.

I'm being a pessimist though, I still have a strange feeling that this whole rework thing will be just a pointless huge nerf for viktor and not the truer evolution...

As a Viktor player, I beg of you to make one change to his ultimate. Please allow it to work with the move pet command like every other champion who can control their ultimate after it is released.

, , and both act this way and mechanically, the ultimate functions similarly as you want to keep positioning it where the enemy is. This would be very nice for those of us who prefer move pet to reactivating an ultimate cause this constantly messes me up as a player.

To be perfectly honest, except for the passive which is great news, I don't like one bit of the changes.

Point in case: Viktor is not played competetively because of how unreliable his kit is. The Q was never a problem, unless you count the fact that it's uninteresting and not all that satisfying.

It's fun to play Viktor because of the crazy stuff you can do with his W, E - sure, they're unreliable and somewhat easy to dodge, but they do their job when you actually hit and they're even moreso satisfying when you hit that augmented E.

Actually capitalizing on Viktor's biggest weakness and lowering the reliability of his W and E even further feels like a questionable thing to do. No matter how I look at it, it will either forcer him into comboing his skills in a singular, repetetive way and hope to get the most of it (which is why nobody finds Vel'Koz fun once they realize that there is exactly 1 way to use his kit to its full potential in a trade) or indeed force him to hope someone will be there to engage for him, which doesn't sound all that fun to me. Literally depending on others to make sure you have a chance of not being virtually useless doesn't sound like the healthiest form of teamwork out there to me.

Surely enough things can always be fixed by some number crunching, but I'm not very fond of the playstyle you're trying to achieve. Viktor is a badass villain who's difficult to handle but satisfying when you do it right, there's no need to push him any further in that direction (there's a limit to how far you can push a mid laner's kit out of reliability and self-sufficiency without making him either uninteresting or impossible to balance in a manner that's healthy to the game).

To top it off, it also feels like it will make Viktor's matchup against assassins even more abysmal than it is live. No matter how I look at it, the chances that Viktor mains will be satisfied with the above changes pretty slim.

Hello, I'm a Viktor main and unfortunately, I don't like these changes at all.

Viktor is a burst mage, but after the rework, his reliable damage will be absolutely reduced! And he will be an easier target!

W W is less reliable that before - the extra range means nothing if the enemy can dash out of it, being near you or farther away, it doesn't matter. Was the extra range (note, smaller than with Aug W!) supposed to allow him to engage? And then try to hit the enemy with both the laser and the explosion? Today, when almost everyone has a dash, W isn't going to mean anything, people already had enough time to react and get out of it before, now it will be utterly useless. And the pull after they're stunned? What for? To pull them an inch away from the tower? They're already stunned, nothing more is needed! And if they start getting relocated, I might even miss the laser! It gives nothing, and can make even more trouble. A lot of comments here explain the problem with new W.

E I'm really crying. The DoT on Aug E was absolutely crucial. We've seen it all, how easy it is to dodge Vel'koz's explosion. "If Viktor manages to hit with the laser and the explosion, the dmg will be bigger." Once in a million years. The entire point of the laser was to hit the enemy in the most hardest situations, and the burn was a reward for that. It depended on the skill of the player to hit the opponent. And now, the dmg of the explosion depends on the skill of the opponent to move away from it. And I seriously doubt that most of the players have reflexes of a rock. You want to change the laser from being all in the skill of the player (believe me, we mains take big pride in our skills to hit the enemy with E), to being all "hope the enemy is stupid and stays on the line". This is horrible. Return the burn!

Q Well. Bigger range, instant shield... smaller dmg? When E already has smaller reliable dmg? Q was an already good engage before, because if you play a bruiser, you will want to get closer either way. How do you play a bruiser from afar, with smaller damage? It makes no sense. At least the Chaos Storm was left alone...

Upgrading his abilities 3 times...isn't this too much like Kha'zix? Except that you have to pay gold for them instead of getting them at lv 6. Viktor is a customization mage! Throwing in all of those augments together will just make Viktor lose his unique feeling :(

Gotta say Solcrushed, I am super hyped for this. You appear to know what makes Viktor cool and fun and you're delivering on it while smoothing out his quirks that make him feel clunky.

I'm going to have to agree with The Anagram King. The original idea you had that made Death Ray like a boomerang sounded great. It lets him keep his wave clear while preserving the satisfying kill potential of max range snipes. Having the explosion originate from the contact point is going to result in a lot of people just barely escaping with 10HP due to the DoT removal and it's going to feel kind of bad for the Viktor player. I could deal with a bit of a damage reduction in the initial laser to make up for the total damage on its return.

Either way, great work. Keep it up, and I can't wait to hear more.

Why not give the e laser grievous wounds as a buff instead of damage, etc.?