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Wukong, the Monkey King; In regards to a potential Diver's update

Malicious Metal··37 votes·4,615 views

With the Tank rework already at out doorstep and the Diver subclass being rumored to be the next one Riot is going to tackle I thought it was time to take a look at a potential contender: Wukong, the Monkey King!

Why Wukong?

Wukong suffers from the same problems a lot of the reworked tanks did. To start with, he's a generalist with no real niche similar to Maokai. Secondly, he's got a lot of his power just frontloaded into his ultimate, similar to Sejauni. And lastly, he doesn't really deliver on his themes like Zac.

And unlike champions like Mordekaiser he doesn't require a full scale VGU since he has a lot of potential and great art. His gameplay is the only thing lacking. Now, before we continue; I do not play Wukong and the only Divers I play consistently are Warwick and Vi so take this all with a grain of salt.

So what should change? Wukong is a very binary champion, being mostly point and click and relying almost entirely on snowballing to be effective. Top lane matchups for him go either one of two ways; He stomps or get stomped.

A rework should aim to make him less binary and offer ways for him to outplay opponents but also give enemies more counterplay to work with.

Additionally a rework should truly deliver on Wukong's theme of a Trickster, making him the primary "mindgames" champion for Divers and rewarding creative usage of his Decoy.

Proposed Changes This part is entirely for fun and highly biased as it's MY personal vision of what a Wukong Rework could look like. Do not hesitate to call me out on it, add your own thoughts and burn me at the stake for it!

Passive: Stone Skin Whenever a champion is affected by one of Wukong's decoys he gains a stack of "Vastayan Trickster", stacking up to five times. Each stack boosts his defenses (a flat amount of armor/mr most likely as damage reduction can be tricky) and once he reaches five stacks he additionally gains a short burst of movement speed.

His current passive is rather boring and now with gargoyle's stoneplate being introduced it's basically just a worse version of this item. This new passive aims to make him interact more with his Decoys and give him a way to boost his defensive capabilities by confusing the enemy. It's conditionally stronger and the speed buff helps him reposition like the Monkey trickster he is.

Q: Trickster's Blow Wukong dashes a small distance backwards (100 units) and impacts the area in front of him as he strikes out with his elongated staff. (Think poppy Q) Enemies standing in the AoE blast zone also have their MS impaired.

The interesting part about this comes when used with a Decoy, which I'm going to be explaining in detail once I get to his W

When using a Decoy empowered Q the backwards Dash leaves a Decoy at the landing spot and Wukong propels himself forward, dealing additional damage to the enemy he collides with and shredding their armor.

A Monkey King should be acrobatic, which I tried to show off in this ability. Using it normally makes it Wu's primary tool to wave clear as a top laner while the empowered ability allows him to trade efficiently or simply all in the enemy.

W: Decoy When cast the next ability is empowered and creates a Decoy (think Heimerdinger's R) When double tapping W Wukong stealths himself and lets a Decoy of himself walk forward

Decoys last 3-6 seconds or until Wukong breaks his stealth. When they run out they deal a percentage of the enemy's current HP in the AoE

Currently Decoy is the only way for Wukong to showcase his trickster nature, yet it's on a long cooldown and doesn't allow for a lot of creative uses. With this reworked W Wukong has a lot more ways to confuse his enemy and it allows him to truly shine when realizing its full potential.

E: Nimbus Strike Wukong Dashes forward, stopping when hitting a champion or terrain. Hitting an enemy champion grants Wukong an AS buff and makes him deal a percentage of the enemy's HP on hit.

Casting an empowered Nimbus Strike makes Wukong dash THROUGH the enemy(leaving a decoy in front of the enemy) and hit them from behind for another chunk of damage and a minor stun

This version of Nimbus strike is very similar to the current version but adds another layer to it by allowing Wu to provide some small amount of CC for his team and deliver on his slippery Trickster archetype.

R: Cyclone Wukong starts spinning around, dealing damage and knocking enemies up briefly. He may recast R in order to leave a still spinning decoy that continues his lat movement command, yet dealing reduced damage. Recasting R does stealth Wukong and he gains a massive decaying speed buff

I didn't want to change this too heavily but just added more layers to it. In order to amp up his Trickster identity I decided to make him able to cause confusion among the enemy as they're distracted by the spinning monkey. Yet they can never be sure if it's still him or a decoy as the Monkey King might just strike from a different angle at any given moment.

Concluding I'd like to reiterate that Wukong's Diver rework should aim to deliver on his Trickster theme while making him less of a generalist. This proposed rework adds a second layer to his playstyle in form of Decoy management and makes him the primary "Deceiving" Diver as he'd be all about the "Mindgames" and giving him this ever-present threat of having a monkey just pop out from a different angle.

But these are just my thoughts on our own Monkey King and I'd love to hear what you guys think should happen to him in his potential Class update.

https://www2.pic-upload.de/img/33028450/wukong2_by_skraja-d8o4m1h.jpg

57 Comments

Wukong X Ahri6 votes

I'm simply going to disagree.

I like my simple monkey man.

Erockandroll10 votes

[{quoted}](name=Wukong X Ahri,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=A37c1wPG,comment-id=0003,timestamp=2017-04-18T15:37:50.746+0000)

I'm simply going to disagree.

I like my simple monkey man.

I kinda like OP's thought of bringing him more to be the trickster, though he's probably thinking too hard. I think Decoy in of itself gives him a lot of tools, and makes him fairly unique. You could probably get away with fairly minor work, and keep is kit simple.

Only concern would be, if you sub out his defensive steroids for more slipperiness, It will pull him closer to being an assassin rather than a diver.

Arkilusal1 votes

Interesting. The way his 'decoy+extra dodge' works in your set-up strikes me as perhaps being what Vayne's Tumble in Ult might have been meant to work like, almost. Only instead of just going 'where's my Oracle?' the enemy player has to ask if Wukong used his decoy or not. I think stealth mechanics work best when you actually have to be SMART to get away with them. Judging by the way people was hating on the notion of Vayne's stealth and the issues Akali's smoke provided alongside Eve (leaving out the Rat because he seemed to be alright pre&post stealth rework) I get the impression that the issue with stealth before was that it was an obnoxiously powerful defense that demanded itemization counters, but the fact that you could do that meant if you didn't the champ would be OP, but if you did, you basically forced the player to be overly cautious/careful in order to not just get flattened the second they're spotted.

Troll for Trump1 votes

Wukong isn't really as much of a trickster as he should be a fighter or skirmisher.

Skirmisher would be best suited for him, characterwise (the "irl" wukong and in-game one), and to fit his ideal playstyle.

Right now, he does tend to be an assassin.

Sun Wu Ryuumoku1 votes

Skirmish... whut ? forget this

Troll for Trump1 votes

Right now he's more like an assassin.

He was intended to be a bruiser/fighter, a "light fighter," meaning he does heavy AD dmg, but isn't really much of a tank. As of now, he isn't being as much of a trickster as he should be (supposedly).

So, he needs to be a "light fighter," and do well in extended trades by outplaying the opponent with "Trickery," Like a skirmisher (ekko and Yas)

Samflash34 votes

A slippery diver isn't exactly a bad thing.

  1. Vastayas are naturally slippery creatures (Nami (Passive, utility), Rakan (duh), Xayah (ult, W), Ahri(Q, E,R), Rengar (again, look at his kit), Wukong)

  2. A slippery diver provides Wukong with a unique niche. He causes disruptions with what he is known for - his jukes. While he may have situational CCs, you bring him into a fight to distract the enemy while doing respectable damage. He relies on ability timing to cause a lot of chaos (something he learnt from Master Yi)

  3. Wukong had the Ekko/Evelynn syndrome. Can be played as a full damage assassin (and quite a few play him as such), but is mostly known for being a fighter.

  4. I wanna see how much Riot can push the stealth diver if they try. Comes out of nowhere to initiate a fight but is more team focused as opposed to single target (Rengar)

Blåbæret1 votes

I love Wukong, but I'd love to see him made more mechanically challenging with higher outplay potential. Right now he's just really, really boring to play. His kit is as onesided as Garen's. Riot doesn't give a crap due to his low playrate.

His passive is arguably the most boring in the entire game as well.

Sun Wu Ryuumoku2 votes

not as Garen.

SOIT SERIEUX !!!!

but agree overall.

Eedat4 votes

To start with, he's a generalist

Going to strongly disagree. He actually really only does one thing which is his problem. He's an extremely binary champion

Sun Wu Ryuumoku1 votes

u fellow monkey, what's u thougts about other changes idea ? do u like it or not ? just asking because it'll never happen like that.

Very Hard Engage3 votes

what are you talking about?

winstons fine and perfectly balanced.

Variks the Loyal3 votes

I'm wondering with the new Decoy if having it walk is a good idea.

One of the most iconic things about Wukong currently is simply standing still, leaving enemies to try and figure out if it's the real Wu, or a clone.

Mind games are one of the main things that I think is core to Wukong's gameplay fantasy. As it stands with your suggestions, there's little mind games added to his empowered Q and W; it's very clear to the player which Wukong is the original and which is the clone, as disorienting as it might be at the time.

I think more room for potential jukes and mind games would help to amplify his core fantasy. If Decoy instead caused a clone to replace Wukong as the original one stealth's away (Either to attack or escape), it could allow for some brutal and possibly very clever gameplay.

I made my own rework a few months back similar to yours that can convey my thoughts on Wukong a bit more in detail, I think.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1E67j3hw7OKGuqi9YxwzQbeeMzllxHZk1lUynE6ZHOl8/edit?usp=sharing

Jbels2 votes

Honestly, if Wukong takes Gargoyle's stone plate, and then takes the mastery that's also like a Wukong passive, and then you factor in his passive, it's going to be a lot of free Armor and MR. Infact, during teamfights where all 5 of the enemy team are present, Wukong will get a free 95 Armor and MR, 135 Armor and MR if you count the armor and MR the item itself gives. That's insane, and I can't help but wonder if he'll make a return to competitive play

Malicious Metal4 votes

I honestly doubt it, seeing that stoneplate reduces his damage by 60% and a Diver that doesn't deal damage isn't exactly something you'd want on your team.

Erockandroll4 votes

[{quoted}](name=Malicious Metal,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=A37c1wPG,comment-id=00010001,timestamp=2017-04-18T16:36:43.848+0000)

I honestly doubt it, seeing that stoneplate reduces his damage by 60% and a Diver that doesn't deal damage isn't exactly something you'd want on your team.

I'm going to have to take a closer look into that item, but I see a potential abuse case though.

The trick is that it's damage reducing effect is on the active. All you would have to do is activate the item and the end of your entire ability combo, and enjoy it's defensive benefit, while waiting for you spells to come off cooldown.

Not certain though as this would likely be more pronounced on true tanks than divers.

Melledoneus2 votes

Wukong would have to build a lot of HP to make use of it.

Divers that prioritize HP usually don't get that much damage.

Blue Moon Wolf2 votes

I don't think it will be abused. the damage reduction on it will hurt him pretty bad, though it does have potential for a unique style of wukong play. one where he gets the passive boost and uses the active for defensive purposes unlike how tanks would use it to engage and just rely on their CC instead.

Honestly I think if it is used, it will likely only be if he is behind and needs to build tanky (pretty much a juggernaut build in a sense). It will be interesting to see how he works with it, but I can assure that if the item gets abused, it won't be from Wukong.

Sun Wu Ryuumoku1 votes

yeah, it wont be an abuse. And if u use it on Wukong it would be after a kill (i mean E>Q> R OS then active).

Asayake 5150glow2 votes

You gotta be really careful if you wanna go this way, we all know how fucking tilting it is to play against a Shaco - I don't want Wu to turn into that.

Sun Wu Ryuumoku3 votes

I agree... And more important i don't wan't to play Shaco, im a Wukong player not a Shaco player. Seems like many here forgot that... seems like all people enjoying these idea don't even play Wukong [zombie-brand-facepalm]

Karakot2 votes

Honestly the passive itself contradicts what you want to do with your decoy usually. Escape. It gives armor which seems more like of an engage fight now tool buy that's just me

Nickssaa2 votes

Some of these changes are a little overboard, and I think his kit is fine. If there is anything that needs to be changed, its his w and passive, nothing else. My issue is that his w and passive just feel out of place. I might understand that his passive allows him to have bonus defense when he does a 5 man ult, but other than that, it doesn't have much purpose, and if there is anything I would change, I would make his passive more offense sided. One of the things that makes Wukong what he is is his armour reduction, his ability to shred armour and deal massive amounts of damage with the reduced armour. I think mk needs more of that, rather than a defensive passive that only serves to somewhat increase his diving survivability. Make his passive something like when mk reduces someone's armour, reduce any nearby enemy's armour by half the amount. His W, whilst the only ability that shows his trickster status, is IMO a very bad ability in general, and can use many improvements. Here is what I came up with:

W - Decoy

Wukong becomes invisible, leaving a decoy that follows his previous movements (So if Wukong was walking, the decoy would continue to walk in the same direction. Wukong stays invisible for 3 secs (might be lowered, who knows) or until he attacks or uses an ability. Leaving invisibility by autoattacking will reduce the oponents armour by 2/4/6/8/10%, and have its damage increased by 15/30/45/60/75. Same applies if he casts Nimbus Strike to break invisibility. If Wukong breaks invisibility through crushing blow, The opponent will lose an extra 10% of his armour, and crushing blow will deal an extra 10 damage. Wukong gains 50% damage reduction whilst invisible, and for a second after breaking invisibility.

Honestly, these changes will most likely make him OP, but the point here is just the base idea of how to change him to make his abilities more useful, and not making his abilities feel out of place. Don't take the numbers seriously.

Sun Wu Ryuumoku2 votes

Some of these changes are a little overboard, and I think his kit is fine.

No, his kit isn't fine. That's why pro don't pick him in lck (never).

. I think mk needs more of that, rather than a defensive passive that only serves to somewhat increase his diving survivability.

Hell yeah, a defensive passive is useless for Wugameplay.

for the end, i don't like ur changes... but at least u understant what's important : keep Wukong the Wukong feeling. If they keep the decoy i hope they'll make it smootier cause its to easy to see when he use his decoy or not.

Nickssaa1 votes

FTR, when I said that his kit is fine, I meant the core design, like his q, e and r, and that OP's changes aren't necessary. However, i think that his finer details need serious tuning

BlazeCloud131 votes

This is exactly what I said, his q, e and r are pretty well made and correspond with his playstyle well, just may need some stat changes. But I think his passive should be more defensive, because after all we are talking about a diver update and divers need a way to jump in and just not die.

BlazeCloud132 votes

As a Wukong main, I am kind of disgusted by this rework, this would be a full scale rework like Galio or Yorick. I think his only two flaws are his passive and his W really. His passive just is slightly underpowered and you never really see it come into effect, kinda like a minor mastery that doesn't do much, and like you said with the new gargoyle stoneplate coming out it really is just dumb, and his w is argued to be overpowered, but really just lacks depth and has a long cooldown. I think his W should be the main aspect of him that is used for outplays and clever trading. My thoughts:

I like the idea of the clone moving, this would help it do more damage and be less obvious, whenever I play vs a Wukong I can always tell when the use W, so I am thinking you when you cast W the clone goes in whatever direction your mouse is pointing. Considering Wukong loses nearly every laning phase purely because he requires a nice few early ganks to get a large lead on his enemy laner to snowball, I find myself trying to poke or sneak in some cs from time to time, but you can never get good trades off because it's so obvious when you decoy and the enemy laner will just use some AoE damage behind the decoy. A huge part of Wukong's kit is mind games with the enemy and then just POW! Jumping out of nowhere, and making his decoy move makes it much more confusing for the enemy team, (this also adds some skill cap because knowing when and where to face your decoy in the heat of the moment can be difficult) also when the decoy expires it does AoE magic damage around it. I think this damage should be changed to attack damage to scale with his regular build and this way you can actually use the decoy for some long ranged poking. I'm thinking this move scales naturally 45/60/80/95/110 attack damage and the cooldown is 8/7.5/7/6.5/6 seconds.

The next change would be his passive, I think your passive change was way to extreme and large of a change to actually be implemented and was thinking instead maybe something to still increase his dive potential would improve his kit more. A quick idea I came up with is: Taking 750+ damage in 2 seconds or getting hit by a turret gives Wukong a shield worth 8% of his health and 5% of his base attack damage for 6 seconds (95 second cooldown) This passive would really amp up the "diver" aspect of Wukong because it would be activated when he went under turret or jumped into a big group of people. It also would change him from being a "full tank or full damage" type champ because its amplified by health and damage.

These are just a few thoughts on what would help Wukong be a better champ.


![MonkeyKing](https://ddragon.leagueoflegends.com/cdn/16.20.1/img/champion/MonkeyKing.png)
Sun Wu Ryuumoku1 votes

As a Wukong main, I am kind of disgusted by this rework, this would be a full scale rework like Galio or Yorick

Most Wukong main will feel like this.

I think his only two flaws are his passive and his W really.

Not only.

but you can never get good trades off

depend of the ennemy champ and player. I only agree on Wukong is weak against many top laner.

ur passive idea isn't good imo... its just same like camille, Wu need something unique.

BlazeCloud131 votes

Yeah in regards to the passive that's not like what I want, all I am saying is that is much more the style of the way Wukong is supposed to be played. Go all in and don't die and make the enemy team super pissed because they can't do anything. I regards to his flaws..... He has many flaws but I don't think his E or his Q or his Ult really need to be changed, maybe the stats could be modified a bit but I think they work pretty well and are pretty vital to his kit.


![MonkeyKing](https://ddragon.leagueoflegends.com/cdn/16.20.1/img/champion/MonkeyKing.png)
Sexy Jack Rabbit2 votes

He's not only general, he's pretty weak as well 0:

Dunno about your W changes, might step on LB's toes a little bit too much.

Sun Wu Ryuumoku1 votes

To start with, he's a generalist with no real niche similar to Maokai.

he's just played by a niche player tbh. He's not generalist, but yeah he's weak overall. There always a better choice for engaging, for assassination, for scout...

Ralanr1 votes

Much better then my idea of giving him a new passive that temporarily increases his AA range whenever he casts a spell (to better represent the growing staff).

MunchCrunchLunch1 votes

i had other ideas with that thumbnail

Sett up 4my gank1 votes

Honestly all the spells seem really nice and work well with his trickster identity, but it is a little overloaded, you basically just buffed every ability and added some unnecessary power. He is already sort of slippery especially early / mid game, but now he has a movement speed bonus from his passive, his W stealth, and his Ult stealth, ult movement speed increase, and his ult will be way more reliable as an escape as you can just walk towards them ult then cancel ult and the monkey keeps going knocks them up while you are running away stealthed. make it stop dealing damage as soon as he cancels it and take away the movement speed he gains from stealthing. As well as maybe taking away the % health from empowered E. Now we are left with his new passive being untouched, his W changing to current health instead of flat magic, his E and Q being able to be empowered and his ult having a panic escape left in it. Wukong is stronger has a higher skill cap but isn't quite so overloaded

Ashen Rider1 votes

I believe a Rioter said that Wukong was a very strong contender for a place in the Diver update.

Nymzo1 votes

Fuck me, TWO ways of stealth?

You really have to be careful with trickster ideas because the last one that got reworked is really frustating to play against.

HalcyonDweller1 votes

I like the ideas, they seem really cool.... however I'm not sure I see how the empowered Q and E would be 'tricky' since he reveals himself right after using them. Would there be a way to add more trickiness to them?

I don't mean to overlap with leblanc too much but maybe it would work to make it so that the decoys cast the abilities (but deal reduced damage) while he remains stealthed. I believe this would better deliver on the fantasy of being tricky with clones.

Velzard of Koz1 votes

Seems like too much AoE for a Diver to me. Not compared to older Divers but according to new design Divers should be more about dueling, at least when it comes to champions.

Kled One AoE (if I recall well) and even that isn't that effective, extra small bloackable AoE at emergency form that works as single-target against enemy champions most of time Camille One proper AoE, one extra but inproper (also considering that she's overloaded and very bad Diver example) Warwick One AoE and even that isn't damaging one but CC

Sun Wu Ryuumoku1 votes

Current Wukong has 2 aoe ability ( his E and R). But yeah, if i recall when naming new classes, it was said divers focus and lock down one target.

Salson1 votes

The Decoy seems great. He gets to pick which of his abilities is "broken". Might switch Q armor shred and slow between empowered and non-empowered, as u said it's very similar to Poppy's.

Also fully support the idea of giving him some CC outside of his ult (to make him less binary) but it would have to be a slow/silence/disarm/blind or he would be broken to living hell.

Azteryz1 votes

in terms of him and getting a vgu i have two varrying opinions

  1. i like the simple unique take riot has given on the monkey king plus he is one of the only male champs in the game thats very thin and slender (at the time of his release and couple years after)

  2. he could look like a buff monkey god like in smite/general wukong splash

http://ddragon.leagueoflegends.com/cdn/img/champion/splash/MonkeyKing_2.jpg

https://hydra-media.cursecdn.com/smite.gamepedia.com/5/5c/T_SunWukong_Default_Card.png?version=552f13309f8f590a3334134c91992ccb

Sun Wu Ryuumoku1 votes

He won't get a VGU. They only rework his kit, his visual is already good. Maybe they'll change his splashart and add some tweaks for skins tho..

Azteryz1 votes

im saying for the sake of wayy in the future where everyone on the priority list has gotten a vgu and the update team has more time to put resources into say a champ like say jarvan/brand/jax/lux/blitz

who have good kits but lack in the visual quality department

(kind of like way back when garen got a visual update because they were able to do his very quickly so they just shipped it with no gameplay changes cause at the time none were needed)

Sun Wu Ryuumoku1 votes

He's not on the VGU list... the vgu list transform kit AND design of the champ. Brand was already reworked during the mage update last year btw. A VGU is like the rework of Poppy, WW, Galio and futur evelyn, Urgot.

Forhonor3211 votes

AS MUCH AS I HAVE A PERSONAL HATE FOR THIS CHAMP, this would be cool. My only concern is your proposition on the decoy Q and E. To me that's technically two forms of gapclosers. Granted E no longer is point and click (yay) and foward Q does require decoy to activate but even then I don't like a champ that feels like they have what feels like a million dashes at their disposal (we already have enough Riven and Yasuo as it is!)

TimX24968B1 votes

Jarvan needs to be part of this rework set

Samflash31 votes

What if his nimbus strike worked as normal but summoned 2 monkeys for about a second that hit the target. Wukong can choose to be one of the two and the other one disappears after the second attack.

Moroguna1 votes

When Wukong cast a spell when he's in stealth, the ability gains extra effects. Keeps him simple yet gives him a bit more depth in his kit.

XIII Vanitas1 votes

A Malicious Metal post that isn't about Mordekaiser?

This is more concerning than North Korean missile tests!

TROLLNOOB11 votes

I just checked that item with Wukong. It actually negates Wukong's passive. Once the item's passive is activated, Wukong's passive is deactivated. Therefore I wouldn't recommend that item on Wukong at all. Only true tanks can benefit from it.

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