Aurelion Sol Ability Change Ideas & Thoughts
Okay, so, before I begin this, I aught to say the following: First, I am by no means an Aurelion Sol main, in fact I'm only willing to so much as touch the Champion in Customs/Bot matches. Second, I'm not a professional/high-skill player, either - I'm certainly good at the game in my own right, but I'm not amazing at it, either. Third, I am by no means smart about balance. I have a rough understanding of it, and I know that even the smallest change can upset things pretty hard.
Beyond all that, though, I will say that I'm relatively certain of what I'm talking about. I could be horribly wrong, and I'm ready to embrace it if that's the case, but, 'til then, I got thoughts to share.
So, Aurelion Sol has some issues - between some poorer representation of his identity through gameplay, his kits power budget, etc., I want to point out the following:
- Aurelion Sol's power budget seems heavily weighed into his Center of the Universe and Celestial Expansion, which in and of themselves provide little in the way of interesting play.
- Nursing long-range Starsurges is barely more rewarding than landing a point-blank Starsurge.
- Comet of Legend doesn't provide much beyond quick travel and a method of nursing Starsurges, which, as mentioned, aren't particularly rewarding.
- His kit overall doesn't provide much interesting play in a fight.
So, these are my thoughts in regards to Aurelion Sol's kit, and, in order to try and address them, I kinda want to spitball some ideas.
Note: The following ideas are rough, and they would of course come with tradeoffs. I'll try to throw out what ideas I can to that effect, but, again, these are rough ideas. Take all of this with a grain of salt.
- Allow Starsurge damage to scale alongside its Area of Effect. Nursing a Starsurge, at the moment, only increases the area that the damage and stun occur in, which, while a supermassive AoE stun can certainly be nice, the lack of increased damage (even by a very small margin) makes it less than rewarding to nurse Starsurges outside of trying to force a team to scatter. Possible tradeoffs: Decrease its damage and/or AP scaling to accommodate, decrease Stun duration to a flat 1s at all ranks (currently 1.1/1.2/1.3/1.4/1.5), increase cooldown marginally.
- Change the Active portion of Comet of Legend from a range-based, directed flight to a duration-based free-roam hover. This would primarily be to increase A/Sol's agency to some degree, allowing him to scout around and try to find picks or plays to make, rather than barrel in one direction and hope you're not accosted by someone mid-flight. On top of this, it would also make long-range Starsurge drops a little more difficult (in that you have to guide A/Sol along with it, rather than click both to your destination.) Possible tradeoffs: Set the duration so that you travel less distance in a straight line compared to the current iteration. Keep the Champ/Turret damage knockdown.
- Provide some sort of extra use to Comet of Legend - two ideas I have right off the top of my head; Landing deals area damage and slows, or distance travelled provides some sort of defensive buff for A/Sol - the idea being to give Aurelion an extra reason to get aggressive with his entrance to a fight, whether that's giving combo potential (Q+E landing), or more comfort to get aggressive (less reason to expect being torn apart as soon as he lands, also some safety if caught in mid-flight). Possible tradeoffs: Not sure, really.
I couldn't really think of much else, especially nothing that might remedy (what I perceive) as a lack of interesting options in a fight, but, I figured, why not throw these ideas up in the air.
Anyway, those are my ideas - if anyone has anything they'd like to say about them, or any ideas they might want to add, feel free to. I don't expect any of these to wind up anywhere, but, it's still a good mental exercise either way.