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Thoughts on Viktor with suggestions on how I believe he could be improved

PM Jibril Nudes·10/27/2019, 7:17:20 PM·8 votes·7,623 views

First of all, if this reaches RIOT I want to say that I truly appreciate the time that was out into him recently and it definitely managed to give him so long awaited improvements.

With that said, I believe more could be done to relieve some of the bigger pain points that is playing Viktor at the moment, which are his early game and in particular his Hexcore. Right now, Hexcore feels more like artificial power gate keeping, something I would say no other champion has in the game.

The Cost of upgrading Hexcore being 1150 flat for the first upgrade places viktor in a very awkward spot when it comes to backing for the first time. Often times Viktor will need to back without being able to reach the 1150 gold he needs. Now there 2 choices, you can buy other components, getting some degree of power or don't spend gold and place yourself in a losing situation where your laner will have bought items making you lose trades even harder thus necessitating more resources on sustain using Hexcore gold or try to farm from afar, costing a lot of mana and losing all sort of priority.

Now, if by chance you had a decent early laning phase and managed to farm the gold necessary for the first upgrade, you just spend 1150 gold for a mere 18 ap and 90 mana (considering you bought it at level 6). With 20 extra gold (1170), your lane opponent could have bought 2 amplifying tomes and boots, placing them in a much better spot. Of course, Viktor will get the opportunity to upgrade 1 of his basic abilities, 90% of the time the first upgrade will be E. The reason being, if he doesn't take E upgrade he will not be able to farm effectively and will be really mana expensive since he could not spend gold to get extra mana. Way to mitigate this to a degree is Manaflow band, which Viktor pretty much relies on for a minimum of mana sustain. As to using E to poke and force your opponent to back, it simply doesn't happen, not with the damage E offers at that state of the game since you only have that 18 ap. Even after upgrading it, hitting both parts of E is so unreliable that your lucky if you manage to have your opponent stand in it for it to connect more then once in lane, and if they they started refillable or Doran shield, prepare to see your poke be healed away faster then you can keep your mana up.

Now, how would I change this in a way that is balanced. There are a couple of avenues that could be taken to achieve this goal.

First, making hexcore gold efficient by :

A. Lower the cost of the upgrades to match the amount of power you get. Back to 1000 as it used to be. i could argue about going as far down as 800 gold considering the stats it gives but I think that would be pushing my luck.

B. Compensating the higher cost with better stats on the Hexcore. Something like 6 ap and 25 mana per level for a total of 36 ap and 150 mana (at level 6) + the upgrade

C. A mix of the 2, keeping the same cost but giving it better stats in the middle of what was suggested at B. .

I also though about how it would be possible to keep him the way his is but give him some sort of built in mana sustain in the likes some other pushing champions like Malzahar have.

For a long time I have felt like Siphon Power was missing some "Siphon". So how could that be changed :

A. Add a mechanic where Viktor would "Siphon" mana from champions when hitting them with Q. Does not need to be a large amount something along the lines of 10 mana per cast would be in my opinion pretty fair. It would not steal mana but simply add to Viktor's total pool. I thought about this a long time ago but considering his Q shield scaled with mana it could have been an issue. But that not being the case anymore I dont see anything that could prevent a mechanic like that.

B. Second idea would be to add a 3 hit passive to Q. But not the kind you would expect from traditional 3 hit passives. Its pretty straight forward, after casting Q twice, the next ability cast will have its mana cost refunded. I would work on every ability and allow Viktor to have better lane impact with good managing of his skills and resource.

Other simple changes could be to affect E directly :

A. Simply reducing its mana cost so you can potentially keep up some degree of harass without going out of mana after 3 waves.

B. A little more drastic, making the base damage of E higher but scaling lower so you can still dish out fair damage even when having to invest into underwhelming stats early on. 70 / 110 / 150 / 190 / 230 (+ 60% AP) -> 85 / 135 / 185 / 235 / 285 (+ 45% AP). Making Death Ray less of a Tickle Ray.

Last but not least, a rework of the passive :

Instead of having Viktor's Hexcore transform with gold, why not have it transform from another unique currency in the like of Silver Serpents.

The way I would suggest it is "scrap". Viktor collects "scrap" from slain minions which he then uses to craft his upgraded Hexcores.

Something along the lines of 60 minions per upgrade. It would not require Viktor to be in the fountain to upgrade just like Kha'zix's and Kai'sa's upgrades. Or if that would be too powerful, just have it need to go to fountain to upgrade like with Silver Serpents. But unlike Gangplank, Viktor isnt buying his upgrades. He is Crafting them with his bare hands.

To prevent Viktor from gaining too much AP too quickly with both Hexcore and the ability to build standard items like everyone else but keeping the Hexcore's status of late game AP powerhouse. The Hexcore would no longer grant him flat AP and mana but rather give him a % Total AP increase like Rabadon's Deathcap passive effect ( the bonus % increase would be calculated from the total AP gained from all his other items). Exemple : (((90+75+70+120)1.40))(X) X= Value of Hexcore % AP Increase

When it comes to values, it would depend on one thing. Does Hexcore still use an item slot?

Yes : Higher overall since it prevents building a sixth item. 0.75% / 1.5% / 2.25% / 3% per level or 13.75% / 27 .5% / 41.25% / 55% flat at each upgrade

No : Lower over all since you can build a sixth item. 0.5% / 0.75% / 1% / 1.25% per level or 10% / 15% / 20% / 25% flat at each upgrade

( I know the values do not translate perfectly but for visualization sake I prefer putting round numbers) The % increases may seem high or low, but when calculating the total AP gained using the formula above the totals come really close to what you would currently have with a lvl 18 Hexcore.

Of course there is also the possibility of keep flat stats on Hexcore despite even with new passive, which can be adjusted accordingly.

Now, since I love Viktor and I would really love for him to be in a more competitive spot,Ii will allow myself to ask for a little extra in the form of a Q cooldown reduction (maybe not a good idea if the mana stacking idea is also considered) from 9 / 8 / 7 / 6 / 5 -> 7 / 6.25 / 5.5 / 4.75 / 4 . I would allow Viktor to simply trade better in lane early since right now it has a absurdly high cooldown as a result of Viktop. And allow him to regain some of his battlemage identity with more constant DPS rather then a poke / burst champion.

Thank you very much for taking the time to read this.

Feel free to leave your thoughts below. Are those changes complete bunkers broken and i'm out of my mind?

Hopefully RIOT can read it and maybe consider some ideas.

Cordially,

A Viktor Main

Hail to the Glorious Evolution! [sg-ahri-2]

3 Comments

Terchio10/27/2019, 9:34:07 PM1 votes

The problem with Viktor is that he has a lot of clunky mechanics for a plethora of roles. Not that they can't work well together, but if you're expecting to out-poke with your E on the majority of games, you'll likely not enjoy playing him as much as someone like Morgana or Lux. The potential is there with a sleeping enemy, but highly unlikely.

Yes, it is hard to hit your E twice on a champion, basically ever. However, it's meant to be dodgeable. The alternative is old Vik who stacked his damage with no fail. It wasn't OP for a while, but once hardcore Viktors got the mechanic down, the damage was just ridiculous. So, instead of completely shelling the skill altogether, the upgrade will not commonly deal that extra damage, but still has potential if you were to, say, slow/stun somebody with a skill, or sneak a shot from the other side of a wall. Heck, I wouldn't put it past a timely slow from Glacial/Hextech GLP/Rylai's Vik. However, the lane-shove potential is still there from before, completely in tact.

W also has fairly generous range as well, but is typically ineffective from afar. Most of the time you'll be wasting it at a range, and lack any CC as you attempt to flee. The skill really shines moreso on holding approaching enemies in their tracks and keeping Vik particularly safe, especially if you are facing a melee enemy and place it at your feet. Your Q also has generally low range, and also works better in a melee skirmish, particularly when the autoattack enhance got added in update. Heck, even Chaos Storm has been given melee prevalence since the update, where the storm only keeps up with an enemy if he's more melee, but the damage has been slowly backloaded into the ticks later on in the effect. It's no coincidence that Vik is played far more commonly top these days, he's basically a melee skirmisher with a potent poke in his own right.

As far as costs of the Cores go, they used to be 1k every level, but most players would grab the E upgrade and build toward poke damage all game, no matter what. The diminishing costs are meant to incentivize getting those secondary cores, despite them not necessarily benefitting Vik as much as the first upgrade does. You can delay your first core if you want a stronger main poke still, but this doesn't typically work on Vik, as he moreso benefits from shredding waves and hopping lanes, or, depending on the opponent, can also whittle melees with minimal opportunity to counter at level 3-4.

TL DR; Vik has the tools to engage in multiple roles, so his power budget is not going to afford him even stronger poke. It's good enough.

Olath Quortek10/28/2019, 4:16:59 AM1 votes

I think what your saying makes pretty good sense. Honestly, I'm just sad he lost his mana scaling on his Q... Granted I probably like tear items more than I should, but I thought it did wonders for a sustained damage battlemage feel. I like battlemage vik a lot more than burst vik...

For The Crown10/28/2019, 10:09:34 AM1 votes

Also the removal of the W upgrade vacuum was so crucial to his follow up CC from other champions maybe like a Leona stun or Nautilus CC or even Braum knock up .. The W vacuum comes in handy to lay on their CC more CC and a guaranteed combo with full Storm ticks .. Also sometimes when your team is not really confident to do the engage an unnoticed W vacuum could comes in handy when enemy is not aware gets caught and could changes a course of a game and I'm pretty sure it happens with alot of us when you have to be the one who steps up and starts the fight cause your team are too scared or they don't know Viktor's teamfighting power you are the one who have to step up on these kind of situations and a good W vacuum catches an ADC or even a support could swing things in your favor so i would pretty much want the W vacuum to be considered as part of the the original W ability maybe the slow from the other abilites could be applied on enemies struck by the gravity field itself and bring back the vacuum on Viktor's W upgrade.