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Current state of Trundle + 2 mini-rework ideas

rework trundle·1/7/2018, 7:42:43 PM·2 votes·1,406 views

TL;DR at the end, I have no idea how long this is going to be and if I wasn't the OP I would probably have skipped to the TL;DR, so I'll keep it as clear and short as possible. I'll bold a couple parts to get my ideas through too.

I'm a Trundle main, I started playing him a bit more than 2 years ago. I have slightly more than 350k mastery with him. Rank isn't really relevant since I didn't play much in the last month and I feel super washed up, but I peaked at P5 100 lp about 4 months ago.

I've been working on a champion rework in the last few months, when he fell out of favor. At first I only did this for fun, but I feel like Riot could use some ideas from the 2 reworks I'm about to discuss. Keep in mind I'm not working for the balance team so numbers are only arbitrary and to give a better picture of the ability. I'll talk about why I'm reworking every ability.

Last but not least, fuck Trundle support. I played it and it's really fun, but keeping him viable in 3 roles, one of which was never intended at first, is a balance nightmare and leads to him being weaker overall.

#First rework **P - King's Tribute ** Every 18/15/12/9/6 seconds, Trundle empowers his next basic attack to heal him for 10% of the target's maximum health (maximum 200). Non-empowered basic attacks reduce the cooldown of this ability by 1 second. Empowered basic attacks cannot be expended against wards or structures. This ability upgrades at level 1/5/9/13/17.

Q - Chomp/Throw Boneshiver Cooldown : 6/5.5/5/4.5/4 Mana cost : 30 Range : 225/375 AoE damage : 100 Trundle's next basic attack gains range, deals 20/40/60/80/100 (+ 10% AD) bonus physical damage and slows enemies hit by 75% for 0.25 second. If used within his melee range, Trundle steals 10/15/20/25/30 base AD for 6 seconds. If used outside his melee range, Trundle throws his club at the enemy, applying the damage and slow around the enemy. After throwing his club, Trundle is disarmed for the next 2 seconds or until he picks it up.

W - Frozen Domain Cooldown : 13 Mana cost : 60 Cast range : 900 AoE: 800 Trundle coats the target area in ice for 8 seconds. While inside, he gains 20/25/30/35/40% Movement Speed and Attack Speed, 20% increased healing from all sources and ignores unit collision.

E - Pillar of Ice Cooldown : 25/22/19/16/13 Mana cost : 60/65/70/75/80 Cast range : 1000 AoE : 150 Knockback range : 150 Frozen Domain extended range : 500 Trundle summons a Pillar of Ice at the target location for 5 seconds, knocking back enemies directly over it, slowing enemies nearby for 20/25/30/35/40% and acting as impassable terrain. Casting Pillar of Ice inside Frozen Domain extends Frozen Domain around the Pillar.

R - Subjugate Cooldown : 110/90/70 Mana cost : 100 Cast range : 700 Trundle drains the life force out of the target enemy champion, stealing 15/25/35% (+ 2% per 100 AP) maximum health in magic damage and 40% of their armor and magic resistance. Half of the stealing is applied instantly, half is distributed over the next 4 seconds. The debuff remains for 4 more seconds. Against the debuffed champion, Chomp stuns for 0.25 second and extends the debuff by 1 second.

King's Tribute : the current passive is not interactive at all. It almost reads : play the game normally and regen some health once in a while. While trying to kill Trundle support, I thought of rewording it to "After killing an enemy, regen a portion of its maximum health" but it would make him feast or famine, so I kinda mashed Maokai and Nocturne's passive together. It obviously scales with the enemy's maximum health because Trundle should be a tank buster, outside of his current P and R he's just a regular fighter.

Chomp/Throw Boneshiver : Basically, if you're within 225 units, you will use Chomp, if you're within 375 units, you will use Throw Boneshiver. The ranged attack doesn't steal any AD and comes with a downside, the disarm. It's only for increased survivability in lane : having to be in melee range of every CS exposes you to more ganks. Trundle is generally good against melees but against most rangeds it's a nightmare, all of your damage comes from your basic attacks that have 175 range. It also steals base AD, for 2 reasons : one, tanks don't build AD so this part isn't useless (fyi your autos deal at least the base damage, this video explains it well) ; two, Trundle builds Sheen and doesn't have any significant bonus AD ratio (Chomp with 100-120% AD). I might be crazy with this one because csing early is gonna be a nightmare.

Frozen Domain : Lower cd, smaller AoE, less AS while inside, ignore unit collision. The area is icy, and Trundle is a Freljordian so the ghost effect made sense to me. Overall nerf but E will compensate.

Pillar of Ice : higher CD (I said fuck Trundle support didn't I?), lower mana cost until lvl 4, worse slow. The "casting E inside W" change was to increase the synergy in his kit. Another thing I'm trying to do is, like Warwick, make his skill floor as low but increase his skill ceiling.

Subjugate : most brainless part of his kit after his current passive. I tweaked lvl 1 and 2 but added some interaction to encourage him fighting because past 40 minutes he's an ult bot. A regular teamfight would look like : ult the tank, pillar to peel your carries or isolate someone, WQ towards their ADC. With this change, you'd rather fight the tank. I'm not satisfied with the numbers, the Chomp bonus is really strong. Note that it doesn't steal anything else, it only increases the duration until the resistances are given back.

#Second rework P - Boneshiver's True Ice Trundle's basic attacks deal 1/2/3% (at levels 1/7/13) of the target's maximum health in true damage and heal for the same amount. Maximum damage 75 vs monsters, healing uncapped.

Q - Chomp Cooldown : 6/5.5/5/4.5/4 Mana cost : 25 Trundle's next basic attack gains 50 range, deals 20/50/80/110/140 (+ 0/5/10/15/20% AD) bonus physical damage, slows by 75% for 0.25 second and if used against an enemy champion or a monster, enrages Trundle for 8 seconds. While enraged, against champions, Chomp steals 10/15/20/25/30 base AD for 4 seconds and stuns for 0.25 second.

W - Frozen Domain Cooldown : 18/16/14/12/10 Mana cost : 60 Cast range : 900 AoE : 900 Trundle coats the target location in ice for 8 seconds. While inside, Trundle gains 20/25/30/35/40% MS, AS and Tenacity, ignores unit collision and has 20% increased healing from all sources.

E - Pillar of Ice Cooldown : 13 Mana cost : 70 Cast range : 1000 AoE : 250 Trundle summons a Pillar of Ice at the target location for 6 seconds, knocking back enemies directly above it. A snowstorm surrounds the Pillar, dealing an initial 36/54/72/90/108 (+ 60% AP) magic damage, then 12/18/24/30/36 (+ 20% AP) magic damage every second and slowing all enemies around it by 20/25/30/35/40%. The Pillar has 2/2/3/3/4 health and acts as impassable terrain until destroyed. The snowstorm remains for the full duration.

R - Subjugate Cooldown : 110/90/70 Mana cost : 100 Cast range : 600 Tether range : 600 Trundle drains the life force from an enemy champion, stealing an initial 10/15/20% (+ 2% per 100 AP) of their maximum health in magic damage and 20% of their armor and magic resistance for 8 seconds. During this time, Chomp's base CD is reduced to 3, using Chomp against the marked enemy steals an additional 2.5/5/7.5% (+ 0.5% per 100 AP) of their maximum health in magic damage and 5% of their armor and magic resistance and extends the duration by 1 second. The effect ends after 8 seconds (+ 1 second per Chomp) or when Trundle leaves the tether range.

Boneshiver's True Ice : it doesn't do much early game, but max level against 3k hp that's 90 true damage + 90 heal, so not negligible. It's another idea I had to make his passive more interactive.

Chomp : To clear confusion if there is any, the first Chomp against an enemy champion enrages you. Another Chomp within the 8 seconds refreshes the enrage mechanic, reduces base AD and stuns. The base AD steal is only 4 seconds to not make it too oppressive. Also, using the current Chomp against a minion to trade with 2 more longswords level 1 was kinda bs, so I raised the base damage but moved the AD gain on the enrage mechanic.

Frozen Domain : CD nerf until lvl 3, less AS, now grants Tenacity because most tanks have CC. The ghost effect is for the same reason as in the first rework.

Pillar of Ice : Huge cd buff but with added health component. Overall goal was to increase survivability, I had the Quasus strategy in mind while reworking this. The magic damage part is to give Trundle damage outside his basic attacks. Nowadays, to win against Trundle, you build Tabis, which reduces his overall damage by 10%, and Thornmail, which reduces his DPS by 15% (and don't get me started on Bramble Vest). Against a hard matchup, Trundle could max and farm with E. He would be missing the maxed CD from Q and W which would be crucial but he wouldn't be forced to always farm in melee range. If AP Trundle becomes viable, oops ¯_(ツ)_/¯

Subjugate : lower cast range (700->500). For the same reason as the first rework, I tried to make this ability more interactive. The over time effect that increases each second is removed, but using Chomp compensates. Level 3, you'd need 2 Chomps to get the same HP steal and 4 for the resist steal.

TL;DR #Main goals

  • (Hopefully) raised his skill ceiling while keeping his skill floor low
  • Redefined his tank buster identity

#How did I do this

  • Added more synergies in his kit : for example, casting E in W extends W around E (see Pillar, first rework)
  • Added multi-abilities (see Chomp, first rework ; kinda like Rengar's basic abilities, slightly different under certain conditions)
  • Added worse abilities that encourage interactivity to be better than the current version, see the enrage mechanic (Chomp, 2nd rework), both passives where you have to AA to get better healing.

To conclude, thank you for reading. I'm not expecting this to reach front page because Trundle is often a forgotten champion, but if it starts a "buff/rework Trundle" wave that pays off in 1-2 seasons, I'll be more than happy. If you have any questions or feedback I'll stick around! ######sfbe

2 Comments

ItzJohny1/8/2018, 11:34:00 AM1 votes

Great job these are really good ideas

Fiddlesnout1/17/2020, 6:13:07 PM1 votes

So with Fiddle and Voli rework, next rework should be Trundle.

To relate, Volibear was a champion considered so simple and one dimensional. He had a lack luster kit, tried to run at you and hopes he catches you and tried to kill you if you're foolish to stay in his domain. You can take those same characteristics and put Trundle in front of them and it's the same. Looking into Trundle's lore, it describes him as a hulking, regen monster, with devious and mischievous skills. He either tried to outsmart you or beat you. But he also wields a magical weapon that never melts and gives off an "aura" of cold. How he got such a weapon though was from stealing it. Trundle also has this characteristic to challenge those around him 1 on 1.

An interesting mechanic I would love to see is his 'w' be replaced with a point click challenge feature, where target allows trundle to gain movement speed and attack speed while within certain range of and moving towards target. While the target is challenged, you need to get 3 auto attacks off where True Ice is then applied to the targets body and a chunk of damage is applied. With this proc, the attack speed persists for a few more seconds. The chuck the target lost is then regen to trundle over time.

To make this work, his passive will have to be changed to something that reacts to True Ice applying or proc.

Just like in the lore when Trundle returned with the magical weapon, he caved in the chieftain’s face. His q ability could resemble that where he slams down his club, the area left behind slows enemies.

His e would change to him hurting himself but gaining bonus armor, magic resist, and movement to regen health lost over 10 seconds.

Ultimate would apply an area of affect slow around the target, it wouldn't slow the target. If the target gets a certain distance away, or 10 seconds go by, the ring implodes dealing damage and creates a terrain of ice slowing all enemies. Trundle would steal the targets HP only.