Analysis of Ornn

Stats

Ornn has fairly mediocre stats across the board, with one exception; his mana pool, which is very small if you aren't careful. While it in it of itself is also a fairly mediocre size, its issue comes from his reliance on spamming abilities. A level 6 Ornn who is maxing W will have to burn 170 mana, or 35.56% of his mana pool, for a single rotation of his basic abilities. Considering his kit demands that he spam the living shit out of his Q or W in order to lane, this is a problem. Ornn typically picks up meditation and mana items to alleviate this, but it's still an issue throughout his early game.

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Passive

Lets start off with living forge.

Forge is good for three things; tempo, early sustain, and late game surprises.

Tempo is fairly obvious: since you don't have to back for items, you will continue to get stronger by using your gold as you get it, instead of how your enemy has to save up and buy items in bursts.

Sustain is down to a simple trick of numbers. When you purchase health (or mana) your current % HP is not maintained. Instead of the Dota system where you gain the new max HP and then adjust your current HP to match the old percentage, the items HP is simply added onto both your max and current HP. Say you have 300/844 HP at level 5, or 35.54% health. If you buy a Bami's cinder, your health becomes 500/1044, or 47.89% health. This has two downsides. First, you can only heal with this passive if you have money. If you're getting zoned off farm, tough luck. Second, it's ineffective past the early game. After a certain point, the heal from buying small HP items becomes negligible.

Late game surprises are niche but powerful, and were covered in the champion spotlight. A surprise Righteous Glory is obviously huge, but it's not the only option. If you're doing a 1/3/1 strat, you can forge a Zz'rot portal. If you're sieging, Warmogs is good. If an Ori is being a problem, you can surprise them with a locket. If they have an AP lineup and you're feeling like a dick, Banner is fun. If you're planning a Dive... I mean, Ohmwrecker doesn't exactly have bad stats for Ornn.

Moving on to Master Craftsman.

While hardly the best passive in the game, you can't overlook this.

Contrary to popular belief, it's not a passive that only comes into play when everyone's full build. Obviously, I'm not advocating anybody should rush a masterwork, but you also shouldn't necessarily wait until you are full build.

Once you've completed your core build, and have all the little things you need to function, you can upgrade for a spike in stats. Got IE, hurricane, QSS/EC, and vamp? Go ahead and upgrade, Jinx. Got Triforce, Visage, and Deadmans? Go ahead and get Fusion, Nasus. Got your nomicon, deathcap, hourglass, and void staff? Why not make that cap into a crown, Ziggs?

Now, this won't be very helpful if you're behind. Masterworks are expensive, so you they're no good if you are broke. If you're ahead, however, that boost in stats makes any Ornn lineup good at pushing an advantage, especially in higher levels of play.

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Q: Volcanic Rupture

It's not flashy, but it does the job. It does low damage, and the terrain is too small to be useful for anything but your E (and maybe Gnar/Vayne), but that's not why you use it.

Early on, it's Ornn's only basic spell with any meaningful range. While it's low damage and high cost makes it a horrible tool for poke, just the fact that it's ranged and does damage means Ornn can nab last hits against harder matchups.

Aside from that, it's an AOE 40-60% slow for two seconds on a spammable spell. Ganks, chases, teamfights, it's fairly useful.

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W: Bellows Breath

This is your bread and butter. Not only is it your main source of survivability, it's the only spell in your kit that makes you even a slight damage threat. If you land the entire spell, and then attack them, you deal 25% of their current HP, 7-16% of their max HP, as well as giving yourself a hefty shield (two, if you run colossus). Respectable damage (in an area, no less), while you are shielded for a large part of the damage that is returned to you. The minimum damage, as well as brittle applying to creeps, means he's decent at pushing creep waves without a tiamat (though he is pitiful when it comes to killing towers).

Extending the duration of CC is cool and all, but you likely won't be getting much use out of that from this spell until late game. Ornn only has one CC that's extended by brittle, and that's is Q slow, adding a whopping 0.6 seconds (I mean, it's not horrible). In teamfights, it's always possible you'll hit multiple people with W, or that an ally will tag them with CC before you auto them, but that's not the most common of scenarios. Most of the time, you'll pop it for the damage yourself.

An underrated aspect about brittle is the knockback Ornn gets from autoing the target. However small it may be, it can still interrupt channels or give your carries space/time to work with against the frontliners who would have their heads.

Being unstoppable is fucking beastly. You hard counter any champion who relies on displacement/airborne, as well as any other CC that is 2.5 seconds or shorter. Champions who especially want to cry in a corner against him are Skarner, who questions why he tried ulting an Ornn in the first place, Malphite, who has literally one purpose that you ignore completely, and Nautilus, who has his positioning screwed up every time he lands a hook on Ornn.

That said, this is not a godly spell. If Ornn is outnumbered and getting focused, he's screwed.

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E: Searing Charge

If you miss terrain (as you will often do while learning Ornn) you will hate this spell. Without a wall, the damage sucks and the spell has a long recovery time. However, once you stop overestimating the range, this spell is pretty damn solid.

In lane, landing your Q against anyone without exceptional all in potential (Darius, Fiora, TK) or a jungler in tow means you that they have to get away from the pillar (which lasts 4 seconds) lest they get charged on. Ornn may be no carry, but you're a fool if you underestimate his trading at early levels.

If you're team fighting in the jungle, this spell is awesome. It can't cross walls (which really blows), but you're a huge threat so long as they're on the same side of the wall as you. 300 base damage plus 60% your bonus resistances means this does respectable damage for a champion not known for his damage,

It's decent as an escape, but the cast/recovery time, the inability to go over walls, and it not being uninterruptible means that it probably won't save your life if you are in an real crisis (though maybe you could get a return kill with it if they dive you).

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R: Call of the Forge God

When used in conjunction with allies, this spell can easily win you a game.

Used alone by a max level Ornn, if you land both hits, this spell deals 450 magic damage plus 7-16% their max HP (since the knockup on the second hit pops the Brittle effect from the first hit), alongside a 40% slow for 2 seconds and a knockup. The CC is great, AOE brittle at long range is great, and the damage doesn't suck too much either.

Now, this is where the fun wombo combos start.

If Ornn is at max range, it's nearly impossible to dodge the ram's first charge (since it's spawning directly on top of you), meaning you have a nearly guaranteed 40% slow for two seconds, along with Brittle. That alone makes him a terrifying combo with the likes of Ashe, Varus, or Sejuani (regardless of whether or not you land the second part of the ult).

If you have an Ori, this can be a great setup for a ball carrier to jump in.

If you have a Maokai, an ult from him coming from the side while your ult charges through the middle of the enemy team means they're pretty screwed.

Hell, if you don't want them to know where your ult is coming from, you can cast it behind you and then headbutt the Ram's ass as it passes you to get a knockup out of the fog.

The possibilities are endless with this spell, and I love it.

That said, it's not without flaws. It's pretty easy to counter if you have the right lineup.

Braum and Yasuo are pretty obvious, as they delete the ram. Anyone with a displacement can knock Ornn out of the ram's path, and anyone with a stun/fear/silence/taunt etc can stop him from recasting ult. Of course, he can W to stop the CC, but he can't headbutt the ram while he's casting W.

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Overview

Ornn has low damage and moderate durability (for a tank) but has such insane utility that it almost doesn't matter. I think Ornn is much better than his winrate would have you believe.

Pros

• Great at pushing a midgame advantage.
• Incredible initiator.
• Good peel.
• CC out the ass.
• Doesn't have to back if he isn't low. Good tempo in top/support, more map pressure if he's jungling.
• Decent early sustain if he can farm.
• Gets exponentially better with communication, organization, and a plan.
• Good trading in lane, depending on the matchup.
• Has an escape.
• Can ignore CC.
• Counters displacement champions, airborne reliant champions, terrain creating champions, and immobile champions.

Cons

• Low damage, mediocre durability.
• Relies on his team a lot for a guy who doesn't like people.
• Can't kill a tower to save his life.
• Relies on farm for early sustain.
• No sustain past early game before Warmogs.
• No ranged waveclear.
• Mana.
• Ult is easily screwed over if Ornn is gets messed with.

Ornn won't be available at Worlds, so we will have to wait a little while before we can see how they use him. However, once we do, I imagine he will be around the level of Ivern's power in competitive play, and he'll likely lead to more exciting highlights than we could ever hope to see from Ivern.