Volibear Rework and a history lesson from an old League of Legends Veteran.

Honesty, being completely serious, his kit is actually pretty good and coherent. The only thing that doesn't really work for him is his ultimate.

In case you haven't been playing league for ages, on release Volibear was a bit bonkers. He was toned down at some point, but his defining quality was being able to run down a target while being focused and do about a thousand damage to a squishy with a single bite, forcing the enemy back line to stay far enough away from Volibear to not be in his threat range.

His bite was repeatedly nerfed since his release because it was just too much damage.

Another tool Volibear had to keep the enemy back line away was his ultimate, which could chain through the enemy front line and onto the enemy back line if they were clustered up. His bite nerf came in tandem with eventual buffs to his ultimate to add bounces and increase the bounce range-- the theme here is convincing the enemy back line to back up and in doing so exposing them to being flanked or assassinated, and more importantly forcing them out of range of your squishier heroes-- this is really what made Volibear so valuable.

The problem is that it just isn't enough. There is a reason why the typical backline champion is more scared of a thousand burst damage than they are of 20 instances of 100 damage-- its because generally a backline hero, whether support, ad carry or ap carry, can continue to be influential up until the point that they die. Being backline heroes, they are out of range of most threats, so it doesn't matter if they are reduced to half health from an ambient damage effect, as long as they are able to kill the champions which could threaten to finish them off before they are reduced to half.

So basically, without the threat of his bite volibear couldn't keep the enemy backline terrified enough to keep them off of him-- and this meant they could just do a lot of damage to him even while standing in the lightning bounce range of his ultimate. You would think that Volibear could use the lightning damage to wittle down the enemy back line by attacking the enemy front line, and then he could use his bite to threaten any enemy backline champion that was reduced to low health by the ultimate.

It turns out that Volibear's ultimate can't have enough damage for him to do that in the time span that matters because if it did then he'd be too oppressive in a solo lane or in any 1v1-- remember, he is extremely tanky and it is incredibly difficult to run from him if you are alone.

#Lets recap:

• Volibear's strength is supposed to be convincing the enemy team to spread out.
• If Volibear is supposed to be melee and have only melee abilities, he must be very tanky to cope.
• If Volibear is supposed to threaten the enemy backline into backing up, he would need high burst damage and diving potential with his chase and bite pattern, but the damage cannot be high enough to single handedly offer him this power of threat because it would make him too snowbally.
• If Volibear is supposed to threaten the enemy into spreading out and indirecly cause the enemy backline to back up, he would need high sustained damage, bounce range and number of bounces on his ultimate, but the damage cannot be high enough to single handedly offer him this power of threat because it would make him too snowbally.
• Apparently, some combination of bite power and chain lightning power cannot work because they both have the same flaw-- they make him too snowbally.

#Conclusion What Volibear really truly needs is an ultimate that really forces people to spread out, but doesn't make him snowbally. In other words, it needs to be something that shines in a 5v5 but doesn't make him oppressive in a 1v1.

Current Thunder Claws Range 500 Cost 100 Mana Cooldown 100 / 90 / 80 ACTIVE: Volibear deals magic damage to up to 8 nearby enemies. Afterwards, for 12 seconds, Volibear's basic attacks deal the same damage as bonus magic damage that bounces to up to 7 nearby unaffected enemies. 「 MAGIC DAMAGE: 75 / 115 / 155 (+ 30% AP) 」

Proposed Thunder Claws Range 500 Cost 100 Mana Cooldown 100 / 90 / 80 ACTIVE: For the next 15 seconds, Volibear's attacks electrifies the target enemy champion for 3 seconds and his abilities gain new effects. ELECTRIFIED: Whenever you take damage, lightning arcs to allied champions within 500 range for 20% of that damage (before resistances) as magic damage and they are also electrified. Damage from lightning created by lightning is not diminished but will not arc to an enemy champion already damaged by an ancestor of the lightning. ROLLING THUNDER BONUS EFFECT: The target is grounded for 4 seconds causing lightning to arc from up to 50% farther away to strike it. FRENZY BONUS EFFECT: Biting a target releases red lightning which arcs for 50% damage. MAJESTIC ROAR BONUS EFFECT: All enemies damaged by the roar become electrified.

#Explanation

Thunder claws provides a little less than ~20% damage increase against the enemy team as magic damage if they are all electrified. More than likely they will try to spread out to keep the lightning from arcing onto the backline from the damage dealt to the frontline so in general it would probably be closer to ~12%.

Where Thunder claws really shines is when the enemy team clusters up, because a single aoe ability could trigger lightning more than once by hitting more than one target. For instance, if an AOE nuke from a mage hits 3 people then lightning will be released from each of them to each other (think brand passive). This means that while the enemy team will be able to cope with Volibear in the general case, they most certainly will not be able to cluster up at all otherwise they will all die horrible horrible deaths.

The fact that the enemy team MUST keep a fair distance from eachother gives allows Volibear to enable his assassins and shorter ranged squishier heroes without himself having to be a tanky dps nightmare that can 1v1 anything. Giving the power to avoid horrible horrible deaths by staying spread out to the enemy means it can be especially powerful when they don't, similar to how brand's passive isn't reliable enough to single handedly wipe out the entire enemy team, but it is certainly capable of doing that if the enemy team doesn't respect it and stays clustered while it triggers on everyone.