[LeBlanc][Slight Rework Proposal] More Skill and Counterplay, More Smoke and Mirrors
LeBlanc is one of my favourite champions in the game and I've read a fair bit about her design and the problems surrounding her kit. She's a very skill-based champion that becomes overwhelming when ahead and completely useless when behind, the definition of a feast or famine champion. AD assassins, even when behind, can still help secure objectives or soften up targets for their ADC with Black Cleaver. AP assassins tend to be more hit-or-miss, but I feel LeBlanc is on a particularly difficult place at the moment.
So here's a proposal to make LeBlanc more skill-based, highlight her theme of deception and misdirection, and give her more opportunities for her enemies to counterplay and for her to aid her team even if she's behind.
I'll be listing the changes as though they were patch notes, for clarity's sake.
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Q: Sigil of Malice
NEW: Removed.
I feel the current iteration of LeBlanc's Q offers no counterplay. It's not a skillshot like her E, and it's her main source of nuke damage, which often comes for free as she needs only to get in range before she can pop it. Furthermore, it's not really fitting with her theme and it's frankly boring to execute or play against. I decided to rework this ability completely.
Passive: Mirror Image
NEW: Removed.
Given that I wanted to emphasise LeBlanc's deception theme, I decided to turn her passive into her Q and give her more control over it.
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#Passive: Gift of the Black Rose
Effect: LeBlanc becomes stealthed for 3/3.5/4 seconds (at level 1/7/13) when she reaches 30% health. Autoattacking or casting an ability breaks the stealth. When LeBlanc breaks the stealth (or it runs out), she gains bonus magic penetration equal to 5% of her AP for 2 seconds. This passive has a 60 second cooldown.
This ability retains LeBlanc's defensive/slippery passive, but it also gives LeBlanc a temptation to go back into the fray at low health. The bonus magic penetration can help her secure a kill, and the surprise effect from her stealth can be the edge she needs to take out an enemy. This passive can be used for running away, yes, but it's optimally used to execute high-risk/high-reward, exciting plays, which is gratifying for both the LeBlanc player and her enemy, as a low-health LeBlanc is quite easy to kill, and anticipating her greediness can be very rewarding.
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#Q: Mirror Image
Casting: Activated ability. Range: Self. Cost: 60/70/80/90/100 Mana. Duration: 4/5/6/7/8 seconds. Cooldown: 15 seconds. Effect: LeBlanc becomes stealthed for 1 second and summons a clone of herself with her same current amount of health and identical statistics. Her clone is controllable by holding the ALT key and casts Distortion, Ethereal Chains and their mimicked versions in the same direction as the mouse cursor, but deals no autoattack damage. The clone casts her spells at the same time the original LeBlanc does (it is not possible for LeBlanc to cast a spell without her clone doing so at the same time). Dealing the killing blow to the clone deals 60/80/100/120/140 (+80% AP) magic damage to the killer (unless it is a tower). Casting a mimicked version of Mirror Image instantly kills the old clone. The clone instantly returns to LeBlanc if commanded to move further than 500 units.
Turning LeBlanc's passive into a more active part of her kit helps emphasise her trickster nature and allows her to make plays with her other abilities. Given the damage inflicted to enemies who kill the clone, a LeBlanc player can use this ability to establish lane dominance and bullying, and later on, to fake out enemies (if she always sends the clone first to zone/harass enemies, she can later go first herself to take advantage of her enemies' trained behaviour of not attacking the clone).
The short leash on the clone means that while LeBlanc is encouraged to send out her clone to harass and zone, she's always going to be overextended and within autoattack range of all ranged AP mids. The cooldown and mana cost make spamming this ability prohibitive in early game, which keeps her zoning power from becoming overwhelming (and instead can let LeBlanc fight back against other zoning midlaners like Ziggs, Xerath and Orianna).
Successfully managing LeBlanc's clone is key, as it basically doubles her damage potential. Furthermore, this is a partially defensive ability, as low-health enemies will think twice before chasing down or igniting LeBlanc if they cannot afford to make the wrong choice.
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#R: Mimic
NEW: This ability gains a 50 mana cost at all levels. NEW: The cooldown of this ability is reset on kills and assists. NEW: LeBlanc's mimicked spells deal the same damage and have the same AP scaling as their normal version (according to the skill ranks LeBlanc has put in them). NEW: LeBlanc's mimicked spells gain additional effects.
Mirror Image: Both LeBlanc and her clone gain 30/40/50% bonus movespeed for as long as the clone remains alive.
Distortion: Leaves behind an area of reality distortion for 2 seconds that slows the movement speed of enemies for 20/25/30%.
Ethereal Chains: If the target is snared, another set of mimicked Ethereal Chains is shot from the snared champion to the nearest enemy champion within range. This is fired as a skillshot as though LeBlanc was standing in the position of the snared enemy. This process continues to repeat if the new set of mimicked Ethereal Chains manages to snare another enemy champion. Snared champions obtain an immunity to mimicked Ethereal Chains (but not to LeBlanc's normal Ethereal Chains) for 5/4/3 seconds after being successfully snared. Every new set of mimicked Ethereal Chains deals 10%/30%/50% more damage than the previous. If there are no valid enemy champions within range, no new sets of mimicked Ethereal Chains will be shot. Champions with the immunity to mimicked Ethereal Chains do not count as valid targets. If both LeBlanc and her clone land the snare on two sets of mimicked Ethereal Chains on a single target, only one set of Ethereal Chains is fired.
Rather than turning LeBlanc's Mimic into simply a burstier version of her spells, I decided to go the utility route. Having an ultimate that duplicates spells seems like a waste if it's simply used for more damage, rather than for additional effects. Mimic is LeBlanc's main playmaking ability. Shifting the burden of her damage to QWE spells and giving her utility on her R allows her to be an assassin that can coordinate plays with her team and set up kills for others. The changes in her mimicked Ethereal Chains, for example, offers her CC synergy with champions who can lock down an entire team for the amount of time her chains need to proc (Sejuani, Amumu, Nautilus). This is the main tool that allows LeBlanc to stay relevant even when she's behind. While she may not have the damage she needs to assassinate anybody in the enemy team, she can still offer utility in teamfights, which her team can use to turn the tides of a game.
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Comments and criticism welcome!
