Dear Riot: From an Udyr Main

With the recent PBE experimentation for Udyr, I'd like to give some insight into Udyr...his state, and what the design team should consider about where to take him.

There are two questions to ask here. 1. What fantasy does Udyr appeal to? 2. What is holding Udyr back from viability?

I will address each question separately.

1. What fantasy does Udyr appeal to?

This one's simple. Udyr's fantasy is that of a mobile juggernaut. Juggernauts aren't supposed to have mobility, that's why they're juggernauts...but then there's Udyr. This is what makes him unique; this is what Udyr players love about him. His W makes him tanky, his Q and R give him tons of damage...and then his E also makes him mobile. This is what (should) make him scary for enemy champions. A big, powerful brute who can also rush right at you. Basically, a grizzly bear.

This is not to say that Udyr cannot and does not have weaknesses. First, being mobile is not mutually exclusive with being kitable. Udyr's biggest weakness is, despite his mobility, he is easily kited by champions with equal or better mobility (dashes, etc.) and, particularrly, crowd control. Trying to teamfight for example vs. Lux Morgana Sejuani Ashe and Chogath, for Udyr is a nightmare, and this is expected. He's a short range melee without a TRUE gap closer.

Another big weakness of Udyr is that, obviously he, has no ultimate ability. This means he never gets moments of tremendous power; rather, he relies on consistent power. This is important to remember.

2. What is holding Udyr back from viability?

Udyr is a champion with no ultimate, whcih means that at level 6, he doesn't get the powerspike that other champions do. This is a good thing, it's part of his identity. Here's the thing though: before level 6, HE SHOULD BE VERY STRONG. Udyr's ganks and counterjungling ability pre-lvl6 should be terrifying. His power budget demands this, since again, he has no ultimate ability or powerspike at lvl6. He needs to gain an advantage before lvl6 in order to stay competitive with other strong junglers/champions.

Currently, Udyr is both too weak early on, and too weak in the late game. Of these two issues, being too weak early on is the far more detrimental problem.

The changes to his Q were misguided. In order to realy take advantage of the dps it offers right now, you need to attack many times. In real games, you don't get afforded the opportunity to attack that many times successively...ESPECIALLY since you'll need to switch stances, and so you won't get the extra clip damage. Udyr's Q should have decent base damage, ESPECIALLY early in the game (so that his early power is strong, like it used to be), and also decent AD scaling. This would give him the flexibility to build tanky (cinderhulk etc.) if he needs to be a frontliner for his team, or AD if he needs to kill carries quicker.

His Turtle Stance is also in a strange state. Traditionally, udyr was always a champ you'd want to prioritize buying resists over HP, since the resists woudl scale with his shield. However, the healing on his W now scales with his HP, so you kind of want to buy both...so now, Udyr needs HP, resists, movespeed, CDR...and his kit also really needs attack speed, and then if you want your Q to do any kind of decent dmg, you also need AD. So, basically every stat. He isnt' as mana hungry as he used to be which feels realy nice, but it's still rough if you try to go an entire game without one mana item.

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So what does this mean? Well, I think the biggest things to look at are buffing the base damages on his Q and R. This would give him the early game power he needs to become and stay relevant.