High-Impact Decision Design for Leblanc
High-Impact Decision Design for Leblanc
Hello fellow players. It's been a while since I've posted about Leblanc, I think. A bit of history - I played Leblanc for a while, from Season Two. Was an avid player of Leblanc. Here's a bit of my thoughts then, on Leblanc right now.
Old Leblanc was fun to play.
She was fun to play not because she was deceptive, but because she was overwhelming in the right scenarios. This is in direct contrast with her supposed "theme", the deceiver. But at least it was fun.
It's always fun to know you could easily have killed a champion that just instaburst you if only you just knew they were there, hiding in the patch of brush. Leblanc is squishy enough that this is true most of the time.
So we can safely say Leblanc is squishy, and she should remain so. It's part of her league identity. We can also safely say burst Leblanc is fun to play, and players like going 1-2-3-4 in rapid succession on enemy champions and scoring a kill just like that.
Some people like new Leblanc. That's also okay. So we can say players also like the freedom that comes with playing new Leblanc. They like being able to mimic any spell. They might also like being able to burst enemy champions and play "mage-style" with just chains. That's fine.
What we can do then, knowing these things, is make Leblanc fun to play for only some players. If you design a champion with the goal of balance in mind, you get really boring champions. Every champion feels the same, and mastering one champion doesn't make you feel like you've really accomplished anything. Instead of making her fun to play for everyone, we can design her kit to make her extremely fun, to players who enjoy playing her. Also, we can make her difficult to play again (tough to CS with). Popularity and ease of access don't go well with deception, after all. As popularity goes up, deceiver effectiveness goes down.
We can do this by mixing the following elements together - old Leblanc's rapid succession burst style pattern, new Leblanc's mage-style and freedom of choice, and the element of deception.
Now how can we do that?
Well, in order for deception to have any impact, it needs to be backed by some form of actual offense. That's where Leblanc's burst pattern can come in. Suppose Leblanc successfully does something unexpected. The unexpected has impact if it enables her burst pattern to finish off the deal. We can see things in this way...
Old Leblanc Pattern
Step 1) Check if enemy champion's HP is < x. If true, proceed to step2. Otherwise, instaburst fails.
Step 2) If enemy champion distance <1000, enable successful instaburst. Otherwise, instaburst fails.
New Leblanc Pattern
Step 1) Check if target enemy champion HP is less than x + some value y (because new Leblanc has more damage than old LB) proceed to step2. Otherwise, kill denied.
Step 2) Check if either on-champion E hit success OR enemy champion burst delay timer is >1.5s. If either is true, 1.5s burst success. Otherwise fail.
Example Leblanc Pattern
Step 1) Check if enemy champion distance is <400. If true, instaburst. If not, proceed to step2.
Step 2) Check if either on-champion E hit success OR enemy champion burst delay timer is >3.0s. If either is true, burst success. Otherwise, burst fails.
Thoughts
Example Leblanc Pattern is harder to pull off than the New Leblanc Pattern, because it has an even further increased delay. It's also harder to pull off than Old Leblanc Pattern, because distance. Then, add in tricky tools. Make the tricky tools pretty ineffective in 95% of cases, similar to old Leblanc's mirror image passive. You get the below...
If tricky tool succeeds...
Them if target enemy champion hp is less than x, check enemy distance <1000 OR burst delay timer 1 second.
If either is true, instaburst OR 1s burst succeeds. Otherwise, fail.
Now you can design tricky tools for Leblanc that make her fun to play. If she can trick her opponents, she gets to do what old Leblanc did - instaburst. If she tricks her opponents in a different way, she gets to do what new Leblanc does - mage burst from afar + retain escape.
If she doesn't trick her opponents, she's still not that much worse off than either old or new Leblanc, because she can now choose to get extra close (and unsafe) for instaburst or to eat the 3 second delay instead of the 1.5 second delay. Alternatively, she can land her skillshot.
How the tricky tools turn the Example LB Pattern into this...
*"If tricky tool succeeds...
Them if target enemy champion hp is less than x, check enemy distance <1000 OR burst delay timer 1 second.
If either is true, instaburst OR 1s burst succeeds. Otherwise, fail."* ...?
Creativity.
Sincerely, A Leblanc Main
