Thoughts and Discussion: Wind Mage
The wind mage is Janna, and a few points:
~ The most important thing is reduce frustrations when playing against Janna. This means have Janna actually participate into the game and actually have to turn on their brain, whether through positioning, interacting with the opponent in a meaningful way, or proper timing to use her abilities.
~ Eye of the Storm should actually feel like it lives up to its name and requires some kind of skill to use rather than be a brainless stat stick to someone. Needs a rework, but its function stays relatively the same.
~ Passive is just invisible power that Janna cannot even use herself. Needs a full rework and redesign.
~ Monsoon needs to be transformed into something that is not an always good to use button. Alistar and Blitzcrank have powerful abilities in their kit, but pull and headbutt have moments where they hurt more than they help, has a reason to use an ability or hold it off for a better time. There are slight glimpses of Monsoon having this decision making, but an ideal and non-ideal trade off needs to be highlighted a lot better.
~ Howling Gale would be a lot cooler if it was used more for its charge up and less about instant casting it for reactive plays. To make it more proactive Janna needs changes with other abilities so she can be a lot more reliable with landing a charged up tornado, also make uncharged tornadoes a lot weaker, really emphasize abilities working together and form skillful and very rewarding gameplay. It will be a lot more fun this way for the Janna player, trust me, and on the receiving end it won't feel as bull shit knowing Janna outplayed you properly rather than Janna pressed E from fog of war and pressed R on occasion for massive healing.
~ Zephyr is my favourite ability on Janna's kit since it is the one ability that encourages Janna to be active, interact with her opponent, and has a trade-off for usage for its skill element despite being a passive and point and click. Problem with the movement speed however is that it makes Janna to never want to use the ability so she can never be caught up with and be super passive, removing the cool trade-off spell element that it offers since. ~ ~ Thoughts for a change would be the passive causes Janna's attack to unleash a wind elemental (the little bird) to fly to and back from the target dealing magic damage to targets it passes through, leaving behind a wind trail that grants bonus movement speed to Janna and her team while on it, while the wind elemental is flying Janna could gain a burst of movement speed for a short duration so she can position herself to grant movement speed to her allies to help them kite the enemy. Active basically will do the same thing with disabling the passive while on cooldown. ~ ~ ~ Frequency of how much the bird can be fired at be dependent on its travel distance, rewarding Janna for being more risky and attacking at closer ranges. This will allow for Janna to have better attack animations and a higher attack range. Since Janna is a support, the bird will not have any attack speed scaling, just how often the bird can attack depends on how far Janna attacked from and how close she is to retrieve it - creates risk for reward.
~ Do not worry Janna mains, with all of the right changes Janna will not need to be constantly nerf over and over again, in fact she could even get buffs when she is too weak in a given patch. All this plus she will be a lot more fun and rewarding to play as and not so "I want to kill myself" when playing against Janna, so everyone wins.
None of you even read this point right here, so no point in mentioning what is below is just a very rough concept!
Attack Range: 575 from 475 units Basic Attacks: Improved to be much easier to use and a lot less time required to throw out the attack, helps encourage Janna to play more forward and actually directly make an impact in the lane and game in an interactive way, also allows to add some attack required effects.
Gust of Wind (Passive): Whenever Janna casts an ability she gains 60%[+5% per level](+20% per 100AP) bonus movement speed that rapidly decays over 0.75 second. This lingers for a further 1.25 seconds if she is moving towards a nearby allied champion at a minimum of 12%[+1% per level](+4% per 100AP) bonus movement speed.
Howling Gale (Q): Knock-up time to 0.25-1.5 from 0.5-1.25 seconds
Zephyr (W): Cooldown: 10 seconds; Cost: 40/45/50/55/60 mana; Range: 600 units Passive: A wind elemental always follows Janna while Zephyr is off cooldown. Janna's basic attacks unleash the wind elemental to fly to her target and back, dealing 20/25/30/35/40(+15%AP) magic damage to enemies it passes through and leaving behind a trail of wind for 3 seconds granting allies on it 10/15/20/25/30%(+5% per 100AP) bonus movement speed. Whenever Janna unleashes the wind elemental she gains Gust of Wind at half the duration.
Active: Janna orders the wind elemental to attack the target enemy, dealing 80/120/160/200/240(+60%AP) magic damage and slowing down by 20/25/30/35/40%(+6% per 100AP) for 3 seconds, max 80%.
Eye of the Storm (E): Cooldown: 15/13.5/12/10.5/9 seconds; Cost: 85 mana; Range: 900 / 500 units Janna surrounds the target ally with a storm, shielding for 60/80/100/120/140(+120%AP) shield for 3 seconds. While the shield persists an outer storm is created, dealing 90/130/170/190/230(+50%AP) magic damage to enemies that make contact. This outer storm slows enemies by 99% while inside and stops enemies on contact.
Monsoon (R): Healing is much lower, but ramps up over the channel duration, also healing is greater based on how much health targets are missing (still a flat value). Makes a decision between use for the knock-back (synergy with new Eye of the Storm and Howling Gale combo power) or committing to the full channel for a significant healing rather than have a burst heal right out of the gates.
