I hear and/or believe that Annie, Ashe, Gangplank & Nunu are being reworked. What I want to see...

Hello all;

I'm a player recently returned to the game ( here for about a month now, have made my way back up to level 18 ) and I've noticed/appreciate that Riot has been working hard to re-balance the game and make many of the "boring" champions more fun/interactive. A lot of this seems to be being accomplished through champion reworks; the most recent noteworthy example being and others being , , , so on and so forth down to , and I'm sure eventually , , and . Given all the reworks in-progress and to come I wanted to take the chance to get ahead of whats coming and share my thoughts on a few champions I used to and/or currently enjoy and invite other players to share their thoughts here as well. I'm hoping that this will give Riot some things to think about when they plan a champion's rework.

With Zilean and Veigar having been reworked for skillshots and Ryze's unreleased rework headed in that same direction it seems certain ( to me at least ) that Annie will eventually get the same treatment as well. While I like her current kit's function and wouldn't want to change it ( much ) I feel as if it could be adjusted to fit how she is currently played.

The biggest change would be to her Molten Shield ( her E ) which currently increases "Armor and Magic Resist by 10/20/30/40/50 for 5 seconds" and deals 20/30/40/50/60 (+20% Ability Power) magic damage" to foes who attack Annie with basic attacks. While this skill works great for a mid/top-lane Annie it does little for her on the bottom lane where she seems to have become popular as a support due to her passive stun. My thought here is we change three things we make it a channeled spell; we allow it to be cast on allies and it only damages foes within melee range as opposed to foes attacking Annie with basic attacks. While I'm sure the numbers would need to be reworked for balance I'm essentially saying Molten Shield would "increase Armor/Resist of the target ( like an ADC ) by 10/20/30/40/50 for 9 seconds after three seconds of channeling" and "deal 20/30/40/50/60 (+20% ability power) magic damage per second to foes within X units (melee range) of the target."

Other things that could be done with Annie involve fixing the cast ranges on her abilities and reworking them to work better in-practice while staying true to her current identity. Her auto attacks, Disintegrate and Incinerate ( Q and E ) all have a listed range of 625 range but don't match in practice with her 625-range abilities not reach as far as her auto attacks. Fixing or changing this along with giving a few tweaks to the skills themselves would be great for clarity-of-game purposes; I have a few ideas here as well.

Her passive, Pyromania, makes it so "after casting 4 spells, Annie's next offensive spell will stun the target for a short duration" which is nice but fails to strike me as being very fire-related other than the fact Annie's spells are fire related. I also feel that this ability by itself is, at times, too strong given her passive stun-stacks have no timer. I feel the ability itself could be deemed more useful/balanced if it borrowed from her Q and had some sort of limiter for her stun stacks; something like "Annie becomes energized when scoring a kill on a champion or minion with an ability, refunding half the mana spent. In addition to this Annie gains one stack of "excitement" whenever one of her offensive abilities connects with a target. Stacks last 10 seconds and landing another ability refreshes the first stack/adds another ( one per ability ) stack; after accumulating four stacks of excitement her fifth stack would stun.

Her Q could become a skill-shot which would pass-through a foe if it killed them ( the skill would continue in a straight line until it reached the end of its range or failed to kill ) while her E could be changed to deal AoE in a horizontal line that could be aimed like Malzahar's "Call of the Void" or Viktor's "Death Ray."

I really like Gangplank as is but have heard the rumors that he is to be reworked; the release of the new Gangplank out as early as early S6. I'm not sure what to think about this given this is one champion where his Q not being a skillshot seems fitting given how it feels like his Q is supposed to be a second form of auto-attack; a feature that I very much enjoy given how unique it feels to Gangplank. It is true his kit is clunky ( using his heal or damage/move-speed steroid causes him to stop moving which feels counter-productive ) and that it could maybe use some touch-ups but for the most part I feel he's fine. The way I see Gangplank is simple: he is a bully with a lot of snowball potential that either snowballs far ahead using a combination of farm/harass or falls far behind and I'd like to see any changes to his kit reflect this playstyle while leaving his Q as is.

Nunu interests me given his rework strikes me as one with amazing potential. I could easily see him being reworked so that he could be built/effectively played either AD or AP depending on the player's desire. I wouldn't change how Absolute Zero or Blood Boil worked nor would I change the damage on his Ice Blast.

What I would do first is turn Ice Blast into a skillshot similar to Ezreal's Essence Flux/Zilean's time bombs: Nunu would toss his snowball or iceball from atop the Yeti to a target location, which would soar over minions and basic monsters and damage/slow the first enemy champion hit. If no target was hit during the projectile's flight it would land and damage anyone it landed on.

As for Nunu's Consume I'd like to see the damage/healing values stay as is but have how it works slightly changed. It is no secret that Nunu gets harder to use in the jungle every season due to his tried/true kit not being updated with the jungle. It also isn't a secret that the way his Q is currently makes laning somewhat unappealing. I'd like to see Consume change in a few ways to help Nunu both in and out of the jungle. First of all I'd like Nunu's Q to be able to damage champions for heavily reduced damage; 250 true damage at the very most ( keep in mind Cho'Gath's Ult deals 300-475/650 true damage to champions ) in order to keep him balanced. Using Consume on a champion would double the cooldown time of it.

Consume also needs some clarity or simplicity; a look at Nunu's champion page talks about Consume and makes it very hard to read and see what stat buffs you get from eating what. I'd change this to make his page easier to read and the buffs easier to memorize in-game by reworking what his bonuses actually would be. Attacking things in a blue-buff jungle would give Nunu 5% cooldown reduction/ability power and +10% mana ( not mana regen ) while eating something in a red-buff jungle would give Nunu +5% physical damage/attack speed and 10% health. Finally, Using Consume on a Dragon, Baron or champion could be an instant proc of his passive and a 3-second 3% movement speed boost.

And then there was one, Ashe has often been thought of as a utility marksmen given her CC and visibility skills. While I like the thought of a utility marksmen I feel a lot of what should have been in her kit somehow wound up forced into Miss Fortune's and I'd really like to rework Ashe in a way that allows her to be built more freely.

Her passive is Focus and it currently allows her to gain stacks of focus while out of combat which give her a guaranteed critical hit upon reaching 100 stacks. I have two issues with this: the first being "If I have 100 stacks but my items give me a critical hit will my stacks of focus be consumed..." and the second being "Shouldn't I be building focus in-combat as I focus on a fight?"

I'd change her passive, yes, but not very much. I'd replace the critical hit with another form of bonus damage that could work in unison with critical hits, maybe a flat amount of magic damage. Finally I'd change it so she built focus while in combat. If she isn't in combat focusing on a fight then what is she focusing on? Has a flower caught her eye? Is she just trying not to laugh at the fact she has 100 more attack range than Teemo? It makes little sense to me and if somebody like Graves can gain armor/resist while in combat why can't Ashe gain focus stacks in a similar manner?

Her Frost Shot and Volley I feel are nice as is; for those unfamiliar with it Frost Shot causes her basic attacks to apply a 15/20/25/30/35% slow. If any changes were going to be made for it at all I'd just add 15/20/25/30/35% ability power magic damage per empowered auto attack to match her slow's percentage. Given her Volley fires 7 empowered auto attacks in a cone dealing 40/50/60/70/80 (+100% Attack Damage) physical damage and applies Frost Shot's slow effect the only thing that would be added to Volley would be the bonus magic damage if anything at all.

Her Hawk Shot troubles me; the information on her page as far as gold retrieval goes is incorrect and compared to other moves of the type ( Kalista and her sentinel being the most recent example ) the vision granted and the lack of aggro from the move put her behind. I'd like to see the duration of the visible area increased from 5 seconds to either 3/6/9/12/15 seconds or 5/5/10/10/15 seconds. During this time if a foe were to set foot in the area the Ashe and her team would hear the same hawk sound heard upon Ashe's initial use of the ability and maybe be attacked by the hawk for a small sum of damage while in the area, maybe 15/20/25/30/35 (+25% ability power ) magic damage.

Her ultimate, Enchanted Crystal Arrow, could be kept as is. It currently does 250/425/600 (+100% Ability Power) magic damage and I feel that opening Ashe up to doing magic damage in other forms would allow to be built between the player's choice of an AD or AP marksmen.

Can you imagine having an AP-Ashe on your team? She has her bonus damage from her passive, she's built Nashor's Tooth ( +60 ability power and +50% attack speed ) and a Trinity Force ( +30 Attack Damage, +30 Ability Power, +30% Attack Speed +10% Critical Strike Chance, +8% Movement Speed, +250 Health, +200 Mana ) along with a Guinsoo's Rageblade ( +30 Attack Damage, +40 Ability Power, basic attacks (on attack) and spell casts passively grant +4% Attack Speed +4 Ability Power for 8 seconds which stack up to 8 times and an UNIQUE Passive where Falling below 50% Health grants +20% Attack Speed, +10% Life Steal, and +10% Spell Vamp until out of combat (30 second cooldown) and her infinity edge/defensive items which means she's putting out a decent bit of magic damage and the occasional critical hits. While I doubt I did a great job of explaining what I'm trying to get across ( because I'm naturally bad at explaining things ) I think adding utility to Ashe so she could be built either AD, AP or Hybrid could go a long way toward making her "viable" and "fun."

Sorry for the long post. Please feel free to share your thoughts not just on my ideas, but your own ideas as well for these four champions.

My thanks to you if you took the time to read this whole thing; Mister Beane, the Poro esq.

P.S: When I constructed this post this morning I did not realize Ashe was currently being reworked. Sorry for any confusion/problems this may/may have cause/caused when reading my post.