Boards›Gameplay

Viktor's Gameplay Update and the problems it causes - petition

333lom··20 votes·4,296 views

@Solcrushed, this is very important, we would be very grateful if you took our requests into consideration.

Note: I composed this using my own knolwedge of the champion, and reading the numerous comments of Viktor mains describing additional problems with the rework.

Yes, I'm a Viktor main, but let's get to the point: the rework in the form in which it is now, would be devastating for the Machine Herald.

The Hex Coreitem 3200 Giving Viktor the ability to buy all three Augments may sound good on paper, but it negates the point of adaptation to your opponent. The colour on the staff would be completely useless, for that matter. Not to mention that Kha'zix already has something similar, and players don't want another copycat evolution champion. I understand that this was supposed to solve his late-game power problem, but it introduces more difficulties than it solves. Among other things, I believe that's why you want to remove the DoT on Augment Death. You took into consideration our requests to keep his mid-game power spike, but this is not the way to go, there are other ways.

I think the leaked Augments from earlier would prove a much better and easier change, and I will explain that in the end.

Power Transfer The current plan is to make the shield instant, increase its range, and lower its damage, but the spell would be followed by a bufferd AA. This means you want to trade it's power for utility, and maybe this is the only spell that I could live with, but it has problems as well.

The ability's damage would be fragmented, increasing Viktor's unreliability when already the rest of his skills were skillshots. Not a problem for experienced players maybe, but beginners are going to be much more discouraged from playing this champion.

Since the Q's range will be bigger than that of his AA, that means he'll have to get closer to the enemy to strike with AA. And how will he be able to do that without Augment Power? The enemy starts backing up when he sees the projectile. If Viktor doesn't have that movement speed increase, he's going to run into a lot of difficulties. That means that Viktor players will be forced to take Augment Power at the beginning, since Q is the most used spell in early game – currently for it's damage, reliability and low mana cost. The other way without Augment Power is to start with the Death Ray, but you'll be quickly drained. That leaves no choice but to upgrade Q. Forced choices are completely opposite of Viktor's gameplay design.

Here are some of other problems that might appear: I remember chasing someone through the jungle once. I fired Q with my last mana, just before the enemy flashed over the wall, but I got the kill anyways. With the new update, I would have just damaged the enemy without the ability to hit him with the AA.

I recently played against an Orianna. The moment she sees my Q, she backs away. With the rework, Viktor would have to come close for the AA, but would already suffer damage from her Command: Attack. The shield would prevent some damage, but it would be a problem when the retaliation comes, the shield would already be out, and these problems just increase drastically without Augment Power.

Gravity Field It's planned for it's range to get increased, and to balance that out, the warning sign of its deployment will start earlier. If the enemies gets stunned, they gets sucked in to the center.

That increased range is going to be smaller than that of the live augmented W. I cannot recall how many times enemies dodged the Gravity Field now on live, with just scratching it and getting barely slowed. The biggest problem now is with ganks in early game. The extra range means nothing if the enemy can just dash out of it, be it near or farther away from you. Was the extra range (note, smaller than with Aug W!) supposed to allow him to engage? And then try to hit the enemy with both the laser and the explosion? Today, when almost everyone has a dash, W isn't going to mean anything, people already had enough time to react and get out of it before, now it will be utterly useless.

On the first glance, the translocation of stunned enemies sounds interesting. But if you look more closely, you’ll see that this has almost no benefits at all. When the enemy is stunned, nothing more is needed. The Gravity Field is already small enough for a combo to be set up on that small area. And if the stunned enemies start moving, people might even miss their skillshots. Imagine stunning the enemy, and firing the laser in hopes to hit him with it and the explosion. But too early: the enemy starts getting translocated, and you miss both. And waiting for the enemies to move to the center is time wasted.

Currently, Viktor isn’t designed to load out his combo when he tries to stun the enemy in early game. That comes in mid to late-game, when teamfights begin. In early game, he relies on his careful strategy of poke and snowball with his Q and E, while using W for escaping ganks. That’s his only escape option (movement speed isn’t going to help much when the enemy has a dash). And that is one of his core gameplay characteristics! Therefore, with the rework, if he uses gravity to try to capture the enemy (already seen strategy with Veigar), he’s going to have a time of extreme weakness during the W’s cooldown, when the jungler can pick him up easily. Not to mention if Viktor fails to trap the enemy because of the early warning sign of W’s deployment.

Death Ray Removing the DoT from Augment Death is going to cripple this champion. The burn was absolutely crucial; The entire point of the laser was to hit the enemy in the most hardest situations, and the burn was a reward for that. It depended on the skill of the player to hit the opponent. And now, the damage of the explosion would depend on the skill of the opponent to move away from it. And I seriously doubt that most of the players have reflexes of a rock.

It’s going to be the same as Vel’koz’s W, and we all know how easy it is to dodge the second explosion. It would even be a rip-off of that skill. There’s a reason why Vel’koz’s passive is more damage per stack. And Viktor mustn’t be pushed in that same niche, because he already has his own, unique one.

You want to change the laser from being all in the skill of the player (believe me, we mains take big pride in our skills to hit the enemy with E), to being all "hope the enemy is stupid and stays on the line". One of Viktor’s core characteristics was the ability to hit and kill the enemy from a mile away, and removing the DoT would almost completely destroy this aspect of the champion. The explosion is just going to create frustration in every game. Viktor isn’t going to be able to do anything except watch the enemy run off with 10 hp.

The explosion would also demand an entire strategy change, into something already present in an array of other champions – snaring and then attacking. Viktor isn’t like that. He should stay different.

One of his signature moves is to wait in the brush, predict where the enemy moving through the Fog of War is going to be, and then, firing in advance! Hitting the enemy, without vision, and scoring a kill. Remember, the enemy is moving. With the explosion, even hitting the enemy in such a hard situation isn’t going to mean anything, when the enemy continues to move and dodges the explosion, surviving. The removal of the DoT would remove that pride in the skill of the vector shot.

Some of my suggestions Note: I don’t even think everything from the next paragraph should be implemented, but I think that maybe something out of this could help, without hurting Viktor’s signature abilities.

More responsive AA: He could use an increase in reliability. He’s currently in the bottom when it comes to the speed of his AA. This hurts his early game farming, but maybe acts as a power stabilizer, and I’m okay with that.

Faster projectile speed for Q: Just to make the shield a little more usefull.

Ultimate can traverse terrain and/or have a larger center and/or a bit longer scilence. But I don't think this is absolutely needed.

Master Yi can get stunned but not slowed, even if he's in his ultimate: If others can stun him, Gravity should probably be able as well.

Second Tier Augment Upgrades: These were perfect, they would single handedly remove his late-game power drop, his 6th item problem (by replacing the previous Augment, the 2nd would act like that 6th item) and preserve the adaptation model. Viktor would still have to give up one of the three Augments, and therefore, wouldn’t be overpowered. The colours on the staff could then be yellow2, blue2, red2, orange, green or purple. It would preserve the clarity. This second tier upgrades hold no need to nerf Viktor’s neto damage (the removal of his signature DoT), if they offered balanced stats, and were available only at later levels (~16 lvl, I don’t know). I just love this idea, because it fits perfectly with the evolution theme. The Hex Core evolves into the second tier, compared to the “collector Viktor” of the coming GU.

Did I miss something? Do you have any more examples of problems? I will continue to update this thread, as I find mistakes and implement more of your suggestions.

Final note Players don’t get angry when their main champion gets reworked. They get angry if that champion gets stripped and looses his core abilities, moves or scaling with the rework.

Please Solcrushed, take our pleas into consideration.

(Summoners, if you don’t agree these changes are going to hurt Viktor, please give us a chance to try to push this rework in the direction when all of us will be happy, as opposed to only you being happy while the rest of us cry in a corner :) )

33 Comments

Hotarukin7 votes

I disagree that 'people do not want another evolution champion'. But along that same vein, I don't think buying an item is a way to do it. Certainly, items are fully capable of adjusting a person's play style, and that's awesome! But by connecting a specific champion's play style to 'take this, or opt out of free power' just tells the champion to take the item unless they don't want the stats. If you're giving poor stats, the item is unlikely to ever be taken. Thus, you have a trap in which your choice is to give up functions of your character, or to give up stats to gain functions. Not a great place to be.

While I appreciate the -idea- of the hex core, the way it's played out has been a poor one. I always found it really strange that Syndra came out so close to Viktor and had a passive that would have worked -so well- for his kit, unlocking the full potential of his arsenal as he tinkers with it... not just buying something from a shop that makes him work differently. The augments, to me, -should- be unique if they remain as items, but they should be more game-changing and present choices for how to change his kit. An augment that changes his skills, and maybe even his attacks to make him into a short range bruiser-type mage. An augment that turns him into a long range artillery-type mage. An augment that turns him into a controller... so on and so forth.

To me, Viktor -is- a champion about evolution, but at the end of the day, you're currently deciding between 'more damage' or 'less damage' and with the proposed rework, you won't even be choosing that. Viktor should be about adapting to overcome, in my opinion... but that's the opinion of a non-Viktor player, so take it with a grain of salt :)

Thunder Dreamss5 votes

An augment that changes his skills, and maybe even his attacks to make him into a short range bruiser-type mage. An augment that turns him into a long range artillery-type mage. An augment that turns him into a controller... so on and so forth.

This really is what he should have. Pick one augmentation that provides bonuses and penalties to every aspect of his kit such that it truly adapts his play to the needs of the game.

Rothmi4 votes

While this all sounds nice and dandy, I disagree. The point of a champion is to have a kit and a specific roll, and while the idea of an evolving champ is cool, it's really more a flashy way of adding to their kit as the game goes on, giving them more fun stuff to play with at the end of the game. The difference between Viktor and Kha and Syndra is very wide, to draw them all in the same boat is a bit of a stretch

  • Syndra gains buffs to help her abilities, but they are rooted to the ability your ability leveling and, to be honest I don't really count the passive increases. They are nice and shiny but it's like arguing between a 15% and 20% slow, not really that amazing
  • Kha gains buffs to help his abilities, but they are rooted to your play style. He IS an evolving character, which is evident with all the recent chatter about what is really best to evolve first. If you want an evolving champ like you talk about, play Kha.
  • Now to Vik. Viktor is a beautiful robot of a man between both of the above champs, and what you want is a bit out of whack. Viktor has the power and utility of both champs, but he doesn't get that for free like the others.

This really is what he should have. Pick one augmentation that provides bonuses and penalties to every aspect of his kit such that it truly adapts his play to the needs of the game.

Now at the whole evolving part. To change him in his entirety to suit the fight is a bit OP. Every champ in the game has a counter, and to be able to counter a counter is too strong. Just play him as it and roll with the punches. If anything to unsavory comes about him I'll be right there with you, but for now leave him alone with you bruiser mage stuffs. It you want a bruiser play Morde or Grag, leave Vik alone.

Thunder Dreamss1 votes

The point of a champion is to have a kit and a specific roll

We will have to disagree on this. If anything I think the mentality that all champs need to fit into one of six rolls is one of the big balance problems Riot has.* If all marksmen are based on their auto-attacks dealing consistent damage over time you will invariably run into some of them being better at dealing damage with aa's and thus being strait up stronger marksmen and crowding out others in the same roll.

Where Viktor is concerned, I don't even play him but what I would like to see when fighting with/against him is for the most notable things about him - his hex core and his evolution theme - to be prominent and important to his play style. Right now this is not the case.

' * This isn't to say Riot always suffers this problem. It mostly crops up when they try to balance a champion with respect to the meta. "These tops are too strong, NERF. What do you mean they are now unplayed and a new batch are OP?!?"

edit: What if we moved away from the idea of Viktor the bruiser mage but kept the "hex core upgrades effect his whole kit" angle? I'm thinking something like upgrade A gives bonus damage on all skills, upgrade 2 increases his range and aoe on all skills, upgrade 3 has a strong active ability. None change the kind of mage he is but which you chose will depend heavily on how you want all his abilities to act rather than just choosing which single ability to boost.

Rothmi1 votes

We will have to disagree on this. If anything I think the mentality that all champs need to fit into one of six rolls is one of the big balance problems Riot has.* If all marksmen are based on their auto-attacks dealing consistent damage over time you will invariably run into some of them being better at dealing damage with aa's and thus being strait up stronger marksmen and crowding out others in the same roll.

You misunderstand me. Yes, you can define most champs by one of 6 but when I say "specific roll" I mean the more definite stuff: Initiator, follow up. Burst, sustained fight. High vs low cc, hard vs soft cc. Tanky, squishy, split pusher or team fighter or both. AoE zoner (like Viktor) or single target nuker (like Veigar).

Like, two champs that rely on AA's are Cait and Ashe. But you can definitely say that their are times when you want Cait and times you want Ashe, because while both have a long AA range, Ashe can start a fight with her ult and Cait can play safer with her traps. Cait has more immediate damage with her passive but Ashe has a strong passive that rewards you for waiting to fight and go in when you want to.

Its these little things that we can't switch around on people. To say that VIktor would be able to change from an average mage then make him a tank, or then a cc master, or then a long range poker is what I am saying is OP, because how do you build against that? It creates this ebb and flow of a rock paper scissors kind of deal that you the player can't keep up with but he can.

Thunder Dreamss1 votes

What if we moved away from the idea of "Viktor the bruiser mage or tank or cc master on demand" but kept the "hex core upgrades effect his whole kit" angle?

I'm thinking something like upgrade A gives bonus damage on all skills, upgrade 2 increases his range and aoe on all skills, upgrade 3 has a strong active ability. None change the kind of mage he is but which you chose will depend heavily on how you want all his abilities to act rather than just choosing which single ability to boost.

Stephenizgod4 votes

Hmm it might just be me but i dont feel too much pride when i hit my Lasers, i feel only joy... a very evil sinister joy, i laugh when i watch them try to run only to be burned to death >:D

RIOT!! WHY YOU TAKE THIS AWAY FROM ME?!?!?

Seriously when they said they were reworking Viktor i thought it meant buffing his core kit, like making the shield instantaneous, because lets be real by the time you receive the shield they have already done their damage or left. I thought they were going to fix his passive which made him useless late game, like a second tier or something. Also i was hoping they would fix his Ult, im so sick and tired of them walking away with 5 hp because they dashed once or have slightly more move speed then i do, yes i know rylais blah blah blah but i hate that item...

Here is my thoughts on his laser, KEEP IT THE SAME! keep the DoT, keep everything about it the same. If you are going to change it make it so if i try to laser outside its range i dont run forward, idk how many times ive hid in a bush and tried to laser only to step out of the bush and give away my position, Yes i know thats my fault but if you are going to change something then thats it right there.

Lord Graves III1 votes

To be fair, his Q is getting phat buffs, and the new level 3 Hex Core looks sick. I feel the small hit to Death Ray is a small price to pay for actually getting to perfect our technology.

Stephenizgod1 votes

This is true but i really love the Death augment DoT :(

Hexmage3 votes

I agree, although the leaked second-tier augments were a bit OP. Perhaps some tweaks on those, and Viktor would be ready to rock and roll.

333lom2 votes

Absolutely.

suckitsummoner3 votes

IMO Viktor is fine. Everyone is just crying out for reworks and updates for champions they don't play and don't even know what their skill sets even are. They just jump on the bandwagon to rework city at full speed. I love my Viktor the way he is. I can live with being able to get the 3 augments if it doesn't break him, but the rest? No.

333lom3 votes

That's right, people that almost never even played the champion request changes and then scream in excitement when something happens - and thus create a false image of the community, where in fact, the people that actually play the said champion are not happy at all. But they get downvoted because of others who don't even understand the situation.

I would be the first one to take old Viktor instead the reworked one. He is perfectly fine the way he is now.

Lord Graves III3 votes

I mained Viktor early in Season 3. I am ecstatic about these changes. You don't speak for everyone who loves Viktor. Neither do I, but I recommend we all embrace this glorious evolution.

SilverDrake3 votes

Victor is OK. he isn't' fine. The ranges on the spells are all over the place and his q is kinda weak. compared to other point and click spells mainly because if your behind it doesn't shield enough when your ahead the shield doesn't get used.

Lord Graves III1 votes

Viktor has strong burst but low range, low reliability, and 2/3s of his passive are outright trap options. The dude has been a mess since he was released.

suckitsummoner3 votes

Since people are downvoting, I decided to reply even though I hate people that come to the forums writting their college dissertations.

I'm going to assume the downvotes are coming from the "I love my Viktor the way he is..." and not the "Everyone is crying out for reworks..." , because if you're downvoting because of the latter, you're blind, sorry. (let's start the downvotes right here, because "I insult people").

Now, this is going to be directed to mostly those that played Viktor a lot, or still play him: You're excited about the changes, because you like Viktor even though he has mostly hard matchups, right? So let's see what they're doing to him.

His Q: It's a nerf. The damage and shield scales less, and while you get an AA buff, Viktor is in the category of mages with shortest AA range. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the smallest range on a mage is 525, which is his case. The shield being granted upon cast will make it easier to actually protect from damage, but it shields for so little it probably just save you from an ignite tick at early levels at max.

His W: Not much to say. It has less range augmented, but pulls stunned enemies to the center augmented. The problem with gravity field was never that the stunned enemies were too far way for you to take advantage, it was the cast range itself. So the augmented W nerfs him, but bringing them close to the center, while not much of a compensation, I won't call it a straight nerf because it just a minor tweak.

His E: The scalings on his death ray are staying the same for now, the only change being the augmented E instead of dealing DoT equal to 30% of his E damge, it deals 40% of the E damage in a delayed explosion where the ray hit, or 100% if the target didn't get hit by the ray. So, the new augment deals more damage, but it can be avoided, unlike before. So if you're going into a 1v1 the enemy might be able to dodge that 40%, maybe burning a flash, which while worth it for you, but champions with dashes will probably be able to avoid it without wasting a 5 minute cooldown spell, like Ezreal's Essense Flux, Katarina's Shunpo, etc. So this is pretty much a nerf if your opponent knows how to play against Viktor. You get more damage, but part of that damage can be avoided, while before it couldn't be.

His R: The cast damage is the same, but if you make the maths you'll conclude the DoT is smaller, meaning that while later in the game most of Viktor's Chaos Storm damage comes from the cast itself, especially if you build a DFG, but earlier in the game, if you 1v1 your opponent in lane, having your R ticking while they're running away or chasing you would be enough to either scare them, or kill them. The range: You get a wider casting range, but a smaller DoT range. It would be easier to silence targets this way, but there's no silence anymore, so, much like his W, I believe this is a minor tweak. The speed: Your R moves 20% faster if you have the 3 augments, but unless you first item your 3 augments, you'll only have the speed buff later in the game, which, like I said before, you're using a DFG, you probably won't be using the DoT, just the inicial cast damage itself. It also has full movement if the storm is moving in Viktor direction. This is help with the problem I stated before, when you're trying to run away from an enemy and because the DoT deals less you won't be able to scare them away, but because it moves faster, it will keep up with the enemy easier. So it balances each other, right? But when you're running away, the enemy is usually near you, meaning that the storm moved fast enough before to keep up with him, but it still deals less damage.

(My dissertation ran out of characters so I'm going to add the rest of it in another comment).

suckitsummoner3 votes

The silence: The silence is being removed to be replaced with a channel stopping ability. Many people complained that a 0.5s was a too small of a window to make many plays, so now instead of having "a bad silence" you don't get a silence at all. And its replacement is something that it only works upon cast, meaning that it was replaced by something that has an even smaller window of opportunity to use. It's easy to see that this went downstairs instead of up. But it seems that Riot is removing most of silences, so maybe this was done because of a previous decision they took even before discussing Viktor's rework. They're giving us these "channel stopping abilities" to compensate, but they're so situational that this is pretty much just something so people can say that you still have "CC" on your ability. I am quoting CC because I don't believe stopping an ability is a proper CC form. CC is somehtig that allows you to set up or make plays. A silence, while short, is able to stop an enemy from escape, or helping you get away, while stopping a channel won't do any of these two most of the time. Silencing an enemy if I'm running away may stop him from flashing in and giving me a killing blow, or stop him from casting movement speed spells. And a silence will stop an enemy from getting away from a CC chain, while a channel stop, again, won't. But going back to the topic about replacing silence with channel stopping abilities, I wonder why didn't LeBlanc get this channel stopping ability when they removed her silence, even if it's not useful. But this isn't Viktor related so let's move on. Before talking about the cast time, I'd just like to give an example: I have forced many flashes due to my silence that I won't be able to force with a channel stopping ability. If you're trying to catch an opponent off guard/chasing him, what you can do is cast your gravity field so you get at least a slow, and then get closer to cast your R. And while Viktor isn't very mobile to catch up with people, the slow ammount is sometimes enough. The enemy knows you have a silence available, so unless they have other dashes available, they'll probably flash away so they don't get silenced on top a slow/stun. But not anymore, because if your enemy, while slowed, thinks he can tank your R casting damage, they may not flash away, and then use some sort of CC so you can't keep the Chaos Storm close and can't catch them with Q and E.

The cast time: The cast time went from 0.33s to 0.25, about 35-40% less casting time. This is good, but Viktor's biggest problem was having a cast time at all. If you apply the cast time to the situation I've just talked about, having a cast time, even with a silence, allows the enemy to be able to dash/flash out of your silence. And while forcing a flash is always good, if you instantly silence them they either die just because of your R cast damage, or even if they could tank it, being silence would make you be able to hit Q and E and probably kill them.

So Viktor doesn't silence anymore, but still has a cast time. Not very good at all.

suckitsummoner3 votes

So what's left? The item itself. I've talked about the buffs to the abilities the augments give to Viktor's spells, so the only thing left are the stats themselves.

The item: Many of us while playing Viktor wanted, or at least thought, of what would be like to be able to get all 3 augments and stack them. Now you can. But the stats aren't the same. People that don't know what they're talking about say that Viktor is all about adapting, and while that is true, and being able to buy 3 augments is adaptive, they now bring pretty much the same to the table stat-wise. Before you could get the Death augment, that just gave 45 AP, while the Gravity gave you Mana, Mana Regen, and CDR, and the Power gave you HP and HP Regen. Now each just gives you AP and Mana. While this may sound good to the usual Viktor player, i.e.: going mid and go glass-cannon build, if you wanted to play Viktor in other ways, like maybe going AP support, or going AP mid but not in a "assassin" way, you could choose which one you wanted. Now each of them gives you about 25 AP and 150 mana. So you can't count on Mana or HP Rengen, and maybe the 2nd most important thing about his current augments besides the 45 AP from Death, the 10% CDR from Gravity. Gold-wise is probably in the same zone as before, because while 3000g for 75 AP and 500 Mana doesn't sound much, you still get the AA proc and the explosion damage. But versatility-wise, it has been a nerfed. You'll probably still need a Mana Regen item, as well as a CDR one, and you can't turn to the augments for that.

So there you go, 2 complete dissertations explaining my 1st comment. I hope you don't downvote now, because before I was against the rework without explaning, and now this may make you see why it's a bad rework.

Rothmi3 votes

Here's my two cents:

  • Tbh, your whole post was tl;dr. simplify it a bit and I know this is bad on me but you gotta manage that wall of text
  • His new passive isn't overpowered. The AP justifies the cost and if you wanted to walk away saying he had any sliver of a niche it is this. It would be like saying they halved all his AP ratios but then gave him a passive that doubled his AP... Do the math it adds up. But now it's even better.
  • His Q new Q is good. His new Q is utility. His old Q augment was not worth the gold you spent on it, and the new Q augment is worth it now that you can get the full build.
  • His W is one of the hardest abilities to land outright, and while you say that the ability to get every enemy in a small area is no good, that's because you aren't thinking like a team player. C'mon, your saying that no one on your team that benefit from all your enemies being grouped into a neat little pile!? Get creative!
  • **I agree with you on E. I liked the burn and this is a bit to close to Vel'koz. Here's my idea: Make the whole explosion thing start before the laser finishes. Like lets say the laser travels A>B>C. When the tip of the laser gets from B, then the explosion starts at A, laser tip at C and explosion at B. So its not immediately Vel'koz, but also it's still what the developer wants. So, you have a smaller window to dodge the second hit of the E but also the second hit isn't the primary focus of the damage, the laser is still strong by itself. **
RomanorumLegio3 votes

It really is amazing to see how die-hard the Viktor community is given how neglected that we have generally been.

Now, as another Viktor main I will give my opinion again, but altered for the context of this board. :D

Hexcore

I agree that a true "Ultimate Hexcore" is just a lazy way to go about the issue. Also, I think a lot of people, including other Viktor mains, underestimate Viktor's true power. The majority of the current proposals to change the Hexcore would make Viktor truly overpowered, and I know that the last thing that we all want to see is Viktor being hit by the nerf bat. My personal solution to the "late-game problem" that everyone is complaining about is extremely conservative compared to anything else that I've seen. I would give Viktor a third tier to the Hexcore that has 3 small, percentage based bonuses that the player could choose from (I'm talking like 5% small).

The new idea that I have synergized based upon my own feelings and from reading posts by others, is along the lines of what you mentioned, with Viktor picking up another Augment as a second-tier. (It would technically be a third tier, but everyone seems to forget the base Hexcore.) The magor difference that I would add is to make it so that when an Augment is chosen as a second tier, it would be weaker than if it was purchased as the first. This would have the additional benefit of increasing strategy from "what to get" to also include "in what order".

Power Transfer

I actually love what Riot is doing to the base ability. By making the shield instant, it will now also be useful in mitigating nukes with proper reflexes instead of only being useful in extended trades.

The extended range will allow better trading with other long-range mages (Lux, Xerath, ect), especially because it is currently almost unusable when trading with them.

The fact that Viktor will now need to auto-attack to deal the full damage of the power transfer is actually meaningless if you use it to full effectiveness now. Currently on Live, given the extremely similar ranges of power transfer and Viktor's auto-attacks means that if the power transfer is not being followed up with an auto-attack means that you are missing out on free damage.

In summation, the new power transfer will open up more options, but will still do the same thing that it currently does as long as you are doing the same thing.

Gravity Field

I feel like you hit it almost dead on here.

I still do have some slightly different opinions. I don't think missing because of the pull will be as big as a deal as many make it out to be; I'd imagine that the pull would be at a constant rate for easy aiming. Also, the pulling could be fairly useful depending on your team composition. (I'm looking at you, Vi and Malphite.)

Death Ray

Hear we go. Clears throat.

Can we all stop assuming that the new "explosion" passive will be like Vel'Koz's W?

It will no longer apply a DOT on hit, but instead an explosion will follow the initial laser's wake. -Solcrushed

Solcrushed never said anything on how the new death ray Augment will work mechanically.

I have seen everyone say that that they like the current burn Augment just feels rewarding, but nobody gives any good reason as to why that is. What people fail to realize that on top of just increasing damage in general, it also increases the AP ratio on hit death ray. This is because the burn damage is calculated after AP, so it increases the AP ratio from 70% to 91%.

Taking away the burn does hit Viktor in one major way that I've seen nobody talk about is the Liandry's build. This is my personal favorite and will be severly nerfed without the burn. If you didn't know, Liandry's burn gets refreshed by every tick of a DOT. I will miss my seven second liandry's burn.

As a side note, increasing the difficult of Viktor is NOT a bad thing. He is similar to other champions like Orianna in that they are vary high0skill champions in both barrier to entry and skill cap. Therefore, difficulty should not be a concern.

The Anagram King2 votes

Hey dude. Like the post, but got a gripe before I get too deep into analysis:

Q isn't a projectile anymore. It's instant. And, provided the cast time isn't obscene, you'll not be having too much trouble when following up with the auto. Especially after getting that speed boost. The rework team has just gotta make sure that cast animation isn't, like, half a second long - because missing that AA is going to be a big deal, as you've already outlined.

I've already made threads resembling something akin to Hotarukin's suggestion, below: http://forums.na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=4038723&highlight=viktor

And if I had creative control, I definitely would have pushed for Vik's augments to reinvent his playstyle, dependent upon which augment he chooses. But I am, in fact, looking forward to this rework.

Now some parts do seem iffy. The E explosion, we have no information on, for example. And the W sucking in targets seems like a swing and a miss, as far as augmented effects go.

But it seems as though Vik will have a rather vicious late-game kit, while retaining his early-game gank vulnerabilities and stuff (tying his late-game abilities directly to gold dependence is a rather awesome way to capitalise on his immobility in order to promote a team-play weakness). It's a good base design. It really is.

Through all of this, I only have one gripe. Just one:

I am being forced into a single end-game.

I don't get to be tanky Viktor with tank items, or support Viktor with support items. The augment is strong now, sure - but it's AP, mana, and the same 3 augmented abilities right into end-game. And I know I shouldn't be greedy, but... y'know.

I'm kind've sad.

My only hope is that, if the rework doesn't pan out well enough to satiate my desire to excel in every role, that petitions could be made in the future to add new augments on every season or so - to make Viktor a 'work in progress', so to speak. I don't know if that's realistic, but there's just so much missing from his core theme if he's to be nothing more than mid-lane burst mage.

I will reiterate, however - what Solcrushed has done, in creating an end-game augment, is an awesome thing. And he shouldn't feel bad about it. I just want something similar for support and top-lane Viktor.

Lord Graves III2 votes

The thing is, those playstyles are still supported. The Q still gives movespeed and the W still gets increased range. The support and Top lane build comes from your other item choices.

Its just that now late game they also get the death ray augment.

The Anagram King1 votes

I should probably clarify: I like the new augment. I'm just bummed that I don't get my other augments.

The 220 health may not have been huge, but it was a good 1k gold investment. I won't get that anymore, which is a bummer.

The Hexmage2 votes

I think that the new E is good, also Solcrushed never said the speed of the explosion, so don't post this type of posts when we don't now how is in-game

Lord Graves III2 votes

This man knows whats up.

Lord Graves III2 votes

I respectfully disagree.

The Power Transfer change sounds great because it has the exact same gameplay Power Transfer already has. Which is to say you cast it then auto attack to trade. It just increases the reliability of the shield. Its range is also going up. This is a flat upgrade. You are requesting a shorter range and a worse shield in exchange for not needing to autoattack after cast. You sound crazy. Because it is basically a flat upgrade players will not be forced into buying Power first. Though buying it could be a valid choice. We use Q then autoattack trade already and you never buy Power Augment anyway. And if you did you just handicapped yourself.

The Gravity Field change sets Viktor's other spells up nicely. I suppose I'm in the minority but I feel Viktor W is a brutal CC spell. Dropping it mid teamfight can ruin your enemies day. The spell is only getting better for defensive purposes. If you use it after your opponent's dash then they are dead in the water for you to hit them with everything else. Also, Viktor was already a "Snare and Kill" mage. He just wasn't good at it. Viktor's most damaging burst combo was to slam the enemy with all your spells at once and lock them in W underneath your Chaos Storm. Also, who cares if the augmented range is less than the current live augmented range. You never buy Gravity Augment anyway. And if you did you just handicapped yourself.

The Death Ray changes are interesting. It does add some drama in my opinion. The ray causing the earth to crack and explode under its power sounds cool as hell, and it gives interesting incentives. You can draw a line for your enemies to cross, you can cut people off with the damage field. While kiting enemies you can hit them with the primary blast, and if they don't change course (losing ground) eat an explosion helping Viktor maintain distance. Death ray can still kill people in fog of war, they just might need to be a mite lower health than they used to. In exchange, opponents get to interact with Viktor.

And heads up Having all 3 augments VS not having all 3 is not the difference between balanced and overpowered. However many they have they all factor into the same power budget. If the power isn't in augments then it goes to base spells. Period.

I personally love the viktor changes proposed and I relish the opportunity to eventually build myself into VIKTOR PRIME!!!

TLDR: Join the glorious evolution!

Courier Eight2 votes

I'm withholding my judgement until I can try him on the PBE (Hopefully tomorrow, rito plz), but to me I'm disappointed in his augment direction. To me (long time Viktor player), the ideal Viktor rework would be one that preserved his ability to choose the type of mage he wanted to be. If I wanted to be a nuke mage, then Augment Death- If I wanted to be an AP bruiser, then Augment Power- and Viktor could even support with Augment Gravity. That's what made his passive's potential so cool- I can adapt Viktor to the needs of the game. Granted, once you picked it was permanent, but that keeps things fair. You get benefits, and you get drawbacks, but at the end of the day you were flexible.

Now, that being said, I know none of y'all bought anything besides Augment Death, and I don't blame you. As it stood, those other augments were sub-par, at best. New Viktor, play-style wise, is nearly identical to how you play him Augment Death style. Toss out E poke, wait for a good gravity well, then full-combo the sucker. New Viktor does this really well, it sounds like! Making Q's shield readily accessible helps his laning a ton already, and Lich Bane'll probably make Q incredibly viable for damage, particularly as part of his full nuke combo. Losing q poke is fine to me because it never was beneficial anyways- if you try to get in range for q you'd get rekt before you even get that shield back anyways. If I want to poke, I'll poke with E, and if I want a shield, now I can use Q. Getting sucked to the center of gravity well also still sounds great to me, because that makes it way easier to land the full burst of his ult's impact, and it can set up really nasty wombo combos now.

Tl;Dr, this Viktor's a way better Augment Death-style Viktor, at the sad sad cost of his alternate playstyles being locked away forever.

Brindale1 votes

Pretty sure Viktor came before Kha

Morgrom1 votes

Yup

Lighthorn1 votes

For me, I'm perfectly happy with the Q changes. Catching low health targets at max range is going to be harder but we'll see. For the E, if it does more dmg from the explosion that's cool, in addition when you draw the laser path, it forms a "dmg wall" of enemies who want to pass it. The W, I don't like the W augment, that pull can be great, but for me I just rather have something else.

Morgrom1 votes

Boy, we sure were wrong about this. New Viktor is great

More from Gameplay

3 Refunds per season, upvote if you want 3 refunds per season.
Gameplay764 comments
7,167
votes
3 Refunds per season, upvote if you want 3 refunds per season.
Gameplay156 comments
3,510
votes
UPVOTE FOR URF
Gameplay606 comments
2,440
votes
Yes plz.
Gameplay456 comments
1,721
votes
3 Refunds per season, up vote if you want 3 refunds per season.
Gameplay114 comments
1,716
votes
When is ANYONE at riot going to address the awful new player experience?
Gameplay634 comments
1,383
votes

More by 333lom

Here are my edits for Kayle's base visuals
Story, Art, & Sound54 comments
136
votes
Please Riot, did you not understand Viktor's character at all?
Story, Art, & Sound169 comments
133
votes
Aristocrat Viktor skin concepts
Concepts & Creations29 comments
121
votes
Designing a champion - Braum's Momma!
Concepts & Creations66 comments
110
votes
Additional Arcade skins! @Riot Skins team!
Story, Art, & Sound87 comments
101
votes
Ivern has some sick replies to taunts
Memes & Games18 comments
100
votes