Lightning Bear: Volibear VGU Discussion
Volibear, the bear who would be everyone's favorite bear if he wasn't so easily forgotten. He's one of many characters who's been slated for a VGU, and I, being your resident Juggernaut enthusiast, would like to talk about him. But before we talk about what he COULD be, let's go over what he IS right now.
http://static.zerochan.net/Volibear.full.1523582.jpg
#In Theme
Volibear is a champion with a simple, yet appealing theme; he's a bear-man with lightning powers. It's simple, it's straightforward, and it's a little goofy, but it kinda works. He doesn't have a lot of nuance, because he doesn't need it; his goals and ambitions are up-front, which I think adds to his charm.
#In Gameplay
Volibear is part of the Juggernaut subgroup; immobile fighter-tanks who exceed at doing heavy sustained damage but usually struggle getting into fights. Despite the very simple nature of his kit, Volibear actually serves a relatively unique role among his peers, acting as more of a secondary tank, with strong follow-up initiation. Volibear's passive is a strong second wind effect, giving him a powerful heal-over-time. His Q is a respectable MS steroid, boosted when approaching enemy champions, and enhancing his next AA to flip the opponent over him. His W is probably his most iconic ability; a health-scaling execute attack that gives him tremendous killing power against squishies while building heavily into tank items. His E is an instant, PBAoE slow around himself that lasts for 3 seconds and fears creeps. And his R is an on-hit modifier that gives him lightning damage, which chains to multiple enemies.
Volibear's primary strengths are in his durability thanks to passive, his disruption and catch potential thanks to Q+E ESPECIALLY when paired with Righteous Glory or an MS boosting support, and his W giving him the power to clean up a squishy who makes the mistake of getting near him. His biggest weaknesses are his susceptibility to crowd control and kiting in teamfights, and his abhorrently bad DPS, a trait that's not really common among juggernauts and which makes him abnormally bad at fighting and killing tanks.
The biggest problem with Volibear, in terms of kit alone, is his hyper-simple play style. He is one of two champions who I would say have absolutely no depth or decision-making to them in the slightest. Volibear will do the same thing every time in a conflict; he'll run at you with Q, slow you with E, and then beat you down with auto attacks until he's confident he can kill you with his bite. He's simultaneously too reliable, because absolutely nothing he does can miss or requires any effort to do, and too unreliable, because in 5v5s he has a hard time actually getting to the targets he NEEDS to be getting to in order to say that he contributed to his team's victory. Because of this, Volibear is just not a champion that Riot is keen on letting thrive, in a game that has long moved past his type of designs and is quickly leaving him in the dust.
#What should we do with him?
In terms of his theme, I do not think that Volibear needs many touch-ups. What should happen is a change in the execution, in how his gameplay is handled, because unlike a lot of older champions, his theme is fine; Volibear does not have a confused identity, or just none at all; he suffers from an unfulfilled identity in the game. For being a champion whose main appeals are being a bear and fighting with lightning claws, he only has lightning on his ultimate, and it's one of the most underwhelming ultimates, to boot. The biggest change I would like to see as far as his 'theme' goes is to make him fight in a more skilled manner. He should have a combination of 'skilled hand-to-hand warrior' and 'lightning wielder' in his kit, reflected with less beast-like attacks than he has now (maybe excluding his bite) and showing more reserved, calculated punches and claws, etc. I think we have enough 'savage' fighters now between Rengar, Warwick, K6, Rek'Sai, Shyvana, and Udyr (and I might be forgetting more!); a beast-warrior who shows real talent and discipline in their attacks would be a VERY welcome change of pace. Give him a basis in martial arts, even, something that reflects that the Ursine have traditions, and these traditions should include how they conduct themselves in war.
there's a lot of cool shit you could do with lightning though. I think some of the best examples I could pull up at a moment's notice would be a few miracles from Dark Souls:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQ35GCCPeRs
https://youtu.be/79pb_i2Mk6A?t=59
https://youtu.be/gjDZP7vkSl4?t=36
When it comes to his overall niche, though, I'm actually kind of fond of him as he is, or at least, what he does; he's sort of the 'opposite' of the standard Juggernaut, who has naturally high-damage with strong bases and scalings, and is usually conditionally tanky, either by having sustain tied to skillshots 
or gaining immense tankiness through an ability, usually an ultimate 
; Volibear, instead, is naturally very durable, and is conditionally a damage threat. I like this; give him tools to better survive the start of a fight, better tools to get in than other Juggernauts, but make it so that he has to commit to a fight much longer than most of them before he can start to pop off. I think that this 'feeling' of him being a big wall of health who can become a damage monster if left unchecked should stay, even if his current kit is completely scrapped.
And on the note of his kit, there are a few things that need to happen, regardless of how much he changes:
- Volibear needs variance. He needs some way to be outplayed, so that he can also have the means to outplay. Give him a condition to work towards, give him a skillshot, anything. This should be a top priority.
- A satisfying ultimate would go a very long way to making this champion much more memorable and enjoyable to players. The measly on-hit effect he has right now could easily be squeezed onto a passive with the right tuning; an ultimate really shouldn't have that kind of feel to it, honestly.
I do not feel very strongly towards any of Volibear's spells in their current form. They're not very visually satisfying, and aside from his bite, they aren't satisfying in the stupidly-high-damage way, either. I would be completely fine with rebuilding his kit as long as his theme and general purpose stays the same. Some directions I would be happy to explore further:
-
Give Volibear normal abilities that have lightning on them. Very loud, and noticeable lightning attacks to really drive home that feeling of him being empowered by the Storm. Perhaps slap his ultimate onto his passive, but make it conditional upon getting a certain number of hits in, or having to stack up to do maximum damage/spread to as many enemies as possible.
-
Keep his lightning powers restricted to his ultimate's cooldown, but have that ultimate also empower his normal abilities with lightning effects. This gives him a more reserved reward, but it'll feel a lot better when he finally gets to unleash his electric powers in a teamfight, since the 'lightning' theme isn't oversaturated and spread across too many of his abilities. I didn't like this at first, but I've come to like it the more I've thought about it; giving him a nice, large window where he just gets to go nuts for a while would definitely be suitable for Volibear.
That's about all I have to say. I'd be interested in talking about Volibear's future, what you would like to see from him, and if you like anything I've written. I don't think I need to tell anyone this, but I'm always willing (and eager) to talk about juggernaut-style champions and how to make them great.
