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Can we please make Sivir live up to her theme? (A Rework discussion thread)

SaltyToplaneGoat··3 votes·1,073 views

Let's all be honest here: putting winrate and popularity aside and looking at her kit you have to admit that her abilities are kind of... lame. Both in complexity and in internal interaction. The only reason she is even strong (or at least viable, not sure about her current status) is purely because of stat boosts (attack speed from W mostly and movement speed).

But her theme could be so much more than just a walking ball of stats that resembles a Xena parody... It starts with the fact that her lore and her title are completly out of touch. She's the leader of a group of shuriman bandits, greedy and brutal and always working for the one who pays most. How the hell does her old title of a "Battle Mistress" even fit into that? That's just a relict from the time they made her and we all know that Riot's champion design kind of sucked sometimes back then, especially compared to the releases of the last two years. They made a Xena-Parody and strapped some weird weapon and clunky boomerang mechanics onto that (a mechanic that Gnar also has, but in a way better functionality).

Not to mention that massive waste of potential. You have a character with an unique weapon that has potential magical properties (it was the sealing key for Xerath's tomb, that might explain the spellshield ability as it absorbs magic) and yet there is nothing in her kit that would translate this into an unqiue combat style apart from one lame skillshot and a stat boost for right-clicking.

But since lore is in a bit of a mess now anyways (still waiting for the full shurima lore btw... we were promised it woulod come "after Bilgewater... well still waiting), let's focus on the gameplay aspects:

The passive is completly unnoticable, Q feels absolutly lame to use (and looks kinda weird), W could be scrapped entirely (oh hey I suddenly duplicate my weapon out of thin air and make them bounce everywhere. Is there even logic in that?), Spellshield is fine, could use some interaction with the rest of the kit tho and the ult could use some love too...

Now, let me stop my nagging so I can now list the reasons why people actually like playing this champ:

1.) The utility ultimate is unique among marksmen. 2.) Spellshield (no further comment here, explains itself) 3.) The "I'm gonna fuck you up" - button, in this case W. 4.) Her trademark Q, but it's kinda lame in the current version.

Going from these four points I started working on a better version of her current kit that would fit her better while also trying to turn her into the awesome and dangerous person her lore describes her as.

Passive: Bandit's Tax After killing an enemy Sivir can channel next to the corpse to gain X bonus gold at the end of the channel. If it is disrupted by enemy champion damage or cc zero gold is awarded.

A simple thing that should bring something unique to league, as we have not a single character that interacts with the corpses of champions. Also she's a bandit always greedy for the gold. Just be careful your greed does not get you killed ingame...

Q: Crossblade Throw Sivir throws her weapon in a curved line, damaging all enemies the blade passes through before returning to her. While the crossbalde is in the air, Sivir uses throwing daggers to attack, but they deal less damage. Her movement-speed is increased while she is not weighted down by the weapon.

An improved version of the Q that is no longer just some weird "back and forth"-projectile, but works more like a real boomerang. Also, the alternative attack just makes sense. You just THREW AWAY YOUR MAIN WEAPON. How the hell are you supposed to attack with it when you just threw it away? However, this limitation allows for buffs in other areas.

W: (Couldn't think of a good name, will add one later) Passive Part: X movement speed upon basic attacking. Active: Reaches out with the crossblade and rotates it at rapid speed, turning it into a murderous semi-melee weapon. Cannot be cast while Q is active.

This is the new "I'm gonna fuck you up"-skill I mentioned earlier, taking over the function as a replacement to the current W which she doesn't need as the Q should be enough for her poke&waveclear. For this skill I want the goryest and bloodiest VFX Riot can come up with, as this will be one fucked up, dirty, and brutal move, perfectly fitting for someone like Sivir.

E: Spellshield Sivir creates a magical barrier using her weapon and gains X mana when the shield is broken. When the blade is in the air during Crossblade Throw, the weapon immedeatly returns to Sivir, dealing bonus damage to all enemies in its path and grants her the shield upon arrival.

Barely any functionality changes, just added some interaction with her Q. In combination with the new W this skill pretty much exists to fuck assassins over. Another reason why I like it ^^

R: (Same name problem here) Summons a sandstorm that increases the speed of allies and decreases the vision of enemies inside, but deals no damage. Can be channeled to increase area and duration, instant-cast only boosts Sivir and allies close to her. Inside the storm the channel time required for Bandit's Tax is halved.

So, here we have a little trick that Sivir learned after her encounter with Azir. Sure, she's no ascended nor can she summon soldiers, buildings or entire cities... but she can at least cause something a simple as kicking some sand into the enemies faces - in a slightly bigger scale. Thsi allows epic engages, but also quick getaways. The two things her ult is also doing now, but with a bit more impact.

So for the "charging" of the storm: first it effects a cricle around her, some charging means the circle slightly grows before expanding in one direction, similiar to Nami's ultimate.

So this would be my concept for a short ranged but deadly markswoman with Sivir's theme. Also, maybe one should change her title to "The Storm of the Desert" or something epic like that. Her current one just doesn't make any sense...

With this version I tried to give her some bit of complexity while trying to keep her core identity, both in lore and gameplay aspects...

So, what do you think of these ideas? Criticism? Ideas? or just questions to his this is supposed to work? Just put all that down here ^^

EDIT: Because someone misunderstood it: the W is supposed to be a short active spell. Not some reverse Kayle W. You deal massive damage in an small area right next to you - that's what I thought about it.

Play pattern I thought of: Q out -> call blade crossblade back with E -> shred their faces with W. Perfect against squishy targets that are stupid enough to come close to you ^^

9 Comments

Blade of Justic2 votes

The thing that confuses me the most is this:

Name one skill in her kit that has to do with her being a bandit for hire.

There isn't one. She's just the chakram/boomerang girl.

She needs something like "When assisting in a kill of an enemy champion, Sivir gains gold equal to that of the kill instead of the assist gold."

I feel like lore should come first, then gameplay.

SaltyToplaneGoat1 votes

Yepp, Lore > Gameplay. This is for example how the Sion rework was such a success. They took a good look at his theme and started working from there. The same with Fiora or Gangplank (and the other way around the reason the Karma rework failed. Damn, I'm still salty about that one).

I don't think a simple bonus gold-per-kill is enough for this. That's already Draven's thing. You have to work for that money. Pillaging corpses seems a pretty nice bandit thing to do, don't you think? ^^

Blade of Justic3 votes

[{quoted}](name=Kyoki Shinkuro,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=it3vJaP7,comment-id=00020000,timestamp=2015-09-22T20:00:18.146+0000)

Yepp, Lore > Gameplay. This is for example how the Sion rework was such a success. They took a good look at his theme and started working from there. The same with Fiora or Gangplank (and the other way around the reason the Karma rework failed. Damn, I'm still salty about that one).

I don't think a simple bonus gold-per-kill is enough for this. That's already Draven's thing. You have to work for that money. Pillaging corpses seems a pretty nice bandit thing to do, don't you think? ^^

How about minions sometimes drop gold but enemy champions guarantee a gold drop.

Like Thresh's souls, you have to collect it.

SaltyToplaneGoat1 votes

The thing with drops is that they can be simply collected. Having to channel for a few seconds gives the whole thing a lot more risk and tension... But drops could also work out, I think...

SaltyToplaneGoat1 votes

Upvotes and downvotes coming... but not a single comment... weird... ya guys shy or something? ^^

Rezzenthel1 votes

This may just be my own opinion but i must disagree with you on essentially all points. The chunking power of her Q feels very satisfying to use, nothing in the game fells better than blocking crucial cc with E, and furthermore you may fell as if the ult is nothing but a stat boost but i derive great pleasure from chasing the enemy team at full force and that run them down play style fits perfectly for a bandit.

If you want to argue the mystic weapon thing may I remind you that the blade has no reason to return to her other than by magic.

Tilomentry1 votes

You put too much emphasis on "real world logic" and in general it hinders your design. The Q for instance is just a weaker version of Ahri's Q since it reduces your own AA damage simply because "it doesn't make sense" for her to use her main weapon when its out and therefore must use weaker ones.

As for her W, what does it actually do? As far as I can tell, its like Kayle's E in reverse. You gain more damage but become a melee ranged fighter. I don't see how this skill serves a purpose any different than her current W other than being more flashy and "making more sense" because you can't have 3 boomeranges bouncing about.

In general, your remake makes the impression that you had a "flashy" and "logical" redesign to skill set. Non of it is actually more interesting to use than in her current kit and in some cases, takes away from her uniqueness.

SaltyToplaneGoat1 votes

Nah, right now it's a trash version of Ahri's Q (straight line in- >straight line back). The one I propose has a different flight pattern AND interacts with another skill in the kit.

Yeah, of course real world logic sucks. Let's give a champ like Sion sona's kit because who cares he's a giant undead juggernaut, he makes music now. You think that is stupid? Well, too bad we hate real life logic more than anything around here.

Also, I think you misunderstood the W. It's a short active move. You swing it out and cut an enemy apart (I would make it scale with attack speed now that i think about it).

Uhm, not sure what "uniqueness" you mean apart form being a clunky lame ball of stats. Literally the only thing I removed in this set was the W and gave the rest some added complexity - and you can't tell me that that was a identifying skill for her. Not to mention that the skill itself apart from the AS boost is pretty much one of the most useless things ever (assuming your opponent is not some full bronze tard).

Tilomentry1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Kyoki Shinkuro,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=it3vJaP7,comment-id=00030000,timestamp=2015-09-22T20:39:59.737+0000)

Nah, right now it's a trash version of Ahri's Q (straight line in- >straight line back). The one I propose has a different flight pattern AND interacts with another skill in the kit.

It's still a skillshot that fires out and returns and gives move speed while in flight. At the moment it may not be a unique mechanic of its own, but making it mechanically more like Ahri's ability homogenizes the game a little bit. That then requires more effort and enphasis on the rest of her kit in order to differentiate her or else it really will become a numbers game (Why play Sivir when Ahri does the same thing but better?)

Yeah, of course real world logic sucks. Let's give a champ like Sion sona's kit because who cares he's a giant undead juggernaut, he makes music now. You think that is stupid? Well, too bad we hate real life logic more than anything around here.

You mistake the logic of "Real world physics" with the logic of "consistency" (I'm sure there are real words for these but I couldn't be bothered).

Logic of "Real world physics" would demand that things be concistent with the physical laws of nature that we must submit to every day in real life. Anything we can't do real life but can do in an imaginary world would a viloation of that logic (Still holding onto a boomerang after having thrown it out and having 3 more bouncing around)

Logic of "Consistency" would demand that any effect was reasonably born from a cause that we were made aware of before hand. An example of this would be Brand being able to use fire because he is a magical being of fire. An example conflicting with this logic is Tryn firing an Ashe arrow that summoned Tibbers upon hitting an enemy (There's no information before hand indicating that this was possible nor is there evidence after that explains anything)

Sivir's ability throw out multiple boomerangs is not in conflict with "Consistency" because she is a ranged marksman that uses a boomerang as her primery weapon, so throwing a boomerang to attack makes perfect sense. You might argue "How does she throw multiple boomerangs" or "Where does she keep extras"? To this i ask; Where does Ashe get all her arrows? How does Graves shoot 3 bullets from 2 barrels at the same time? How can Olaf run around with 2 Axes if he throws 1 and never collects it back? That requires something called "Suspension of Disbelief" (<- that is a real thing) and it basically says to accept the impossible as possible for the sake of entertainment or in my words, ignoring the logic of "Real world physics"

Also, I think you misunderstood the W. It's a short active move. You swing it out and cut an enemy apart (I would make it scale with attack speed now that i think about it).

Uhm, not sure what "uniqueness" you mean apart form being a clunky lame ball of stats. Literally the only thing I removed in this set was the W and gave the rest some added complexity - and you can't tell me that that was a identifying skill for her. Not to mention that the skill itself apart from the AS boost is pretty much one of the most useless things ever (assuming your opponent is not some full bronze tard).

When I say "uniqueness", I refer to mechanics and playstyle that differentiate 1 champion (Sivir) from any other. Let's take Sivir's W for example. There is no other skill in the game that is quite like it. It will hit every single enemy within proximity of a cluster of enemies that she uses it on. There are plenty of other skills that bounce and there are even more that do waveclear. But imagine having a line of minions trailing from 1 nexus all the way to the other. Sivir's W is the only ability that can hit every single minion in that line with a single cast. A more realistic example might if a huge wave of minions were seiging a tower. With a little bit of AD and Armor pen, Sivir is the only one who can clear the entire wave with a single ability (barring some ults).

I say you take away uniquness from Sivir because your changes make her abilities more similar to ones already in existence.

As I stated earlier, your change her Q makes it essentially the same as Ahri's Q. The trajectory might be different but that only changes how enemies react to its use. Sivir will still throw it out to poke and use to mobility to dodge/run. You'll want to say that in it's current state, its just a crappier Ahri Q anyways but that isn't entirely true. Ahri might use her Q for damage and/or mobility but Sivir will only every use her Q for damage. The reason why each will use their ability is the important part.

The W change (at the moment) sounds to be either a point blank AoE or a single target, melee range damaging skill. This is less interesting than her current W on 2 parts. First, it is a generic skill (at the moment) that has no interesting mechanics or interactions with anything else. Second, it takes away from one of her core identities of a wave clear monster by replacing a unique skill with unparalleled wave clear capability (as stated earlier) with a skill that has less or possibly no wave clear.

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