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Changes to the Epic Monsters (Baron+Elder Ideas)

Kloqdq··3 votes·315 views

So Baron in this PvP game is like the end-game boss that every team is expected to try and challenge at some point. Teams will likely get multiple barons over the course of the game and the Baron itself is a big ticket. Elder Dragon basically serves the same end goal as well but is a little different.

Yet these two are the punk bitches of a epic monster.

So that's why I want to offer some changes to not only improve the general feel of fighting these two but also make it so team have to actually put up a decent fire against these two. Starting with Baron;

Baron Nashor

Bounty ◾ Gold - 325(Slayer) / 300 (Everyone team member) ◾ Exp - 600 (To every team member) / 800 (To nearby allies)

Statistics ◾ Health - 6400 (+180 per minute when the match starts) ◾ Attack damage - 240 - 310 (based on minute) ◾ Attack speed - 0.750 ◾ Range - 955 ◾ Armor - 120 ◾ Magic res. - 70 ◾ Mov. speed (Yeah Baron has movement speed) - 300

Changes ◾ Attack Speed - 0.850 ◾ Armor - 120 (+10 per minute after 20 minutes) ◾ Magic res. - 70 (+5 per minute after 20 minutes) ◾ ~~Mov. speed - 10,000 ~~

Purpose: Increasing the attack speed allows Baron to get off his abilities quickier so he can be more aggressive in his actions. Vile'maw does something similar and it allows that boss to actually feel more threating. Barons current attack speed is too slow to first, feel threating, and second, put out his bigger damage. The passive gain of both armor and magic res. give Baron more of a fighting chance all round. Currently he just dies way to quickly and having the champ get stronger as the game goes on feels reasonable. Likely needs a number change and possibly an upper limit since at 40 minutes alone Baron will be rocking 320 armor wish just this suggested number.

**Basic Attacks ** ◾ Melee attacks: Baron Nashor deals 100% AD to all enemies within a 175-unit radius. ◾ Single-target rear Attack: Baron Nashor summons a spike from the ground that deals 100% AD damage and stuns his target for 1 second. ◾ Area-of-effect rear Attack: Baron Nashor summons a cluster of spikes from the ground, dealing 50% AD damage and stunning enemies hit for 1 second.

Changes ◾ Baron Nashor now applies Grievous Wounds on Basic Attacks. ◾ Remove - Area-of-effect rear Attack: Baron Nashor summons a cluster of spikes from the ground, dealing 50% AD damage and stunning enemies hit for 1 second.

Purpose: Grievous Wounds has long since been needed on Baron to prevent heavy drain tanking on the monster. This alone makes him more threating but he does need some more changes to flesh him out. The Area-of-effect rear Attack has been removed and placed else where as this hardly every gets used and it is not only a cool ability but an effective way to buff him in a way.

**Passives ** ◾ Presence of the Baron: When Baron Nashor spawns, he will knock away all units, wards, and targetable traps to the edge of his pit. While Baron Nashor is still alive, he will continue to knock these back if more are placed. ◾ Crowd Control Immunity: Baron Nashor is immune to all forms of crowd control except stasis. Additionally, his stats cannot be reduced by any means. ◾ Baron's Gaze: Baron Nashor takes 50% reduced damage from the champion that he has most recently auto-attacked for 15 seconds. ◾ Voracious Corrosion: Baron Nashor's basic attacks apply a debuff that reduces the target's armor and magic resistance by 0.5, stacking up to 100 times for a total of 50 maximum reduction. ◾ Void Corruption: Baron Nashor periodically deals 30 (+ 5% AD) magic damage and applies a stack of Voracious Corrosion to the nearest champion with the lowest number of Voracious Corrosion stacks.

No changes made to the Passives. Though the Grievous Wounds probably belong here rather than on the Basic Attacks.

**Actives ** Baron Nashor will activate an ability once every 6 auto attacks. Baron's first spell will be random. However, all spells after the first may be predicted; Baron Nashor's ability rotation is cyclical (ex. Acid Pool > Acid Shot > Tentacle Knockup > Acid Pool).

◾ Acid Pool: Baron Nashor spits out 3 pools of acid in a cone in front of him, dealing 10% AD magic damage to all champions hit and creating a field that slows targets' movement speed within the pool's radius. ◾ Acid Shot: Baron Nashor spits acid in a straight line, dealing 20% AD magic damage to all enemies it hits. ◾ Tentacle Knockup: After a brief delay, Baron Nashor knocks up all enemies at the target location dealing 25% AD magic damage to all enemies hit. Tremors will indicate the targeted location.

Changes ◾ Added - Void Spikes: After a brief delay, Baron Nashor summons a cluster of spikes from the ground, dealing 35% AD damage and grounds enemies hit for 1 second. ◾ Remove - Acid Shot: Baron Nashor spits acid in a straight line, dealing 20% AD magic damage to all enemies it hits ◾ Added - Tentacle Lash - Baron Nashor lashes out two Tentacles from his body, dealing 15% AD and stunning enemies hit for 1 second.

Purpose: Give Baron more powerful options to not only feel threatening but also more of a challenge. Void Spikes will prove dangerous for those standing near the pit while also making sure people are more likely too stay put. Vile'maw has this aspect in his spider web pull that just makes him risky if you get caught with your pants down. So Baron Nashor should have something similar. Removing Acid Shot as it didn't do a whole lot that Acid Pool and Tenctacle Knockup didn't already do. Hardly a threatening attack when Kog'maw does the same thing but it hurts more. Tentacle Lash means people need to be more careful or they could lose DPS while fighting Baron. It's functionally the same thing but just a better version.

With these changes, Baron Nashor should now function much more like the Epic Monster it is said to be. He scales a lot better into the game now meaning he isn't as easy to take and his new tools mean people need to really think carefully rather than just bum rush the baron. Baron is a choice and he should be a difficult, but rewarding one. His rewards may need some kind of buff to make him a high risk, high reward pick but I am merely suggesting ways to make him not only stronger, but feel better.

Now I'll touch on the next monster, Elder Dragon.

Note I couldn't pull the stats of Elder or any of his Passives, Attacks, etc from my current computer. I may come and add this later but I think it's fine.

Changes ◾ Added - Grievous Wounds added to Basic Attacks. ◾ Elder Dragon will activate an ability once every 3 auto attacks. Elder's first spell will be random. However, all spells after the first may be predicted; Elder Dragon's ability rotation is cyclical (ex. ◾ Added - Fire Breath - After a brief delay, Elder Dragons breaths a blazing hot flames, sweeping in an area in front of him. The flame ignites all in it's path dealing 20% AD over 2 seconds. ◾ Added - Jaw's of the Elder - Elder Dragons taking three rapid bites, dealing 50% AD damage to all enemies it hits. ◾ Added - Violent Gales - Elder Dragons flaps his wings to create a violent surge of wind. All enemies in the path of the wind take 10% AD magic damage and are slowed.

Purpose: The purpose for the most part was to give Elder Dragon the tools to shine. GW similar to Baron means he isn't just going to be drain tanked while having special abilities allow him to actually have a chance to fight back. I wasn't completely sure what would work for Elder but I do believe these are a good starting point. Elder is cool but he is only a bigger Dragon that does nothing cool. So this would help improve his overall feel while again, making him stronger.

And that's it! Hope you enjoyed my small ideas to improve the two epic monsters that call the Rift their home. If you guys have any changes as well than feel free to add in. Discussion helps!

8 Comments

GrievousFetus1 votes

After playing Resistance with the void reskins, I'd like if there was a huge emphasis placed on actually fighting Baron besides him being a DPS race and damage sponge. I'd like if more emphasis was placed on dodging his AoE abilities The Big One's circular attack where you have to rotate around her is lots of fun to deal with. Hell, fighting Xerath in Ascension is more compelling and engaging than fighting Baron. I'd like if positioning was more relevant, like how Rift Herald demands you hit her from the back when the eye is up. Hell you could take it a step further, have Baron alternate between different modes. Maybe Baron can alternate between 90% damage reduction against physical or magical attacks and your team needs to rotate out members. Maybe he could have a linear colliding wave that forces a tankier member to body block it for a squishier member.

Literally anything besides "stand here and use abilities off cooldown/right click him once and wait".

Kloqdq1 votes

The problem is baron still needs to be doable. If Baron say got the "alternate between 90% damage reduction against physical or magical attacks" then he would be less appealable. Rift is a PvP game still at the core and when something is difficult to do, like say how Rift Herald was before his changes, then no one will do it because the time, and risk don't equal the reward. Baron does need some more dynamic action in it's gameplay but it still needs to be somewhat simple for players to want to approach it.

Time is a massive factor in doing Baron so the more time it takes to do it, the less likely people will want to do Baron. That's why in my ideas I tried to suggest making the act of fighting Baron at least somewhat more interesting. Increasing the AS to be able to proc Baron's abilities more which require more movement and action on the player at least tries to do what you suggest. Though more ideas do help.

GrievousFetus1 votes

Yeah, that's fair. I just feel like even though it's a PvP game it's also a team game, so it's fair to demand some sort of coordination when doing Baron like having to rotate his aggro, position in such a way a front line bodyblocks for the back line, etc. and then Baron's actual stats could compensate for that. Maybe his damage could be much higher but his HP lower, so that teams who are coordinating and engaging in all of baron's counterplay like dodging his telegraphed AoE defeat him quickly, and teams that don't die in the process because they eat all his damage and his damage is now huge.

Ideally, I want it to feel like you either win or lose against baron at least partially dependent on how you play against him, not "your DPS isn't high enough to kill him before your HP hit zero".

Kloqdq1 votes

Yeah that's the toughest part of Baron. You want him to be a PvE boss but he needs to be a simplier PvP boss. PvP the main threat is the enemy team, not Baron. So at the core you need to do things that make Baron at least feel better to fight against, but can't ever really deliver on the PvE aspect.

Baron himself would need a large scale work to make what you are suggesting happen while my main goal was minor changes to just make him tougher so times don't just snag him at 20 minutes like he is a chew toy. So it's really hard to say without a revamp of Baron which is a lot more work than I think Riot will ever do for him at this stage :s

GrievousFetus1 votes

Ideally a similar neutral objective would have more of a focus like this in a new map to help differentiate that map from summoner's rift. But Magma Chamber was cancelled so that won't ever happen.

Kloqdq2 votes

Rip Magma Chamber

Dengeden1 votes

I don't like the GW idea, it's rare enough as is. Usually a tank will tank the thing for 80%ish of their health and sustain it up later.

I'd rather have them get angry if their attacks don't do much damage and knocking away those champions.

Kloqdq1 votes

That's one possible way to go about it. GW has just been a long suggested idea to prevent mainly ADCs from just healing and tanking through the monsters. Delaying attacks could also be a nice way to make these two harder. I had an idea of the fire breath making champions hit basically brittle and a bit would knock them back or stun them or something. Crippling AS could also work to delay the damage. Straight tankiness I think I'd like to avoid since that's harder to prevent where actives that can delay damage puts the ball in the player's corner to max out their damage output.

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