Possible "Initiator" Class Update: Input Is Welcomed

Greetings!

Recently I was thinking about Maokai, and why his kit is in need of a complete overhaul. The main problem arises from most of his abilities being very generic. His Passive provides occasional healing, his Q is a mini-Pulverize, and his W is a gap-closing Rune Prison. His E is the most unique ability he has, but since it is fairly irrelevant to his overall play-style, it's uniqueness goes wasted. His Ultimate is somewhat unique, in that it provides AoE Damage Reduction for his team, but similarly to old Taric and old Sona, because it is a rather invisible effect, its benefit goes largely unnoticed. As Maokai you may be aware that your Ult helped protect your team, but unlike, say, New Taric Ultimate, which is both impactful and visually distinct in how it protects your team, Maokai Ultimate just passively comes and goes, which isn't satisfying for anyone.

The reason I bring this up is that, as I realized Maokai would benefit from getting a completely new kit, I begin to wonder what that kit should be. In order to figure out what kind of kit he should have, I needed to know what role Maokai is supposed to fill. Which got me thinking about the Tanks, and what Classes they can be divided into. Tanks is a bit too generic a term, so Riot has been working at splitting Tanks into different Classes that fulfill different purposes. The only two New Tank Classes that have been defined by Riot, as far as I'm aware, are Juggernauts, low-mobility tanks that obliterate any who get too close to them, and Divers, bruisers who use their superior mobility to dive back-line carries. Maokai is neither of those, but rather he is part of a Class I've dubbed as "Initiators". These are tanky champs who serve the purpose of initiating fights upon the enemy with AoE Crowd Control. Now the reason I've made Initiators the focus of this post, rather than Maokai, is because Maokai's new kit needs to provide him a unique niche within the Initiator Class, but in order to figure out what niche he should occupy, we first need to define what niches are already taken. The tricky part arises from the fact that, since there hasn't been an Initiator Class Update yet, many of the champions in this class are still rather similar to each-other, and thus do not yet quite have the necessary uniqueness to fill their own separate niches. Thus we reach the focus of this post. I will be going over the different Initiators, the niches I think they could fill, and ways that each champion could be changed so that they provide unique advantages that differentiate them from others in their Class.

Before I get to the meat of the subject, here are some champs/groups that I disqualified from being Initiators and/or dismissed as unworthy of discussing, and my reasons for doing so.

• Aren't Tanks:
• Are Supports:
• Too Weird/Getting Full VGU:
• Are More Diver Than Initiator:
• In A Good Spot/Don't Need Major Changes:

Initiators:

• Amumu: Things To Keep: Bandage Toss and Ultimate. These are sufficiently fun and iconic abilities. Things To Change: W - Despair. This ability is boring, easy to forget about, can be a mana-dump if you aren't careful, and has plenty of overlap with E. I would be happy to see this ability replaced. Potential Niche: Going off of his passive, and his thematics, perhaps Amumu could Curse enemies upon hitting them with a hard CC, but instead of lowering their MR he could reduce the damage they can deal, similarly to Urgot Passive, and boost the damage they take from Amumu's allies, similarly to Vlad Ult, but to a higher degree.

2. Jarvan IV: Things To Keep: E/Q Combo and Ultimate. Things To Change: His W isn't the most amazing of abilities. It does its job, but it's far from exciting. Potential Niche: J4's terrain building is easily his most unique quality, so I think that would be the best thing to emphasize. I think that a good way to give him unique strength would be to make his Ult impassable, perhaps by grounding any enemies caught in his circle. However, in order to make it fair, I think it would be best to make his Ult a skillshot, so as to make it a less consistent trap and also to allow enemies the opportunity to juke it.

• Malphite: Things To Keep: Ult, Passive, possibly E. His Ult is his most defining and fun characteristic, and I like the interaction his passive brings. You can get a shield, but only if you risk losing CS by backing off. His E I'm not sure about. The main thing I love about it is the way that it absolutely decimates enemy Attack Speed, which I think is a logical thing for a Tank to have, but if it turns out that it is a bit too unhealthy/overbearing, then I would be okay with it being nerfed/removed. That said, since the enemy Marksman has to let you get on top of them before you can E them, then maybe the Attack Speed Slow is a worthy reward for successfully gap closing. Hard to say. Things To Change: His W - Brutal Strikes. This ability is so useless. What it provides is a small On-Hit boost, and mini-Hydra effect, both of which are only minutely useful at best. The ability is not fun to use, and if it didn't provide Bonus Armor, then there would be no reason to level it. I think it would be better if the Bonus Armor Passive was moved to his actual Passive, have the Bonus Armor he receives scale with his level, and then just replace the rest of his W entirely. Potential Niche: I think that Malphite's Initiation should live up to his Ultimate's name and truly be an Unstoppable Force. Namely, when Malphite Ults, the enemy should feel like a Mountain was freaking thrown at them. They should feel like an Unstoppable Cosmic Force is barreling their way, and they need to GTFO. I think a way to do this would be to make it so that his Ult has longer range, make it so that enemies between him and his target location are also CC'd, and the enemies at his final destination are doubly rekt, as is appropriate, considering a freaking MOUNTAIN just tackled them. However, in order to balance this out a bit, I think that his Ultimate should have a 1-3 second channel time. This would make it so that enemies have an opportunity to see it coming/juke it, and it would incentivize more tactical positioning from the Malphite. This channel could be Malphite preparing for his dash, like an Olympic runner, or for his Mecha Skin the channel could be him transforming into a rocket or something before launching at them. Wait, isn't is his Ironside skin him as a Boat Transformer? OMG, on this new Ult he could turn into a BOAT as he launches at them! xD

• Sejuani: **Things To Keep: ** Q. The ability to ram a massive boar into the enemy team is fun and useful. Things To Change: W, E, R and Passive. Her passive is just a stat boost with some slow resist, which is okay, but far from exciting. Her W and E are just generic filler that add very little to her gameplay, and no one would miss them if they were replaced. And her Ult, while quite unique, suffers from being just too One-Dimensional. If Sejuani lands the ultimate, she gets the maximum effect, and if she misses it does next to nothing. This allows very little for room for either Sejuani to demonstrate much skill, or for her enemies to have much counterplay. Potential Niche: Sejuani needs something new to unify her kit in a unique way, so I seized upon her Frost mechanic as the new core mechanic in her new kit. The basic idea is that Sejuani applies Frost in a way that is akin to how Darius applies Hemorrhage stacks. With each stack of Frost, her enemies are slowed further, and also her Ultimate has a greater effect depending on how many stacks her target has. This is how we inject skill and counterplay. If Sejuani throws her Ultimate at an enemy with NO Frost stacks, it either does nothing or just slows them for a small amount. But with each stack of Frost her Ultimate becomes more impactful, and if she Ults a target who has max stacks, she stuns them and everyone around them for a MASSIVE amount of time. Throw in some sort of Frost-applying medium/long-range skillshot on her W or E, and you've got yourself an interesting and unique kit. In short, the niche I think she could occupy is that she is the Initiator who needs setup. She needs more time to fully pull off her engage than others in her class, but if she does setup correctly, she is rewarded with a far more powerful engage than other Initiators.

• Zac: Things To Keep: Passive, Q, and W. His Passive is sufficiently unique and fun, and his Q and W do their jobs sufficiently. Things To Change: His E and R. I understand that Riot has been buffing Zac's E as a way to give him a unique strength, but I feel like this is just making him better rather than more unique. In order to understand why this is a problem, you have to understand why Riot has sought to provide each Champion in a Class with unique strengths in previous Class Updates. When each Champion in a Class brings something strong AND unique to the table, that encourages Champion Diversity, as each Champion provides something special that no one else in their Class provides. The idea is that each Champion will be equally successful because they each provide something powerful, but because their power stems from something unique to their kit, the won't be directly comparable to each-other, thus preventing a Tier List system from developing. A Tier List system develops when the Champions in a Class are too similar too each-other, and lack uniqueness. When this is the case, the best Champions in the Class can be statistically deduced, and this is bad for Champion Diversity because when there is a statistically-proven best option, players will always opt for that option, as it is simply what will be most likely to win them the game. I feel that the buffs to Zac's E have been giving him raw power, rather than unique power. Now I respect Riot's decision to buff Zac, he was rather underplayed for a long time, but I also think that for the sake of long-term game health in the Initiator Class, it would be best to remove some of Zac's raw strength and replace it with unique strength, which I feel would necessitate that his E receive some nerfs. I mean, as of now his E is more powerful than his Ultimate, which just doesn't make sense. Potential Niche: The niche I landed on for Zac is one of Extended Engagements and Zone Control. The stems from an already existing mechanic in his kit: Blobs. The idea is that these Blobs have a new effect whenever Zac picks one up where he "Slimes" the area around him. Slimed Terrain slows/debuffs enemies who cross it. This would also go a ways towards making Zac's Ultimate better, as he drops a lot more blobs when he is using his Ult. Plus, the idea of Zac, a giant slime monster, leaving slimy residue wherever he's been fighting just makes sense thematically. xD

And that's the Initators! You may have noticed that I didn't actually cover Maokai, and there is a reason for that. Because Maokai is in need of an entire new kit, and his current kit is too generic to give me an idea what niche he should fill, I just have no clue what should be done with him. Normally I'd look to his lore for clues, but his lore is basically just, well, he's an angry tree. And I'm just not clever enough to figure out an entire new kit and niche based solely off that. Which segues nicely into my closing remark!

I am neither a game designer, nor am I all that smart, so it is entirely possible that ALL of these ideas are complete garbage. I basically just threw a bunch of ideas at the wall to see what sticks. I'm not even all that content with calling them "Initiators", but for the life of me I could not think of something better. So I would absolutely love some feedback! Whether you are a game designer, Rioter, or regular Joe, any discussion is fantastic! Tell me what you think of my ideas, tell me some ideas of your own, tell me what you most want to survive if an Initiator you love gets updated, or tell me what you most want to see die! Any and all comments are appreciated!

Thank You so much for bothering to read my post! You're the best!

[slayer-pantheon-thumbs]