@RiotSolCrushed Viktor and The Coming Evolution

I want to talk a little bit about Viktor and you're the guy in charge of the Viktor gameplay update so this is directed at you.

I do not have a tonne of experience on Viktor but he is one of my more played Mids and every once and a while I will support with him. I feel like I have enough experience background and theory background to discuss the champion and where he should be taken.

Fundamentally i believe that Viktor is a very powerful champion who's weaknesses are not related to core champion design. He works slightly different than other mages because he has only two non-ultimate damage abilities (like Lux) which gives him a level 11-13 peak powerspike rather than a level 18 peak power. This early powerspike allows him to control the mid game and snowball important dragon fights into wins, and turn fights even if it looks like he is behind the other mid laner.

Viktor is an AoE Burst mage. His Laser and Ultimate combine for a total ratio of 3.38 and 1350 base damage. This is an absolutely amazing amount of damage. Its more damage than standing in Karthus defile for 7 seconds and then eating his requiem. Its more damage than chilling out in Anivia's Glacial Storm for 7 seconds and then eating a Flash Frost to the face. Its as more damage as facetanking Tibbers for 7 seconds while getting incinerated. Its more damage than a full brand combo on your entire team(I.E. no multiple bounces to the same person). Its more damage than just chilling in a Morgana pool while she ults you. Its more damage than a full ziggs combo unless you take the time to walk over every single bomblet in his slow field(but that would be single target, so it doesn't even count!)

Now these other mages get a good amount of other utility in exchange for not doing as much damage as Viktor(cooldowns, some utility, mobility etc) and certainly for not doing as much damage as Viktor does early. But when Viktor gets that fight in a chokepoint just right there isn't much the other team can do but melt.

No, Viktor's problems almost all stem from three main issues

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1. His laser's smartcast behavior is terrible: Some spells, when you click outside of their range will cast as if you had clicked at the end of the range. Many times this is done for spells which have long ranges or spells which don't have animations because its the direction of the spell and not necessarily the range of the spell that matters most, players more often want the spell going in that direction than they want to reposition to cast. Viktor's laser should be one of those spells. If you're running away from a fight and you start the laser just outside of the laser start range the last thing you want to have happen is for Viktor to turn around and run back into the fight. But that is what happens.

When this happens it essentially negates the fact that Viktor's laser doesn't interrupt his movement because in practice it does interrupt his movement. Casting around max range will cause Viktor to reposition when the player might not want it.

I describe this as a problem with the smartcast behavior, but its also an issue with the normal cast behavior. Since Viktor will be moving while he is casting its very easy to start the drag inside the circle (or just outside) and have it end up outside of the circle as you move.

But this can be fixed. If, when you start Viktor's laser outside of the circle, the game interprets that as starting Viktor's laser at the closest point in the circle you no longer have any issues about Viktor turning around and running into a fight he is trying to run from. Alternately the game can extend the line you drew in two directions and start the laser where it intersects the edge of the cast range. The intent of the players actions comes through rather than the reality of their clicks. Granted this isn't perfect, since it will remove some of the mechanical difficulty of Viktor. But i do not believe that that aspect of mechanical complexity is core to Viktor's kit. Its how you place lasers not the fact that you clicked 2 pixels on the wrong side of his range that should make a good Viktor player.

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2. Two of his hex cores are bad: Hex cores don't need to be moved to the trinket slot. Its one possibility but its not necessary. The main problem with his Hex Cores is that only Death is any good. Specifically, Death is a, roughly, slot efficient damage item. Its also a gold efficient damage item. Death gives you 45 AP and its passive for 1000 gold. By the gold value of Amp Tomes this is 978 gold worth of raw stats. And the passive is better than Deathcap's Passive for his E. Given that he tends to level up E first and given that he has only two non-ultimate damaging abilities the Death augments passive is about as strong as Deathcap until a good deal into the game. Deathcap's passive is worth at least 650 gold, and functionally more if we compare it to building Zhonya/DFG which have more raw stats and different passives for less money. Death is a really good item. Its cheap, powerful, gives you a huge mid game power spike, and lategame its still pretty slot efficient. Simply it works with Viktor's core power spike and it can replace a lategame slot efficient item.

So what about Power? Technically, power has 803 gold worth of stats on it based on the cost of rejuv beads and ruby crystals. Except that that is bull, it has 587 gold worth of stats on it, the HP 5 is useless. Is its passive as good as Deathcaps passive? Probably not. Its passive is barely better than Rylai's (better for running away, worse for allowing team to catch a target). Can it replace an item like Rylai's in the lategame? Death has 100 AP and almost a Deathcap passive. So its pretty close to a Deathcap, a 3600 gold item. Rylai's has 100 AP and 400 HP. Power has 54 AP and 220 HP. Man the problem with power isn't that its not a trinket the problem with power is that it sucks. If it had 600 HP on it it would be comparable to Rylai's.

Similarly we can look at Gravity. Arguably Gravity as the best passive. One of the things that makes Viktor players good is landing the best Gravity Field. And increasing the range on Gravity Field means hitting the right space easier. Its hard to put a price on something that can change the game like a good 3 total seconds of combined hard/soft CC and strong zoning potential. But we're going to because Gravity has mana and MP5 on it. Two stats which have roughly zero "now" power. The only thing it has decently is 10% CDR. "Technically" this is 1017 worth of stats. But raw mana isn't that powerful on Viktor and 5 MP/5 is nothing. This item has 317 worth of stats... 317 worth of stats that aren't even that good on Viktor because he is a burst mage and is more concerned about now damage than about sticking around to get that second laser off.

What about a comparable item for slot efficiency? Can Gravity compare to Morellonomicon? 10 MP5, 80 AP, 20% CDR. Ahh ha ha hah ah ha no. Morellonomicon is 2200 gold item and Gravity can't compare in total stats to it. Death almost compares in total stats to a 3600 gold item. If gravity entirely replaced a Sustain/CDR item then it would be something to consider getting, 20% CDR, chalice passive, 10 mp/5, 54 AP and the range passive would be the minimum you could consider. Almost as strong as a pimp cup (which isn't even that good an item anymore)

Basically, in order for Power and Gravity to be transformative in the way that Viktor plays, power and gravity have to not just plain suck. They need to be able to replace, at at least 80% of the power, a similarly slot efficient lategame item. This can be transformative because it will allow Viktor to pick between whether or not he is a sustained damage/poke mage who has lots of mana and 20% CDR or whether or not he is a burst mage who just nukes things with some of the highest AoE damage. Or if he is a tanky AP/kite master who is build like a brick. Most importantly they need to be designed around Viktor's mid game power spike just like the Death Augment, such that the choice of Augment determines how you go about abusing your mid game spike.

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3. His auto attack is terrible: Viktor was designed in the age where mids couldn't have good auto attacks. He was, more or less, the last of his kind. This is strange since he was designed as a mid champion who would abuse his shield to auto attack enemy champions in lane and win the trades. But Viktor's forward swing is so long that its hard to make many of those trades(or CS effectively). His auto attack numbers aren't terrible, but they're lower than other champions who tend to bully a lot with auto attacks (Ziggs especially). Most importantly however is the auto attack sound. Remember ryze's old auto attack before it got changed? Where it played the "you have auto attacked" cue before he actually auto attacked? Viktor does almost the same thing. Shore up his auto attack animation and pay close attention to the audio queue and you will do a lot to return Viktor to the type of lane bully he was meant to be.

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Anyway, these are the things that i feel are the core issues with Viktor. There are some other little things. His ult might do too little of its damage in the burst or be too hard to move around in the fight.(it could also silence/interrupt on first damage so that Viktor could use it to "tag" enemies who missed the initial burst for a bit of mini-game CC/disruption). His Q shield could be instant rather than delayed(maybe on the Q augment passive it works like lux shield. He gets one immediately and then stacks it when it comes back). The passives on his Q and W augments could change to be more transformative to his playstyle. And yes, you could move the hex cores to the trinket slot.

But the biggest issue is the behavior of his laser with regards to casting it on the move. Second to this is his terrible attack animation and the lack of actual strength in his Q and W augments. He doesn't need a lot of changes to be brought into the fold of powerful champions, he just needs the right tweaks.