Fiora rework concept - Transforming Fiora into a true melee ADC/fencer/dualist

http://i.imgur.com/aQjljNg.jpg

Yesterday I was browsing the forums when I came across this thread here: http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/oFWE3HOk-riot-you-should-take-a-thematic-look-at-fiora

Through it, OP reminded me of another thread speaking of Fiora's identity as a fencer and a dualist, located here: http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/gG3rN6XP-a-fiora-rework-from-a-fencers-perspective-vesh

Which was written by a fencer, and brought up some interesting points and ideas about Fiora. Yesterday, thanks to both of these, I was inspired by an idea of how to create a balanced Fiora who fits into the game the way she should. While I don't have quite as much experience fencing, only 6 months, I do think I know what's necessary for a melee ADC to bring to the table.

I won't be adding any damage numbers to these, and all other numbers are simply estimates. Numbers can be tweaked upon testing, and can be calculated to make sure damage output isn't too high relative to other champions.

The role of an ADC is to output as much damage as possible while remaining as safe as possible. This is doable because of their range, they are able to avoid autoattacks and spells by staying out of range and sidestepping, which most melees are unable to do. They're often mobile or have some kind of CC in order to utilize their range advantage to the max. In order to function as an ADC, Fiora needs to be able to to avoid autoattacks and spells somehow.

Yasuo, Yi, current Fiora all have a similar pattern to doing this. They output massive amounts of damage in order to be able to take as little damage as possible, and then have abilities that prevent them from being hit entirely for a period of time which they use to avoid taking damage. I don't like this approach at all, and it pisses many people off due to its lack of counterplay.

W: Parry 11/10/9/8/7 second cooldown When used on a target during their autoattack animation, while they're casting a single target spell or while their single target spell is in midair, if the attack hits Fiora all damage and spell effects (including CC) are negated. If Fiora successfully blocks an enemy champion's attack with this skill, the cooldown is immediately reset to 0 and Fiora gets an autoattack reset. In addition, Fiora's q becomes Strike for 0.5 seconds. Cooldown scales with attack speed instead of cooldown reduction. If Fiora doesn't select a target to use the skill on, the skill automatically selects the last enemy champion which Fiora delt damage to as the target. (She'll be immensely mechanically intensive cos of this skill already, lets throw her a biscuit)

WARNING: Wall of text ability explanation This is what I view as the "core" of this concept. Instead of using range and kiting to avoid taking damage, Fiora uses parry to block attacks. Because of her nature as a squishy, she can use it rapidly over and over to ensure her safety. With this I also saw a unique opportunity to present a key difference between Fiora and other ADCs, a reason to choose Fiora: Most ADCs are strong against skillshots due to their range and often their built in mobility as well. However, they are weak to on-target spells such as Taric's stun. Fiora is the opposite, she can completely negate all autoattacks and targeted spells towards her, but her nature of being close-ranged makes her weak to skillshots as she'll have more difficulty dodging them.

The way I see this ability working is it provides counterplay from both sides. "Feinting", baiting this skill out by cancelling your auto or attacking a minion with it going on cooldown will allow the enemy to attack Fiora without as much fear for a few moments. If the feint is unsuccessful, then Fiora just didn't get attacked at all in a point in time, which allowed her to possibly autoattack the enemy for free, or simply get away without taking damage. If the skill is used and Fiora is the winner of the mind game then she'll get to Strike and auto her enemy (Riposte), giving her an advantage. It's an endless looping mind game combined with mechanical skill and reaction time, allowing for nearly infinite depth and complexity while having plenty of counterplay. This ability on its own can transform Fiora and whoever she's facing both into a fencer mentality, both trying to analyse and predict their opponents patterns and mind game the enemy into making a tiny error in judgement then capitalizing on it for a moment.

Targeting a single target and a single autoattack also makes feints true feints, allowing for immediate proper attacking if successful, and makes Fiora more of a dualist champion as others can still autoattack her during this. An autoattack shield wouldn't work as well nor be as interesting in my opinion. She would be able to jungle kind of since she can block a single autoattack, but then would have to wait for her cooldown to come back up. The reason it scales off of attack speed is in order to make Fiora's item choices a bit more dynamic. Building attack speed will result in your w being less punishing, but also less effective as you won't need the autoattack reset as much. Building attack damage can result in a far higher damage output but at the loss of a lot of safety if she fails her w. Finding the right point in the scale for every enemy and every game would be something very interesting.

Q: Lunge/Strike 18/16/14/12/10 second cooldown Lunge is a skillshot dash which deals damage in a line. If Fiora comes into contact with an enemy champion, she stops her dash at that point. Range is about 450 units, so not too long. Strike is a targeted dash which will immediately cause Fiora to dash to the target she just parried an attack of, and deal 0.6 ish Lunge damage to. When strike is used, Fiora's q doesn't go on cooldown.

Fiora's gapcloser and one of her escape methods. She's melee, so she needs to get in melee range to deal damage and this ability allows her to do so. It also causes her to be unkiteable as she can constantly strike to her foe over and over. Lunge will likely primarily be used as a finisher or a disengage, but it can also be used to dodge skillshots, again giving her the safety she needs to do her job. Generally speaking as a carry she should be dealing as much damage as possible, so she should be able to deal damage whenever she can. This says "If you attack her, she can attack you." Parry doesn't exactly have a range limitation after all.

E: Sidestep 10/9/8/7/6 Cooldown Fiora does a small jump in the direction of the players cursor. Range is 200 (For reference, Vayne's Tumble is 300 range).

Very simple, adds more mobility to Fiora's kit to allow her to close on her enemies and attack them while dodging skillshots as well. Necessary for safety and fits well thematically. Fiora will want to use this before sacrificing her Lunge to dodge something more deadly.

R: Blade Mastery Cooldown 110/90/70 Fiora unsheathes her parrying dagger from behind her back and uses it in combination with her rapier to combat her foes for 15 seconds. This allows her to parry attacks from multiple foes instead of 1 (i.e. when she uses her w it automatically targets all foes who currently have an autoattack/spell animation targeted towards Fiora, and if a single one hits Fiora then her w's cooldown is reset etc.) Her strike ability can now target any enemy instead of only the one that she parried, and all of her non-ultimate cooldowns get reduced by 1 whenever she autoattacks.

I've designed this version of Fiora as a fencing dualist. She's extremely strong in a 1v1, but can be outplayed, and her mastery level is pretty much infinite. She's autoattack based and can be extremely safe while dealing massive damage, allowing her to play as the ADC for her team. But her one weak point would be teamfights. If more than one person is attacking Fiora, then a large amount of the counterplay is removed for Fiora, and it would be impossible to survive. This is unsuitable for an ADC late game.

This ultimate gives her the power she needs to face multiple enemies at once while not increasing her own strength by too much to be handled, and keeps the counterplay she had before. Her current ultimate causes Fiora to dash around the battlefield attacking 5 times while being untouchable at the click of a button. This ultimate allows Fiora's with incredible mastery of Fiora to dash around the battlefield as much as they want for 15 seconds while being unharmed, but still gives her a ton of counterplay.

And finally, Fiora's passive:

Passive: Blade Dancer Fiora gets a burst of movement speed for 1 second whenever she uses an ability.

More mobility for Fiora. While it seems like she has a lot of mobility, remember that all of her mobility is very short ranged, not long ranged. I've focused primarily on smaller movements of mobility to allow Fiora to chase and dodge minor abilities rapidly.

Thanks to her w's autoreset which can be spammed over and over, Fiora's damage output can be strong enough via items that she doesn't really need any more damage, so I've focused on mobility and safety instead of damage for the rest of her kit. Making up for the loss in range compared to every single other ADC is primarily what's needed, giving her the safety of other ADCs instead of giving her a ton of damage so her approach is simply to kill them before they can kill her instead of outplaying them.

One thing that would definitely need to be done is making all of her animations as quick as possible in order to fit to her theme and make her feel smooth. From a combat perspective, your safest stance relative to your enemy is your "base stance" and any time you move from the position to attack or block you'll want to revert into your base stance ASAP for safety. Plus seeing as she is going to be constantly resetting her autos I don't want her autoreset to reset her auto in the middle of an auto (weird sentence). In addition extreme clarity would be needed on her w when it blocks an attack, I would go so far as to have her blade shimmer silver whenever it is up.

Fiora, the melee ADC, fencer, and dualist. Plenty of counterplay, plenty of mastery. Viable in the current meta, never unbeatable. Overpowered only when her skill exceeds yours vastly, underpowered when you're better than her. Not too complicated to understand, with infinite depth. From my perspective, a success.