A new idea for Sejuani

tl:dr of the tl:dr - give her a warhorn to blow on because she’s a strong, independent woman who don’t need no man to lead her tribe into battle.

tl:dr - when Sejuani’s Frost Armour breaks, or she stuns an enemy with her ult, she sounds a warhorn that grants nearby allies a brief movement speed boost towards enemy champions. This change helps flesh out her kit’s fantasy of being the warmother of the Winter’s Claw, leading warriors into battle.

Sejuani is an amazing champion to play - her kit is satisfying, and its fulfils on the fantasy of a grizzled Freljordian veteran fighter. But one aspect of Sejuani’s character that isn’t well-represented in-game (and Riot very much recognised this when they reworked her in 2017) is her leadership. She is the warmother of the Winter’s Claw, leading hundreds of bloodthirsty freljordian iceborn into battle. At the moment, this is represented by her giving melee allies the ability to stack up her E on enemy champions - but I think a simple addition to her kit could enhance this synergy and provide a strong thematic link between her backstory and her in-game kit. Here it is:

When Sejuani’s passive armour breaks, she sounds a warhorn, granting herself and all nearby melee allies a movement speed boost towards any nearby enemy champions. She also sounds her warhorn upon stunning an enemy with her ultimate.

The bonus doesn’t need to be too large - in the realm of 5-10% movespeed for 2-3 seconds. For reference, new Nunu’s passive grants 10% movespeed for 4 seconds. The real aim is to provide a high point in playing as or with Sejuani, where she rallies her allies before pushing forward into battle. But there’s (at least) one question you might have (apart from “why bother?”, of course):

Why when her passive breaks? Why not when she takes damage from champions? Why not when she deals damage to champions?

My rationale behind tying it to her passive armor is this: it keeps it simple and sporadic. This passive is pretty similar to new Nunu’s passive in terms of what it does, but I don’t want it to be used anywhere nearly as often as Nunu’s, while making it obvious what it does and why it happens. In the case of damaging/taking damage from an enemy champion, it would have to have a cooldown otherwise Sejuani would be giving out free movespeed all over teamfights, and it’s not meant to be anywhere near as impactful as new Nunu’s passive is (10% movespeed - even 5% - is quite powerful, especially over longer periods of time). But putting a cooldown on it would make it difficult for players to connect the cause (damaging/taking damage from champions) and the effect (Sejuani blows a warhorn) to each other - which is sloppy design and would contribute much more heavily to perceived “overload” in a kit (things happening without players understanding why they happen is the problem with overloaded kits in the first place). By tying it to Sejuani’s Frost Armour, the cause and effect is much more easily established (Sejuani gets hit, the shield crest above her becomes more prominent & snowy sound effects play, the crest shatters and Sejuani sounds her warhorn). It avoids the problem of disconnecting the cause and effect because Sejuani’s Frost Armor has its own cooldown (15-9 seconds, based on level), so giving it its own cooldown is unneeded. Furthermore, by adding the warhorn as an extension to her current passive, it brings more attention to her criminally overlooked defensive steroid (it basically shouts at enemies “now you want to attack me!”, who may not have always noticed before the difference between Sejuani with and without passive), and it avoids the clutter of having two passives - which could be considered a tad too much in terms of overload. Finally, I feel it moves this passive far enough away from new Nunu’s to say that it is distinct enough in terms of design space.

You may notice certain problems with way the warhorn is procced as well: Does an enemy champion need to break her passive, or can anyone do so? What if Sejuani’s Frost Armour breaks and there are no enemies nearby? What if there are no allies (and why are they melee only)?

Let me cover the first two questions at once. Anyone can break Sejuani’s passive, but there needs to be an enemy champion nearby for the warhorn to trigger. “Nearby” in this instance simply means a radius that Riot would set as appropriate - maybe the radius at which nearby melee allies are granted the ability to stack her E on enemies (which is also the range in which they are granted the movespeed buff). If there are no enemies nearby, like when Sejuani is clearing a jungle camp, no warhorn sounds. If no melee allies are nearby, only Sejuani gets the buff (it’s tempting to require an ally nearby as well, but that would result in player dissatisfaction without providing any tangible benefit to opponents, so it’s not worth it). I would also add the qualifier that the nearby enemy has to be visible, because (a) she doesn’t need the extra “spidey-sense” information and (b) the movespeed towards enemies is also only for visible ones. The melee-only qualifier was originally placed on Sejuani’s E in 2017, I believe, because it made sense thematically and balance-wise. Sejuani doesn’t lead a host of ranged attackers, she leads bezerkers with axes, hammers and swords - and ranged allies would make it far too easy for Sejuani to build up her E stacks from range and without committing herself. My choice to provide the warhorn movespeed to only melee allies furthers this line of thinking: it adds to her theme as the leader of a warhost of melee warriors, and losing the movespeed for ranged characters makes sense. Ranged allies already don’t need the movespeed to get in range to attack (and they aren’t going to help sejuani proc her E any way), and they don’t need it to chase either because Sejuani’s there to lock down the enemies for them.

Thematically, it’s also a perfect fit for Sejuani as Freljordian as well as a warmother: granting allies movespeed (1) towards enemies (2), in a frenzied state (3) while blowing on a horn (4) are all traits distinctly associated with the Freljord. Examples:

(1) new Nunu’s passive (2) Olaf’s Ragnarok; Volibear’s Rolling Thunder (the flip) (3) Olaf’s Passive, W and ult; Gnar’s passive; Udyr’s passive, Q and E; old Nunu’s W (4) Ornn’s ult

In terms of sound effects, I think some kind of warhorn (like Ornn’s, but not as loud and less global because it’s not the ultimate) would sound really cool - and that’s kind of the point of the whole thing. It provides a focal point in game as a rallying cry before (techinically just after) entering battle which Sejuani currently - not lacks, because she works fine without it, but - could benefit from.

The visual effects could incorporate her current animation in which she grants nearby melee allies access to her E proc when they enter the range (a small streak of white dots from Sejuani to the ally’s weapon), and Karma’s mantra shield (the faint effect that circles outward from the target). It should be clear enough visually that players understand what’s going on, but the cue would be mostly audible with the warhorn.

Finally, what would Sejuani need to lose in order to fit this into her power budget? We could look to the recent Morgana rework for similar changes. Morgana’s Soul Shackles now give 5/30/55% movespeed towards enemies, at the cost of 5 base movespeed. I think a similar tradeoff would be made for Sejuani: this movespeed buff towards enemies isn’t as powerful, but would be active a lot more often, so I reckon it’s still roughly a fair trade. The warhorn is probably more powerful than Morg’s movespeed buff because it comes up so often and also grants movespeed to allies, but the base movespeed nerf would be felt a lot more harshly on Sejuani given that she’s a jungler and moves around the map a lot more.

If you made it all the way to the end, thank you so much for reading! If you went straight to the bottom, I put the tl:dr at the top. Sorry. Please reply with feedback, whether you like or dislike my suggestion - like most people, I just want League of Legends to be the most fun game it can be.