Auto Attack Concepts [Brainstorming]

Okay, so since the Boards still do not have a "Save to Draft" feature, you get to see some incomplete work. I mostly just wanted to start this and post it so that I could come back to it later and add/edit it later. So, if you are seeing this right when I post it, don't be shocked if there is not a whole lot of useful information. If you're seeing it after I have made a few changes, .. well maybe you'll see where I'm going with this.

This post is about auto attacks, and the different ways in which they currently exist, which leads to the goal of listing/coming up with ways that they could exist. The step(s) beyond that is ultimately to use this as a way to theorize new champion concepts.

So first we start with the ways auto attacks currently exist.

The things I am mostly looking for are the ways in which Riot has taken to modifying many of the marksmen this last season.

Ashe deals bonus damage to targets she has slowed from previous auto attacks or abilities.

Graves has a two shot ammo system, somewhat static attack speed, a long reload time, and fires a cone of non-pass through projectiles.

Miss Fortune gains bonus damage for not attacking the same target twice in a row.

Corki's auto attacks deal 50% physical and 50% magic damage.

Jhin has a 4 shot static attack speed with an auto crit and a long reload time.

You probably see where I'm going with this by now and as of right now I don't feel like listing out all of the different type of auto attacks in the game. I will probably come up with a different way to list and categorize this later on.

As you can see this tends to be a characteristic of marksmen. My goal is to think of some unique mechanics that could be used for future marksmen. However, I want to try and not limit the options to marksmen exclusively.

I also want to be clear that not all of the ideas I use have to make sense or even be practical. This is really more of a form of brainstorming. And it is also at this point that I notice that, despite this being an attempt to brainstorm, I am still trying to format it in the form of a presentation. ... Please make a "Save to Draft" feature Riot :(

Rend My first idea actually reminds me a lot of Kalista's Rend. In fact, I even tried to submit it as an idea for a rework for her. The champion attacks up to 5 times, and can have different targets for each attack, then after the 5th target receives damage, a sort of "Rend" function deals additional damage, which is amplified based on how many times the champion had hit that target within those 5 shots. So if you think of this like Kalista, she automatically Rends her spears after landing a 5th spear.

Repeater A champion attacks one target, then when they attack a second they will also automatically attack the first target simultaneously (sort of like Runaan's Hurricane) as long as that target is still alive, within vision, and within a set range. This could either always work for the previous target, or it could continue up to a count, or for all attacks over a certain duration. For example, it could repeat attacks for your previous 5 targets but when you attack a 6th unit, the 1st unit stops receiving additional attacks unless you target that unit again, even if they meet all of the previous criteria. This could alternatively have an indefinite unit count but targets will fall off after a certain time, for example 4 seconds. This means the number of targets you can attack simultaneously is determined by your attack speed. If you have 2.5 attack speed, you can attack up to 10 targets simultaneously. This could alternatively have a definite or indefinite count, but previous targets will drop off after 2 seconds if you have not attacked any units.

Pass through Think about Twitch's ultimate, Rat-ta-tat-tat. Even if he attacks a target well within his maximum range, the projectile will pass through all targets out to it's maximum range. A champion could certainly have something like this as a standard auto attack at a much lower range of course. There would most likely also be some sort of damage modification or other form of balancing mechanics involved.

Sunfire-ish This is actually what I was hoping there were going to do with Aurelion Sol when I first found out he would have stars orbiting him. This would technically be a melee auto attack, but the idea would be to have some form of weapon orbit the champion and would deal damage a simply by being near the champion. The biggest difference I would see from this would be that the orbit speed would increase based on attack speed. This would also mean that the champion would have no attack animation and would not benefit from on-attack effects. Could definitely be odd, and may not really work, but again, I'm just brainstorming.

Ground Targeted Attacks I am including this because I have tried, and tried, and tried to think of a way to do this without simply making the champion prioritize the use of an ability over auto attacks (like Karthus's Q). The best thing I can think of would be to use a Alt + Right Click command to differentiate between attack and movement commands.

I have more but that will be all for now Also, please feel free to comment with your ideas. If you even want to take any of these ideas and come up with your own champion, that is perfectly fine with me. I'd even be happy to take a look at your ideas if you want to share.