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Might we be seeing a LeBlanc overhaul in the future?

CamedInYourBoi·10/17/2013, 12:58:06 AM·1 votes·5,424 views

Now, Don't get me wrong, I love LeBlanc, she's one of my most played champions. However, What I love about LeBlanc isn't what makes her particularly amazing.

Lets talk about what LeBlanc is currently. LeBlanc is a high burst single target assassin who focuses on shutting down her enemies early game, in hopes of dominating the late game.

Now, apparently this wasn't LeBlancs original intended design according to her champion spotlight: ( [url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=we5LawDUcCM[/url] ) -skip to 1:32- She was intended to be a tanky dps mage. However, due to the consecutive releases of Lux, and Swain, Riot did not want to release two similar mages in a row, so they decided to spin leblanc into the burst mage rout.

The problem with this? Synergy. Her kit design, in terms of power, does not work well with her title and background. LeBlanc is called LeBlanc The Deceiver. But what about her is so deceiving? Where are all her illusions? Why is Q her best ability to max when it and her chains are probably some of the more straight forward abilities in the game.

Her abilities:

Passive: Mirror Image- When LeBlanc drops to low health she stealths for a short time and summons a clone beside her. this clone runs in a random direction. but can be controlled.

This passive is amazingly perfect. Specially with the added moving on it's own deal. Leblanc's are constantly able to fool their opponents with well timed abilities and brush jukes with this ability. Probably my second favorite thing leblanc does.

Q: Sigil of Silence - a moderate damage single target nuke that, when procced, deals double the damage and silences the target for a few seconds.

My problems with this are, the fact that there is absolutely nothing illusion based or tricky behind it. I feel that this ability would seldom be out of place on any mage in the game. What makes it worse is it is of a higher priority than her W or her E in terms of early dps and ranking.

LeBlanc doesnt seem as though she was originally designed to be a herp derp I burst you nao champion.

W: Distortion - A moderate range dash that deals aoe damage at leblancs landing location. Can be used again to return to her original position.

I have zero problem with this ability. Any leblanc player will tell you it is easily one of the most fun abilities to use in the game. It works perfectly with her theme. So many jukes and tricks can be done with this ability.

E: Ethereal Chains - A single target nuke that slows an enemy for a short time, if the enemy doesn't move far enough away, the damage is dealt again and the enemy is snared for a short time.

I could take or leave this ability. I like it as an ability in itself, not quite sure how well it fits on leblanc as a character. But It's saved my ass a few times so of course I like it.

I feel that unlike her W and her passive however there is little room for deception. Less illusion, more damage.

R: Mimic - Mimics LeBlancs last cast spell, with increased damage and ratios.

I hate this spell. I hate it, because it feels so lazy. I wish there was a more interesting ability here instead of just recasting your last ability. It doesn't feel good. It doesn't even look good.

If you think about it, if half of her useable kit is against her theme, and her ultimate forces her to reuse one of the two spells that dont work with her, she is constantly out of character. Double W's are the most fun things in the world. But double Q's aren't fun to use, and they aren't fun to be used on.

TL;DR When I think of an illusionist, I Dont think of someone who is going to smash my face in with spiky orbs. I think of someone who vanishes into thin air. OR makes things appear.

She has so much room to be a really fun assassin / utility mage. She doesn't, however, really fit with what she is now. Her kit isn't balanced perfectly, as she wasn't even touched in the more recent tournaments, and her win rate is horrendous. I Still get groaned at when I choose her.

I for one think she needs a rework based on the information given.

Thoughts? I really would like to get a discussion on LeBlanc going. I want to see what GD, and Riot, thinks about her in her current state, and where they may want her to go in the future.

Thank you for reading!

35 Comments

RiotIronStylus10/17/2013, 1:30:26 AM7 votes

Erm, so I have no idea about the mechanics, sooo I'm pretty much useless. But I would like to strengthen Le Blanc's theme more. Currently she's sort of just a magician, yet holds this crazy high office/influence in Noxus. Maybe we could leverage that to make the aspects your talking about, the gameplay stuff, feel more unified with her look/theme.

Sorry that I can't really help with the comments on mechanics :/ I'll see if I can poke a designer.

SmokingPuffin10/17/2013, 1:13:25 AM2 votes

I do think it would be interesting to make LeBlanc more tricky and less overwhelmingly bursty.

I'd really like to see LeBlanc make a play by casting some illusionary skillshot that causes people do play into her hands.

I really don't like her Q. I don't feel like it fits the illusionist theme at all.

UgIierBetty10/17/2013, 1:51:20 AM2 votes

1000 times no.

LeBlanc's play-rate is unusually high for her abysmal win%. i.e. people have a lot of fun playing her despite not performing well.

We do NOT want another Karma on our hands.

In terms of playstyle... I can't tell if you actually play the champion at all. I trick people more than ever with my W... Running around, fooling them, etc. And they never expect you to go back in. When you have the ability to nuke someone down just by jumping on them... You have 6 hp and a full health Ezreal is chasing you? Randomly turn around and kill him, and he'll be like, "WHAAAA"

Anyway. You said "Q is the highest priority." It is not. Ever since they reworked her, Q is by far the worst ability to mimic unless you're 1v1 and within 700 range of your opponent.... I actually max W first now in most scenarios.

She is nowhere near a "hurr durr burst" champion. She doesn't have the damage to 100-0 anyone anymore after they reworked her kit unless you're waaaay ahead: you need dfg and all of your spells. When I kill people as LeBlanc, I trick them for sure. Jump around, kiting, porting in and out making them miss all of their skillshots.

LeBlanc can make her opponent look like a complete idiot if she plays correctly, and that's how I like to play her.

But you want to completely overhaul her kit!? So... like they did with Karma... y'know, the rework that most of the Karma players hated?

LeBlanc has been released for FAR too long for the design team to change her identity/skillset.

I, along with many other people I'm sure, would probably quit this game if Riot ever completely changed her kit.

DemiluniS10/17/2013, 4:10:11 AM2 votes

"experiementing with tank concept" =/= she innitially supposed to be a tanky mage, it was just a concept, like many other concepts that getting scrapped during development for many reasons. She was a single target assasin since her release and that's probably the way she'll stay. she's not in the perfect balance state right now but the latest changes were in the right direction to make her more deceivy(read the paragraph below)mobility wice.

"TL;DR When I think of an illusionist, I Dont think of someone who is going to smash my face in with spiky orbs. I think of someone who vanishes into thin air. OR makes things appear.

She has so much room to be a really fun assassin / utility mage. She doesn't, however, really fit with what she is now. Her kit isn't balanced perfectly, as she wasn't even touched in the more recent tournaments, and her win rate is horrendous. I Still get groaned at when I choose her."

I read the entire post but I want to focus on the TL;DR, you need to distinguish between "deceiver" and "illusionist". to deceieve - (of a person) cause (someone) to believe something that is not true, typically in order to gain some personal advantage. according to the definition Leblanc does it perfectly with all her abilities, her Q innitial damage is not that high but if you trigger the mark it deals a very high amount of damage that your enemy doesn't expect and you can turn the tide of the battle be giving him the comfort of the innitial low damage and then exploding him with a high burst, same goes for her E. Her W her a deceiver for obvious reasons, and I agree it's one of the most fun abilities to use in the game. You need to decide if you want her to be an illusionist or stay the deceiver she is right now...

If you want her to be an illusionist and completely change the her personality and playstyle to support this direction I think it would be better to make a completely new champion that will fit a utility mage/support role. With just a bit of effort maybe a light remake they can make Leblanc a greater "Deceiver" than she's now, not completely remake her.

P.S. I read the most of the posts in the thread and people don't understand the difference between "Deciever" and how it applies to Leblanc's playstyle and "Illusionist" which has nothing to do with her theme/lore

Age of Oblivion10/17/2013, 7:20:09 AM2 votes

2 cents for the pile:

Thematically, I'm of the opinion that LeBlanc is in an awful place. OP summed up her kit pretty well, though I'm a bit more attached to the Ethereal Chains than he is I suspect. They're not intuitive to use, but once you get the hang of it that 1.5 second root can be critical in making your jukes and kills. Her R I view as rather suboptimal. It seems like it is rather uninspired design, but at the same time I don't think LeBlanc could be a functional character without the double warp (She relies on it very heavily for the more intricate plays). Using it for E and Q, now... that just feels like a waste. Hurray, I did a load of damage. Great. There goes my ultimate in order to do what I just did without any real extra flash, just more damage. Simply put, her Q and E are boring.

The downside to any changes to her kit though, is that LB's identity is rather firmly rooted in the community. She's squishy, she can juke anyone in the game using her W, and the if you give her the slightest opening you'll get 17 - 75 seconds to sit and think about your poor life choices. This is what everyone has come to expect and love about her, and changes that stray too far from that formula are going to be very unpopular.

All of that said, she needs a skin. Any skin. Something without that collar and the.... I'm not even sure how to describe the top of her outfit. It doesn't feel like an elusive, magical assassin. It feels like playing a clown on speed.

CamedInYourBoi10/17/2013, 1:07:51 AM1 votes

@Morello

@IronStylus

@Zileas

@AnyoneI'mDesperate

Elementilist9/27/2014, 5:16:09 PM1 votes

IMO they should just make a new champion that's actually based upon illusions, and tricking her opponents for example, an ability that makes an ally invisible temporarily or makes an enemy visible with some minor damage, or an ability that causes anyone struck by the move to see everyone as an ally for lets say 3-5 seconds ( they're still able to be targeted its just u wont know who you're focusing on the enemy team)

SmokingPuffin10/17/2013, 1:42:35 AM1 votes

Here's another question on LeBlanc -- if she's an illusionist, why don't true sight mechanics do anything against her?

If I were making an illusionist kit, I certainly would expect pink wards to be involved in countering said illusions.

MarcosLuis9710/17/2013, 1:54:56 AM1 votes

Honestly i love the "my profile" option on the top right, it comes very handy to watch threads you have been into.

CamedInYourBoi10/17/2013, 2:52:56 AM1 votes

Now, I know that you have already stated you don't know much about mechanics and what have you, and that you too feel leblanc's theme needs some tightening. What I'd like to ask you, is what about her is difficult to make skins for, and what could be done to fix that issue.

Currently, Leblanc has been around for a while, but still has very few skins. One of which being a seasonal pick up.

What about her do you think could be done to make her more interesting, and more importantly feel more like the illusionist that she was designed to be, everywhere but her kit anyway.

http://forums.na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=3955618

Now, It shouldn't be EXACTLY like this, however I think that LeBlanc, should at the very least class up her current outfit. Think of her like the case with sejuani, now unlike sej, leblanc isn't going to be stampeding through the frozen tundra. However, it doesn't seem right for leblanc to be dressed in belt based lingerie while trying to be a politcal leader. It is inappropriate and serves no purpose to her as a character. This isn't a "I feel league women are over sexualised" this is a "Her current skimpy clothing serves no purpose to her and does NOT further her as a character."

CamedInYourBoi10/17/2013, 4:00:40 AM1 votes

Red designer! please don't forget about this thread!!