Eisel, the Spore Host

Eisel, the Spore Host

http://i.imgur.com/Z5KwYoY.jpg

Lore:

"Tell me... When you think of Bandle City, what comes to mind? A city that cowers in the shadow of Demacia on the first sign of trouble? A city who all but a handful of it's finest children have abandoned to represent themselves or other "superior" nations? This is the image that I see reflected in the eyes of outsiders. This is the flawed image that I intend to correct, by force if necessary. 
I am doctor Thaddeus D. Eisel, chief mycologist of Bandle City. I do apologise if my appearance causes you undue distress. An unfortunate side effect of my... condition, you see. Long time ago, back when I was a scout captain like our city's beloved Teemo, I was exposed to one of Singed's earlier concoctions while on an expedition. Cost me an arm and an eye, and my life as a scout for the city. I resigned myself to mycology, studying and breeding the multitude of mushrooms that grow in and around Bandle city, until I stumbled upon a strange symbiotic fungus in a cave in the plague jungles. The host creatures had remarkable regenerative properties and seemed to be acutely aware of their surroundings inside the cave. During my expedition, I may have become... unintentionally exposed to the symbiotic fungus. While cosmetically... damaging... I do admit that it's effects are quite agreeable. I have every intention of displaying these effects on the field of justice, in the name of Bandle City."

Personality:

Eisel is smugly civil, carrying an air of superiority and confidence beyond his stature as a yordle. He speaks with a southern drawl, in a deep (For a yordle) and serious tone. He is a control freak, intent to advance himself to the highest position of authority in Bandle City, and nothing will stand in his way.

Quotes:

Joke: "What do you mean I don't look like a scientist?!"

Taunting Singed: "An eye for an eye, as they say... and I intend to collect what's due."

Abilities:

Passive: Symbiotic Empowerment: Eisel moves 20%/25%/30% faster on spores. He also gains AP equal to 2.5% of his missing health. (Upgrades at 6 and 12)

Q: Fungigrapple:(Range: Melee, Cooldown 13/12/11/10/9 seconds) Empowers Eisel's next autoattack, causing 40/70/100/130/160(+30% AP) damage and pulling the target to him. Range is increased to 450 if the target is standing in spores. (Visual: Eisel throws his fungal arm at his target, dragging them to him.)

W: Mycogenic Eruption: (Range 600, Cooldown 10/9/8/7/6s) Causes a huge mushroom to burst from the ground at the target area 1 second after casting, causing 70 / 110 / 150 / 190 / 230 (+ 35% AP) magic damage and knocking up targets within 75 range of the target, and slowing all enemies within 175 range of the target by 30/35/40/45/50% for 1.5 seconds. When cast on a patch of spores the mushroom remains for 5 minutes, creating a persistant cloud of spores around it (Spore cloud extends to a range of 525 around the mushroom). This mushroom lasts 5 minutes, has 100 hit points and grants vision to the edge of the spore cloud. (Visual: Eisel slams his fungal arm into the ground, causing a large mushroom to burst from the ground at the target. The mushroom quickly withers away unless it appears on spores)

E: Consuming Spores;* Passive (Range 350): As long as Eisel stands in a spore cloud, he deals damage 30/50/70/90/110 (+2.5% bonus health, +20% AP) per second to all enemies in range. Active: (Range 525/575/625/675/725, cooldown 10s) Eisel emits a burst of spores around himself, leaving a spore cloud for 5 seconds and slowing enemies within 300 range of Eisel by 20/25/30/35/40% for 2 seconds.

R: Perfect Symbiosis: Passive: Increases the sight and spore cloud size of the mushroom left behind by Mycogenic Eruption to (650/775/900). Active: (Cooldown: 75s) Eisel's symbiote completely takes over his body for 12 seconds, giving him a shield equal to 10% of his maximum health that regenerates 20/40/60+(50% AP) durability per second. Each time the shield is broken, a 300 range spore patch is left behind. The shield's regeneration is effected by Grievous Wounds as though it was health regeneration. (Visual: Eisel is completely covered by his fungal symbiote, getting slightly larger and becoming more monstrous in appearance)

Refrences, design and mechanical inspiration:

Eisel was built to be a tanky jungling mage, who specializes in map control with his spore mushroom mechanic. The intent was to make Eisel a very defensive jungler with poor initiation and ganking tools, but strong jungle clearing speeds and great map control, as well as being a capable duelist.

I admit to shamelessly lifting his core mechanic from Starcraft 2's creep spreading mechanic, mostly because it's something that I feel hasn't yet been explored in League yet.

Passive: I felt this ability was most similar to Warwick's blood scent effect, being a potentially infinite duration speed boost, depending on the situation, so I gave it a comparable value. I don't think any champion converts missing health to AP, so I went with the closest second place and based the ratio on Vladimir's passive, based on missing health rather than bonus health. Given the right circumstances it'll be worth about 50-70 AP toward the end game, usually less.

Q: I based the damage and AP scaling on Leona's Q, another utility autoattack enhancing skill. The increased range is based on Thresh's autoattack range, which seemed like an appropriate value, not quite as far as the distance that singed's fling moves a champion, and placing them in melee range of Eisel. The cooldown is also based on Leona's Q, but slightly increased due to the situationally greater power of the skill. Originally the skill was going to improve if Eisel was on spores, rather than the target, but I felt it reduced his reliance on spore spreading and positioning when coupled with the built-in spore spreading on his E.

W: I originally based the cooldown on Cho'Gath's Rupture, but scaled the cooldown with levels to allow it to sink into it's utility/map control role for the mid-late game. For a point of refrence in game, the radius of the spore cloud is identical to the attack range on heimerdinger's turrets. The range is identical to that of Annie's ultimate. I intentionally made the range on this skill rather short, compared to other similar skills, because I want to emphasize Eisel as a defensive jungler, rather than an offensive one, so I wanted to keep all of his CC relatively short range. The spreading mechanic is the core of Eisel's gameplay, and the intent is for him to spend time between farming camps spreading the spore mushrooms. The mushrooms aren't invisible, and the spores they produce can be seen even if the mushroom is in the brush, so pushing back Eisel's mushrooms doesn't require a huge investment of resources, but it does still give away your position, so cut down the mushroom forest with care!

E: The damage and range on the passive effect are based on Sejuani's flail. The range on the slowing aspect of the active is based on J4's slowing shield. Eisel's core jungle camp clearing tool, and the ability that allows him to first produce spore patches and begin spreading spores.

R: The expanding of eisel's mushroom vision is a steady progression. It never quite reaches the vision range of a sight ward. The shield effect I had to sort of improvise, since I can't think of any champion with an AP-based heal over time. A pure AP Eisel would regenerate well over 250 shield a second, but would only have about a 180 hit point shield, which could easily be cut through by a bruiser-type champion, while a tanky AP eisel would regen about 150 per second and be tougher to chew through. The duration and cooldown are based on Mundo's ultimate. This skill essentially allows Eisel to turn his AP and health into a mitigation stat, and when the shield is broken he gets a handy spore patch to increase his move speed and escape until his shield regenerates. I had concerns that it would potentially be extremely overpowered against damage over time champs like Singed, Teemo or Malzahar, so I decided to allow grievous wounds to effect it.