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Auto-Attacks Are for Pros

Triple Tri·10/5/2016, 5:23:26 AM·1 votes·467 views

I, since I've too much time on my hands (during the summer, at least), was considering what would make an interesting, original champion, who would still tie into the stories of other champions. Also, at the same time, I was considering the power of the wind, as a tornado had recently torn up my town; to me, it seemed that all the champions related to the wind, Yasuo, Janna, and Riven, seemed well-made, strong, and fun to play. Therefore, I thought of the possibility that the removal of certain fundamental mechanics could make a more interesting champion, and that a champion based upon that lack, coupled with wind abilities, would be exceptional; as a result, Lin, an auto-attack-free champion, was conceived. Obviously, such a thing is difficult to balance, and the backstory/reason for the lack of auto attacks was also not easy, but as I mentioned, I had some time. The story was the harder part, so I'll start there; Yasuo and Riven, at least from my perspective, don't seem as though they should be archenemies, as that is too simple and easy an explanation, without plot twist. For this reason, I'd say that Lin, not Riven, should be the one that destroyed Yasuo's home and master, leading to his battle with his brother and so forth; however, I thought that her motive should be revenge against his master, who, a fool in his youth, battled her father, slaying him in a dual, as a result of what he considered to be disrespect. In the process, she was injured, and lost both arms (which leaves her with no auto-attack capabilities). After the fight, she survived only by luck, as no one knew that she had been injured, a babe, and she was raised by an eagle, who seeing her distress, recognized her as a child of the wind, one whose blood is tied to the wind spirits, capable of controlling the sheer force and power of the air. The eagle raised her, and as I said, she gained a desire for vengeance, once she was told the story of her life, and, as a result, she would learn swordsmanship, summoning the winds as her strong arms to bear a sword, and defeat the now old master in a dual. After several years of training, she attacked the master (while no one else was around) fought him, and dealt him a mortal blow. As he died, he apologized to her for his youthful pride and the harm he had caused, with his last breath giving her his blade and blessing her, giving her his knowledge of the winds. Lin realized, then, that vengeance brings only pain, and became a nomad, wandering in search of wisdom, bearing the blade of the old master, using it to do good where she could.

That is all I could think of for story for now, and I am totally open to any suggestions that anyone might have in regard to her past.

In terms of balancing the lack of an auto, I think there would be no problem if these abilities were used: Passive- Unwavering/Wind Force: Lin does not build critical strike, but instead receives it in double crit as crit resistance; Lin also builds a Wind Force bar underneath her health bar, replacing the mana bar, as she moves, and that Wind Force is what powers her abilities which all cost 25 wind units. (ult included). When the bar is emptied, she is "becalmed" for ten seconds, in which the bar is not refilled, but Lin has increased defense. Q- Wind Lance: Lin stabs a straight, piercing line. all units in the stab are damaged. 1.5 second cooldown at rank 1, 1 second cooldown at max rank, without CDR. W-Lotus Bloom- Lin cuts a shorter range circle around herself, dealing damage to all units in the cirlcle; 1.5 second cooldown at rank 1, 1 second cooldown at max rank, without CDR E- Slipstream Roll: Lin rolls a medium distance (about as far as Yasuo E) and regains 50 wind points at rank 1, and 250 at max rank, as the bar hold 500 wind points at level 18. (E cannot be taken as the first ability) R- Upgust- Knocks all units in front of her airborne, losing 0.5 seconds of cooldown on each ability which is successfully landed on an airborne target. 10 second cooldown at rank 1, 5 second cooldown at max rank.

This could be a little OP once CDR is added, but scalings and restrictions could be added as needed.

I hope that this has at least been an interesting diversion, and would appreciate any thoughts or comments.

Thanks,

Triple Tri

2 Comments

FloRaider4210/5/2016, 10:07:29 PM1 votes

Lore: Riven is never said to have killed Yasuos Elder (for all we know it could have been Janna). I think you are confusing Fanon with Canon here. That said even without that the Lore is pretty bland (plenty of Revenge stories) and doesn’t really have much future potential (she already achieved her goal).

P: Crit resistance is too specific, as you basically punish ADCs and some Fighters for picking their champs with no real counterplay. The Wind force mechanic as a reverse Heat mechanic sounds interesting, but could work better with MS as without Wind force you turn into a sitting duck, where the defence buff won’t matter much. Q: Yasuo Q W: Katarina W E: Depending on the CD this makes or breaks her kit. R: 5 sec Ultimate ? Also seems to be instant AOE CC

Overall: I feel like replacing AA is a far better idea, than outright removing it, since without a spamable skill (which often end up pretty bland) those champions have no real way to farm. Apart from the wind force mechanic, which is interesting, the kit is pretty bland.

JanusRuE10/6/2016, 6:50:23 AM1 votes

I think removing AAs would only MAYBE work on a support champion... unless they have a game changing ability like Ivern has with jungle camps.

Wind Force - I may need a level 1 cap because I cannot tell if 500 at level 18 means its growth per level is high or low. Having abilities that cost the same at all levels, while having to manage a minimal but scaling resource tends to be bad because at low levels you starve with low damage, at high levels you spam away without looking at your bars. I think a static 100 point scale, like Yasuo's Flow would make it easier for the player and enemies to gauge her potential damage. It already seems to scale with MS like his Flow, but gaining it only while moving and E may cause some serious issues especially with a 10 second silence/disarm if you mess up. I'll get to E a bit later though. Also I don't like the idea of having enhanced defenses at no resources. That seems to reward spamming when trying to survive dives, and forgives failed all in attempts. I would make it a 0-100 Wind bar at all level, (adjusting ability cost depending on base damage and AD scaling) and ' Lin gains 1 point every second per ~100 MS, 1 point per 100 distance traveled', it would encourage orb walking MS builds. It seems like she would fill a similar role to Riven or Yasuo. A Top with a possible Mid, meaning burst damage with conditional survivability, so I make the second part 'At max Wind, When Lin damages a hostile unit with an ability she will be shielded for 2 seconds, after the shield expires or breaks she will gain a burst of movement speed for 1 second.' This way she could bide her time and plan when she would wants to cap wind to make a hit and run trade or go all in for the kill.

Unwavering - Although Crit is one of the RNG things that is sometimes considered bad for LoL, it is currently the mechanic some champions are balanced around and they need it function. Just as FloRaider42 said, Crit resistance especially at x2 rate would gut the things that need crit, like Tryndamere, Shaco's Q, and any champion that has Crit items in their 'required' builds. If it was 'Lin does not gain critical strike chance, but for every 1% Crit she receives 0.5% less damage from Critical Hits', this would allow Crit conditions to still trigger against her, but give her survival against Crit builds without having to build tank items. She would become a hard counter against Crit build champions, but sustain would still mess her up due to her not building real tank items. Depending on her damage scaling she may end up as sustain damage that gets bottlenecked by Wind Force generation, and making her a solid counter against a Crit build version of herself. Also Crit items tend to have Attack Speed, but without AAs the AS would become a dead stat for her, like mana on Riven. If the enemy does not build Crit it would be a useless passive.

Wind Lance and Lotus Bloom have the same issues, but together they make things worse. Q and W are meant to replace her Auto Attacks, and because she will end up building AD (crit focused passives and all) she will end up with items that have On-Hit Effects. If she cannot trigger them it would gimp her set up pretty bad, she would need massive AD scaling, and her power spikes would come either faster, or harder making her snowball like an avalanche. If the On-Hit Effects trigger on ALL targets hit, she would be OP. Just imagine a hydra effect triggering on multiple hostile units during wave clears and team fights. On-Hit effects would have to only trigger on the first enemy hit. The next major issue is that Q and W hit multiple enemies while having the same cost and CD. If the range and radius are comparable, their damage would most likely be as well, creating an issue that pigeon holes the player. Leveling would become a static Q, E, W Max W first followed by E. The reason I think this is because without AA's you cannot start with E at level 1 as you said because you wouldn't be able to farm with dashes alone. This leaves you with Q and W as a choice, while lacking a resource builder/dash, Q becomes greater than W while farming because it would have extra poke range to staying safer from being jumped on. Once you have E at level 2 it will fix the range/trading issue behind why you did not start with W. Playing safe until level 3, you get W and if the enemy champ gets in range of It, you would just spam W over Q, because Q is directional and you can end up missing. You COULD Q, E, Q till max, W only when you have to, because by level 3 you would get more damage from having a level 2 Q (with slightly lower CD, and possibly higher AD scaling) than a level 1 Q and W. Dueling would be much easier at level 3 with Q, W, E though, as you can Q before you or them walk into W's range, then you spam that, only using E to stick to them, or run away once you are low on resource. This kind of makes Q useless to level beyond 1, unless Q and W have something extra to make them different. Many ways to fix this issue, but it depends on if she is going to be single target vs AoE.

Slipstream Roll - If she needs 25 Wind to be able to cast this, the return is only +25-+225, and with the 10 second no wind regen, it would take longer before she could dash if she taps out making it even more punishing to mess up. If E's CD was to high, she would energy starve to easy, forcing the player to never go all out during team fights for fear of the 10 second punishment making her useless or unreliable in extended team fights. If the E's CD was to low, she would have Yasuo mobility with no bottleneck, turning her into the most mobile champion without peers while making the 10 second punishment/defense buff pointless as it would never happen. Tying her mobility to her resource also makes the CD very hard to balance, to high of a CD she will feel sluggish, to low of a CD she will become impossible to catch/runaway from. I would remove the resource regen directly from the E, because with my recommendations with Wind Force she would gain a slight burst of wind indirectly while dashing because of distance traveled.

Upgust - At skill level 3, and 45 CDR it has a 2.75 second CD with a 0.5 second CD reduction every damaging skill landed on airborne units. Even if it only had a 0.55 second knock up, with only 3 units you can Q+W to completely reset R, allowing you to R-Q+W again. Costing only 75 wind every 0.55 seconds, with a cap of 500 wind, you can do this 6 times, 10 with casting a max level E in the middle once... all in 5.5 seconds of sustained CC/AoE damage. Very breakable, so it needs a heavy redesign as it will not feel the same with just number tweaks.