[Champion Concept] As-of-yet-Unnamed Gunlance based Champion
Gunlancer Champion Concept
** Disclaimer**
WIP-ish champion concept for a champion wielding a mechanical gun-lance and a magic-tech shape-changing shield.
This champion concept is currently entirely lacking in lore or even a concept for the champion them self except for the basis of their weapons: magic-tech/potentially bio-magic-tech, and the fact that they are presumably humanoid to be able to wield said weapons. I am open to suggestions on lore ideas. That being said I am going to be focusing for the most part on gameplay, role, and mechanics and for lack of a better name I will be referring to this champion as Gunlancer for now and assigning temporary names to abilities and aspects of the kit.
Outline
Role
Gunlancer is an AD Tank that is best suited to support but could also be a viable top laner. His two main concepts line in the ability to provide limited ranged support along with his melee skills using his gun-lance and using his morphing shield to provide protecting from poke and give teammates a defensive enge in fights.
Resources
Gunlancer is a manaless champ that uses 3 resources for his spells, Bullets easy to get and are used for ranged attacks and most abilities, Empowered Shells are acquired through attacking enemies and are used for his main CC abilities, and Shield Fragments are rapidly regenerating charges used for defensive skills.
Skills
Passive: Gunlancer's passive allows him to fire Bullets as auto-attacks when enemies are out of range and slow enemies with Empowered Bullets. Q – Impaling Cannon: A forward charge that knocks enemies away and can impale and stun enemies directly hit. W – Retaliatory Bulwark: Uses Shield Fragments to briefly shield allies from a single attack or reduce damage from a single ability. Also provides passive defensive stats. E – Fragmentary Deployment: Manipulate the Shield Fragments to form a destructible wall that intercepts most projectiles R – Fortified Suppression: Mounts the lance as a stationary turret providing fire support over an area and creates a shield slowing and weakening passing projectiles and slowing enemies.
Skills (Details and Stats)
Auto-attack range: Melee – 200, Ranged – 300 - 525
Passive – Bulletstorming
Gunlancer gains 2 Bullets every 30/25/20/15 seconds (static) and 1 Bullet on every melee auto-attack up to a maximum up 10/15/20/25
Gunlancer gains an Empowered Shell every time he melee auto-attacks an enemy champion up to a maximum of 5/6/7/8. When at 0 Empowered Shells for 20 seconds Gunlancer will regenerate 1 Empowered Shell
In addition to his normal auto-attacks (melee range 200), Gunlancer can fire Bullets in place of auto-attacks at enemies between the range 300-550. Bullets function as identically to ranged auto-attacks but consume 1 Bullet each shot. In addition once every 1.5 seconds Gunlancer fires an Empowered Bullet when attacking a champion that consumes 1 Empowered Shell and 1 Bullet, and deals 125% AD and slows enemies by 40% for 1 second. Ranged attacks have 15% reduced attack speed.
Q – Impaling Cannon
Cost: 1 Empowered Shell, 6/7/8/9/10 Bullets Cooldown: 14/13/12/11/10 second
Active: Gunlancer charges forward in a straight line with his lance knocking aside enemies while carrying with him any enemies hit by the tip of his lance. At the end of his charge when he fires an explosive shell in a small area at the end of his lance dealing physical damage and stunning. His charge can be stopped prematurely by reactivating the ability.
Damage: 50/90/130/170/210 (+% AD) Stun: 0.8/0.9/1/1.1/1.2 seconds Range: 650
W – Retaliatory Bulwark
Shield Cost: 1 Shield Fragment Retaliate Cost: 1 Bullet Cooldown: 2.5/2.25/2.0/1.75/1.5 second static per champion Shield Fragment Recharge: 3 seconds
Passive: Gunlancer gains 2/4/6/8/10 (+3% armor) and 2/4/6/8/10 (+3% magic resist) magic resist for each unused Shield Fragment he has.(Changed because I thought it needed an actual weak point as opposed to slightly less OP free stats)Passive: Gunlancer has -25% armor and magic resist and gains +10% armor and magic resist for each unused Shield Fragment he has.
Gunlancer periodically gains a shield fragment up to a maximum of 5.
Active: Gunlancer sends a Shield Fragment to defend an allied champion or himself for 0.75 seconds. The Fragment breaks when the champion is hit by an auto-attack or other projectile. If hit by an auto-attack the attack is blocked and otherwise the projectile damage is reduced. Gunlancer then uses the energy absorbed to fire a retaliatory bullet at the attacker if in range. If the fragment is not broken it returns to Gunlancer.
Damage Reduction: 15/20/25/30/35% (+4% per 100 armor or magic resist) Retaliatory Bullet Damage: 50% of blocked auto-attack damage or 100% of damage reduced Range: 800 Retaliate Range: 750
E – Fragmentary Deployment
Requires at least one level in Q Cost: All Shield Fragments (minimum 1) Cooldown: 11/10.5/10/9.5/9 seconds
Active: Gunlancer sends all Shield Fragments (including those currently on allied champions) flying towards the target. Fragments apply a stacking slow to enemies they pass through and line up as an impassable wall for one second before returning to Gunlancer. If a Fragments collides with a projectile that can target minions it is hit by the projectile and breaks, reducing damage of piercing projectiles. The fragments can be moved to a second location by reactivating the ability and returned to Gunlancer by activating it a third time.
Slow: 16/17/18/19/20% (+3% per 100 AP) + 1/2/3/4/5% for each additional Fragment hit (+0.5% per 100 AP) for 1 second Damage Reduction: 15/20/25/30/35% (+4% per 100 armor or magic resist) Range: 800
R – Fortified Suppression
Requires at least one level in Q Activation Cost: All Shield Fragments (mimimum 1) Firing Cost: 1 Bullet per shot, 1 Bullet and 1 Empowered Shell per Empowered Shot Cast Time: 1.5 seconds Uncast time: 0.5 seconds Cooldown: 30 seconds from deactivation
Passive: Increases Bullet capacity by 5/10/15 and Empowered Shell capacity by 1/2/3
Toggle: Gunlancer mounts his lance on a fragment of his shield and forms a domed energy shield with his remaining fragments. While his lance is mounted Gunlancer is immobile and immune to airborne crowd control effects. When holding the cursor near an enemy within a 110 degree arc in front of him for more than 1 second he fires constantly at the enemy nearest to the cursor. Each shot counts as an auto-attack and right-clicking an enemy causes Gunlancer to fire an Empowered Bullet on his next shot with a reduced cooldown. The energy shield increases in size depending on the number of fragments supporting it and decreases the speed and damage of projectiles moving through it as well as slowing enemies. After not firing for 1 second Gunlancer raises his lance and in covered by the shield, bullet regeneration speed is doubled in this state. Fragments in use or broken decrease the size of the energy shield. Abilities can be used in this form with slight changes. Q – Impaling Cannon has a 0.5 seconds cast time to unmount. If firing when activated, Gunlancer charges as normal, if not firing jumps backwards and stuns enemies who were in front of him. W – Only 4 Fragments are available to use and don't apply passive effects. While firing Retaliatory Bulwarks can only be used in a 110 degree arc in front of Gunlancer, while not firing they can be used as normal. E - While firing Fragmentary Deployment can only be used in a 110 degree arc in front of Gunlancer, while not firing it can be used as normal. R – Unmount the lance and return to normal. Fortified Suppresion degrades and expires after 30 seconds. It degrades twice as fast when not firing
Empowered Shot Cooldown: 1.4/1.2/1 second Mounted Lance AS: 1/1.25/1.5 Mounted Lance Range: 650/700/750 Enemy Slow: 40/50/60% for 1 second Projectile Slow: 30/40/50% Damage Reduction: 20/25/30%
Detailed Breakdown
Skills
Passive
Gunlancer's passive has 2 components, although one of them is more of an explanation of his Bullet/Empowered Shell resource mechanics. I will go into both of these in some detail:
The Bullet resource is intended to provide a gating mechanism on the ability of Gunlancer to spam ranged attacks, and especially his ult, for long periods of time, as well as to stop him from kiting too well with repeated charges and ranged poke. It is supposed to be easy to get and regenerate on it's own, especially later on so as not to cause frustration by having to farm to keep up you ammunition.
Empowered Shells on the other hand are much harder to acquire as they require melee attacking enemy champions and so you are unable to build up between fights and have to manage them carefully to be able to get off a slow or charge when you need to. This is partially due to their effectiveness in ranged CC and preventing escape, especially when ulting which gives increased range and fire rate. The other part of this is to require Gunlancer to utilize his duel nature of ranged and melee and to take some risks to be fully effective. The last Empowered Shell regeneration is to prevent Gunlancer from being stuck without a charge for long periods of time between fights if he uses all his Empowered Shells by accident.
The second section of Gunlancer's passive is the unique dual range attacking he has. Gunlancer can melee with a slightly longer than normal range of 200 which helps him with gathering empowered shells slightly more safely and when enemies move beyond 300 range he is able to fire at them while expending his bullet supply. This 100 range gap is to give enemies a safe zone between being poked and slowed by Empowered Bullets and being within his long melee harassment range. His range goes up to 525 which allows him to punish greedy ADCs attempting to poke him down but allows the truly long ranged champions to retain control of their domain. Finally the ranged attack speed reduction is also to help prevent him from focusing entirely on ranged poke and transitioning to a tanky ADC.
Q – Impaling Cannon
This skill is Gunlance's main initiation, escape, and peel skill.
As an initiator and combat skill he can use it to charge deep into the enemy team and hopefully impale and stun one or more of them as well. He can also use it's effect of knocking aside enemies to split apart their supports or tanks from their carries as well as interrupting channels and slow casting abilities. It is also useful for chasing as if properly aimed it can stun someone at the far reach of your charge.
As an escape it functions much like other dashes with the added benefit of briefly disrupting the actions of enemies in your way ensuring a smooth escape. It is even possible to drag a weak enemy with you back into your team as you escape for an easy kill and possible turnaround of a fight.
It can also be quite useful as a peel skill as it can easily knock an enemy a short distance giving a squishy some breathing room and if you can manage to impale the enemy from a close range you can gain up to a 700 distance gap with a stun.
W – Retaliatory Bulwark
Retaliatory Bulwark is a skill designed to give allies an edge in fights by micromanaging shields to negate some of an enemies damage and turn it back on them. The short shield time of 0.75 seconds makes it very difficult to preemptively shield allies and requires you to shield just before an enemy attacks or while a projectile is mid flight. This, along with the fact that the shield breaks after one attack forces you to think quickly about when and what you want to block but the short cooldown time allows you to block multiple projectiles in quick succession and you are even able to shield two people simultaneously as long as you have enough Shield Fragments. These shields are most effective against auto-attacking champions as they block an auto-attack completely while only negating some damage from abilities and were designed to give a feel of a kind of inverse spell shield, although still somewhat effective for abilities.
The retaliation effect is where these shield's true power lies as it turns the enemies strength against them in addition to reducing damage taken and can easily turn a fight if used well. The obvious counter to this is to delay your attacks briefly to avoid the shield creating a kind of contest of timing between the attacker and Gunlance but this can also be beneficial in a fight as it slows and distracts the enemy.
The other effect of this ability is the passive defensive stats that are depleted as you use your shields and your E forcing you to choose between staying tanky or protecting others more.
E – Fragmentary Deployment
Fragmentary Deployment is Gunlance's secondary defensive tool as well as providing some AOE slows. It allows you to move your defence walls away from players and intercept attacks directly. This form of the shield is more effective against abilities as it can take the hits from most spells without players getting damaged. It also retains the feel of the fragile shield as it's segments each break after one hit and you must use clever and skillful positioning to make the most of it.
This ability allows for some interesting maneuverings such as placing a Shield Fragment on an ally and immediately Deploying the Fragments to behind an approaching enemy to intercept an ability being cast by them with the Fragment moving from the ally to the deployment position. You can also use the first cast to move all 5 Fragment through an enemy for a powerful slow and then immediately moving them between you to block their retaliation.
There is also an element of danger in using this ability as it leaves you at your most exposed with -25% armor and magic resist and if all of the Fragments get broken you will also be unable to use shields until they start to regenerate.
R – Fortified Suppression
Gunlance's ultimate is intended to be used in any situation where you want to provide some area control for your team where you are not too vulnerable. It can be used offensively or defensively as very different styles of use, for siege protection or for suppressing fire as your teammates fight.
When not firing the shield protects allies and yourself from incoming projectiles by decreasing their damage and making them easier to dodge and allowing you to easily block abilities and attacks with Retaliatory Bulwark and Fragmentary Deployment. It also slows the advance of enemies chasing your team through the wall and you can escape with the backwards leap from Impaling Cannon.
When used offensively it allows you to sit at the back or side of the fight and rain suppressing fire on the enemies, helping whittle them down and providing slows on escaping or chasing enemies. Allies can also cycle through your shield for extra protection and you can use Shield Fragments to help guard and support allies with Retaliatory Bulwark and Fragmentary Deployment.
Done for now, will probably add more at some point when I'm not super tired. Maybe some simple drawings of skill usage to clarify things or something. I would appreciate any thoughts/suggestions/ways to simplify stuff/balance ideas/issues/whatever.
