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Necromancer Champion Concept: Orthos the SoulCaller

Ragnarok N R0ll·4/23/2015, 6:45:07 PM·1 votes·584 views

The main theme for a necromancer champion would be in turning the enemy team's assets against them. The necromancer uses a "soul meter" that functions similar to an energy meter. However, it recharges very slowly and quickly refills when he kills units. This champion would be focused around lane control, in both pushing and preventing pushes. Here's a concept for what his abilities could look like:

Q: Soul Drain - The necromancer steals the life force of the targeted unit, regaining a small amount of health and refilling his soul meter by a small amount. If the target is killed by the ability, the soul meter is refilled by an additional (X) amount. This ability costs no souls to use.

  • it would be interesting if he could use the ability on allied minions as well, but it would be difficult to balance properly. This would allow him to force the enemy's wave to push, and would allow him to refill his soul meter while away from an enemy minion wave.

W: Raise the Dead - The necromancer casts a ritual that continually raises undead minions to fight for him. The ritual stone floats at the casting position and raises a weak undead minion every (X) seconds, the stone disappears after (X) seconds or when destroyed from taking too much damage. The minions and the stone will behave similarly to the ZZ'rot Portal item, except that the minions can attack champions and will prioritize the necromancer's autoattack targets. The ability consumes a large amount of souls to cast, but will last a long time if left alone.

  • this ability assists the necromancer in freezing lanes and / or sieging towers, it can also be used to push a lane or farm while the necromancer is not present (however, there is no guarantee that the minions will get the last hits. Only a single ritual stone can be active at a time.

E: Spectral Flare - The necromancer summons a hateful spirit to harm his enemies. The spirit travels slowly towards the targeted area, and detonates upon contact with an enemy unit. The spirit can be guided to a new target location by recasting the ability while the spirit is active. The ability can be charged to consume additional souls and create a spirit that deals more damage, moves faster and can travel further.

  • Charging the ability increases the "timed life" that the spirit has, if the time runs out, it simply detonates at its current location. The necromancer's ability to control the spirit's pathing allows him to use the charged up version of the spell to influence fights that are far away from his position. the ability can also be used for scouting, as it has a small sight range of its own.

R: Dark Calling - The necromancer corrupts a target area, dealing damage over time to all enemy units within. Any minions that die while under the affects of the ability will be raised as an undead minion. These undead minions behave like normal minions and do not time out. The ability is toggled, similarly to Anivia's ultimate, and continually drains the soul meter while it is active.

  • This ability can change the flow of gameplay by reversing strong minion wave pushes that aren't protected by an enemy champion.

Passive: Vault of Souls - Every time that the necromancer kills an enemy unit, his soul meter's maximum size permanently increases by (X). The necromancer must be within (X) units to receive this benefit.

*Kills against large units / champions are worth more, and kills / assists against champions are always collected regardless of distance. The increasing size of his soul meter allows for him to use his abilities for longer periods while away from lanes, making him more relevant in teamfights.

All of this is conceptual, and I understand if some aspects of it would be considered overpowerd / unbalanced and need to be changed. I'd like to see a necromancer champion that focuses on lane control added into the game at some point, and I'd appreciate any feedback that you guys can give that would improve the concept.

3 Comments

Akeydel4/23/2015, 7:02:28 PM1 votes

So like an alternate-resource Yorick, crossed with Vlad, and a bit of Malz thrown in for good measure. I like the ult idea, interacting with minion waves, but it would be a bit too strong and hard to balance as it is.

AsphodelNext4/26/2015, 5:23:17 PM1 votes

Using Q on your own minions is a lot like denying from DotA, which Riot had at one point in the form of Gangplank's Raise Morale. But they took it out and made a move away from denying. It works when both sides can do it, but when only one can, it's actually kind of OP; imagine not being able to hit level 2 because your opponent just keeps on killing his own creeps. Otherwise, Q seems pretty good for a bread and butter last hit ability, kind of like a Vlad Q.

W honestly seems too similar to Zz'rot Portal, though at least it's sort of free. You get hard countered by Nasus, but you can push really hard. I don't know about freezing though; unless you can turn it off, the portal will just break your freeze after a wave or two.

E seems pretty solid, you charge up something like an Elise spider and send it at them, but you control it. Might want to watch out that you don't overdo the damage though, or you'll end up with homing Nidalee spears.

R seems like it should have a bit longer CD than Anivia, otherwise you'll be able to flicker it and get last hits while saving on soul meter(of course, that could just be part of the skill of using the ability) Also, seems really oppressive for somebody with no waveclear to play against, but that's a bit of a counter.

Don't feel like the passive is that rewarding; you could make that a gain in soul meter per level and it would really be pretty much the same ability, save for preventing use as a support. Similar to Cass's passive and how people felt frustrated her power was locked away behind a farming minigame, except in this case the reward doesn't even feel that impactful.

Overall, the concept does promote the wave control concept pretty well, but there are a few issues with that. First, it's no fun to play against somebody with wave control. Old Morgana and Cassiopeia would just push you to tower over and over, and there was really nothing you could do about it but call for ganks, and the range they could clear from made even ganking not that good of an answer. Second, wave control only feels impactful while you are in lane; go to a Baron or Dragon fight and you don't have any of your turned minions backing you up. Either you're really overpowered in lane or really underpowered in objective teamfights, and making it balance between the two seems really hard because you're losing a significant portion of your kit. Third, wave control is not the most fun thing to do. Freezing and pushing are good in the strategic, farming phase when you're building up power, but the spike in the interest curve in League is kills and fighting other champions, and wave control's relation to kills is tangential at best. You don't have a lot of direct damage here, and balancing the wave control ability with the ability to get kills seems like it will either make you overpowered at wave control or easily killable due to your inability to trade back. Overall, seems like a nice idea, but balancing it would be really hard, and he seems like he wouldn't be that fun to play as or against.