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Invoker Style Champion Mechanical Concept [Post thoughts/concerns please]

Kobold·5/24/2015, 2:23:09 AM·1 votes·1,143 views

In an effort to create a invoker style champion I have come to a style that I believe allows a significant amount of counterplay and high skill floor.

First I want to explain the core and mechanical idea behind the champion.

The Core idea is a Aoe or skillshot mage that requires positional awareness to use your abilities to great effect. The invoker style is a concept that a champion has “13” abilities available to them. These thirteen are divided into 3 core skills and an “Enter Combo” ability which casts the combo'd spell. The three core abilities Do not deal damage to enemies but give buffs to the champion using them.

video of how invoker works https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCcsA4P3dUM&ab_channel=DotaCinema

The mechanical side of it is a Marker system, wherein the champion places a marker on the ground in a location this then grants the buff to the champion within a radius around it. The markers can then be placed in a set of 3 on the ground at a time. These 3 are then used to create a triangle in which the spell is cast at the center or shot from them to the center. The Q,W, and E all would be on an ammo system as the champion would most likely be manaless as to use their mana bar for showing what the three on the ground are. You could make the champion have mana but then would need significant readability on the markers to be able to understand what spell would be coming. My proposal is to have the Q, W, and E have a base of 2 ammo at rank 1 and go up by 1 ammo every rank or every other rank to a max for each of 4 or 6. This allows for some downtime for failed combos and prevents complete kit usage in a fight thus requiring the player to have to think through what spell they want to use with the Ammo charge time in mind.

Q places a Red Marker, if champion is in the markers area of effect they gain 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 AD and AP

W places a Blue Marker, if champion is in the markers area of effect they gain a 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 Armour and Magic Resist

E places a Green Marker, if champion is in the markers area of effect they gain 3 / 5 / 7 / 9 / 11 MS

*numbers are a guess on what would be balanced

All of these stack up to 3 for being in the effect of 3 of the same marker.

Q, W, E would all have a base CD of 1 second.

The ultimate ranks would increase the damage and possibly reduce the CD of the 10 spells.

THE SPELLS WILL BE WORKED OUT LATER, this is just to see about the mechanical idea for the champion. If this is considered a good idea by many I will start flashing out the spells and take suggestions on this as 10 spells is something we as a community should try to come up with together.

What are peoples thoughts/concerns on this? Is it too hard on the player? The opponent? Do I need to explain better on anything?

I will respond/bump this tomorrow as I am heading to work soon.

13 Comments

0112358fib5/24/2015, 12:46:15 PM1 votes

is this all the champ does is put markers on the ground. how would this champ be viable with no other damage or cc. could you not have the markers be part of a single ability, like twisted fate's, where you chose in a rotation. This might allow for more room to expand on the ideas already here.

antymattar5/24/2015, 2:09:40 PM1 votes

Sorry for double post. Accident.

antymattar5/24/2015, 2:10:03 PM1 votes

I believe it was Morello(or maybe Ferral, but im not sure, this was a while back) who talked about making invoker style champion. That it wasnt something they would go for as the multi button presses required kinda make his gameplay very nedlesly complex.

BUT

That said, there are many other possible invoker-esque(Which basically means getting more than 4 distinct abilities out of 4 abilities) ways to make a champion, many of which have been used. Here are a few :

  • 1 - The combo mage. Basically, each ability does a particular skill basd off of which ability was last pressed. Thus a Q W E Q combo is VASTLY different from a Q E W Q combo. There are currently very few champions who utilize this exact archetype in any way. Basically think of it as thus :

Q [Hex of war] Cast a line of energy based off of the previous used ability Q [hex of war] : Throw out a bolt of flame, leaving behind a trail of fire W[hex of deceit]: Throw out an intoxicating bolt, causing the first enemy hit to become charmed E[Hex of fury]: do something related to that im out of ideas

and so fourth for every ability

  • 2 - The Shapechanger mage. Bascially, league has these right now. Jayce Nidalee Elise Quinn Gnar all fit into this category. This is a way of just getting more abilities out of a single champion by way of changing them. They are essentially two champions in one that only ever really shine when they are one champion altogether. There is an alternative shapechanger archetype that is not used yet, but I have an udyr rework idea in my mind that would utilize it. Basically, every time you ult, your basic abilities are replaced with forms of what shape to change into. This means that you might have three(or even 4!) available shapes, but that runs the risk of over-cluttering champions with ability creep.

  • 3 - The overdrive mage. This basically means that the mage's basic abilities become much more powerful at the use of the ultimate. This archetype also deliberately goes against Riot's own idea of "no more than one button for an ability." Heimerdinger and Karma fall into this category. Leblanc is a hybrid of this category and the combo mage category.

  • 4 - The evolver. Basically, this means that at some point in the game you are given a choice. Your abilities have paths that you can take that drastically change the way you play the game. Thus far Khazix is the only champion who utilizes this archetype. There are many ways of doing this but thus far Khazix seems to be the easiest concept for the evolver.

  • 5 - The spellstealer. Think Rubick. The ability to steal/copy other peoples abilities basically allows you to cast as many abilities or spells as there are spells in the match, but it is currently not even used in the game.

  • 6 - The cycler. Think TwistedFate 's deck of cards. That's a very unique way of gaining several spell types in one deck, but its also very tedious. Only TF uses that.

Of course, basic spell interactions, such as Yasuo's Q alternating based on stacks or vayne's E becoming a stun near a wall are spells that interact with the environment/other spells to "act" as though they were different spells but they are not really two different abilities.

Z Statistic5/24/2015, 7:43:32 PM1 votes

Those spells would all have to be ridiculously powerful since QWE by themselves are useless. This is fine on Invoker since he just invokes and then has the spell until he makes a third one. This mage can't hold onto their spells, which means you have one shot, making them all or nothing.

A better design would be to have QWE be actual spells in their own right, not give flat stats like Invoker, and the detonation locus would create remnants that when the mage is standing in the triangle, they can now invoke an ultimate spell. I think that we should stray away from the 10 choose 3 spells idea and instead go with: 2+ red = Quas invoke 2+ blue = Wes invoke 2+ yellow = Exort invoke one of each = balanced invoke

And then if you stack 3 of one, you get a small bonus to your Q, W, or E when standing in the triangle. That way we keep the number of spells to 7, make QWE actually meaningful (because it's really weird even for Invoker himself that his QWE are pretty much useless and ranks are purely only for his Invokes), restrict the number of potential outcomes and allow the opponent more time to plan (which means we could potentially make the invokes even stronger), still allow for the remaining 3 cases in 10 choose 3, and FINALLY, the most important part:

making the invokes locus dependent somewhat changes the dynamic, but making them into skillshots that leave remnants upon detonation or something of Living Bomb equivalent gives some agency to the enemy of where the remnants are placed, which is good counterplay.