Roshan - The Cyber-Enhanced Terror

­­Here's a Table of Contents for the page. :)

1. Overview

2. Lore

3. Abilities

4. Creation Story

P.S. Concept art:

http://imgur.com/a/aVDTg

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Overview

Roshan is an idea that's been in my head for a long time now and has finally been developed to a point where I feel he can be shared as a solid champion. Made for being used in the jungle, Roshan is a highly mobile damage threat that is hard to lock down. His "gimmick" is that every one of his abilities runs on some sort of ammo system, whether it's similar to Rumble's overheat mechanic or Akali's ultimate counter. The trick to mastering Roshan is all about being selective on the ammo you use up and resupplying whenever you can.

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Lore

Day 1:

Project: Revenant has been in production for years now, but we've finally obtained a subject to test it.

"Revenant" is a code name for a new weapon the scientists of Noxus have been working on. They've only just finalized a prototype, but it is truly a marvel. A fully automated turret linked with a soldiers brainwave so it fires wherever the soldier tells it to. In practice, it can be capable of incredible combat efficiency, but that's not enough. One weapon to be mass produced is not the end goal. That is why I was brought in. To train and discipline a new breed of weapons: half biological, half mechanical, and completely obedient. A prisoner brought in from one of our generals. Or brigadiers, whatever that furball claims himself. A young yordle. He's apparently tougher than he looks, but I have my doubts. Kled appears to have confidence in his decision.

Time will surely tell.

Day 3:

The young yordle is proving difficult to break.

His stubborn nature is getting the better of him. He refuses to comply with our demands. However, his physical prowess seems to be adequate. Constant exercise and increased discipline will teach him his place. They all break eventually.

We've also settled on a name for our new subject. Nashor. Named after the most fearsome being in our existence. By the end of this venture, it will be quite fitting.

Day 36:

Nashor has finally begun to cooperate.

Though he still has a scowl on his face at all times, Nashor no longer fights tooth and nail with his handlers. Time will tell if this will last. He has even traded actual words for the simplicity of grunts and growls. However primitive, this we can work with. Now the true tests can begin.

Day 48:

We ran into a slight problem that led to a brilliant idea.

Nashor has been proving capable of controlling the Revenant and rapidly improving in his performances, but there was a set back. While testing various terrain, Nashor's foot was caught in a crevice and the weight of the Revenant caused a clean break in his tibia, ankle, and knee. This did not set well with the other scientists as we did not have time for the bone to heal or find a new subject. We instead opted to remove the bone for a mechanical replacement. Upon further thought, the team decided it would be more efficient to replace the entire lower body and forearms, a procedure strongly based on the research of the Machine Herald himself. Nashor's mechanical enhancements allow him to move faster and more efficiently than before, which allows us to move to the next stage of our experiment.

Day 53:

Iris is fully operational.

Another code-named prototype that works remarkably well with the Revenant, after a few modifications. A short ranged signal that sends data back for analysis about a specified target, specifically weak points. This data is sent through to Nashor's new mask where information is displayed in front of its own eyes.

We've started having Nashor hunt and kill beasts in a controlled environment at the compound and its performance is astounding. Every animal is quickly located, particular strengths fought around, and killed with several shots straight through the heart. Simply put, these beasts never stood a chance. Perhaps we could pull strings and bring in some Xer'Sai for a real challenge...

Day 67:

Nashor has proven to be quite resourceful.

We obtained the Xer'Sai, but they proved to be too much for Nashor's equipment. The environment was built to resemble the Shuriman desert complete with a sea of sand, boulders, and ambushed caravans. Nashor ran out of ammunition and was swarmed by the Xer'Sai. The other scientists were already putting their heads down preparing an explanation for their failure when Nashor rummaged through the wrecked caravans and found some sharp pieces of metal, which it jammed into its now mechanical forearms and fought back the creatures with fury and animal instinct. After the final Xer'Sai was slain, Nashor scavenged some scrap metal and patched its robotic limbs thanks to Iris scans of its own body.

Very interesting indeed. We will have to add this to the arsenal.

Day 73:

We've finally done it.

The final weapon to complete Nashor's arsenal: a modification to the Revenant which allows it to fire an extremely powerful bullet that causes a concussive blast. We've named it the Chimera, in honor of one of the scientist's ex-wives. A weapon with limited supply but explosive results. The time has come for Nashor's final test, the battlefield itself, where he will show Demacia, Ionia, and all the enemies of Noxus there is nowhere they can run that is safe from our wrath.

Tomorrow, we make history.

Day 74:

We were played for fools.

Nashor only did all we asked so that one day it may wreak havoc on everyone that twisted it into the killing machine it is now. And we gave it everything it could ever need. The Revenant, Iris, Sabre, Chimera, weapons that took years to perfect turned against us. All this time we were sure Nashor was broken, I was sure it was obedient, but it just bid its time. Iris found weak points in all the walls, Chimera blasted through, Revenant and Sabre tore apart any resistance. We've lost power, we've lost control, we've lost everyone. And now I'm stuck here, hiding in the file room where it learns everything that had ever led it to these circumstances. As it removed a photo of the Cavalier and looked into the mirror, it saw in large lettering "PROJECT: NASHOR". But in the reflection it sounded out the name "Roshan". This was the first word spoken in months. I couldn't help but laugh at the irony of it all.

Wherever you are, Kled, watch your back. This monster will stop at nothing to find you.

Abilities

Passive - Sabre

Instead of mana, Roshan expends various types of ammo. Based on how much ammo Roshan currently holds, it will gain attack speed as its current ammo decreases. At less than 40% maximum ammo, Roshan unsheathes two blades on the next auto attack and gains armor penetration on subsequent auto attacks. This bonus lasts until Roshan leaves combat and has a cool down. Additionally, every time Roshan ranks up an ability, that ability's ammo is completely refunded. Returning to the fountain also refills all ammo.

Leveling up increases the attack speed bonus and reduces the cool down.

Q: 15% W: 40% E: 15% R: 30%

• Does not activate until Roshan auto attacks. Restoring ammo above 40% before auto attacking will deactivate the ability without setting it on cool down.
• Used for early jungle clears, securing kills, or as a last resort.
• The passive will not count an ability's unique ammo until the ability has been leveled. Keep this in mind when deciding which ability to level up during the early stages of the game.
• Roshan is extremely dangerous when in this state. Try to kite it as best you can or wait out the buff duration.
• Thanks to Roshan's ability to resupply upon entering the fountain, it can become a huge menace during fights within the base. Try to eliminate it as quickly as possible when setting up a siege.

Q - Impetus

Toggle Ability:

Roshan gains increased movement speed while the ability is active. Keeping the ability on for too long will cause Roshan's systems to be in danger of overheating. Roshan cannot activate the ability past his maximum heat threshold. Roshan reduces his current heat while the ability is not active.

Leveling up this ability will increase maximum heat.

• In place of the mana bar.
• Amount of heat is reduced while the ability is not active.
• Allows Roshan's jungle clear time and map movement to rival even the fastest champions, especially when coupled with its passive.
• Only use offensively when it is safe to do so, as this is also your only defensive option before level 6.
• While Roshan is incredibly fast when this is active, its options are limited when the ability overheats. Coordinate with your team to drive Roshan into a corner.

W - Revenant

Toggle Ability:

Roshan targets a unit with his turret, constantly firing and dealing damage until the unit dies or Roshan runs out of ammo. Reactivating the ability on a new unit will change the turret's target, reactivating the ability on Roshan will deactivate the turret. When the turret kills a unit, it will automatically target the nearest enemy unit with the lowest amount of health (prioritizing champions).

Killing a minion or small monster restores 25% of Revenant's ammo, killing an enemy champion or large monster restores 50%.

Leveling up this ability will increase damage, maximum ammo capacity, and fire rate.

• Ammo counter is visible underneath your heat bar.
• Primary source of damage.
• Scaling of ammo capacity and fire rate per level makes Roshan's ammo always run out after the same amount time, regardless of rank.
• Makes Roshan's ability to kite extremely potent as the ability constantly deals damage while you move around or auto attack your opponent.
• Keep in mind that a large amount of Roshan's ammo is centered around this ability. If it runs out, the passive will likely be triggered and it will move in for the kill. Change your strategy based on the ammo counter.

E - Iris

Passive Ability:

Every time Roshan kills a unit or secures an assist on an enemy champion, it scavenges a shield based on a portion of Roshan's maximum health. The combined total of Roshan's current health and current shield cannot be greater than its maximum health. Any health regeneration Roshan would normally benefit from that conflicts with this rule replaces its current shield with health.

Leveling up this ability increases the amount of maximum health that is converted into a shield.

• Primary sustain during early clears.
• Lasts until it is replaced or destroyed.
• Does not count as ammo.
• If you sustained damage from a gank or skirmish, clearing a jungle camp or minion wave can allow you to stay on the map longer.
• When jungling against Roshan, keep the previous statement in mind. Counter jungling can have a bigger impact on Roshan than other junglers.
• Roshan is a very squishy champion, but securing kills in a team fight can make it difficult to put down. Eliminate Roshan quickly or protect your allies.

Active Ability - Skill Shot:

Roshan sends out a signal that stops on the first enemy champion or large/epic monster hit and marks them as targeted which lasts for a few seconds. Targeted units are revealed to Roshan and his allies and take increased damage from champions. Allied champion damage on these targets will reduce the cool down of this ability.

Leveling up this ability increases bonus damage and reduces cool down.

• Counts as ammo (only 1 shot).
• Ammo counter is visible as a secondary barrel on the turret (flashes red when ready).
• Damage over time abilities and effects only proc on the first tick of damage.
• Good for catching out enemies during ganks or invades as it prevents them from breaking line of sight.
• Communicate with your team to make full use of the ability in team fights to quickly eliminate a target and reset the cool down.
• This can allow you to move on the edges of fights and be a sort of "spotter" for your team if you are low on ammo and don't want to hard commit.
• When targeted, avoid as much damage as possible or quickly eliminate Roshan to prevent multiple casts of the ability.
• Adapt your team fight to protect any squishy targets hit as efficiently as possible.

R - Chimera

Toggle Ability:

Roshan transforms the barrel of the Revenant and replaces the ammo type, making its W a new ability.

Skill Shot Ability:

Roshan fires a concussive bullet towards a target location, exploding on the first enemy champion hit dealing damage and knocking them back. If the shot is missed, Roshan can pick up the bullet and reload it into his cannon. Extra shots are produced and reloaded over a long period of time. Gaining additional ammo for Revenant beyond 100% reduces the production time of Chimera. (Ex. current Revenent ammo=75%, obtaining assist reloads 50% --> Chimera production time is reduced by 25%)

Leveling up this ability increases damage and maximum ammo, decreases production time.

• Ammo counter is visible above your health bar.
• Each rank increases ammo by 1 (maximum of 3).
• Casting R switches which ammunition will be used upon casting W (damage still scales on ranks for R).
• Missed bullet disappears after an amount of time.
• The knock back from Roshan's R provides some extra kite potential or dangerous flanking options.
• When flanking, cast your E onto an enemy before knocking them towards your team to increase the chance of death.
• Ammo for Roshan's R is more difficult to refund than his W. Be selective with how you use your bullets and pick up missed shots whenever you can.
• Keep in mind that even if Roshan misses a shot, it can still pick the bullet up and try again. Zone it away from the bullet or punish Roshan for moving in for it.

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Creation Story

Roshan went through several different concepts and gameplay changes over the course of his development in my head. He started out as one of three individual "demi-champions" that the player would independently control across the map, each with specific roles, but I was only able to come up with two. One was a little guy with a slingshot that would lay traps around the map while the other had blades along his forearms and would dash in and out of fights to slice up opponents. Not only was I unable to come up with a third character to add (most likely being some sort of tank with crowd control) I couldn't think of a way to make controlling the characters efficient by any means. But I really liked the idea of a character that could run through fights disrupting opponents a lot, so I built more on that. The original design was a kind of forest-based fighter that had wooden armor and a tiki mask.

He was put on the back burner for a long while as I continued through college and it wasn't until I saw Star Wars: The Force Awakens that he came back up. It's at this point you realize just how long this guy's been on my mind. After seeing the movie, I came up with the idea of having a canon strapped to his back, though it wasn't like the Revenant in the final kit. It was a canon that fired in a cone behind him and also pushed him forward a little, kind of like Graves ult. This would help give him the "run through a fight and disrupt the enemy" feel that I was looking for, but I struggled to come up with a kit that would fit this ability and character, other than some sort of dash move. This also got built upon with a mechanic of running along and jumping to and from walls. He still had the blades on his forearms but instead of a woodland fighter, he became more of a desert scavenger like Rey from the movie. He still had a mask but his armor would resemble the scavenger idea and the mask would slightly resemble the Xer'Sai. His origin story also took shape as a kid who was stranded in the desert and grew up stealing from the caravans and picking apart a giant Noxian vehicle of war that was ravaged and abandoned in the desert. This is also where I came up with the filler name "Rojinn". Other than that, I was low on ideas and college finals were coming up, so he was set aside once again.

Around the spring of 2016 I found myself thinking more on Rojinn when I pulled some inspiration from another game: the Blizzard fanboy's MOBA, Heroes of the Storm (WHAT SOMEONE PLAYS THAT CRAP?!!?!?!???). One of the characters, Tychus, carries a mini-gun and one of his abilities let's him move freely as he deals damage. Honestly I don't remember any of his kit other than that (I barely played the game). Probably gonna look it up later because now I'm curious. Anyway, that got me thinking about how I can change the canon to a turret and change the way Rojinn approaches fights, and i still needed to find two more abilities and a passive. There also arose another problem. Jhin has now been released and Rojinn sounds a lot like Jhin, so I knew a name change would need to be in order, but that was for another day. I knew there were two definite abilites he needed in his kit to make him a successful jungler: some kind of sustain and some kind of auto attack buff. The possibility of his ultimate, however, is what ended up coming next. I played with the idea of having his ultimate ranked at level 1 like Jayce, Nidalee, and Karma. It was a laser-wire trap that would be attached to walls and when an enemy would walk past it would trigger, reducing their sight range and slowing them. Rojinn would also be alerted of the enemy's location and a path to the enemy would light up, giving him increased move speed while running on it. I also laughed at the idea that the enemy that triggered the trap would also hear the sounds of Rojinn running towards them get louder as he got nearer. Upon further thought, this ability seemed more cinematic that practical, and ended up getting scrapped. Additionally, Taliyah was announced and seeing her passive made me flip a few tables like, "Well f*ck there goes my wall-running idea, thx rito". From here, development accelerated rapidly.

I was struck with the idea to make Rojinn a yordle after I realized how well the ears sticking out of the side would fit with the ideas I had of the mask. The desert scavenger idea was scrapped in favor of the Noxian experiment, but still retained some of the old ideas that attracted me to the scavenger option. I came up with the idea to have everything run on ammo, mainly because after the Graves and Caitlyn rework, Jhin release, and Rumble update I thought, "If this is what Riot wants, it's what Riot will get". Honestly, the passive came before the rest of his abilities, though it was originally his E. The W turned into what it is now, and ideas were starting to flood in. I did a quick sketch of what I had planned for Rojinn and paused before giving the file a title. Eventually I simply wrote "Roshan". It wasn't until the next day that I realized Roshan was Nashor spelled backwards and goosebumps rained down my arms as his backstory was solidified, which led to wanting a sort of methodical way to use his abilities, almost mechanical like there was a system. The rest of his kit, however, still needed work. The thought of changing his ultimate to being a secondary firing option of his turret came to mind but the first idea was more of a Caitlyn ult where you could move while casting. Now it ran on ammo, which was good for what I was looking for, but bad for originality. Again, back burner, though I had a good idea on how it would work.

I thought more on what he would need as a jungler. Some sort of sustain and gank assistance was still required. I really didn't want him to be a "Master Yi" type jungler where, without red buff, he really doesn't give anything to help a laner and you have to hope you get to late game where he can snowball. The idea for Iris was made, though I highly considered it for his R. Meanwhile, in my downtime when I don't feel like conforming to the League of Legends meta, I like to play ARAMs and do really stupid builds on various characters, like "Only Q Gangplank" (doesn't work as well since his rework), "Full AD Yorick" (got a quadrakill last time I did it), or my personal favorite, "Full move speed Volibear" (I assume is as terrifying as it is hilarious). That Volibear build made me realize how badly I wanted extreme move speed with very little gimmick. And so Roshan's Q was born. The problem of sustain became fixed after I realized that once Roshan was equipped with Iris in his backstory, he would most likely start studying everything around him, including his mechanical parts. Why wouldn't he make repairs on himself while he was out in the field? That's when his E was solidified. Eventually, I came up with the idea of making the different kinds of ammo be regenerated in different ways. Needing to go back and resupply became an interesting concept to me so I hung onto it. I wanted players to have to manage ammo sparingly when the situation calls for it. It was at the point Kled was announced and I can't tell you how upset I was to see the new champion being a yordle, like serious Riot at some point it's almost like your somehow stealing my ideas, but I had come too far and liked the character too much to change him now. I continued messing with Roshan's look and ability names until I was satisfied. As for Roshan's ultimate, I knew that I wanted it to toggle a secondary fire on his W, but the full plan didn't come through until I was literally typing up the concept for the forums. Keeping enemies away from or stuck in an area tickled me too much to pass up, I felt it fit well enough so I went with it.

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Jesus, well there's that giant mess, if you read clear through I hope you found it interesting enough. I have another mostly complete concept for a champion in mind so maybe you'll see something else that I post soon enough.

K bye.