Saker Boethul: A Rock Thrower: A Melee-Ranged Hybrid Idea.

I have been playing around with the idea of a stone thrower that may work well in the league of legends. I have always enjoyed the play style of Jayce or Nidalee, but wish that the Ultimate could remain open to allow for a more traditional playing style. I started out with the idea of Saker being an ADC, but as I developed the kit, the possibility to go to other lanes, and ability to play in different ways, developed naturally. With that being said, I did not quantify Saker's base statistics or any values on his abilities so that he could be envisioned by the reader to be however they like him (fighter, marksman, brawler, or however else you like the game). The first section is the abilities and how I would like them to function, and the later portion is an explanation of why I chose the wording the way i did, and additional information that I would like to see worked into the character, Lastly I will be going in to possible character looks and backgrounds that I have thought of during my time working on Saker.

Part 1: Abilities

Passive: Stone's Throw.

*While out of combat for 5 seconds, Saker can find piles of rocks to collect. Saker collects two rocks a second, up to six rocks, while out of combat and adjacent to a rock pile.

*Saker can make ranged auto-attacks at the cost of 1 rock. Saker's ranged auto attacks leave a rock near the where the target was hit. Dodged, deflected or other missed auto attacks do not leave a rock since Saker would have lost track of it.

Q: Heave.

*Saker crushes a rock and throws the shards at target location. Upon reaching the target location, or hitting the first enemy champion the rock shards deal physical damage and leave a zone that slows enemy movement.

*If Saker has a boulder, he instead throws the boulder. Boulders stun the first champion hit, have increased damage, and decreased range base on the size of the boulder. (See W: Rock Out)

W: Rock Out.

*Saker picks up a boulder to use as a weapon (disabling use of Saker's passive). While carrying the boulder, Saker’s auto attacks gains bonus range and damage, but he is slowed.

*Each time Tank attacks with the boulder, the boulder takes one damage. The first time the boulder takes damage, it leaves rocks that Tank can collect, and becomes smaller and lighter. The second time the boulder takes damage the boulder breaks into TWO smaller boulders (each auto attack uses only one of the two smaller boulders where activation of Q or E will use both smaller boulders if Saker has them. Q will be two parallel skillshots where E will be two overlapping zones, both abilities will use each of his shoulders as the origin of the skillshot / zone).

E: Surge.

*Saker gains bonus move speed that is reduced for each rock he is carrying. While Surge is active, Tank can reactivate this ability as many times as he wants, to drop a rock he is carrying in order to refresh the duration of surge. (Tank can later pick that rock up where he dropped it)

*If tank is carrying a boulder, he instead slams it into the ground, dealing it one damage. Smashing the boulder into the ground damages and pushes back nearby enemies based on the size of the boulder.

R: Hard Rain.

• Saker can carry 3 more rocks per rank of Hard Rain.

*Saker throws a volley of rocks at target location, damaging enemies and leaving rocks throughout the area. Saker can choose how many rocks to throw and the shape of the area that he wants to throw them in.

Part 2: Explanations

P: Stone's Throw.

*Six rocks at level 1 allows for Saker to last hit the entirety of the first wave without having to contest anyone to collect thrown rocks, or to have to leave combat in order to collect any. After the first wave I would like Saker to have to have some form of drawback for getting a ranged auto attack that should be relatively easy to maintain if played with some forethought.

*Leaving rocks where the ranged auto attacks hit promotes hard engages and/or not spamming Saker's abilities so that he can continue to be a threat from a range for a longer period of time

*Gaining 3 additional rocks per rank of the ultimate allows for longer periods of usefulness while still having a to force Saker to either contest his rocks or break combat to collect more. A period of time to counter play him.

Q: Heave.

*Designed to be the primary harass Saker has, this ability removes a stone without the ability to regain it to help limit lane harass. The slow zone that accompanies the damage should remain low so the ability can help get him away, or help close the gap, but not ensure it.

*Throwing a boulder is mostly helpful when the boulder is smaller so that the range can come into effect, but smashing the largest boulder on someone face checking should be able to make the kill easy.

*The largest boulder shouldn't have a range much more than 250/300. It is heavy and hard to throw, but should stun for 1-1.5 seconds. A boulder with one damage should sit around 500/600 range and stun for about half a second. It's still heavy, but not nearly as heavy. When the boulder breaks into two smaller boulders the range should be 750/900 range and if it stuns, should only stun for .1 second give or take. Enough to be inconvenient but not enough to ensure a pick.

W: Rock Out.

*I imagine this ability would have a fairly long casting time to pull a boulder out of the ground. I think it would be fun to reduce the casting time if Saker were near a rock wall (not the tree walls in the jungle) or a destroyed building.

*While this gives Saker's other abilities greatly increased effects, it is also meant to force him to be less mobile for a period of time to promote a time while the enemy has an advantage followed by a time when Saker has an advantage.

*Using the rock as a battering ram against structures is the primary way I thought the auto attack bonus damage would be used while the boulders should be used with Saker's other abilities in fights more often than not.

E: Surge.

*Almost all of the high tier characters have some form of gap closer or mobility increase since positioning is so important. Giving a dash to a character with an inherent range advantage is very strong, especially if a character might be taken to top lane. I gave Saker a speed boost that has the potential to last a very long time, but has a built in limiter. Decreasing the speed boost by a flat amount for each rock Saker is carrying and allowing him to reactivate the ability to drop rocks to refresh the duration means that he has to choose between being combat ready and in position.

*I designed the ability with a 1.5 second speed boost in mind, and having a .5 second cooldown on being able to drop rocks. Spamming the ability to drop a rock every .5 seconds allows Saker to start moving faster more quickly where dropping a rock every 1-1.5 seconds will allow him to move faster for an extended period of time, but limits it's usage to get out of a bad situation if Saker has enough rocks that he should be able to fight a fair fight.

*Dropping and leaving the rocks behind allows enemies to know roughly where Saker has gone, and an observant foe knows how many rocks Saker has dropped in order to judge his fighting capability.

*If Saker uses this ability to chase a foe, he is limited by the need to make ranged auto attacks so he will not waste all of his ammo on his positioning, but it does allow him to fight back along his trail should his foes try and turn on him from ahead.

*Using this ability with a boulder produces a knockback because it is intended to be his escape ability. It doesn't make sense to allow Saker to get a speed boost while he is currently slowing himself, so the safety that this ability provides is then a hard disengage. The speed boosting portion of this ability should share a cooldown with the boulder smash so that Saker can not smash the ground then get a speed boost to become almost completely un-gankable.

*The area on the second portion of the ability (smashing the boulder into the ground) should decrease for each damage the boulder has taken. Carrying the two smallest boulders should create two small aoe zones that do not reach beyond the area of either the non-damaged or one-damaged boulder, and should not fill their entire area either.

R: Hard Rain.

*Gaining more rocks from the ultimate allows Saker to fight for more drawn out fights without having to worry as much about running out of rocks to throw. This is designed to limit some of the early game lane bullying that he would be able to do against non-ranged enemies while still being a viable ranged champion as the game progresses.

*The first click after activating the ability will choose where the first rock will land, and give an area that he can drag his mouse through to throw more rocks (must hold the mouse button down to select more area). Each rock will have roughly a 75-100 unit diameter and a new 75-100 unit diameter zone will be targeted when the the mouse is dragged out of an already targeted zone and is completely within the targeting area created by the first click (Assuming Saker has enough rocks to target all of the areas he wants to throw it at).

*this ability is designed with the fact that is will be a double edged sword in mind. Saker might completely run yourself out of rocks to prevent him from making ranged auto attacks, but if he doesn't blanket the area enough he may miss his targets.

*The range of the first rock will be the casting range, and the targeting area that produces will then increase the maximum range. In order to hit someone very far away, Saker would have to throw a volley of rocks from the initial point and have them continue back to the target (similar to rumble's ultimate or Victor's laser)

*This ability has gone through the most changes since starting the character. Initially he rolled a GIANT boulder that would knock enemies aside and then reduce in size for each enemy champion hit, going bowling for enemy champions. As Saker's kit became more melee oriented (his W and reactivations of his Q and E being short ranged if not aoe around him), it turned into a large AOE pull that buffed Saker's armor and magic resistance. Neither of these really fit the rock throwing character i initially came up with.

Looks and Background

I started with a D&D character that a friend of mine is playing as the general looks and personality of the character (while the fighting style is greatly different). Saker, in our dungeons and dragons group, comes from a nomadic half-giant tribe that uses whatever is at their disposal to survive and protect their clan. These half-giants were slow to reproduce and lived along harsh mountainous areas, so many of their young would not survive. This made the clan cautious and only willing to take on a fight that they knew they would win with minimal losses. In League of Legends, I do not know of any giant people (other than illaoi, but I never looked too far into her back story), but the introduction of mount targon with the taric re-work would give a great opportunity to allow Saker to be close to his natural habitat.