What's This? A champion that has a simple and fresh kit?

Duko·6/26/2015, 11:39:06 PM·3 votes·856 views

Look, it's pretty clear that Rito has been making some champions recently that are simply kitloaded. Ekko being the most recent example, as he exhibits abilities including but not limited to: a flash, dash, aoe stun, shield, slow, on hit slow, movespeed buff, another teleport, ap on hit damage, percentile health damage, healing, aoe burst, you get the point. I wish the champ squad would pursue creating more champions (like Tahm :D) that bring a new style of play to the table, rather than take 4 champions playstyles and mash it into one. Let me show you what I mean. Here is a champion that is simple yet fresh:

Rel, Bane of the Traveler

The Forests of Shurima are sparse and few, they grow around blue jewls of water in open deserts, as if protecting the oasis that lay within. But it is not the forest that protects those crystal waters, but the elemental embodiment of force they breed. The Oasis of Shurima are far from the symbol of life that one would expect of a source of water on a desert land. In some lands walking within is forbidden, in some they stand as a trial of men who wish to have a story to tell when the come home, if they ever do. But in most lands they lie forgotten, unneeded as great empires rose around the building of the Great Wells. Under the rule of the fourth King, father of the late Azir, the trial of the oasis was forgotten. Trade routes knew well to avoid the oasis. For those who did would meet an untimely fate at the whim of the Greater Elemental of that domain. Rel, Spirit of the White Oaks, Bane of the Traveler. Thousands of years before beings knew the Sun's power, Rel was created in one such oasis, much as a pearl in the cloister of shaded branches. He pulled the force of nature from the trees around him, and grew strong. Years swung by without notice of Rel, until one day two creatures of flesh invaded his privacy. They were young and inadept, to easy to kill, to interesting to remove. Rel watched the pup play with the alligator, a most peculiar sight which entertained him greatly. The Sun fell and the two beings of flesh left the Elemental's domain, yet he dearly wished they would return. He did not wait long, only twenty years, before the two returned, changed, stronger, yet still together. Rel watched them for a while and decided to make himself known. He lowered himself to where they stood and waited for them to spot him. They were quick to notice and quicker to come and see what they had discovered, or what had discovered them. They saw and spoke and it became clear to Rel that they were distressed. He listened to them speak until he was versed in their tongue and then spoke. They listened. The Dog and the Alligator had come from their city to hide. They had been condemned and marked for shame in acting against the ones who ruled them. They spoke of the great power they were promised by their ruler, and Rel explained, "These trees rule me, and they too offer great power, power far greater than what a being of the flesh can contain." The youthful beings were stunned and then begged to share in the communion of his knowledge. Rel looked at them and saw promise, yet he wished for his secret to be held from the grasps of man. He offered them some of his power if they would promise to use it to protect the Oasis that had offered such gifts. " But you must not drink from both cups." Rel looked at each. " I will train you and embue my power in each of you, but you must not take up the power that was offered by those who once ruled you." They agreed and so it was done. Each grew in strength, one in ferocious power, the other in restrained focus. After some time, each was given a portion of Rel's force, and the union was complete. They left him to defend as they had promised. But it was not to be so. One tempted the other after many years to partake in the power offered by their leader. They would be guardians not of the woods which Rel was born, but of the great city, which expanded under their protection. Enraged, Rel preyed on the beings of flesh who came to his domain. He watched as cities rose and fell under the ever stoic guard of that which was Nasus and Renekton. But then there was a change, a shift in power which threw the brothers into imbalance. After many years Renekton emerged, far from his mind and morals. Rel felt nothing but rage from his pupil's heart and feared how the guardian would use the power he had bestowed in him. He needed to end what he had created, for the good of himself and for world and even the universe. Such Imbalance of power could not exist, so Rel rose and followed Renekton, into the Summoners Rift.

Base Stats HEALTH 511 – 1871 ATTACK DAMAGE 48 – 107 HEALTH REGEN. 6.0 – 16.2 ATTACK SPEED [*] 0.638 (+0% – 54.7%) MANA 296 – 1061 ARMOR 22.9 – 82.4 MANA REGEN. 6.0 – 19.6 MAGIC RES. 30.0 MOV. SPEED 335

Passive Verdant Pact Rel has a great awareness of his own energy, allowing him to heal for 15/25/30% of the mana he spends. (levels up at 9,14,17) Rel's passive allows him to stay in lane longer and balance out his lower than average beefiness with some reliable healing.

Q Managlow Vambraces 30/35/45/55/65 mana Toggled effect- While active Rel draws his energy to the surface of his hands, causing basic attacks to cost 30/35/45/55/65 mana. These Imbued auto attacks strike twice, the second strike dealing 30/35/40/45/50% damage, applying on hit effects and may critically strike. This is the bread and butter ability for those who choose a more bruiser route as it allows for items such as item 3153 anditem 3091 to truly shine without needing to build much damage. This ability is still essential on less stout builds as it's mana-on-auto toggle makes for great sustain when coupled with his passive.

W Binding Flux 6% of current mana 16 second cooldown at all levels Rel leaps to target location and fires 6% of his available mana into the earth before returning to his initial point, causing the ground to flux for 8 seconds. Enemies caught in are slowed by 10/15/25% (at ability levels 1,3 and 5), and take 15/35/65/80/110+ (.3 AP) per second. The more time has past since the last cast, Binding Flux's Aoe increases. Rel can not be targeted while leaping. This ability is a swiss army knife of uses. The invulnerability while casting can be used to avoid un-targeted damage, it can also be used to jump into a teamfight to lay down the aoe into the center with his ultimate them jump out to keep his skin on his bones. The DoT on this ability realy stings if the player builds full AP, and a well placed Flux can turn the tide of smaller skirmishes in your teams favor.

E Shudderstep 60/85/110/140/170 mana 15/13/11/9/7 second cooldown After collecting himself for (.5) seconds, Rel executes a long ranged dash which deals damage 60/85/110/145/200 +(1 AD) and roots (1.5 seconds) all champions struck in the first half. Enemies struck in the second half of the dash are not rooted but take full damage. This is the primary mobility move on Rel. It can be used to reposition, escape, chase, lock down kills, but can not go through walls. If the player chooses to build AD on Rel, this will be the ability that will have the most utility and scaling.

R Pacify 100/300/500 mana 110/90/70 second cooldown Rel releases an echoing force that effects all enemies in an AoE around him. Effected enemies gain a "pacified" debuff for 3/6/9 seconds which deals true damage 70/100/130 +(.5 AP) per second and 90/140/170 +(.5 AP) whenever an ability is used. The debuff is reset each second on champions effected by "Binding Flux". Rel's ultimate is most potent against enemies who do not realize they are effected. If an enemy notices the debuff they may not cast abilities, making the ultimate merely a silence with a DoT effect. In the fray of a 5v5, This is often not the case, and by the time the enemies realize they have been pacified, it is to late and you have dealt massive damage to their team, often turning the fight. For maximum effect, use "Binding Flux" on the closest Champions as the debuff is about to run out on them to reset it. This means that you will have to get into the middle and out of the fight without using your jump from "Binding Flux", a riskier, yet much more rewarding tactic.

Here's a picture I drew to show kind of what I'm thinking esthetically:

33 Comments

Vistha Kai6/26/2015, 11:50:48 PM2 votes

So... each strike takes X mana, but he strikes twice...

You may want to look into that.

ModThe Djinn6/27/2015, 4:34:48 PM2 votes

{quoted}LORE

Great and all, but Nasus and Renekton already have a pretty strong lore: as per current Shuriman lore they were both once human beings -- either Shuriman kings or Shuriman heroes -- ascended into god-like entities by the same ritual Azir attempted to undergo.

I'd update it to rely less heavily (or not at all) on the two of them -- I think you can give this guy a fine lore independent of those two existing figures.

Verdant Pact Rel has a great awareness of his own energy, allowing him to heal for 15/25/30% of the mana he spends. (levels up at 9,14,17) Rel's passive allows him to stay in lane longer and balance out his lower than average beefiness with some reliable healing.

Mechanically fine passive. I'd change it to the more standard 1/6/11/16 upgrade though: keeps things consistent when possible.

I'm concerned that it's really boring though. This isn't an interesting ability at all, and doesn't really do anything but make up for your lower health. If you had a toggled ability that cost more mana over time perhaps, but your cooldowns aren't low enough to really make this interesting, and your only fast-firing ability is a huge mana drain on an auto-attack, and the meager health regen it gives you (~20 at max level) could be done just as easily by buying lifesteal.

I'm not sold on this passive: I think there's much more interesting angles to explore.

Managlow Vambraces 30/35/45/55/65 mana Toggled effect- While active Rel draws his energy to the surface of his hands, causing each strike to cost 30/35/45/55/65 mana. These Imbued auto attacks strike twice, dealing 30/35/40/45/50% damage but apply on hit effects and may critically strike.

Oof. This could get crazy fast. You say it's to allow a bruiser build without buying many damage items, but it actually does the opposite: it scales your AD item value up by 30-50%, doubles your on-hit effectiveness, and increases your critical strike value by 30-50%. That's a huge incentive to buy AD, Crit, AS, and on-hit items, rather than a way to disincentivize those purchases. You'll also burn through your mana way to fast. 15 auto-attacks may well empty your entire mana pool.

Overall I don't really like this ability -- I don't think it really accomplishes what you want it to accomplish.

Binding Flux 6% of current mana 16 second cooldown at all levels Rel leaps to target location and fires 6% of his available mana into the earth before returning to his initial point, causing the ground to flux for 8 seconds. Enemies caught in are slowed by 10/15/25% (at ability levels 1,3 and 5), and take 15/35/65/80/110+ (.3 AP) per second. The more time has past since the last cast, Binding Flux's Aoe increases. Rel can not be targeted while leaping.

First off, keep scaling consistent: slow for 10/15/20/25/30% if you want to start at that low a value. Abilities scale at every rank-up in almost all cases.

The damage is a little high (it's currently 880 + 2.4 AP on a non-ultimate ability, which is crazy), and also needs to scale consistently: 15/35/55/75/95 would be the values if you want the 20 point jumps and 15 base. For contrast, Cassiopeia's W (which has a slow and a growing radius) only deals 10 / 15 / 20 / 25 / 30 (+ 10% AP) per second, for a total potential damage of 90 / 135 / 180 / 225 / 270 (+ 90% AP). Your's is well over TWICE that.

Overall this ability has some issues. I'd avoid invulnerability on abilities like this: the use case is hard to figure out. They work on Fizz / Vlad / Elise since those let you have time to react, and on things like Yi because if you CAN hit an enemy you probably want to immediately. I don't think the mechanic is as graceful on a zoning AoE tool that will need to be more carefully timed: it creates odd gameplay where you save it to avoid potential damage and miss a good chance to utilize the effect...or you use the effect but feel bad when you can't dodge the Annie stun. That sort of choice doesn't feel good in either direction.

Also figure out the size of the AoE. Cass's effect starts out at 150 radius and grows to 250 radius over 7 seconds, which may be a good starting point for you to work off of.

Finally, I have NO idea why this spell costs a % of current mana. It seems really odd -- I'd probably just change it to a flat value. Remember: with your current passive you heal based on mana spent. % of current mana actually reduces your passive's effectiveness for this ability with every spell you cast.

Shudderstep 60/85/110/140/170 mana 15/13/11/9/7 second cooldown After collecting himself for (.5) seconds, Rel executes a long ranged dash which deals damage 60/85/110/145/200 +(1 AD) and roots (1.5 seconds) all champions struck in the first half. Enemies struck in the second half of the dash are not rooted but take full damage. This is the primary mobility move on Rel. It can be used to reposition, escape, chase, lock down kills, but can not go through walls. If the player chooses to build AD on Rel, this will be the ability that will have the most utility and scaling.

No real issue with this one, although the mana cost may be a bit high. This and his Q make me really want to just build the guy AD/on-hit though. I'd also recommend either lowering the base damage or making the scaling based on bonus AD though: We're currently looking at a 108 damage 1.5 second root and gapcloser at level 1, which is fairly powerful.

You could also accomplish a similar goal by scaling the root duration, which would allow you to retain the nuking power for the early game.

Pacify 100/300/500 mana 110/90/70 second cooldown Rel releases an echoing force that effects all enemies in an AoE around him. Effected enemies gain a "pacified" debuff for 3/6/9 seconds which deals true damage 70/100/130 +(.5 AP) per second and 90/140/170 +(.5 AP) whenever an ability is used. The debuff is reset each second on champions effected by "Binding Flux".

I'm going to have to say an outright NO for this one. Firstly, it's 210 + 1.5 AP AoE True Damage at level 6, up to an unbelievable 1170 + 4.5 AP True Damage at level 16. That's incredibly overpowered. That's also not counting the reset (which is adding overkill to overkill).

The worst part of this design, however, is the enormous punishment enemies receive for attempting to fight back. Damage on ability use is a mechanic I'm never in favor of, as it's simply not fun in any way, shape, or form. At least Silence is up front about what it does: it says, quite simply, you can't play your character for a few seconds. This is up to NINE SECONDS of "I'll watch as you kill yourself or be useless. Your choice."

I can't say I'm okay with any part of this effect as currently written. The AoE alone is hugely overpowered due to the ratios and base damage involved. The Debuff is very strong, lasts far too long, and is based on an unfun mechanic, and the reset exacerbates both of the existing issues.

I see what you're trying to do, but I'm positive you can find a more elegant and/or balanced way to accomplish it.


#CLOSING THOUGHTS

I don't really see this character's lore carried through to his kit, or a lot of focus in the kit itself. We have a creature who seems to have fallen into rage and destruction (since he's hunting Renekton in anger, and is called the "Bane of the Traveler"), who has an ultimate based on Pacifying enemies, and otherwise magical AoE and mobility effects that don't seem to embody the anger of a powerful Shurima spirit.

He's also encouraged to build AD / AS / on-hit / Crit from his Q, AD from his E, mana /CDR and Muramana from his passive, and AP from his ultimate. It's really odd and rather disjointed.

I'd really recommend a second pass targeting what you really want this guy to be, and how you want him to convey that in-game. You have some solid ideas in here, but they're not working together very well, and I think a more focused approach towards a specific character fantasy can really help this idea shine.

ShuffledPancake6/26/2015, 11:42:30 PM1 votes

That passive is op, i would just stack mana pots (No items but pots) and spam abilities to get cs.. then get tear and manamune/essence reaver and get visage. Instant hp from sliding my finger over q (Yes i know its not that drastic, but you seem to want to get rid of trundle)

Mister Modesty6/26/2015, 11:50:13 PM1 votes

summoner 13 item 2004 The passive is too much. You gain health for using abilities- and all the abilities are meant to keep you alive anyways.

Duko6/26/2015, 11:57:22 PM1 votes

Yah I see that the passive is way overscaled xD. I'll change that up. And the q passive is not actually a second auto attack, just a second strike, much like our wuju friend's passive :)

Duko6/27/2015, 12:28:40 AM1 votes

Someone went through and downvoted every single champ concept on the board on multiple accounts. Every single champ concept posted in the last day has -3 T_T. Now I have the sads.