[New Champion Concept] Thaserus, the Arcane Brawler
So I was thinking how we could push design space ever so much more. Riot is coming up with some crazy things like stealing ults, but what about the following idea: A hybrid ranged melee champion that doesn't swap forms, but rather uses positioning to determine his form, having different strenghts and weaknesses at each interval. Well, meet Thaserus.
Thaserus is a brawler, wielding a spiked shield and a whip, both infused with arcane power, allowing Thaserus to man up to most champions while using magic to tip the fights into his own favor. He beats mages down with his superiour strenght, while he crushes fighters with wits. Thaserus is always at his highest of concentrations, as even a minor slipup might mean he loses his fight ungracefully instead. Thaserus can build for attack damage, ability power or both, varying where his strengths are, allowing him to adapt to the compositions in the game. His melee, physical focussed style prioritizes Crowd control and defense while his ranged style focusses on magic damage burst and waveclear. However, both forms are immobile and lack sustain so Thaserus will need to play strategically, never brawling when he won't come out ahead.
Base stats: Attack damage - 70 + 2.5/lvl Attack speed - 0.680 + 2%/lvl Health - 580 + 80/lvl Mana - 480 + 20/lvl Health regen - 4 + 0.6/lvl (per 5) Mana regen - 7.5 + 1.25/lvl (per 5) Armor - 25 + 2.5/lvl (he has flat reduction on hiw W already) Magic resistance - 30 + 0.5/lvl (just like most ranged champs) Attack range - 250/550 Movespeed - 325
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Passive: Whip of Thaserus Thaserus counts as both a ranged and melee champion, depending on the range he attacks at. While his total attack range equals 550, his melee attack range is 250, using his whip as both a long-range melee threat as well as a way to launch arcane projectiles. Each form has it's own benefits: Melee: Thaserus whip, being infused with arcane power, destabilizes enemies hit, slowing them by 5/10/15% + 3% per 100 AP (at lvl 1/7/14) Ranged: If Thaserus' whip stretches out fully it fires of an arcane projectiles, providing Thaserus with increases reach of his threat. These arcane projectiles deal magic damage equal to 14 (+ 2/lvl) + 80% tAD + 15% AP
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Q: Spinning sweep - CD: 12/11/10/9/8 seconds, 80 mana Thaserus spins quickly twice. First he spins with his whip extended by arcane magic, dealing minor magical damage of 20/40/60/80/100 + 40% AP in a radius of 550, knocking down enemies hit for .1 seconds, interupting dashes. Secondly, he spins with his spiked shield, knocking up enemies in a radius of 250 around him for .1/.2/.3/.4/.5 seconds, dealing 40/70/100/130/160 + 100% tAD physical damage.
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W: Arcane Shielding - CD: 24/22/20/18/16, 90/80/70/60/50 mana Passive: Thaserus shield spikes passively protect him from attacks within close range hurting attackers. Attacks against thaserus within 250 range are reduced by 2/4/6/8/10 + 2 per 100 AP, reflecting double that back to the attacker as magic damage. Active: Thaserus knocks back enemies in a cone (120°), putting them back to a range of 350 away from himself, dealing 60/65/70/80/100% tAD physical damage in the process.
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E: Tidal strike - CD: 18 seconds, 60/70/80/90/100 mana Thaserus strikes his whip in a frontal cone (radius of 40/50/60/70/80°) in 3 quick swipes (intervals of .25 sec each). The waves deal 10/20/30/40/50 + 40% tAD physical damage within 250 range, while dealing 5/10/15/20/25 + 30% AP magic damage from 250 to 550 range, each wave having 25% increased damage. (i.e. total of 37.5/75/112.5/140/177.5 + 150% tAD and 18.75/37.5/56.25/75/88.75 + 112.5% AP)
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R: Arcane Mastery - CD: 80/65/50 seconds, 120/150/180 mana Thaserus proudly assumes a Dancing style for 3/5/7 subsequent attacks within 10 seconds at 30/50/70% increased attack speed and can move during his attacks. Each attack launches 2 waves, a physical and a magical wave (in addition to damaging his target as normal), the first reaching to 250 range and the second to 550 range. Subsequent attacks will also increase in power as Thaserus continues his dance. 1&2: The physical wave deals 10% tAD damage in a cone of 20° while the magical one deals 20 + 10% AP magic damage in a cone of 10° 3&4: The physical wave deals 20% tAD damage in a cone of 40° while the magical one deals 40 + 20% AP magic damage in a cone of 20° 5&6: The physical wave deals 30% tAD damage in a cone of 60° while the magical one deals 60 + 30% AP magic damage in a cone of 40° 7: Both waves deal true damage and strike in a cone of 120°, the "physical" wave dealing 50% tAD true damage and the magical one dealing 40% AP true damage.
Notes:
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His kit might be a bit overloaded as it looks like right now, but unlike most "overloaded" kits, he doesn't get mobility and his abilities are seperated in ranges.
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His auto-attacks always use a melee animation, and only on the "end" of the animation is the range calculated, firing a projectile instead of the target is not in melee range. This allows him to attack a character at range who then moves into melee and hit him with a melee attack, as well as vice versa. This also allows counterplay from the opponents in moving between the ranges. He counts as a ranged champion for item's and buffs however, the only exception being tiamat, which will work on his melee attack.
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He should be playable mostly in mid and bot, as the kit is somewhat limited in the mana sustain and has low mobility, which makes him risky to play top. Ofc, mages are played top as well so you never know.
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Balance wise, it's not just his raw stats that can be tuned, but also the range threshold at which he operates as melee or ranged. If 250 is deemed to large (which it might), the number can easily be toned down to 225, 200 or even 175.
I am planning to come up with more concepts quite regularly, both as a fun hobby, but also as part of a practice for my study (I'm doing courses in game studies, design and programming), so I would love to hear some feedback of what you think like: Do you think the kit would be balanced (in essence, not in numbers)? (How) do you think the champion would fit in the game/have a place? Do you think the kit would be fun to play with and against?
And if you have any requests for upcoming concepts (mainly thematically), I am open for that.