Samui, The Ionian Blizzard

First question is do the individual abilities have any cooldowns so that you can't just hit q four times in less then a second for huge instant burst.

I suppose they should. Assume that they have a 0.5s cooldown, starting when the button is pressed.

Second question is are the second and third casts, regardless of if you hit q, w, or e almost the same? Because reading what you have, the damage seems to always be the same or unlisted, and the only differance is q is 275 range, w is 275 range PBAoE (why ever q over w?), and e is 400 range.

Yes. The difference is single target vs. AoE vs. line damage, but in terms of damage, they're the same.

Third question is what happens if you hit multiple champions with r-e?

The reset only happens once.

Fourth question is is the "Lasts for 5 seconds or until it goes on cooldown, and other skills are disabled while Howling Gale is active" a stipulation for what happens after you get a reset?

The skill itself lasts for 5 seconds, regardless of whether you got the reset or not. The skill lockout happens when you cast RE.

Fifth question is does building cooldown reduction reduce her passive's cooldown, or is the only thing that cooldown reduction effect her ult?

Yes, it reduces the global cooldown on her passive. It's listed in the tooltip, as an aside.

And the final question is can r be used while still in the middle of a combo, for instance could you cast q>q>rq>q>q?

Hadn't thought about that. It should be possible, however.

My criticisms are that first, the champion concept while cool seems somewhat flawed. Samui is a melee carry, but she has no form of defensive steroid, which is pretty much essential on melee carries to prevent unhealthy gameplay patterns of either instantly killing opponents or instantly dying. So maybe think of some way to fix that?

That might be a problem, yes. I don't really want to detract from the combo-based gameplay, so an 'best defense is a good offense' approach would be good in my eyes.

Second is that with the way her skills appear to be set up, the number of of choices a player has actually seem very limited compared to what she could have. It seems like the only choice a player actually has is which of q, w, or e do they want to start with, finish with, and use their ult with, which, compared to what a concept like this could potentially have in terms of decision making, seems like a waste. Basically, due to the nature of only being able to choose one, you only have two things to decide, three once you get your ult, and since all options deal damage, the choice essentially come down to just how do you want to deal damage. Your first choice is between gap closer>least damage, aoe dot>most damage, or aoe>middle damage, your second choice is cc+damage on auto>middle damage, aoe+slow>most damage, or knockback+range>last damage, and your third choice is cc for allies>most damage, aoe+range>least damage, reseting if multiple enemies>middle damage. I'm not necessarily saying that this is a bad design, but I'm just unsure why you would choose it since it seems to at the same time complicate the combos while also limiting your options.

Fair criticism. The answer to that is that I didn't know what to do with the 2nd and 3rd casts, so they don't currently have any special effects. As an aside, though, RQ isn't actually 'CC for allies', as it also turns the victim untargetable, mostly as a way to prevent heals and shields from affecting the victim during the windup animation. I realize this is not great counterplay, but as RQ is a short-range skillshot, there's already some counterplay there.

My third complaint, somewhat petty since this is a concept, is that damage is pretty insane. At level 1 with only w, you could deal 472 damage without any items or auto attacks. For comparison, a riven at level 1 with q and three passive enhanced auto attacks only deals 298 damage. Even if we don't assume optimal conditions, then at level 1 with q Samui would deal 266 damage on top of stunning the enemy for 0.75 seconds and making auto attacks deal 102 damage. At level 2, Samui could use w>q>q>q with a longsword to deal 1075 damage, with about 550 of that damage being unavoidable. Cast times between spells and animations would help this a little, but as long as though cast times/animations aren't extremely long, most of it still goes through. Basically, w first cast and q fourth cast are OP, and in general all skills are OP due to having high AD% scaling and decent bases. Due to the nature of Samui's passive, shes guaranteed to have strong early levels, but this is still a little much. I would suggest either gutting base damages down to all 5/10 and making the AD ratio scale with levels, or buffing the second/third base damage and making her abilities scale with bonus AD instead of total AD to keep damage more in line.

In a previous version of this concept, 1st-3rd casts all had 10/30/50/70/90 (+0.4 AD), and someone had remarked that the abilities were doing less damage than autoattacks at an easily achievable 150 AD, so the damages were buffed as a response to the criticism. Will look into numbers later on.

In conclusion, cool idea, but the implementation has some flaws. I'm not sure what you would think of this idea, but as a suggestion make her ult some form of defensive ability that also increases the number of skills she can use in one passive combo based on rank? For instance, so start she can only use 2/3 skills, at rank one ult 3/4, rank two ult 4/5, rank three ult 5/6? That would help tone down early game while keeping the passive relevant, solve the problem of being a defenseless melee carry, keep a damage increase based on leveling ult, and keep the theme of the first and last ability in a combo having a special effect.

Not entirely sure I like this. I tried a version where the amount of casts of each skill was limited to how many points you had in Q, W and E, and it got cut from pre-planning after a while because it didn't feel right on the concept.

On a final note, I'd love to hear what kind of lore would be attached to Samui.

This was a gameplay-only concept. I'm a decent writer, though, so I can and will consider writing lore for Samui. The main problem is finding a hook that links her to the LoL world that also doesn't feel super-cliche.

Thank you for the feedback.

This really is a nice concept. My biggest problem is that I'm having difficulty understanding something, despite it being addressed by you and Foruka. That is that the abilities list a 2nd and 3rd casts. Do they come from casting the ONE ability several times, or do they still trigger as long as they're used in the combo?

Latter. A combo of QWEQ will go like this: Q (1st cast) > W (2nd cast) > E (3rd cast) > Q (4th cast)

Similarly, EWWQ: E (1st cast) > W (2nd cast) > W (3rd cast) > Q (4th cast)

If you play fighting games, think of it as a rekka chain with different routes depending on what inputs you pressed, like Abel's Change of Direction in Street Fighter 4.

Yes. The concept as a whole was thought up shortly after watching Snowpiercer, though I barely remember how the concept came to mind. Something about Hakumen and Jin from Blazblue, then about a champion from Ionia, then Yasuo, and then I just started writing what came to mind.

Samui is simply Japanese for "cold". My Japanese is, admittedly, not the greatest, so I admit it might sound more poetic as a lone kanji, but it's underwhelming when your champion's name just translates to 'cold'. Equally, the names are simply taken straight from Japanese, and Ionia is really a blend of several East Asian cultures, not just Japanese, so it's a good idea to represent that cultural diversity. As for the abilities, I like the combo ideas a lot, but I think they're pretty easy to abuse, the global CD on them is too short, and the ult ranges are really long (650 is longer than almost any marksman range). Combos have to be carefully managed while making the champion, otherwise you wind up with a champion that does too much with no drawback. Doubly so for AD combo champions, because they can do damage without their combo with their autoattacks. Combos are cool, but she's basically Riven, except better, more mobile, with lower CDs, and with way more damage. And Riven's already pretty scary. She has too many options that do too much for her. Where's the counterplay potential? She seems to have an answer for, well, everything.

You're right about the damage and versatility, but I'm not overly convinced that this concept is 'way more' mobile than Riven. Riven can cover up to 1105 units with a QQQE combo and has more free movement overall. Samui can cover more ground if you're including RE (up to 3250), but that expends an ult cooldown and is dependent on enemy positioning for that much. For basic skills only, her mobility is limited to one enemy-targeted gapcloser and a movespeed boost, and you can't have both at the same time.

As for counterplay in lane, one can take advantage of her moment of weakness after executing a combo, where she has a maximum of 10 seconds where she can't trade using skills. In teamfights, one can take advantage of her low engagement range (475 with Q) and her lack of defensive mechanisms during fights. Writing this out, I realize she doesn't have a whole lot of counterplay that doesn't boil down to items or CC'ing her. Will look into ways to fix that when I update this concept. As for the Japanese, my grasp of Japanese is non-existent, honestly. I had consulted a friend who knew some Japanese for some of the Japanese stuff, and my impression was that 'Samui'=very cold, or at least evoking a feeling of sub-zero conditions.

{quoted} Instead of mana give him energy or something so that way no one can build some cdr and mana regen to do devastaing combos in seconds. Also make it so her combos isn't just a perosn button mashing.

I like mana better as a resource. Energy in comparison doesn't feel right to me for this concept, as it both makes it easier for one to stay in lane and doesn't necessarily limit her combos meaningfully, seeing as her downtime is already pretty high early on. In teamfights, it seems like it would mess with her presence, as she's meant to get into a fight and stay in it. Risking running out energy in the middle of a teamfight would run counter to that intention.

I appreciate any ideas you might have to improve her decision making with the combo system. Personally, I think the biggest problem is the 2nd/3rd casts of her skills, but the starters and the enders do provide decision making for the player.

Is a dodgeable skillshot. Also should be treated as a short suppression, as the damage is applied after the CC is finished, and the victim is turned untargetable, thus removing any and all follow-up damage from allies during the period. Numbers aside, the intent behind this skill is to have it be Samui's most damaging choice, at the cost of things like AoE damage or mobility.