[Champion Concept Rework] Zara, The Cryptic King
Name: Zara Phim Role: Warden/Juggernaut V3
This is a revision to my previous concept for The Ruined King.
https://leagueoflegends.fandom.com/wiki/User_blog:Double_Slap/Zara,_The_Cryptic_King
Notable Stats
- Extreme base attack damage. 100-270 AD
- Highest mana pool. 409.52 - 1548.5
- Amongst the lowest of health pools. 542.64 - 1783.6 health
- Base 0.25 attack speed with 0 per level scaling.
Abilities Innate: Ancient Aegis
Weight of the World: Autoattacks instantly, but suffers from incredulously low base attack speed. Killing a minion with an autoattack will reset his autoattack animation. Zara incurs a permanent 35% slow and his movement speed is capped at 400.
Veil of the King: Does not gain damage reduction upon buying armor and magic resistance, thus penetration does not affect him. Rather, Zara has a shield worth (1%** maximum health** per armor) + (1% maximum health per magic resistance).
Q: Brandished Soul
First Cast: Zara charges up his sword to increase Brandished Souls' range, mana cost, and % maximum mana magic damage over 2 seconds.
Second Cast: After a brief delay, Zara swings his sword in the target direction, dealing magic damage to all enemies hit, knocking down and stunning them for 1 second. Brandished soul deals double damage to minions and recovers mana for every enemy slain.
Magic Damage: 100% base AD (+ 0-20% maximum mana) Minion Damage: 200% base AD (+ 0-40% maximum mana) Mana Recovery: 40 / 80 / 120 / 160 / 200 mana Cost: 50 (+ 0-20% maximum mana) mana Cooldown: 9 / 8 / 7 / 6 / 5 seconds Range: 150-850 (Based on channel time)
Casting mechanism is functionally Identical to 
Xerath's Arcanopulse.
W: Might of the Occult
Passive: Stores 6% maximum health of all enemies that die around him as gray health.
Active: Generates a shield using all of his grey health. Zara is empowered for 10 seconds causing his attacks and abilities to reduce the armor and magic resistance of enemy units hit for 5 seconds. If the shield exceeds 100% maximum health, then Zara's size increases. His airtime is reduced based on his size.
Armor Reduction: 12 / 14 / 16 / 18 / 20 (+2 / 4 / 6 / 8 / 10% bonus armor) Magic Resistance Reduction: 12 / 14 / 16 / 18 / 20 (+2 / 4 / 6 / 8 / 10% bonus MR)
Airtime reduction is Tenacity for knockups and knockbacks. Including 
Poppy's ult.
E: Unbound Umbrage
Toggle on: Zara exudes The Black Mist around him, slowing all enemies by 20% (+ 8% per 100 armor). Zara's autoattack range increases to the size of The Black Mist. When Zara autoattacks an enemy while Unbound Umbrage is toggled on, the enemy is grounded.
Ground Duration: 2 / 2.5 / 3 / 3.5 / 4 seconds Range: 200 / 300 / 400 / 500 / 600 (+100% Magic Resistance) Spread Speed: 100 Cost: 50 / 60 / 70 / 80 / 90 mana per second Cooldown: 15 / 13.5 / 12 / 10.5 / 9
When it says that Zara's autoattack range increases to the size of The Black Mist, practically it means that he can autoattack any enemy debuffed by The Black Mist despite their distance from him. Any Black Mist outside of his maximum range disappates in a second. Zara does not need to slow his enemy with The Black Mist to ground them.
Ultimate: Blade of the Reborn King
Zara calls upon his ancient claymore and sunders all foes with a three strike combo lasting 10 seconds. While casting Blade of the Reborn King, Zara cannot cancel Blade of the Reborn King, cannot be interrupted, and will continue casting after reaching 0 health. If Zara reaches 0 health during Blade of the Reborn King, Zara will die after the combo is finished.
The first strike crashes down upon enemies all enemies in a linear path, dealing true damage to all enemy units and structures, slowing them by 75% for 2 seconds. True Damage: 100/300/500 Linear AOE Range: 1000
After 3 seconds, Zara's second strike slashes enemies in a cone, dealing magic damage and knocking enemies back. Magic Damage: 280-880 (based on level) Conic Range: 1500
3 seconds later, Zara's final strike tears the ground asunder launching a tremor that deals physical damage to all enemy units in its path. Upon striking an enemy champion or turret, the tremor explodes knocking up enemy units and dealing physical damage to all enemy units and structures caught in the blast. Physical Damage: 420-1200 (based on level) Range: Global Tremor Radius: 100 Tremor Speed: 900/second
Cost: 500/300/100 mana Cooldown: 240/180/120
When I first posted this champion concept on the boards, it got mixed ratings despite having positive comments. So I took the discussion of balance onto the Custom Champion Concepts Discord on the League of Legends Wiki and discovered various troubling aspects of the old design.
- 6 second ground is ridiculous.
- Generating the shield is ridiculously complicated.
- Runic Redux is too unreliable.
The very first issue I tackled was the rework of the ability Runic Redux. Zara's designed weakness is his sluggishness, yet his primary engaging tool is so sluggish that he could only jump into bad situations which wastes a bunch of his mana. It costs too much by default and doesn't reliably hit his opponents. Of all the solutions proposed, the one I liked the most was an implementation of The Black Mist. Essentially the approach is to extend his attacking radius rather than creating an unreliable gap closer.
Something I was quite surprised by is the conclusion that his ridiculously big shield wasn't actually broken. Of course people had concerns, but after deliberation, everyone decided that it was actually fine. The only thing people had a consensus on was the fact that it was a bit too complex for a simple concept of
乇乂ㄒ尺卂 ㄒ卄丨匚匚
shields. So I cut down a lot of the complexity and made it simpler. To spice things up from just being a standard shielding ability, I added a threshold that allowed him to have a sort of tenacity that scaled with size. It's something that will be made clear in the final boss battle.
It seemed as though Zara is lacking a connection to what makes him The Ruined King, having an ability that uses it creates a clear connection. This also served to ease up concerns of the AOE of the stun on Runic Redux scaling with magic resistance since a massive AOE would be oppressive. However, increasing the autoattacking range in this scenario is not nearly as oppressive as increasing the AOE of a stun. Unbound Umbrage also has the advantage of being a toggled ability. I was looking for a way to place an ability like this to synergize with 
Manamune better.
Since I had concerns over the grounding mechanic of Archaic Bludgeon. I was suggested to change some mechanics and numbers around a bit. However, with the removal of Runic Redux, there was a lacking theme of mana to Zara. While The Black Mist is certainly relevant to the Ruined King, Zara's existence is tied to mana and serves as a large theme to him. Thus I decided that instead of changing some stuff around with Archaic Bludgeon, I would also rework this into a new ability that embodies his use of mana.
I had some inspirations with Xerath with him being a literal embodiment of arcane power. So while Brandished Soul isn't necessarily a unique ability, it is a pretty cool one. Brandished Soul is essentially the ability he cast while chasing Evelynn, the part where his, "Sword became his crown." Gameplay wise, the purpose of this ability is to maintain its status as his main CC ability. Yet on top of that, it also helps him deal with enemies keeping their distance. It's not the perfect solution as marksmen are designed to be his weakness, but it serves as a means of retaliation.
Speaking of abilities being based off of lore, something to keep note of is that while I am reworking these abilities, Zara himself didn't "lose" these abilities lore wise. One philosophy I stand by that I think Riot should embrace more readily is the fact that champions most certainly have abilities beyond what is shown in game. I believe that every champion has a quite vast array of abilities, but only select abilities are able to make it into game. For the simple fact that only 4 abilities can exist with 1 innate.
It's quite easy for me to rework Zara's abilities since I have a basis of every single part of his kit in lore. If one part proves to not be balanced, then I'll just present another ability in its place. It should be obvious that Zara as a character isn't balanced upon reading his lore. His power is absurd for his scale of size. Throwing a jumbo sword and blowing up the entire underworld of Zaun. Jeez man. As such, only a few of his ridiculous feats could be expressed in game. That said, I believe that lore shouldn't limit themselves on the abilities champions can use to what is shown in game. They should be doing things that you never even considered to keep people curious as to what it would be like if it was an ability in game. That's what keeps things interesting.
I hope this interested you as well. Let me know what you think of this rework in the comments. [sg-ezreal]
passive where you can't cancel auto animation would make last hitting more critical and would allow for these two things to function together. This would also allow for more chance to punish him for getting caught in his .25 attack speed animation.
:Why did you steal the name of my E?
