Fiora, the Grand Duelist (Why will this make Fiora viable?)
Hello there! I've posted a couple of champion concepts before ever since I promised to, but here's a rework for a change. I love doing reworks because I feel quite in sync with the concepts the designers at Riot have introduced over time through their patch notes and balance efforts. Explanatory notes at the end are provided to give insight as to how these changes benefit both Fiora and her opponents alike. So feel free to drop comments (include how experienced you are with Fiora, playing as and/or against Fiora) about my suggestions and have fun reading. Thanks!!
Fiora, the Grand Duelist (Rework)
**Basic attack range: 125 > 150 ** Duelist (Passive): Fiora’s damaging abilities and basic attacks apply a mark on the target(s) that Fiora damage(s). The same target cannot be marked more than once every sixteen seconds. The mark lasts for six seconds, and is consumed by any of Fiora’s abilities to activate a different effect depending on the ability that consumes it… -Piercing Lunge: Increases Fiora’s movement speed by 20/25/30/35/40% and attack speed by 50/60/70/80/90% for 3 seconds. -Riposte (attacked by a marked target): Refunds mana cost and cooldown and heals Fiora for 5/5.5/6/6.5/7% of her maximum health over three seconds. -Pirouette: Reduces armor of targets hit by 5/10/15/20/25 for four seconds. -Blade Waltz: Deals an additional 1% total damage per 1% of the target’s missing health.
Piercing Lunge (Q): Fiora salutes, preparing her blade for up to 1.2 seconds before lunging forward extremely quickly in a flash of light, dealing physical damage to all enemies struck. Each 0.3 seconds that Fiora charges increases the range of piercing lunge by 100. If she is interrupted before she strikes, piercing lunge goes on a reduced two second cooldown. Ignores 50% of target's armor while dealing damage.
Range (base): 400 Range (max): 800 Cost: 55/60/65/70/75 mana Cooldown: 15/13/11/9/7 seconds Physical damage: 60/110/135/175/210 + 0.6 AD
Riposte (W): Fiora parries the next basic attack, nullifying its damage and added effects, within 1.5 seconds. If the attack is ranged, half of Riposte’s cooldown and mana cost are refunded.
Cost: 60/55/50/45/40 mana Cooldown: 8/7/6/5/4 seconds
Pirouette (E): Fiora appears at her target location in a flash of light, kneeling, as she gracefully ascends while spinning her blade around her, dealing magic damage to and stunning all enemies struck.
Range: 400 AOE-radius: 250 Cost: 60/65/70/75/80 mana Cooldown: 15/14/13/12/11 seconds Magic damage: 50/90/130/170/210 + 0.5 AP Stun duration: 0.75 seconds
**Blade Waltz (R): **Fiora dashes around the battlefield in glistening flashes of light, becoming untargetable and striking nearby enemy champions five times, applying on-hit effects with each strike. Consecutive hits against the same target deal 10% damage. The first and last hit will strike the same target.
Range: 400 Cost: 100 mana Cooldown: 200 seconds Physical damage: 100/275/450 + 0.8 bonus AD + 0.2 AP Max damage per strike: 200/550/900 + 1.6 bonus AD + 0.4 AP Max Single-Target damage: 600/1650/2700 + 4.8 bonus AD + 1.2 AP Min Single-Target damage: 140/385/630 + 1.12 bonus AD + 0.28 AP
-So the first change you notice is her basic attack range. It's increased because Fiora should be able to strike targets with the tip of her blade. It's sharp, after all.
The second change is more interesting. Instead of making Lunge a weird, targeted double-dash that doesn't look very interesting or cool, why not make it a piercing single-dash that varies in range and ignores armor? By making Fiora's Lunge a skillshot, Fiora has to now make calculated decisions when trading with her opponents. Should she save it to escape? Or should she use it to deal damage and land finishing blows on minions? The wind-up time introduced with the salute makes Fiora look pretty cool while giving opponents a slim window of opportunity to totally mess Fiora up. Lunge on!
Then comes riposte. It made no sense to add damage to riposte (especially when parrying ranged attacks), and makes the ability unnecessarily hard to balance. By removing its damage (and removing weird interactions), it can be allowed to have a lower cooldown and give Fiora an easier time early-on versus ranged lane opponents who would otherwise have too easy a time harassing her. This change also means that Fiora can parry things like Twisted Fate's gold and Udyr's bear stance, negating their damage and stun. Super neat!
Pirouette is my favorite change. Fiora gains an instant blink stun. Really, really powerful and has a ton of outplay potential built into it. With this ability, Fiora can dodge abilities she couldn't before (because she had to always stick to her target to remain useful) and create meaningful battles and duels with her various opponents while looking pretty with the lights (and perhaps dodge a Jax's stun? COUNTERPLAYYY WUAHAHAH). Anyway, it makes Fiora a somewhat flashier champion and blade artist (in more ways than one).
Blade Waltz is barely touched, but has some pretty serious changes to it. First off, its cooldown is a LOOOOOOT longer (as if it weren't long enough already before). The reason for this is that Fiora's ultimate should feel like an ULTIMATE. Fortunately, now it has the potential to feel that way in a teamfight. Blade Waltz deals almost little to no damage now to a single target, so Fiora will be saving her ultimate mainly for use against multiple opponents. This is mainly to address the problem that Blade Waltz had before, where it was mainly used as a low-counterplay and almost guaranteed single-target nuke. Although Blade Waltz looks like it only received a damage nerf upfront, it has the potential to deals TONS of damage if Fiora successfully (and skillfully) marks all the opponents she intends to destroy before casting her ultimate. To sum it up, Fiora's ultimate is more useful than ever - with the catch that Fiora has to set it up beforehand and her opponents have to remain in range when she's dancing them to death.
Thanks for reading, again. And if you have any comments or additional ideas, please leave them below. You never know if your comments or ideas could be read by Riot and have a huge impact on the future of the game. Who knows? Maybe your favorite duelist could use some love after all.