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Champion Revealed: Valeticus, The Mercurial Paladin

Gatekeeper400·10/12/2014, 8:34:10 PM·2 votes·1,384 views

http://m.imgur.com/E6gXCLY

Lore

“Raise your blades in the name of King Severus! Do not let Ravenguard fall! To arms!” Valeticus announced to his army, a population of nearly 500,000 paladins dressed in plated armor who revved their mustangs high in the black skies. What used to be a kingdom protected by the warmth of the sun became a sanctuary for darkness.

It all started two hundred years ago before Valeticus’s time. Druids and sorcerers began disappearing from cities and native villages. Search parties covered most of the grassy plains but none of them could be found, as if they were swallowed into the absolute nothingness. Who would’ve known that the words “absolute nothingness” could carry such a heavy burden on Ravenguard and its people. One day out of the very stone, the skies grew dark and the air became heavy, almost unbreathable. Rifts in space tore into purple oozing portals and mysterious creatures emerged from them, immediately killing innocents like it was hardwired into their brains. Despite their forces, the strength and willpower of Ravenguard and Severus Slayde, the Immortal King’s guidance, the strange creatures were killed and driven back into what was known as the Void, or in the words of the commoners, the World Between Worlds.

What was thought as a victory that would be told through the ages was only an appetizer to prepare them for the main course. Large portals opened and more intimidating beasts emerged from them, overpowering Ravenguard and killing half of the kingdom’s people. Those who weren’t eaten alive by the Void’s forces were either enslaved or corrupted by the Void’s energy, similar to mind control. It was a close one, but Ravenguard “succeeded” in defending against the raids of the Voidborn. The body count was far too high to even be considered close to a victory.

That’s how it’s been ever since. The Voidborn are persistent, always coming back with stronger forces to destroy Ravenguard. Valeticus was the third son of Severus, and his right-hand man. He shared the majority of the king’s physical attributes, and also a small portion of his power. Severus’s other two sons either fled from Ravenguard, or fell prey to the wrath of the Voidborn. In Valeticus’s twenty-six years of living, this is his third battle with the kind of the Void. Here he was, leading a new and more powerful army against them.

Both sides charged at one another and chaos erupted. Valeticus started off well, slaying hundreds of Voidborn with ease. With his father’s grace, he called upon the magic within him and blessed his fellow kin with a barrier of holy essence. Within an hour of fighting, the men of Severus were able to push forward behind the point of Valeticus’s sword, a runed artifact he named Brign. The Voidborn came back and struck down a good chunk of his men, but Valeticus did not fear. Calling forth his magic once more, he blessed he and his horse to ram through the walls of Voidborn like a boulder through water, ending anything they came in contact with.

Valeticus marveled at his soon-to-be victory, but something was happening. His magic was out of control. He couldn’t stop his horse from sprinting, nor could he dismount it! In less than four seconds, Valeticus’s arrogance caused him to sink inside a portal that led into the Void. The amount of vile energy within the Void made his own energy go haywire and split into two different souls. His holy soul was repelled back into the human world and soon manifested into a more powerful and spiritually ascended Valeticus. The other half was kept inside the Void, and the blood from the fallen Voidborn was sucked up and absorbed into the soul, manifesting into a darker, sinister version of the paladin. Both of them were equally matched, and once the stalemate was recognized, both dark and light Valeticuses retreated back to their homelands. Portals closed, the Voidborn followed their new leader back into their world between worlds, and all of Ravenguard gawked in awe at the new Valeticus.

Now he truly resembled his father.

Base Statistics

Health: 430 + 85 per level Health Regeneration: 8.15 + 0.60 per level Mana: 240 + 20 per level Mana Regeneration: 5.75 + 0.50 per level Range: 120 (Melee) Attack Damage: 55 + 3.5 per level Attack Speed: 0.69 + 1.25% per level Armor: 23 + 4 per level Magic Resistance: 30 + 1.15 per level Movement Speed: 340

Passive (Innate) – Last Stand [Cooldown: 180]: When Valeticus’s health reaches 1%, he gradually drains all of his remaining mana over time and is granted immunity from all attacks and spells. The amount of time the immunity buff is active depends on the amount of mana that is drained (200 mana per second). During this time, Valeticus cannot regenerate mana or use any of his abilities, and all healing effects done to him are reduced by 95%. If Valeticus does not have enough mana to activate the immunity buff, he enters into a spectral state for 2 seconds. While in his spectral state, all of his abilities are replaced with one spell named “Heal”, which allows him to heal other nearby allied champions equal to 3% of his current mana. “Heal” has no cooldown.

Q - Spartan’s Assault [10/20/30/40/50 Mana] [Cooldown: 3]: Valeticus enhances he and his mustang with holy magic, gradually gaining movement speed for 3 seconds. Each second gives him an even larger movement speed boost than the last. If he comes in contact with an enemy champion within the first two seconds, he deals 70/80/90/100/110 (+15% bonus AP) damage and slows their movement speed by 50% for 1.5 second(s). If he comes in contact with an enemy champion during the third second of Spartan’s Assault, he deals 85/95/105/115/125 (+20% bonus AP) damage and stuns them for 1 second(s).

W – Blessings [20/25/30/35/40 Mana] [Cooldown: 5]: Valeticus calls forth the holy magic within him and blesses he and nearby allied champions with a shield that blocks damage equal to 5%/10%/15%/20%/25% of his maximum health. All shields stay active for 3/3.5/4/4.5/5 seconds before vanishing.

E – Flare [15/15/15/15/15 Mana] [Cooldown: 7]: (Passive) Brign, Valeticus’s trusty weapon, randomly selects an enemy champion from anywhere on the map every ten seconds, applying Burn to the selected enemy champion(s). Once applied, Burn deals 10/15/20/25/30 (2% bonus AP) damage over 2.15 seconds, then remains as a “debuff” on its host until Valeticus dies. Burn continuously stacks (think Nasus’s Siphon Strike) until Valeticus activates Flare. As an example, Brign applies Burn to an enemy Ashe. Ashe is dealt the DoT, but afterwards, Burn is just there as debuff that applies no other effects. If Ashe is selected by Burn again, she is dealt the same DoT, but Burn begins to stack. So now Ashe has 2 Burn stacks that do nothing to her after the DoT. (Active) Valeticus uses his magic to cause all of the Burn stacks from all enemy champions to explode simultaneously, dealing damage according to the number of stacks. As an example, Ashe has 100 Burn stacks on her and Valeticus activates Flare. Ashe takes 100 damage because her 100 Burn stacks were detonated.

R – I Will Guide You! [50/80/110 Mana] [Duration: 3/4/5 seconds] [Cooldown: 90]: Valeticus selects a nearby allied champion and blesses them with sacred magic. While blessed, all damage that is targeted toward that allied champion is transferred to Valeticus instead. During this time, Valeticus gains 200/300/400 health and bonus armor and magic resistance equal to 20%/25%/30% of his maximum health.

Cursor Interactions

“Show me the way, Friend.” “Do to others what you would want done to yourself.” “I will lead us to victory!” “For Ravenguard!”

Taunt

“Is this really worth losing your life over?”

Joke

“I have 100 problems, the Void being every single one of them.”

Laugh

A hearty and victorious laugh.

Recall Animation

Valeticus revs up his mustang and slams into the ground once he reaches his home base.

http://m.imgur.com/Uexp75K Skin: Blood Knight Valeticus

5 Comments

Cerbearus10/12/2014, 9:41:05 PM3 votes

MTG FTW (Knight of Glory and Knight of Infamy)

When you title things, don't write "New Champion Revealed!" unless you actually mean it. If it a concept, label it so.

Gatekeeper40010/12/2014, 9:49:10 PM1 votes

I thought it would've been quite obvious seeing that it's in the board section called "Champion and Skin Concepts."

And yes, the concept art is from Magic: The Gathering.

ModThe Djinn10/12/2014, 10:04:51 PM1 votes

This comment is a reminder to myself to give you a more thorough critique when I get how from work.

Notes for Later: Q, W, and R are all immensely overpowered. Passive is generally pretty useless. E is really weak, and also really odd.

I'll explain this better (including the all important why) later tonight.

ModThe Djinn10/13/2014, 12:15:00 AM1 votes

Alright...let's dig into this a bit.

Passive: We've got a passive that keeps us alive and encourages us to build mana...but all of our abilities have really low mana costs, making this a false choice: mana is still not necessary on us. The "spectral form" part is pretty terrible: it only triggers if we have 200 or less mana, and heals for 3% of our current mana...so it heals for between 0 and 6 health per cast.

Passive Recommendation: Completely re-design the passive. We have what feels like a support/tank, but the passive is almost entirely selfish. Give us something that helps solidify our role as an ally-bolstering tank.

Q: This ability would actually be perfectly fine...if not for the 3 second cooldown. That's effectively a 50% slow with 50% uptime if you simply hit your target immediately, meaning this is almost the same as a 25% perma-slow. You also don't mention if a target can be hit multiple times, or if the effect simply stops when you hit a target: that's important information.

Either way, once he gets a bit of cooldown (or even before, actually), he's basically inescapable, since he can chain Q you into the ground, dealing a significant amount of damage on the way (that base damage adds up quickly on such a low cooldown).

*Q Recommendation: Raise the cooldown. Something like 12 / 11 / 10 / 9 / 8 might be good.

W: This ability scales far to well. If it were an Ultimate on a 60 second cooldown I'd still consider it overpowered. This champion has bad ratios, and seems designed to be tanky: imagine him with a full tank build and 20% CDR from runes. We could easily break 3.8k health, making this a 950 shield for your entire team on a 3 second cooldown if you have 40% CDR. That's so obscenely strong I don't even have words for it, especially since the shield lasts longer than the cooldown duration if you build any CDR at all.

W Recommendation: Huge, sweeping nerfs. Make the shield scale with a base value and a flat percentage of your health (or bonus health) that is 10% or lower. Up the cooldown significantly, as it's AoE and potentially team-wide. Lower the duration as well...something like a flat 3 seconds across the board might work.

E: We go from overpowered to clunky and useless. Imagine, if you will, that the same target is picked every 10 seconds for the entirety of a 30 minute game. It'll have 180 stacks on it by the end of that time...so we'll deal a whopping 180 damage with the ability, provided we've never used it before. It also randomly deals global damage, which is useless for you (the damage is so tiny it hardly matters, and the scaling is so terrible that no one would ever level this ability until they have to) and also poor design, as your opponent will be left wondering where this tiny bit of damage came from. The only time it might ever be potentially useful is maybe once every thousand games when it happens to kill a low-health jungler out of the blue, or when it shuts down Garen's health regeneration in top lane.

E Recommendation: Completely redesign. Nothing about this ability is fun for anyone in the game, it doesn't fit with the idea of a tank/support sort of character, it has strange mechanics, and adds basically no utility or power to the kit. Cut it in favor of something more useful, that fits the character better.

R: Given our 3.8k health approximation, this ability grants you 1140 Armor and Magic Resistance as well as 400 bonus health, rendering you and an ally effectively immune to all damage for up to 5 seconds. That's so strong it's almost unimaginable, especially since you and said ally both are already rocking a 950 health perma-shield from your W.

R Recommendation: Give a flat value of bonus Armor and MR (scaling with ultimate level) that falls in line with other buff abilities. Nix the bonus health entirely. Maybe make the amount of damage taken scale instead: you take 40% / 60% / 80% of damage that would be dealt to the target. I think that would be much more balanced.