Potential Concept for an AP support champion

SugarCook·Sep 8, 2016·2 votes·522 views

~ This will not have any proper ap scaling ratios, since I'm not a part of the balancing team nor do I have any experience in balancing a system like this. That being said, yeah. Just a concept out there for interpretation! ~

So, this champion's name will be Nell. Simple and clean. Her kit revolves around light crowd control through the use of various Hextech items that are specific to just her. However, in order to get these items, she'll need a bit of time...

Passive- Hextech Prowess: Every so often, when a minion dies near Nell (friend or foe) it will drop bits of Material. Nell can pick up this Material in order to fuel her inventions. These can be built and stored as ammo instantly at base, or over a short time out of fountain. Base Material Cap: 200 (increases to up to 500 at lvl 18)

Q- Techmaturgic Arc: Using some material, Nell creates a dischargable bomb that she stores in a capsule and sends to a target area. If an enemy champion comes into range of the small radius, the capsule releases a slowing field of electrical arcs, the slow becoming more intense as the enemy stays inside of the field (up to a cap of some sort).

W- Metalmancy (Passive): Nell becomes more efficient with her Techmaturgy, reducing the Material cost of her abilities by an amount per point put into the ability. (Again, not good at tuning numbers, perhaps this could be added to her basic passive if anything)

E- Hextech Corruption: Using some material, Nell creates a mini biochemical sphere filled with a noxious gas. After a short time, the sphere erupts, stunning enemies in the blast radius and slowing others that pass through the fumes left behind. Also marks enemies with Corruption, which makes enemies take extra damage from ally attacks. The passive portion can only be applied once every 12 seconds, and lasts for 2 seconds.

R- Ultimate Technological Advancement: For a short time, all of Nell's abilities gain 20% Cool Down Reduction, as well as no Material cost. Each ability also adds Corruption to enemies while the ultimate is active. This ability passively gives nearby allies a small armor and magic resist bonus.

Nell's meant to be a cc machine that makes enemies slow down. Probably really hard to balance, now that I look at it. A cool concept either way~! She'd be very susceptible without her lane partner, which is who she depends on for her major damage output. Sort of like Nami, except without a heal and more AoE softer Crowd Control focused.

3 Comments

AllvandorSep 8, 20163 votes

It's certainly an interesting idea; I would say a Hextech-themed support is long overdue, but I would make just a few suggestions that might (or might not) balance her kit a bit.

First, the idea of Material collection functioning as something akin to Thresh's Souls is interesting. The main problem I can foresee happening with a collectible resource though would be what happens when she runs out of it and is trapped under tower, unable to collect more, or during fights out of lane, such as at Baron or Dragon, where there won't be minions dying to generate it. I would personally say to treat Material as a currency more like Gangplank's Silver Serpents which would allow her to buy her personal items, and simply use mana for her abilities as that would prevent the aforementioned scenarios in which she might struggle to be stay effective (especially since she may not want to use her ultimate in every skirmish near Dragon or the like because, while having to use her ultimate carefully would help balance her, as enemies could disengage once they knew she'd cast it and the reengage after, I think Riot strives to never have any moments where a champion can't do anything at all). I would also say that instead of full fledged items, it might be better to have her buy augmentations (obviously under some other name, so as not to step on Viktor's toes, but for the sake of clarity, I'll continue to refer to them as such) such as +10% Bonus AP from items or +20% Base Mana-Regen (not actually balanced numbers, just place holders for proof of concept). That system could still be tricky to balance, but I think if it was made so that it would take a while for her to scale-up it would be okay, or if the augmentations had varying prices and so there was the trade off of 'Do I get the smaller buffs early or save up for one of the bigger ones?' could also work, but I digress and I'm getting a bit of a ways away from your original concept, but I just like the general idea so much it really got me thinking. In general, I would also steer clear of Material collection and the like affecting her abilities, because then it might feel just a little too much like Viktor.

On to the Q, I'd think it might be interesting to make it work so that the field would dissipate once activated if there were no enemy champions within it, but compensate for the fact by giving it a short arm time. In practice, it would allow enemies to quickly double back and escape, so those with fast reaction times could get out easily, but event of turret dives or similar events enemies could be face with the choice of 'Do I double back under the turret/towards the enemy or do I just take the slow and continue forward?' That might tread a bit close to the false choices Riot tries to avoid, but I think it might be okay since it wouldn't be hard CC.

As for the W, abilities that are passives are always a bit tricky, to make worthwhile leveling up, but I would say if we assume, for this purpose, that her Material is used to purchase augmentations, make the passive lower the cost of her augmentations by 5/10/15/20/25% (and perhaps call it something like 'Efficiency' or 'Hextech Innovation') so that she would again be able to make the choice of 'Do I buy my bigger buffs sooner or do I improve my CC/other abilities first?' which would give her a lot of flexibility in terms of when she hit her power spike and reward players for correctly assessing the flow of a particular game. I also might throw in maybe some small other bonus like her auto-attacks do 1/2/3/4/5% of her AP as bonus damage so that she has an extra incentive to level the ability up and which would compensate not increasing the base damages on her other abilities.

In terms of the E, I'm not sure 'Corruption' really fits with the Hextech theme all that well. Yes, Hextech incorporates magic, but the idea of corrupting something fits a little better in with the lore of the Shadow Isles than Piltover or even Zaun really. Damage amplification is also tricky to balance, as I can see enemies just getting tagged with her ability, and then blow up incredibly fast by a LeBlanc or an Ahri. I'd think that Armor Shred might be better as, if she's a Support is will synergize well with and ADC, but avoid the 'Now everyone on their team can blow me up' problem that might arise with damage amplification. Something along the lines of being armor-piercing or acidic would also be a bit closer to Hextech thematically.

The Ultimate I would say is pretty good where it is, especially the Cooldown Reduction allowing her to really be a CC bot when she activated it, but I might include something about temporarily buffing the augmentations she's purchased, then giving the ability a long Cooldown (maybe in the two-minute plus region) so that it likely wouldn't be available for every fight or skirmish, but the enemy team would really have reason to be afraid of it when it was active. It would also culminate in making her scarier and scarier as the game went on, which would be interesting for a Support to actually become a potential threat of some kind, with the trade off being she'd have less to offer than most in the early and mid game than some other Supports.

I really liked your idea and I'm terribly sorry if I hijacked it a tiny, but I've been thinking about how to make Hextech Support of some kind recently and so what you wrote just kind of resonated with some of the ideas I've had floating around already. Obviously you take my suggestions with a grain of salt, but I just wanted to make them. One last thing being maybe go with Zell(e) or Xell(e) over Nell, just because while the melodiousness of the 'ell(e)' work well for a Support, most of the Hextech champions tend to use some harder sounds or more unusual letters (Vi, Viktor, Jinx, etc.) and so it be a bit more fitting to blend the 'ell(e)' with something like that. That's just my two-cents though, and I just wanted to say again that I love the idea and thank you for sharing it! ^_^

SugarCookSep 16, 20162 votes

THANK YOU. XD I'm not the best at refining things, but all of these things seem to be really great steps in the right direction. I wasn't reeeeeaaally thinking when it came to things such as her running out of material, so that provides a good balance. Rather than having to buy multiple things, she can use material to augment things like gp. That's actually a lot better to play with than what I had in mind. XD

I was planning on the Q to be sort of like a Shaco box, but looking back now that reaaaaallly doesn't work well in a support role. Perhaps sending it like a drone to sweep an area for enemies and then detonate when it arrives would be better. Much like a Kalista w, but with the added benefit of a slow field if it hits a champ? Perhaps it should be something different altogether, tbh.

As for the W, yeeeeah just reducing costs doesn't make it all that rewarding to put points into ^~^" However, adding some other benefit to it (like what you proposed) Would be a greater thing.

E was the one I was most worried about. I wanted it to be like a one-hit auto attack thing similar to Kalista's thing when she hits an enemy with an aa and then her Oathsworn hits for more damage on their next auto. To better synergize as a support-adc bond, but with the support setting it up rather than the adc. I want Nell (Or Zelle/Xelle) to rely on the adc for her damage to sort of make her team-reliant. Because a cc-heavy champ that doesn't rely on anyone else for damage is a biiiiit much sometimes. (Imagine if Naut had high base damage values. YIKES.)

Her ultimate is probably the thing I thought the most about, 'cause I didn't want it to be TOO strong, but I also wanted it to impact. I'll admit, giving her abilities a lower cd is a bit boring, but I also didn't want it to conflict with a champ like Heimerdinger, who augments one ability with his ultimate to make it have additional effects. Maybe there's some middle ground, or maybe a new ability altogether would be great? I had another idea, but it was a bit odd with the rest of her kit.

(other) R- Hextech insert name here, I don't have names XD Nell expends her remaining material (or other resource) in one all-out attack. After charging for one second or so, Nell would either A. Fire a beam if she were at low mana, damaging for a small amount and slowing all enemies caught in the blast (around 40% or less mana) B. Fire a wave that deals 7% max hp damage to all enemies in front (the range wouldn't be crazy, but enough to hit from a decent distance. (41%-74%, maybe) C. Fire off a concentrated ray on a target area, damaging for a hefty amount and grounding enemies for 1.5 seconds (Like a Leona ult, but instead of a damage+stun it's more damage and a ground. It would incorporate the new mechanic of grounding and reward a nice skillshot landed. The damage would increase the closer to the middle they were) This version requires 85%+ of mana. All versions require the use of all her mana, but after launching one of those she would gain double mana regen for the next 5 seconds or so, adding more time if she's underperforming in future patches. That way she's not left helpless afterwards.

AllvandorSep 17, 20161 votes

The Q as a drone of some kind would be an interesting idea, especially if they maybe granted vision of and slowed the first enemy champion who walked into their Area of Effect. I'd say make it so that the drones will hover where they were cast for 30 seconds and the ability has a 15 second cool down at rank 1, which would get shorter as she leveled it up and bought CDR, but also set a limit of like 'she can have no more than 5 placed at one time.' I'd say you would definitely want the ability to be kind of spammable because, tying into the Ult later, she needs a reason, and, really, a way to spend her mana so that the concept of an 'all or nothing' ultimate works and wouldn't just be 'well I didn't really having anything else to spend it on anyway.' Also though, have it so that you could use it offensively, so like you could send to an area and it would affect all enemy champions in it's AoE (so basically, a single champion entering the area will trigger it, but it's not a single target spell) and maybe have it so that the slow is increased by 5% for every extra champion caught. I'd say that having a reward like that for hitting multiple targets with a relatively small AoE makes sense, especially if it's just making the slow stronger and not a stun or something. I don't know about you but in terms of size of AoE I'm envisioning maybe a bit bigger than Nami's Bubble size, so reasonable that you could hit more than one person, but not super easy, and also not such a large area of vision granting and slow that wards would be obsolete. (I'm also just envisioning her having a drone that like circle's her in a way kind of like Janna's wind elemental from her W when the ability is up).

On the W as another possible bonus of sorts, because I would keep the lowering the cost of augmentations just because I think it would, theoretically, give nice power spike flexibility, make it so like every 5th auto attack it becomes an active and she can grant an ally a shield. Or, more in keeping with the CC theme, every 5th auto attack does 3%/3.5%/4%/4.5%/5% of her AP as bonus magic damage and slows the target by 10%/14%/18%/22%/26% and balance it by giving her an attack range of 450 which is the same as the other CC oriented, ranged supports of Morgana and Thresh.

As for the E, what about making it so that it empowers her next auto attack so that the next target hit is marked with a debuff that makes the next auto attack that hits them deal 20%/25%/30%/35%/40% bonus damage. That way she keeps her ADC synergy, but we don't have to worry about the target getting debuffed and then like a LeBlanc Mimicked Distortion getting amplified. Which would, again, be balanced by her short attack range because while, yes, a Caitlyn headshot crit with damage amplification could be ridiculous damage on a squishy, it would really be their fault for even being close enough to be auto attacked by Nell/Zelle/Xelle.

With the Ult, I really like the idea of an 'all or nothing' button that varies, but I would probably only give it two variants and keep it in the same Area of Effect (just because it would be awful to like go to cast one thing, but then have your mana tick up that one percent and suddenly you're casting an entirely differently shaped ability all together, which would be equally frustrating to play against and decide what it is you'd even have to dodge). Personally I would say that if she's over 75% mana, it fires in a beam dealing a small amount of damage and grounding enemies hit for 1/1.25/1.5 seconds, and if she's under 75% mana it fires in a beam and deals 20%/35%/50% bonus base damage and slows enemies by an amount for 1 second. Afterwards she gains 200% base mana region for 5 seconds (the base being important because you don't want any craziness from region stacking). That way she's really rewarded for using most of her mana on one ability and she could initiate a fight well in a different way than most because, rather than hard CCing enemies, she'd make it much easier for her allies to land and chain their CC. It's definitely important with an Ult like this though that her Q either be spammable or cost a significant amount of mana, since it wouldn't be wise to have her too easily shrug off spending it all by thinking 'well I didn't really have anything else to spend it on anyway.'

Also, as another solution to mana, maybe have it worked into her passive that she'd have bonus attack speed when over 50% maximum mana, but every auto attack would cost 1% of her maximum mana, or something like that.

In general though, while I do like the idea of the 'all or nothing' Ult, I would say that I'm maybe not entirely convinced it really fits this particular champion because, while mechanically, it fits together and all seems to tie into 'CC champion who relies on their allies to do the damage,' thematically a large AoE ability that grounds enemies doesn't really fit with the 'Hextech inventor who can upgrade their stats' bit. Unless of course you maybe went the Zaun route and she's upgrading herself to become super human (a concept shared by both Dr. Mundo and Viktor) and her ultimate is her 'Big Red Button Last Resort Death Ray' type thing. I'd say it's definitely an interesting idea, but maybe just not right for her, since it could also be difficult to balance for her kit.

I'm also curious what you're envisioning for her as a weapon. Since that tends to be a fairly defining part of a champion (visually) and deciding on that might spark an idea for an ultimate that's not quite as dull as just giving her CDR but maybe fits better than the sort of damaging ray/AoE CC angle (especially because, while grounding is a cool mechanic, you don't necessarily want to stick it on a champion it doesn't fit with just because).