Boards›Concepts & Creations

What I'd like to see in future champions

Crow Nebula·5/8/2018, 9:57:38 PM·1 votes·1,105 views

For me, I'd like to see more genuinely non-human characters.

The vast majority of League's current roster consists of humans, and of those who aren't human, most are former humans who were transformed by a chance occurrence (typically possession by some kind of non-human entity), but nevertheless retain their humanness in appearance, motivation and behaviour. This kind of sucks for me, as I find humans to be generally quite boring, given that they usually end up as rehashes of the same threadbare archetypes. (e.g. manic pixie dream princess, valiant crusader for Justice, vengeful edgelord, etc).

Not every champion needs to be relatable or sympathetic or a role model. Some of us want stuff that's just out of this world. League is, after all, escapism. So I'd like future champions to focus more around genuinely alien/mythical beings. My personal picks would be:

  • A Djinn: This ancient being of wind and lightning would thematically suit Shurima, and could be a support who grants his teammates "wishes". Every 10 minutes, the Djinn player gets to apply his choice of buff to his team mates. His teammates will of course spam the chat with requests for certain buffs, so the Djinn would have to make a tactical choice about which wish to grant at each opportunity. This could lead to some fun and interesting decision-making.

  • A Hydra: This many-headed behemoth would thematically fit best as a denizen of the Ionian wilds. In game, it would probably work best as a tank, and its mythical ability to regrow two heads for every one it loses could be represented by it gaining attack speed for every 200 damage it takes, up to a set limit. It could also have a health regeneration mechanic.

  • A (non-human) Necromancer: Preferably, this would be some kind of entity from beyond, and not just the typical "man who wanted to cheat death" trope. This champ would be able to raise skeletons/zombies to fight for it, supporting them with buffs. A necromancer would constitute a whole new tactical playstyle in LoL, and would also fit the Shadow Isles lore, so it seems like a glaring opportunity for Riot to create a new champ with massive thematic and mechanical appeal.

In addition to the above, I'd also like to see innovative takes on other non-human staples of speculative fiction, such as aliens, robots, demons, etc, as I don't feel we have a big enough variation of them to capitalise on their possibilities.

What about you guys? What would you like to see in future champions?

3 Comments

DBS Ronovon5/8/2018, 10:07:42 PM1 votes

Malzahar, Rek Sai, and Karthas are already in the game.

Chembaron Yamada5/8/2018, 10:17:57 PM1 votes

I think the hydra archetype would fit better into the void, a creature with regenerative abilities and being able to grow additional heads sounds like something that could be from that twisted dimension.

Some archetypes I would like to see personally:

Chemtech Augmented Woman

The majority of women in this game are good-looking, I would like to see one that looks disturbing, but not being a creature from another world like Rek'Sai. She should still be recognisable as a human, but what she made out of herself is the scary thing.

Basically a female version of Urgot. But not a bulky war machine, I would imagine her as an assassin. For example, she could have acid coated blades all over her body to slice her prey in pieces. Maybe she could be a headhunter to hire or we can combine her with the next topic.

Chembaron

Chembarons became an important detail of Zauns new lore and we got some champions trying to kill as many as possible. Camille Urgot Warwick

But it would be great to see a chembaron as a champion, someone who is powerful enough to survive the attacks of them, able to defend themselves.

Medic

I could imagine such a champion to be from Piltover most likely. Hextech is able to do some really impressive stuff, but we didn't get a good picture of modern medicine in Runeterra until now, something that probably is developed quite well in Piltover.

A champion using a hextech device to heal people could be interesting. Maybe the lore could be of a young doctor trying to find a cure for the Zaun Grey induced diseases.