Fan-Made Champion Concept Creation

Hey, guys. I'm a fan who's been making champion concepts for a while now, and I wanted to take some time to just talk about how I design champion concepts, and I'll also be posting the kit for a champion I haven't posted before here to help me talk about this, and see if I can get any Rioters to comment on how it compares to Riot's champion design. Without further adieu, let's get on with it. Sythan, the Seastriker. Sythan was a champion concept that I made quite a while ago, about a month before the ADC rework was even announced. I wanted to make an adc champion with something that didn't exist in League of Legends at the time, an ammo mechanic. However, though the mechanic used on him now exists on 2 champions, the way he executes the mechanic is still unique and different enough from the Jhin and Graves that he can probably still find a place in League of Legends. That's what I started with, and I came up with the idea of him using throwing knives as a main weapon. He has 5 throwing knives, killing an enemy gets him back all the throwing knives that are on the target, and he gets back 1 throwing knife every 10 seconds. You can probably see an inherent problem with this, especially since I was planning on having his abilities also use his knives. Only 5 basic attacks or abilities in every fight is a little bit awful for an adc. I could've given him something to compensate, like extremely high damage on these autos, but instead, I decided to add a second part to his passive, a melee form. He has a dagger strapped onto the back of his belt that he uses when he goes into melee form, which he does by issuing a basic attack command or casting an ability with no throwing knives stored. However, I decided that he also needed a way to swap back and forth easier without having to empty his throwing knives, and doing this allowed me to also make him able to pull out the knives from his melee basic attack targets if they had any. Doing so dealt a small bleed to the target that wouldn't stack. So, his full passive came to be: (also, the names are very cringy, I'm not very good with names) Passive: Seastriker's Blades: Sythan's ranged form basic attacks and spells use throwing knives as a resource. He carries 5 of them around.if he doesn't have the throwing knives needed by the cost of an ability but he does have throwing knives, he will still use the ability with the number of throwing knives he has. Basic attacking while either within 200 range of the target or out of throwing knives switch him into melee form. Using an ability with no throwing knives will also switch him into melee form and use the melee version. Cooldowns are not shared between forms. Enemies hit by ranged form basic attacks and abilities will get throwing knives stuck in them. Basic attacks while in melee form on enemies with a throwing knife stuck in them will pull one out, dealing bonus physical damage equal to 10% of the basic attack's damage as a bleed over 3 seconds. He collects a new throwing knife every 10 seconds, if he kills an enemy, or if he pulls a throwing knife out of an enemy. After that, his abilities and lore started to flow, and it wasn't hard to come up with the rest of his design. I got an idea for his appearance, and took him into being the leader of a smaller pirate group that wants to kill Gangplank and take his money. (This was also around the time of the Bilgewater event, and his lore takes place immediately after.) His full kit came to be: Q: Triple Knife Strike (Ranged form) Sythan throws 3 knives in a line in front of him in target direction, dealing damage to the first enemy each one hits. He can move while throwing, but he moves 40% slower. Cost: 3 throwing knives Cooldown: 8/7.5/7/6.5/6 seconds Damage per knife: 40/50/60/70/80 (+40%AD) Q: Seastriker's Edge (Melee form) Sythan strikes in front of him with his knife 3 times, then can reactivate the ability within 3 seconds to snare himself while he charges, then unleashing a powerful strike. If it was released early, it deals its damage in front of him. If it was fully charged, he deals the damage in a much larger circle around him. Cooldown: 10/9/8/7/6 seconds Damage per attack: 50/55/60/65/70 (+60% Bonus AD) Damage on charge: between 10/20/30/40/50 (+70% AD) - 40/70/100/130/160 (+100% AD) based on charge. W: Sea's Fury (Ranged form) For the next 3 seconds, Sythan gains attack speed. If he would run out of throwing knives during this time, he instead uses the melee form of this ability on the last enemy he basic attacked. Cooldown: 16/15/14/13/12 seconds Buff: 30/35/40/45/50% W: Pirate's Desire (Melee form) Sythan passively gains +2 gold on every minion kill and +4 gold for champion kills. Active: Sythan jumps to a target enemy, dealing damage and, if they have a throwing knife in them or if he has a throwing knife, pulling it out, applying the bleed and slowing the target. Cooldown: 7 seconds Damage: 50/70/90/110/130 (+50% AD) Slow amount: 50% Slow duration: 2.5 seconds E: Blade Jump (Ranged form) Sythan dashes backwards a short distance before throwing 3 knives in a cone in front of him that deal damage to the first enemy hit. Cost: 3 knives Cooldown: 15 seconds Damage: 80/90/100/110/120 (+70% AD) E: Dagger's Strike (Melee form) Sythan's next basic attack deals bonus physical damage. Resets basic attack timer and applies his passive bleed. Cooldown: 8 seconds(-1 per basic attack) Damage: 30/40/50/60/70 (+110% AD) (note that this is total damage, not bonus damage) R: (Ranged, I never came up with a name for this one) Sythan throws knives into up to 5 nearby enemies, prioritizes champions. He may cast the melee form of this ability within 10 seconds. The melee form and ranged form share a cooldown. Multiple knives cannot target one person. Cost: 5 knives Cooldown 100 seconds Damage: 100/150/200 (+50% AD scaling) R: Ride the Waves (Melee) Sythan summons his ship, sending himself flying forward on it in target direction. The first target gets impaled by it, dealing damage and dragging them along with you. All subsequent targets take 25% reduced damage and are knocked to the sides. Damage: 200/300/400 (+40% AD) Now, in my original idea for him, he only had throwing knives as a resource, no mana or anything else. Looking back on it a few months and many, many more champion concepts later, I probably should've put mana as a resource for his melee form, but his ranged form was constricted enough by the throwing knives being a huge limiter on his casting and autos. His lore is done from a first-person perspective because I can. It takes place about the same time as the Bilgewater event, which is also about the same time when I made him. Anyways, here it is: Lore: "What the hell are you doing here, Fortune?" I growled, enraged that she had come here. "You here to kill me and collect my bounty?" I had thrown a knife into the wall beside her, then pushed her into the wall and shoved my dagger against her neck as soon as I saw her. "ANSWER!" "I came... To offer you a deal..." she said. "Bounty hunters don't even try to make deals with pirates." I said. "So why now do you try?" I still held her against the wall, but I relaxed my dagger a bit. "Gangplank must die. You kill him for me, you get to keep all the money of his you want, I get the bounty, and I make sure that all the bounty you have right now disappears." "An interesting deal. You must be desperate, coming to the Sea Strikers for this. We don't have the numbers for a full invasion. We'd have to put him down silently." "I have no doubt you can, and will, do as I request. After all, from what I hear, you're in a bit of a bind when it comes to money. How far in debt are you, 10,000 Silver Serpents?" "15,000." I said. "And you have yourself a deal. Now get the hell off my ship before I gut you." I backed away, sheathing my knife. She turned toward the door. "Pleasure doing business with you. Don't fail me, or I will hunt you."

It had been a week since Fortune gave me the job. I had sneaked onto Gangplank's ship. I heard his crew would be distracted by Fate doing a job in his warehouse, so I figured I'd slip into his ship, cut his throat, and get out before anyone knew what happened. But I wasn't expecting him to know I was coming. So, there I stood in the captain's quarters, my knife against his throat, his sword against mine. "Sythan, is it?" he said. "Call yourself 'the Seastriker?' Leader of the Sea Strikers? Yeah, I knew you'd be here. Fortune put you up to a job, assassinate me and get to keep my gold while she gets my bounty." "How'd you know?" "Boy, I've got informants all over this city. I can kill you where you stand, but that would be counterproductive." "And how's that? "Because you're going to lead me to your ship and live, or die right here, right now." I stood there, contemplating my options. He had only one arm, for some reason. This time, I was against the wall, looking out at the docks and the vast ocean beyond. There was a ship approaching, fast. Not just any ship, my ship. "Why lead you to it?" I asked. "It's right behind you." "Ha! Boy, I won't fall for that so easily," he said, right before the ship's shadow crossed his vision. He turned around, a look of fear, genuine fear in his eyes. "Damn it!" he shouted. He turned and quickly jumped into the sea. As he did, a gunshot went off, a sharp pain in my shoulder, red dripping from the wound. I grimaced as I fell to the ground, holding my shoulder. "Damn, that hurt!" The guys saw him jump, so they pulled up beside the ship. I ran to the deck, clutching my shoulder, then climbed on board my ship. "Does it hurt," one of my crewmates asked when I was onboard. She was bandaging me up, her gunblades strapped to her belt. "No," I said. "It feels like I got licked by a puppy. I only got shot. Of course it hurts!" She laughed. "Well, at least you still have your usual sense of humor." I wouldn't say it to her, but what hurt more was my pride. Not only did Gangplank escape, but he showed me that he could take me with only one arm. I needed to get stronger, so I went to the League. To train against him for the day I'd bring him to his knees.

Hope you guys enjoyed. Like I said at the start, if a Rioter sees this, could you tell me a bit more about Riot's champion design process and help me compare it to mine? Game design is what I want to do when I'm out of the navy. I'm on delayed entry program right now, shipping out in January 2017.