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Lightning Marksman - Lacuna, the Squall's Embrace

Dyslexai·1/5/2015, 7:32:34 PM·1 votes·1,895 views

This was a concept I've wanted to work on for a while, but I ended up shelving it after the new board transition. I wanted to see if I could take the "lightning mage" trope, and create a character that would function better as a magelike marksman than a midlaner. Mechanical feedback is always greatly appreciated! Numbers for abilities and a Q rework will be posted soon.

Lacuna, the Squall's embrace (Marksman lightning mage)

HP: 410 (+87) HP5: 4.5 (+0.55) MP: 220 (+35) MP5: 7 (+0.6) AD: 45 (+2.95) AS: 0.620 (+1.85) MRES: 30 (+0) ARM: 17 (+2.7) RNG: 550 SPD: 325

Lore: A resounding crash rang out through the room as the wall gave way to a large, mechanical fist. Bits of rubble flew into the room beyond, and for a moment, all that could be heard was the sound of steam venting coming from the brand new door in the wall. “I’m the WRONG cop to play hide-and-seek with, buddy. Now… Are you gonna come quietly, or do we get to have a bit of fun first?” Came the mocking voice from the pink-haired woman as she approached her quarry.

The man in front of her sighed heavily and raised both his hands in the air as he turned to face her, a large, oddly shaped blade crudely strung across his back. “Quietly.” He said with a heavy tone of resignation in his voice. “The fact that you’re here means that the plan worked, that she has what she wanted. But the fact that I’m not with her right now… You may as well take me in, I’ve nowhere left to run.” He spoke calmly as he addressed Vi, his face a solemn mask of contempt, but it didn’t appear his ire was toward the Enforcer, but rather the other woman he had mentioned.

“Aww. How boring, I hate when they come quietly...” Vi spat in his direction as she stepped closer. “All I know is that you’ve got a date with a jail cell, courtesy of me.” She grabbed him roughly by the shoulder and began to march him toward the hole she’d made in the side of his safehouse. The man didn’t resist, and instead began to speak again. “Buy me a drink? I know a good place about a block from here.” Vi only laughed and roughly shoved him toward the door. “I’ll tell you anything you want to know about my boss. My ‘captain’. Lacuna. If she’s going to maroon me here, I want her brought down. Her and that bloody blimp she wouldn’t stop going on about.” He spoke the word ‘captain’ with considerable disdain. It was odd that he should refer to her as such, his apparel said “traveler”, not “pirate”. This caught Vi’s interest. “Are you talking about the Tailwind? You better start talking before I MAKE you talk!”

“The Tailwind, that’s the one. She’ll be at the helm now, you might want to get on that.” He paused for a moment and lowered his hand to shake with Vi. “Name’s Caius, Buccaneer and Engineer extraordinaire, at your service.” Vi responded with an unimpressed glare, and Caius continued. “…Lacuna came to me with a plan to steal the Tailwind, promised me whatever loot I could get my hands on when we knocked over Piltover. It’s not a common thing to see someone from Bilgewater with those kinds of dreams, and believe me, I’ve seen my share. But then again… she wasn’t from Bilgewater. Or Valoran, for that matter. My crew and I… we fished her out of the Guardian’s Sea. There were monster storms headed our way, we made a detour and risked our lives to save that waterlogged pile of…” He seemed to catch himself as the anger boiled to the surface about her betrayal.

“… Point is, she came from Blue Flame Island. She’d built herself a small barge and fancied herself a real pirate. Scrawny little thing… No-one took her seriously at all. The way she told it, the storm that trashed her ship… She wasn’t the same afterward. Her very being coursed with power, and she started bein’ able to make lightning happen. Not quite at-will, but… I’d recently appropriated some Piltoveran tech that fixed those problems right proper. It awoke something within her, a desire to fly, to get stronger, closer to the sky, the storms... The Tailwind, that gigantic zeppelin, was her ticket. An ‘Air Pirate’. Even the thought still strikes me as completely idiotic, but..”

Caius was cut short as a loud thunderclap reverberated through the building, a thunderstorm had brewed, seemingly from nowhere. The conditions were all wrong, but as the sky darkened, a faint outline became clear in the doorway… Lacuna. In a flash of light, Lacuna dashed across the room before Vi had a chance to react and grabbed her with both hands, sending a large electrical shock through her body and knocking her cold for a moment. After Vi fell, a smile spread across Lacuna’s face. “Ya’ didn’t really think I’d up and abandon ya’, didja? A captain’s nothin’ without a crew, aye?” She addressed Caius in a flippant tone. “C’mon. Stop standin’ there all slackjawed and man your post.” Lacuna said as she ran back outside and began to climb the rope ladder leading back up to the Tailwind. The plan had worked beautifully, but this was only the beginning for Lacuna and her crew.

http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/resource_images/9/icons_8924_btn.jpg Innate: Hextech 5QU-A11 Discharge Gauntlets Autoattacks build up charges of Static Electricity up to a cap. Charges of Static Electricity give increased attack speed and a small amount of movement speed per stack.

Stacks are generated every attack and last 6 seconds, up to a cap of 10 stacks. Each stack gives Lacuna an additional 1% movement speed and 5% attack speed.

http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/resource_images/14/icons_13002_btn.jpg **Q: Discharge ** (Autoattack reset.) Lacuna's next attack gains additional range, consumes 3 stacks of Static Electricity and deals a small amount of bonus physical damage. A moderate percentage of the damage dealt is also arced to two nearby enemies, increasing by 3.5% per stack of Static Electricity stored when the ability was cast.

Cooldown – 5/4/3/2/1 Additional damage – +20/25/30/35/40% total AD Arc damage – 30/40/50/60% damage dealt Bonus range – 100

http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/resource_images/14/icons_13722_btn.jpg W: The Storm's Embrace Passive: Static Electricity stacks cause basic attacks to deal minor additional magic damage per stack.

Magic damage per stack – 3/5/7/9/11

Active: Consumes all stacks of Static Electricity to stun a single target and deal moderate physical damage per stack consumed. Melee range only.

Stun duration – (1s+0.08s per stack consumed) Damage dealt – 40% AD + 5/10/15/20/25 per stack

http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/resource_images/10/icons_9616_btn.jpg E: Conduit Lacuna dashes a short distance in target direction, dealing physical damage to the first enemy hit. If Conduit hits an ally or an enemy, Conduit may be recast within 3 seconds to jump again and generate 3 stacks of Static Electricity. Conduit's cooldown lowers by 1s per autoattack.

Cooldown – 22 Damage – 80% AD + 20/40/60/80/100

http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/resource_images/14/icons_13935_btn.jpg R: Cloudburst Lacuna summons an AoE stormcloud around her that stays in a location and acts like an area of brush, doubling Lacuna's Static Electricity generation while she is inside of it. Enemies that enter the cloud are struck by lightning bolts, taking minor magic damage and losing a small percentage of their armor per second. Cloudburst has 2 charges, but has a 4 second delay between repeat casts.

Charge generation rate – 70/60/50s Strike damage – 2/2.5/3% current HP Armor shred – 4% per second, up to 5 stacks

10 Comments

DreamsGoneMad1/5/2015, 8:09:24 PM1 votes

Ironically enough, I also made an electricity-based marksm- er, markswoman, a while back. Still, your concept is very interesting in it's own right. Much simpler and probably easier to follow as well. Feel free to have a look here http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/skin-champion-concepts/7YPUXPY5-new-assailant-elysia-the-shock-trooper and evaluate.

Dyslexai1/6/2015, 4:48:28 PM1 votes

Thanks for taking the time to stop by! I read through your concept and left you a review/analysis/whatever you want to call it. Trades are appreciated, but definitely not required.

When designing a marksman, I personally feel like less is more. You don't usually want very much that gets in the way of burning things with your autoattacks. Enough to keep it interesting and create fun play patterns, but not so much that they become a crazy Lee Sin ADC with excess mechanics. That said, this is still just my cliffnotes version of Lacuna, it'll get more detailed whenever I get some time to honestly work on it.

FlameHalbrdOkido1/7/2015, 11:03:08 PM1 votes

5QU-A11 equals SQUALL, i see what you did there =P I really like the idea of a lightning markman, thats a cool new way to use ranged attacks, GJ on comming up with that arch type If you were trying to make a ranged character why dont you make W ranged? Just give it a shorter range, like just barely ranged. Never seen an ult with 2 charges, dunno if that viable also why is R another melee ability? i feel kind of let down, i was expecting one of the abilities to shoot down from the sky like a mortar.

Dyslexai1/8/2015, 2:29:26 PM1 votes

Giving a marksman a single target stun with any range is a very tricky proposition. The reason it's melee is that it should synergize very well with Conduit. The optimal pattern is to throw down a Cloudburst and start attacking out of it. If anyone gets close to you, you can E to them, then stun with W, and reposition with the second cast of E. This also leaves open your second Cloudburst charge which can then be used either to block sight or to continue your attack. Having W be ranged will make her far too safe in my opinion, as the combination of a ranged stun with instantly available mobility is pretty overpowered for a damage dealer.

The damage of R isn't the point of the ability, I want it to be almost insignificant. It's more about the doubled static generation which leads to more, and better, discharges. With this in mind, she's a marksman that should ideally have to stay within the AoE of her cloudbursts in order to attain her maximum damage potential, so having two charges of it seemed prudent. The damage and effects of the Cloudbursts will never overlap, so I doubt that will be much of a problem.

Scorpoison1/26/2015, 1:08:17 AM1 votes

Sorry, but your concept has been disqualified from the January 2015 MCCC for lacking to meet the following necessary requirements:

-One full "Challenges" section- In an effort to ease the judging process, all entries must list at the bottom of their application how they fulfill all "

  1. challenges" imposed on them. This is to show the entry understands how they are completing the challenges set to them and to not have this at the end of the 2nd week will mean disqualification.
Dyslexai1/26/2015, 2:36:20 PM1 votes

Respectfully, I have to dispute this disqualification. The challenges section was present after week two, and it's present in my original notepad document where I work on ideas before copy-pasting them over to the boards when I wrote numbers for Lacuna's abilities. If I'm going to be completely disqualified for neglecting to copy and paste eight words, then I'm done with MCCCs. If the "challenges section" was /not/ present after two weeks, why was I even still in the running until now? I know it was there. Beyond a shadow of a doubt.

I know you have absolutely zero reason to believe me or to rethink your decision, but I'm not going to sit idly by and let all this work be flushed down the drain over something so trivial.

SpiceIsRight1/26/2015, 3:23:36 PM1 votes

Really cool stuff you have here! I'm more of a kit person myself so maybe I can offer a little insight?

Passive: I see this mechanically working as Kalista's spears only with a cap? So new stacks do not refresh the timer on old stacks? Overall, the numbers seem really good, but I wonder if the stacks shouldn't all link instead? That is, refreshed timers after each stack. To balance this (which I believe would be more consistent), make it so that stacks are only gained when hitting champions and/or the time-out timer can be reduced to say 3-4 seconds (after which all stacks are lost)? Since abilities use stacks as well, you might consider increasing the cap (minions/monsters could increase stacks, but it would be ideal to make hitting champions more beneficial).

Q: I like this as is really, the damage boost from stored stacks gives reason to use this ability as an initiator and encourage auto-attacks first. I only recommend that the cooldown be increased (1 sec no CD is too strong).

W: Perfect! By consuming all stacks, you make the player choose between constant increased damage between autos and Q or some CC for escape or initiation. Strong synergy with kit!

E: Really like the double dash effect.... but I suggest making the miss of a dash hurt too. Perhaps a debuff preventing stack gain for X seconds. This would add counterplay and make the dash choice-effective. Do I get over a wall to avoid trouble at the cost of damage? Do I go guns blazing for extra mobility and damage?

R: How long does the effect work? I could see this having a timer based on stacks which would decay at X stacks per Y seconds. This would mean that there would be a maximum because the decay would gradually increase while the ult is active, but attacking can increase the timer (sort of like Shyvanna burnout).

Overall, really cool! If you are bored and want to return the favor, I have a champ here Maverick who always loves extra input.

Dyslexai1/26/2015, 6:37:25 PM1 votes

Hey Arcane, thanks for stopping by! I appreciate the feedback. I'll try and drop you a review at some point this week, my schedule's been a bit hectic lately but I'd definitely like to return the favor here.

To address some of your points... I partially agree that the Q cooldown seems insane, but what I'd intended was for the ability to be gated purely by the number of Static stacks you're able to generate in the late game. Q's damage should never be horribly high, and I don't think it should generate a stack. And by allowing the passive to be built by attacking minions, I've allowed the character to have access to her only high-damage normal ability without having to shoot the opposing ADC three times and lose the trade every single time. Without being able to generate stacks on minions, she'd basically have no way to stand up to any other carry. The flipside of this is that if she can "stock up" more than one cast of Q, her trading potential suddenly becomes very strong.

That's an interesting idea for the ult, but I don't see it working with the way I have Static set up right now. I wanted it to be something that enabled tricky cloud/conduit jukes, not really something that she has to really keep an eye on. That's most of the reason I gave the ultimate two charges, so in a bad situation it can be used to help her escape by limiting vision. Ideally, the clouds shouldn't last longer than, say, 5 or so seconds at max. That's probably longer than a marksman would be able to stay in one spot anyway. :P

SpiceIsRight1/27/2015, 12:50:13 AM1 votes

Thanks for giving my champ some time when you get around to it (no hurry, I totally understand the busy factor).

Q: What if you keep the timer to 0.5-1 static second(s) to keep the "gated by stacks" feel but implemented an increasing stack cost per cast within X seconds (Like Kog/Kassadin ult) to prevent oppressive laning and stop Q from being an auto-replacer? Shoot, you could vamp damage on the spell per cast too and it wouldn't hurt.

R: I think I was confused thinking the cloud stuck with the champ. If it stays in place sort of like "place a bush here," then what you have makes more sense.